That's not for me to decide. For my own case, I have four children. I am praying that I have good daughter and son-in-laws. I am preparing for my emotional future. I want more than anything to be the type of person others will want to be around when I am old and feeble. Others can do what they wish. I, on the other hand, want to be surrounded by family on my deathbed.
"That's not for me to decide. For my own case, I have four children. I am praying that I have good daughter and son-in-laws. I am preparing for my emotional future. I want more than anything to be the type of person others will want to be around when I am old and feeble. Others can do what they wish. I, on the other hand, want to be surrounded by family on my deathbed."
First, I hope that you aren't saying that you had kids to insure your own future. That would be just as selfish as saying that you didn't have kids to insure your own future. Having children or not having children shouldn't be all about what they can or can't do for you when you're 80. Second, I also want to be surrounded by family if I am blessed enough to die in bed at an old age. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to run out and get married and pregnant just because I fear being alone in a few decades. Third, you're assuming that someone without children and in-laws will be alone if they die in bed at an old age. Maybe you don't have siblings, close nieces and nephews, close friends, etc. and only have the immediate family your created, but that's not always the case.
That's true. If being surrounded on your deathbed is important, then you need to make sure you have a loving caring family. It is one reason out of many that people have kids.
Having children is the one thing that ANY man and woman couple can do. There is no license to get. There is no test to take. There is no fee to pay.
Anyone can do it. And there are a lot of people who have children and shouldn't. You are correct, it is not your place to decide for them. That's why we live her, and not China.
But you definitely have a stake in it from a societal point of view. Birth rates, tax dollars, crime rates, everything is tied into the "simple" act of child rearing.