Actually, I don't want kids.
I may say a few things that will offend others, but don't take this personally, this isn't about you, it's about me. I was a professional educator of children for over ten years, and I quit for reasons less related to the kids themselves, but more related to the adults around them. And of course, sometimes when I'd make a decision someone didn't agree with, they'd say...
"When you have kids..."
Argument One
I've always assumed I'm infertile. I've been pregnant once, and I assume I miscarred as I had some idea at the time. It was one of the worst experiences of my life, but because I have no medical evidence of when an actual miscarriage took place, I'm not sure. I do know that I bear the cervical indication that I have been pregnant before.
Who are you to assume my body has the same capabilities as yours? I consider myself pretty nonbinary lately, though I do love to be a femme and my art falls in that mystique, it would be horrendous for me to experience the act of birth simply as a biological act.
A little side argument, I hate that this is how TERFs will separate themselves from trans women, knowing that women who are born with vulvae, cervixes, ovaries, aren't always capable of having a child. Having a child does not define womanhood nor motherhood. I know plenty of women who gave birth to their children who made terrible mothers, some of them the parents of my former students. I have witnessed first hand that giving birth never makes you a mother, and being born with equipment to produce a child certainly does not make you a woman.
Argument Two
I don't want kids. In fact, lately, I would even say I don't like children, but above all, I don't like parents.
I do know parents who exist outside their children, but it's rare. Chances are, if you're a friend, someone I follow or look up to, it's because your life is very visibly your own, and you were able to achieve your own success while also choosing to be a parent. I don't approve of social media parenting, I find it distasteful and boring. For as many arguments there are for wanting to breed a better tomorrow, I hate to say it, but it sounds weirdly like social eugenics. What makes you believe that which you create will improve anything, when truthfully most people are neither good nor bad, simply neutral- which is part of the problem. Above all, nothing prevents any parent from "tunnel vision", assuming there is nothing wrong with their child and who become frustrated and near-narcissistic believing they as a parent know what is always best for their child.
The world is inundated with neutral, inactive people, and those people are or become parents.
Don't take this personally, I also deeply dislike many people who aren't parents. I would say I just have a bias against judgmental or overwhelmingly bigoted hypocrites.
Argument Three
The world is overpopulated. And though apparently some might say this isn't a valid excuse for a lack of desire to parent, I firmly believe the world needs less people, nay, less white people. I am not able to speak for other races, and I certainly don't think it's my place to tell people of the global majority what to do with their bodies. I have my opinions for myself.
I just don't know why having a child will solve anything. Is creating a person to love that necessary? I feel like the carbon footprint and moral ineptitude of most families is a huge part of the problem. Being a single person, I use far less, buy far less, do far less. I don't need a large vehicle, trips, five sizes of shoes three times a year. Becoming a parent is contributing to the waste stream.
An honorable mention for @going.zero.waste on Instagram, who demonstrates one can be a parent, an actress, and run a low waste household. Yes, she has a lot of resources. (I don't think she's a "White Wellness Influencer", most importantly.)
Argument Four
I'm broke.
I am now financially bereft, unable to care for myself or even purchase health insurance. I will not be having a child with a husband who is in the same boat, whether it is one that emerges from me or otherwise.
Argument Five
I wanted to adopt. Because I speak French and because I worked so often with people from the DRC, I had always hoped to adopt a child from DRC and try to maintain contact with their families and communities, knowing that DRC is a very hard place for little girls. I also realize that the Black community and other people of the global majority are speaking out about how adoption is a form of neo-colonialism, and that it would be best for White/Europeans to take a step back and really think about the impact before adopting. You have people like Angelina Jolie adopting children from all over the world, but at the same time it seems like a spectacle for her image, whether she is a good mother or not, it calls into question the optics.
My stepmother said, "If you adopt a child they will never love you." And of course, that can't be true, I taught many children for several years and I could tell that, in an appropriate way, I loved those kids and they loved me. They were my family for several years. I miss them all, wherever they were from.
This said, I have had at least 80 children, and many of them have made me very, very proud.
Final Argument
Please don't tell someone that when their body produces a child that survives that they'll understand children better, that's simply not true.