I am 40 and live in Germany. In my 20s I was too poor to start a family. Now I live with a woman who has no desire to go through pregnancy and become a mother. There are personal reasons for this, and I do understand them. I like children and would like to be a father. But I work full-time, as does my partner. I'm always busy after work: Riding or wrenching on my motorcycle, cycling, personal programming projects, gardening, etc. Yesterday I spent the afternoon cleaning a carburetor and pressing bearings into wheels. I spend the weekends doing sports or visiting friends. Becoming a father would be like a second full-time job.
I saw a homeless man lying on a patch of grass in a dirty sleeping bag on my way to work yesterday. The idea of bringing a child into the world and exposing it to the risk of ending up in a situation like that just makes me sad. We are currently buying a house. If I could have afforded this ten or fifteen years ago, I might have kids now. Looking back, I'd say I've had enough to do with growing up and providing for myself financially. I simply didn't have the capacity to start a family.
A friend of mine has two children. She barely has enough money and is trying to finish her university studies. Another friend is a chief surgeon and earns so well that his children are not a big financial factor for him. He is divorced from the children's mother and has another partner. Another friend is a pastor and has two children. I guess, for him it was always a matter of course to have children. He is now also divorced, so he no longer lives in the picture-book family world that he probably once dreamed of.
The other people around me are grown-up children like me, who for various reasons did not become parents. One friend of mine is a gay man. His sister is a lesbian. Both much to the annoyance of their parents, who would like to be grandparents. A couple at my office in their thirties mainly play computer games after work and have pets instead of children. One of my best friends is a woman who lives with a trans man. They are currently planning to become parents via in-vitro fertilization, which will cost a total of ~20,000 euros. The world is strange and apparently no longer properly calibrated for having children.
I am glad that there is no more social pressure pushing people into parenthood. But that has to be compensated for somehow and I don't see any socio-political willingness to tackle this. Raising children is a service to society! We cannot expect children to grow like grass in an unattended meadow. If society is not committed to guarantee healthy soil and to water the gras properly, then nothing will grow.
I saw a homeless man lying on a patch of grass in a dirty sleeping bag on my way to work yesterday. The idea of bringing a child into the world and exposing it to the risk of ending up in a situation like that just makes me sad. We are currently buying a house. If I could have afforded this ten or fifteen years ago, I might have kids now. Looking back, I'd say I've had enough to do with growing up and providing for myself financially. I simply didn't have the capacity to start a family.
A friend of mine has two children. She barely has enough money and is trying to finish her university studies. Another friend is a chief surgeon and earns so well that his children are not a big financial factor for him. He is divorced from the children's mother and has another partner. Another friend is a pastor and has two children. I guess, for him it was always a matter of course to have children. He is now also divorced, so he no longer lives in the picture-book family world that he probably once dreamed of.
The other people around me are grown-up children like me, who for various reasons did not become parents. One friend of mine is a gay man. His sister is a lesbian. Both much to the annoyance of their parents, who would like to be grandparents. A couple at my office in their thirties mainly play computer games after work and have pets instead of children. One of my best friends is a woman who lives with a trans man. They are currently planning to become parents via in-vitro fertilization, which will cost a total of ~20,000 euros. The world is strange and apparently no longer properly calibrated for having children.
I am glad that there is no more social pressure pushing people into parenthood. But that has to be compensated for somehow and I don't see any socio-political willingness to tackle this. Raising children is a service to society! We cannot expect children to grow like grass in an unattended meadow. If society is not committed to guarantee healthy soil and to water the gras properly, then nothing will grow.