@johnmatthewnewman I have no issue with people choosing to be child-free, but as a mom I have kind of realized that you learn a lot by having kids. Like this whole thread is saying, childless people just don't
get it a lot of the time. Having children really shows you how different the experience is from the expectation, and I think that is quite humbling.
I think it also teaches us a lot more empathy for our own parents. Like everyone can think of ways their parents probably messed up, but once you have your own kids...You start to realize that messing up is inevitable. And parenting is hard and many people can probably gain a newfound appreciation for their own parents (not everyone because i know some parents are legit bad or abusive or whatnot).
Sometimes I honestly pray they have kids
So like...I have mixed feelings, like I believe everyone should have the freedom to opt out of parenthood. It should definitely be a choice to have kids. But I also wonder with the new childfree movement, if some of those people are just never really going to "get it"? Like with so many more people choosing to be childfree than before, are we just going to have a whole bunch of people that never gain that appreciation for their parents, or that realization that parenting is fucking hard and none of us are doing it perfectly right?
I don't necessarily wish unwanted kids on them...But I hope those people can still grow to have a better understanding of what parenthood is actually like in reality.