You should only consider bringing children into the world if you have a strong, healthy, happy, stable marriage, and it's what you and your spouse both truly want. Not your friends, not your parents, not your spouse's parents - you and your spouse. Ideally, you would also have a strong support network of kind, loving, emotionally stable friends and family members on both sides, as well - but the primary responsibility of raising your children is on you and your spouse.
It is crucial that you and your spouse both have the temperament for raising children, which means having a boundless supply of energy, patience and emotional maturity - not just for your own children, but also their friends that they'll want to have over after school or on weekends.
You should also be financially stable enough that one parent can stay home with the children until they are old enough to leave home - without the other parent having to work ridiculously long hours or multiple jobs. If neither of you has what it takes to feel happy and fulfilled being a long-term, full-time homemaker, then it probably isn't a good idea to bring children into your world.
It's also best if you could put your children into a private school, or be prepared to homeschool them, if private school is out of the question. Public schools these days seem to be little more than mental, physical and spiritual prisons, where children are constantly bullied - either by other students or the school staff. Not exactly the most ideal learning environment.
Do not be meddlesome micro-managers of your children's lives. You have to be willing to allow them to make their own choices - and their own mistakes (up to a reasonable point, of course). You and your spouse both need to be able to walk the parenting tightrope, where you are loving, caring, involved, supportive parents without being nosy, pushy, snooping busybodies who can't allow their children a moment of privacy.
You should both be reasonably intelligent and sane people. You don't need to be geniuses, but you should both be reasonably well-educated, and resourceful enough that you can figure out on your own what you haven't been taught in a formal setting. And if you're rabid racists or self-absorbed narcissists, please skip the whole parenting thing - we really don't need more of those people in this world.
Hopefully, I've painted a clear enough picture of what it takes to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children in the first world. How many people do you know who meet all of these qualifications for the toughest and most important job in the world? Personally, I can't think of many.
I don't think children are worth the effort
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You should only consider bringing children into the world if you have a strong, healthy, happy, stable marriage, and it's what you and your spouse both truly want. Not your friends, not your parents, not your spouse's parents - you and your spouse. Ideally, you would also have a strong support network of kind, loving, emotionally stable friends and family members on both sides, as well - but the primary responsibility of raising your children is on you and your spouse.
It is crucial that you and your spouse both have the temperament for raising children, which means having a boundless supply of energy, patience and emotional maturity - not just for your own children, but also their friends that they'll want to have over after school or on weekends.
You should also be financially stable enough that one parent can stay home with the children until they are old enough to leave home - without the other parent having to work ridiculously long hours or multiple jobs. If neither of you has what it takes to feel happy and fulfilled being a long-term, full-time homemaker, then it probably isn't a good idea to bring children into your world.
It's also best if you could put your children into a private school, or be prepared to homeschool them, if private school is out of the question. Public schools these days seem to be little more than mental, physical and spiritual prisons, where children are constantly bullied - either by other students or the school staff. Not exactly the most ideal learning environment.
Do not be meddlesome micro-managers of your children's lives. You have to be willing to allow them to make their own choices - and their own mistakes (up to a reasonable point, of course). You and your spouse both need to be able to walk the parenting tightrope, where you are loving, caring, involved, supportive parents without being nosy, pushy, snooping busybodies who can't allow their children a moment of privacy.
You should both be reasonably intelligent and sane people. You don't need to be geniuses, but you should both be reasonably well-educated, and resourceful enough that you can figure out on your own what you haven't been taught in a formal setting. And if you're rabid racists or self-absorbed narcissists, please skip the whole parenting thing - we really don't need more of those people in this world.
Hopefully, I've painted a clear enough picture of what it takes to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children in the first world. How many people do you know who meet all of these qualifications for the toughest and most important job in the world? Personally, I can't think of many.