Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Also everyone has grown up in different household / circumstances.
I would never advocate for everyone to have children, I think the opposite. I think you should be financially stable, and mature enough to actually be ready to be there and put your children before yourself. You need to understand what selflessness means before you even think about having children. Because to be a good parent, that's what you need to be a lot of the time.
In today's world where more and more people can't even support themselves, not having children is the only logical decision. Even if you have the money, the key is you have to want it. Same thing with marriage. If this is something you really want to do, you'll try to make it work. Unfortunately, way too many people get married because of societal pressure to do so. Far too many have children because their parents want grandchildren, not because it's what they want to do.
I can completely understand why others who were not as fortunate to live in such a household growing up would be more opposed to the idea of marriage / kids ect. I totally understand, and honestly it makes sense. I bet my experiences are what made me look to get married. For some it would be the other way around.
It's not just the environment you grew up in. Sure, to some extent that colored my thinking. It's also a fact for some people there just isn't much out there. I only liked two girls in high school. This in a school with about 3,000 students (Bronx Science). One I couldn't get interested in me at all. The other was, or at least seemed to be, but unfortunately at the time I was still pursuing the first girl. Later on when I got interested in her, she seemed bitter that I was only interested in her as a friend, and it never worked out. In college I didn't meet anybody. Once you're out of school meeting people is exponentially harder.
I wasn't completely closed off to the idea of marriage, despite my parents' lousy marriage. I just was unable to hook up with anyone I liked enough that it may have led to that. The alternative was settling for whatever I could get, which I would never do.
Like somebody said above... one thing isn't "right" or "wrong" ... I think everybody has their own path in life and different strokes for different folks is a real thing! -- Not everyone should have kids, nor should they feel like they are missing out on anything. As long as you live a good healthy long and fulfilling life doing whatever makes you tick...I say thats a life well lived!
I never had any regret about not having children, nor felt I missed out on anything. Some regrets about not being married, or at least not being in a few long-term relationships, but in the end that was beyond my control.
The left have literally destroyed what was once a great nation. The most recent issue (migration) and open borders is ludicrous and needs to be fixed, FAST.
Agree about the migration but I'm 60 years old and never remember this country being great. My parents (born in 1934 and 1939) were the last generation where the majority had a great shot at upward mobility. Even people with a HS diploma could raise a family on one salary, and buy a house. Those days are long gone. They started disappearing by the mid 1970s. By the 1980s policies were firmly in place worldwide, not just in the US, which increased the inequality of wealth. Both parties in this country were complicit.
My view on the above, in a word, is; get married, because it's good for your soul, and hers. Have children, because it knocks the selfishness out of you - and them. And avoid debt at *almost* any cost.
(That's over-simplified, PM me if you really want my in-depth philosophy on this!!)
Keep in mind easier said than done. Marriage implies you meet the right person. Sheer luck has a lot to do with it. It also implies you either have the ability/luck to earn a decent living, or you're born into, or marry into, money. Children requires all of this, plus the ability to raise them well, and the desire to have them in the first place. If any of those pieces are missing, don't bother. You'll be doing any potential children a disservice.
And last but not least, if you have already missed doing any of these, don't stress. You picked a different path, for better or worse - for goodness' sake don't whinge or skite about it. Make the best of your situation, for your benefit and for others.
That's what's refreshing about millennials and gen Z. They're the first generation to realize there are many other paths besides marriage and children. I think in the long run this will make for a happier, healthier population. I think a lot of the miserable adults we come across are that way because they had parents who didn't really want them, or were ill-equipped to provide for them materially and emotionally.
