Do you regret having a child?

[Logan-]

All things considered, if you could go back in time, would you still choose to have offspring?

 

[Logan-]

Related:

Why did Ray choose not to have a child?

I think this is an important topic, and I think, as a biologist and thinker, he may have interesting thoughts about having offspring. Has anyone asked Ray Peat about his choice of not having a child, and his thoughts on having offspring in general?

raypeatforum.com

 

[Logan-]

Related:

Why did Ray choose not to have a child?

I think this is an important topic, and I think, as a biologist and thinker, he may have interesting thoughts about having offspring. Has anyone asked Ray Peat about his choice of not having a child, and his thoughts on having offspring in general?

raypeatforum.com

Ray on short vs. long term (permanent) relationship and its relation to health:

 

[Peatful]

All things considered, if you could go back in time, would you still choose to have offspring?

Go back in time
Yes
Absolutely yes


But
Would I want to get pregnant and raise a child NOW

Not really

Not because of the child
But the times we are living in

 

[Logan-]

I have heard (and also read) from some women that many women actually deeply regret having a child; but unlike men, women can’t share their thoughts and feelings about this with anyone due to social stigma, as women are traditionally and biologically thought of as primarily responsible for both childbearing and taking care of children; and this is something that affects at least some mothers quite negatively.

 

[Logan-]

Go back in time
Yes
Absolutely yes


But
Would I want to get pregnant and raise a child NOW

Not really

Not because of the child
But the times we are living in

I have thought about that; wouldn’t that be accepting defeat, a defeatist mindset? I am not making an accusation by the way, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. On the one hand, it’s well-known that in times of extreme hardship, like scarcity of food, shelter etc. mammals and many other kinds of animals choose not to have a child. But this is different (is it?). There were times much worse than our time in this world, and many people still chose to have offspring; otherwise we wouldn’t be here. In a way, life has always been hard. It would be easy to have a child in easier, more secure times (post-WWII West with Keynesian economy-politics and the resultant population boom is an example) but in times like ours, should we give up on an integral part of ourselves?

 

[Peatful]

I have thought about that; wouldn’t that be accepting defeat, a defeatist mindset? I am not making an accusation by the way, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. On the one hand, it’s well-known that in times of extreme hardship, like scarcity of food, shelter etc. mammals and many other kinds of animals choose not to have a child. But this is different (is it?). There were times much worse than our time in this world, and many people still chose to have offspring; otherwise we wouldn’t be here. In a way, life has always been hard. It would be easy to have a child in easier, more secure times (post-WWII West with Keynesian economy-politics and the resultant population boom is an example) but in times like ours, should we give up on an integral part of ourselves?

If I wanted children now
If I wanted to love and nurture and raise a child now with my husband
I would consider adoption

I am very pessimistic about our future
I am also raising two children now
And
It’s difficult
Not parenting per say
But the culture
Our world
We live in a scarcity of morals
Absolute moral and spiritual decay

 

[Logan-]

If I wanted children now
If I wanted to love and nurture and raise a child now with my husband
I would consider adoption

Could you elaborate on this? What are the most crucial differences between adopting a child and giving birth to your own in the context of the current reality of our world? What makes the difference between the two that you would consider adoption instead of giving birth to and taking care of your own child?

 

[TheSir]

There were times much worse than our time in this world, and many people still chose to have offspring; otherwise we wouldn’t be here. In a way, life has always been hard.

Life has always been hard, but the collective metabolic health of mankind has never been under such a multi-faceted attack as today. It's becoming nigh impossible for children to thrive. In the past the hardships of life could be overcome. Today we can't escape the effects of toxins, emf, soil depletion as well as the overall consequences of living in societies where everyone's bodies and minds are disintegrating. It's one thing for you to suffer from loss and hardships when your energy metabolism is working fine, and another to be in burnout from birth to death. With a healthy metabolism, the hardships of life are just obstacles or challenges that give life meaning. But when your energy metabolism is in a state of collapse, nothing has any meaning and everything is oppressive. Life turns into senseless curse.

Due to these reasons, I just can't take the leap of faith and trust that my child will be fine, especially considering how not-fine even my generation is. After all, each recent generation has been worse off than the previous generation as a rule.

 

[Logan-]

It's one thing for you to suffer from loss and hardships when your energy metabolism is working fine, and another to be in burnout from birth to death. With a healthy metabolism, the hardships of life are just obstacles or challenges that give life meaning. But when your energy metabolism is in a state of collapse, nothing has any meaning and everything is oppressive. Life turns into senseless curse.

At least for this topic, you have a “black or white”, “one or zero” way of looking at it. I am pointing that out with the thought that you may not be completely aware of it, and this may make you reconsider your views and the causes behind it.

It’s always a matter of degree.

Suffering doesn’t turn hardships and life meaningless; the ascription of meaninglessness turns life hard. This is not to deny the actualities and their impacts on us; rather the way we perceive and experience the actuality is always filtered through our way conceiving it.

Due to these reasons, I just can't take the leap of faith and trust that my child will be fine

If you make children to see them “be fine”, you don’t need specific reasons not to make them. People in Palestine are making children, why? Many in the west have been suffering from terrible conformism. If life is to be evaluated through the lens of “fineness”, that it has nothing intrinsic to it, then that will result in decay and decadence; the same symptomology of the decaying western civilisation for a long time. The losing of faith (regardless of religion), of vitality, of giving new meanings to life, and of ascription of an intrinsic value to it.

I completely understand your stance and the reasons behind it; but I think it would be better to have a more open-minded attitude for the potentials before us; both for our well-being in the widest sense of the word, and for our intellectual integrity.

 

[Logan-]

I don’t have children yet, and I may never have. I see how terrible things have become, how dramatically our world has changed, especially for the last 15 years (or, starting from the advent of neoliberalism in the west) for the worse. But we can’t drown in nihilism in the face of new and never-before-seen hardships. Mindset and actions matter. That’s why Ray Peat was replying all of our endless emails.

 

[shanny]

I don’t have children yet, and I may never have. I see how terrible things have become, how dramatically our world has changed, especially for the last 15 years (or, starting from the advent of neoliberalism in the west) for the worse. But we can’t drown in nihilism in the face of new and never-before-seen hardships. Mindset and actions matter. That’s why Ray Peat was replying all of our endless emails.

Have you found yourself a meaningful relationship? I understand where you are coming from, but in my experience with what is happening in our society finding someone that has the same values (especially when it comes to raising kids) is nearly impossible. I have only one female friend that has an absolutely amazing husband and he's also very strong father figure to his boys, she's the only person I know that doesn't seem to be worried for her kids. Having a strong male role-model puts everyone at ease, but again our society is attacking this kind of male figure.

I think it's deeper than not wanting to have children.

 

[TheSir]

At least for this topic, you have a “black or white”, “one or zero” way of looking at it. I am pointing that out with the thought that you may not be completely aware of it, and this may make you reconsider your views and the causes behind it

Yeah, that's true. I'm in a pretty lowly metabolic condition at the moment, which is certainly influencing my ability to think in shades of gray. I realize it's common for a sick person to only be able to think in black and white.

Moreover, the less energy we produce and the more imbalanced our mineral ratios are, the more distorted our view of the world is. Which brings up a fair point: is it logical to assume that one has made the correct decision by forgoing repdroduction, all the while most everyone else, in the past and present, has chosen otherwise? It's more likely to speak of my disease-distorted worldview. However, due to the reasons I mentioned in the earlier post, my children are likely to be at least equally incapable at experiencing life the way we evolved to experience it, compared to me. Chances are that they will be even worse in that regard.

Suffering doesn’t turn hardships and life meaningless; the ascription of meaninglessness turns life hard.

Well, that is right by itself, however the point I'm making is that you don't need to ascribe meaninglessness to life when your energy metabolism has failed beyond a certain threshold, rather, in such case, you will be viscerally experiencing the meaninglessness and it will be the only thing you are even capable of experiencing. At large, any positive experience, thought, feeling or sensation requires energy and it is possible for the energy metabolism to fail so utterly that any and all of these become impossible. And I fear that's the way towards which we are going generation by generation.

I think for the most part people are making children because they want to make children. Relatively few are consciosly weighing whether they should have children at all. This explains why people have always been reproducing no matter how oppressive the external conditions have been. I don't know if they're right and I'm wrong, or vice versa. What I do know is that I desire to be able to intellectually and emotionally justify reproduction before I commit to it.

 

[Santosh]

Life has always been hard, but the collective metabolic health of mankind has never been under such a multi-faceted attack as today. It's becoming nigh impossible for children to thrive. In the past the hardships of life could be overcome. Today we can't escape the effects of toxins, emf, soil depletion as well as the overall consequences of living in societies where everyone's bodies and minds are disintegrating. It's one thing for you to suffer from loss and hardships when your energy metabolism is working fine, and another to be in burnout from birth to death. With a healthy metabolism, the hardships of life are just obstacles or challenges that give life meaning. But when your energy metabolism is in a state of collapse, nothing has any meaning and everything is oppressive. Life turns into senseless curse.

Due to these reasons, I just can't take the leap of faith and trust that my child will be fine, especially considering how not-fine even my generation is. After all, each recent generation has been worse off than the previous generation as a rule.

I have also been very metabolically compromised recently.

It would seem it all comes down to the liver in one way or another as a few members here have fount out, no matter if you think you have chronic conditions, eczema, hormone underproduction, or anything else.

With a burdened liver, you can't even fathom the idea to ever raise children, it would be way too taxing and you wouldn't have the energy to do so.

I think two remedies can get someone out of a clogged liver situation :

1) liver flush + coffee enemas at the same time of the day to clear the bile ducts.
2) TUDCA + ox bile


Those solutions have to be put in place together.
Within 6 months of regular use of these two additions, one can expect a much better functionning liver, brighter emotions, more energy.

 

[TheSir]

I have also been very metabolically compromised recently.

It would seem it all comes down to the liver in one way or another as a few members here have fount out, no matter if you think you have chronic conditions, eczema, hormone underproduction, or anything else.

With a burdened liver, you can't even fathom the idea to ever raise children, it would be way too taxing and you wouldn't have the energy to do so.

I think two remedies can get someone out of a clogged liver situation :

1) liver flush + coffee enemas at the same time of the day to clear the bile ducts.
2) TUDCA + ox bile


Those solutions have to be put in place together.
Within 6 months of regular use of these two additions, one can expect a much better functionning liver, brighter emotions, more energy.

Thanks for the help! I think you're completely right, liver health is extremely important and the consequences of liver dysfunction are wide. Applying the principles of sclerology and iridology, I can observe significant congestion in my liver.

Unfortunately, coffee enemas stimulate me too much (even when brewing as little as 1ml of ground beans at a time - kind of ridiculous, I know) and the prerequisite meal skips before a liver flush result in a difficult hypoglycemic anxiety. Nevertheless, I am taking TUDCA and ox bile daily, as well as minimizing vitamin A intake, all of which seem to be pushing my health to the right direction. Perhaps by the end of the year the flushes and enemas will have become tolerable!

 

[ecstatichamster]

I’m thrilled I chose to become a father. I can’t imagine anything as fulfilling.

 

[Dave Clark]

Could you elaborate on this? What are the most crucial differences between adopting a child and giving birth to your own in the context of the current reality of our world? What makes the difference between the two that you would consider adoption instead of giving birth to and taking care of your own child?

Isn't it obvious? One is 'already' in the world, and needs support, where giving birth is adding a person to the world that perhaps didn't have to be here to suffer the aforementioned things that would dissuade someone from bringing a child into the world.

 

[bloooeh]

I’m a father of 2 and not regret having them but I regret marrying their mom. We got married young but when we had the second child she no longer needed me. She found someone else that doesn’t have kids to fill whatever void she has in the relationship.

 

[Logan-]

Have you found yourself a meaningful relationship? I understand where you are coming from, but in my experience with what is happening in our society finding someone that has the same values (especially when it comes to raising kids) is nearly impossible. I have only one female friend that has an absolutely amazing husband and he's also very strong father figure to his boys, she's the only person I know that doesn't seem to be worried for her kids. Having a strong male role-model puts everyone at ease, but again our society is attacking this kind of male figure.

I think it's deeper than not wanting to have children.

I agree with you. I am a man but the same applies to all genders.

I think for having a family and children, two things are a must:

1) Finding the right person. Without being absolutely sure about this, one should never consider having a child.

I will also note that the idea of romantic love as a prerequisite for starting and building a family is a very modern concept and practice. If anything, making it the foundation of family most probably hinders the possibility of success.

2) Financial access. Income and/or wealth of some kind that will give you power and freedom, that will protect you from the miseries that exist for people without enough money. Unfortunate, but this is the reality of our time.

 

[Logan-]

@TheSir I’ve read some of your posts before. You are a person with curiosity, and one that knows how to research. I’m sure you will solve your health problems in time, one way or another. Best wishes.