My sister is pregnant and part of me is excited to be an uncle but part of me is also kind of scared.
I’m not a full blown anti-natalist or anything, but part of me feels it’s a bit irresponsible to bring a kids into the world right now. And outside of that larger existential fear I also have some personal ones.
Me and my sis had a kinda rough childhood. Our parents weren’t directly abusive but they had a really dysfunctional relationship that made growing up in the same house as them really stressful. The result is I’m kinda of jaded about relationships and have personally sworn off the idea of having a family, but my sister wants to. And I want to be supportive but I’m afraid of her repeating the same mistakes. Her and her husband haven’t been together that long and while he seems like a good guy overall I question how compatible they are. And I already see the stress of being pregnant taking a toll on their relationship and am worried a baby is just gonna make it worse and they’ll end up just like our parents, angry, resentful, and unconsciously taking it out on their kids.
Again, I love her, I want to support her family, I even like the idea of being a cool communist uncle, but I guess part of me is scared she’s gonna repeat our parents mistakes. But I don’t feel like I can be honest about that without really hurting her feelings.
Idk, just venting.
Something some people overlook is that kids can still end up ‘messed up’ even if you do everything right. You can also raise a good kid in a bad environment. Kids are their own people and you shouldn’t place too much of a value judgement on the act of having kids.
kids being their own person are exactly why people should think long and hard about subjecting someone to the next 30 years of geopolitics and global warming
The individual doesn’t control the systemic conditions people are born into. No one does, but those interested in perpetuating the system are going to continue having kids regardless.
we don’t control the systemic conditions but we are aware of them and we know what we’d be signing a future person up for. I don’t schedule the train but i can choose not to push someone onto the tracks.
Our ideas are not spread by genetics.
Why even be a communist then?
you’ll have to explain how you get to that question before i can answer it because it doesn’t make any sense to me to ask it.
The likelihood of us making the world immediately better for ourselves is extremely slim. We work to make it better for the people who come after us. So they don’t have to suffer like we did. We don’t know what the future entails. Nobody does. Maybe it does get better.
If no one has kids, then actively pursuing communism becomes pointless. Who cares? Not like any of this will exist in the future. No kids means no workers, which means no capitalism.
Someone has to have kids. So why be such a downer about it? Why frame shit as ‘Pushing someone out in the tracks’? Having children isn’t murder, it isn’t a felony. It isn’t remotely anything like that.
None of us get out of this thing alive.
ah i see.
is a totally unrealistic extrapolation.
communism is for the people who will be born anyway, whether by accident, lack of choice, or parents not considering the life their child will have.
not really. we could all electively stop but that’s about as likely as everyone waking up tomorrow and being vegan or the same religion.
as a parent you are responsible for the situations you put your kid into. that includes things that aren’t really under your control. Yeah that school has better academic performance than another but if the high-achieving school has a horrific bullying problem then you’re responsible for your kid being in that situation to begin with.
It is no more of an unreasonable extrapolation than “Having a child right now is like pushing them in front of a moving train.” Does that mean that the only time anyone should have chosen to have kids was white people in the 50’s to the 90’s? That every minority in poverty in the U.S. is making a bad decision to have kids? Only the wealthy 1% should have kids?
Your logic and understanding of responsibility is garbage. You can only really be responsible for the things that are in your control, regardless of how it affects your kids. Being a parent doesn’t make you suddenly have the responsibilities of an omnipotent being. You do your best, as you hope those before you did.
Communism is for the people who will be born anyways AND for the kids people choose to have. That is the whole point. That our struggles and suffering may have meaning more than simply lining the pocket book of some capitalist.
And choosing to have kids in spite of the possibility that it may not be great in the future is the risk that every informed parent takes, any time, for all time. I’d rather someone who understands the risks of having children be having children, than someone who doesn’t give a shit.