But who will look after you when you're old?

I don't think the level of state support is really the overriding factor. It's just an absolute crap place to be, having a disabled child. Worse in the US especially based on where you live, because of the pathetic supports, but the primary problem is the presence of the disabled person.

How horrible women in Ireland are forced to go overseas if they're pregnant with a Down's child. Just more performative cruelty by the RCC.

I can tell you for absolute certainty that that last bit goes through everyones mind big time for the duration of a pregnancy and then afterwards for a few years too.

The only people I ever met who regretted having kids are some of the parents of drug addicts and children in jail.

But you do hear all the time people moaning that they cant do this or that now that they have kids. I do it myself. But what I could do with kids gave me even more joy than the things i couldnt do anymore. Doesnt stop me having the odd moan though.

Sure, but the majority of outcomes are not "bad" outcomes.

6.7% under 19 disabled: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp9hdc/p8hdc/p9d/

Government using 1-1.5% as its own estimate for autism: https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/10707/ce1ca48714424c0ba4bb4c0ae2e510b2.pdf#page=null

Feel free to roll the dice. That's just disability - then there are the life-changing impacts like divorce:

"The risk of divorce was said to be almost doubled – 97 percent higher – when the mother went out to work but her husband made a “minimal contribution” to housework and childcare" - https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/

And, the economic impacts, especially of losing the income from one family member, aren't small.

Not sure if I'd call 1 in 15 people an absolute minority. It's a small number but still a number worth considering.

If someone told me I had a 1 in 15 chance of being killed if I left home tomorrow I'd probably stay home just to be safe...!

Who says this in all honesty?

I'll repeat, most people don't care what other adults do with their lives. We live in Ireland post-SSM and Abortion. Its self evident. There are no laws that compel people to have kids, and there are no media campaigns, propaganda or otherwise trying to brainwash people into having children.

Are there journalists or TV presenters or broadcasters who think like that? That having children is the 'correct' way to live your life?

The government offers free contraception to women who are 17-26 and will probably be expanded in time to include all women of child rearing years.

Its never been easier to NOT have a child. So I don't get the complaints.

I don't get it.

Did the parents choose to have a disabled child?

Wierd point of view to be honest.

What does the poster expect tbh, with some banal debating points?

I mentioned in another post, having a child carries risk. I think people know this. It's a human being at the end of the day, with its own personality, free will and all that.

If one cannot comprehend or handle that uncertainty in their lives fine, having children ain't for you. Which is fine.

Buy a Toyota Corolla instead with an extended warranty to put your mind at ease.

I dont think its actually a concern. Ive read this thread fully now and its clear to me that the OP and a whole lot of other people later somehow feel they need to convince everyone else that not having children is the right choice.

Nobody should have to convince anyone of anything.

Children are either for you or they are not.

You heard it here folks, 'children are either for you or they are not' - no need for the forum anymore, close it all down.

This is a discussion forum about not having children, therefore people are going to discuss not having children.

Or did I miss a memo?

Yes, because they chose to have a child. Disability's just an outcome, and really not that rare.

They chose to have a child, they didn't choose to have a child with a disability. No one chooses that, but most parents in that scenario accept it, get on with it and love their kids all the same.

To say parents chose to have a child with a disability is pretty outrageous tbh.

Lying about the benefits of having children is the province of parents. People lie about plenty of things as you point out, my response was to a question (paraphrasing), 'if there's downsides why do I hear about how great it is.' Answer: lying.

Here is the comment I'm responding to:

"I just begin to question what people are telling me when everyone who makes this completely irreversible life choice coincidentally also puts forward a 100% joyous, 'best life ever!' type of view on the thing."

If you choose to have a child, you choose to run the risk of that child being disabled, with all the concomitant impacts on your life. I'm not saying you want a disabled child, but that you're choosing, to roll the dice.

First of all..

People getting together and having children is the status quo because it's what human beings have been doing for thousands of years. Our societal structure is built around the family for various reasons but the primary reason is the time it takes for a child to grow up to be an adult. Human existence has centred around this evolutionary biological fact. This is why you see similar family structures the world over. There might be subtle differences between having an extended community-based family you might see in tribes to a more modern western atomic family but the constant to these are still children.

Another example is marriage. Marriage is the status quo for similar reasons to the above (historically centred around who inherits what when people die). Yet people are still free not to get married, even though marriage is the 'status quo'.

Well, loads, considering people who go to mass is at an all-time low and people who answer no religion has more than doubled in the past 10 years.

Who are these people? I'd wager they are few and far between. It seems you are projecting your own thoughts and insecurity about your decision to not have children onto the entire population as if there are huge swathes of people out there that were pressured to have kids by some unknown force and are totally and utterly unhappy with it.

Maybe there are just a lot of people who want/wanted to have children and are quite happy with that choice?

Does the odd comment exist? Sure, usually from mothers and grandmothers and the like, but who cares at the end of the day.

Is it some pervasive force in society that moves sentient average intelligent beings to be parents against their will? No, not at all.

This is not the 50s or even the 80s when it was genuinely very difficult to not have kids if you were in a relationship since contraception was more or less illegal even for married couples.

It's never been easier to be child-free in the history of humanity. Enjoy it. There is no conspiracy against you.

You mean there is no cast-iron guarantee that if you have a child it won't be 'perfect'?

Wow, thanks for the insight. I'm sure no one ever thought of that before you mentioned it.

Absolutely does not bother me at all that children make people happy, I think it's great - power to them.

I hope most people who say they are happy to me are genuine.

I just find it to be an incredible coincidence and amazing really how 100% of people who have children, an unchangeable life decision, also seem to have made the 'right' decision in having children.

What are the odds, eh? 3.5 billion parents in the world, all made the right decision. It's a miracle, really.

Is it not at all possible, that similar to all big decisions people make, some will be happy in the decision, some will not be happy and regret it?

Again, it does not bother me that people want children and that children make them happy. I'm just trying to give some insight to the mind of someone who has decided not to have children and the reasons as to why. (IE, I don't believe a lot of parents are 100% as happy as they portray themselves to be)

Sigh. More pop psychology. Are you a psychiatrist? Because the armchair analysis gets old.

Back to the original subject of this thread: who will take care of you when you're old. Assuming you have children, do you think they'll take care of you when you are old? Are you taking care of your parents?

The point of the thread is, having children because you think they'll take care of you when your old, is a fools game and a gamble with someone else's life, namely, the children you bring into the world to take care of you.

People have kids because they think one of them might win the lotto or start the next amazon.