For people with the ability to carry and have kids, there is a lot of social pressures to do so. Its pushed from all sides and can be a beautiful, life changing thing. Having children is a choice you cannot come back from. No one should have children if they are not 100% prepared (you don’t have to have everything figured out but you do have to have a plan) and excited to have them. Using the power to bring another person into this world is a decision that should be made with the utmost thought and care. I didn’t want to take up too much space, so I left this as a pros and cons list. Please put your thoughts in the comments, people with children and without.

Having children

Pros

• Ability to create and foster a life (bring something good into the world)
• The joys of being a mother/parent
  • watching a baby become a person with their own personality and dreams
  • personal growth as a person for the parent (new obstacles, new learned ways to interact)
  • seeing the world in a new perspective
• Creating a family of your own
• Carrying on your family’s legacy/bloodline
• Population rates decreasing (cover image, US Census bureau)
  • Birth rates decreasing due to fertility, death rates increasing due to old age, decrease in migration

Cons

• If you regret it, you can’t do anything about that
• Expensive
• Arguably the hardest work anyone will have to do
• Odds of becoming a single parent (through divorce or no marriage- especially for black women)
  • Being shamed for being a single mother
  • Being a married single mother is very real and prevalent. Marriage won’t save you from a partner that does not want to parent.
• Increase in violence against pregnant women (Source– Harvard School of Public Health) “Women in the U.S. who are pregnant or who have recently given birth are more likely to be murdered than to die from obstetric causes… Homicide deaths among pregnant women are more prevalent than deaths from hypertensive disorders, hemorrhage, or sepsis” “The U.S. has a higher prevalence of intimate partner violence than comparable countries, such violence is often fatal, and it frequently involves guns… one study that found that, from 2009–2019, 68% of pregnancy-related homicides involved firearms. That study also found that Black women face substantially higher risk of being killed than white or Hispanic women.”
  •  Increased w/ Roe v. Wade being overturned
• Children that have special needs and/or are mentally or physically handicapped need additional time, energy, and resources (not a bad thing, but is something important to consider) (additional stresses on a relationship/marriage too)
• Doing a bad job raising a child can ruin their entire life and the people they then connect to if they cannot/do not heal (lasting effects)
• Mental and physical health concerns to pass to children
• Bringing more children into this social, political, and physical climate (school/mass shooting, large scale depression and anxiety, global warming)

Not having children

Pros

• Would rather regret not having kids than not having kids
• Ability to use money, time, resources on other things
• More freedom
• Ability to be “selfish”/ prioritize yourself
• Always have the opportunity to adopt or foster children later in life (also a positive in terms of taking care of the kids that are already here rather than making more)

Cons

• Potentially ending your family line (if only child or siblings are also not having children)
• Being shamed for not having children/constant peer and societal pressure to have children
• No one to care for you when you’re old potentially

**NOTE** Men are not critiqued for being child-free in the way that women are. Additionally, baby fathers are not shamed as baby mothers are. Lastly, women are criticized for being single mothers or baby mamas and are also criticized for not having children whether married or single. 

Now, I haven’t figured out anything or made up my mind. My friends know, I used to always talk about having kids and being able to shape and mold a mind while also watching someone grow into themselves. That is one of the most exciting possibilities of life, to me. I still feel that way, but I’ve had to think about more of what the real world brings and not just my imagination. Who knows?

Leave your thoughts and/or experiences below and let’s talk 🙂