I chose not have children for both selfish and altruistic reasons. The selfish reasons have greater weight, I will admit. I wanted to have the time and energy to devote to my favorite activities, to save money for fun things, to not have to deal with the mess and stress and loudness of a kid.

But I also knew that I have a severe mental illness that has a strong genetic component, and I did not want a child to suffer with this. I knew that, as a child of domestic violence, I do not have the skills to raise a child, and I don't have a strong enough will to learn them. I decided that because every child should be loved, wanted, and given their parent's complete focus, it was better not to have a child than raise them with resentment.

On the other hand, parents need to be honest with themselves and admit that they had children mostly for selfish reasons. One just has to look at the questions they badger childfree people with to see what they are refusing to say.

"Who will take care of you when you're old?" -> "I had children because I want someone to take care of me when I'm old."

"Who will carry on the family name?" -> "I had children because I wanted someone to reflect me and to feel like my existence is more permanent than my mortality."

"No one will remember you!" -> "I'm scared of being forgotten after I die, so I had children so someone will be forced to remember me."

"Only a child can give you unconditional love!" -> "I had children because I want someone to love me unconditionally and be forced to interact with me for at least 18 years."

"Don't you want to give your parents grandchildren?" -> "I had children to shut my parents up about grandchildren. Or, I am thinking far ahead and I want grandchildren, so I can have the fun of children without the hard work."

"Doesn't your life feel empty and unfulfilling?" -> "I had children because I want to feel fulfilled. I couldn't find another way to do that, and I think everyone feels the same way."

"If you don't want to do the hard work of raising children, you're lazy and selfish." -> "I wanted to feel like I'm doing something with my life and wasn't finding satisfaction in other ways."

"It's your responsibility to have children." -> "I wanted to feel like I was fulfilling societal obligations and doing life the 'right way,' so I had kids."

Of course there are some altruistic reasons to have children, too. You wanted to build a better future, or you wanted to contribute to society, or you wanted to give someone the life you didn't have growing up, or you wanted to keep certain traditions alive.

And those are fine - admirable, even. But they don't negate the selfish aspects.

It's not bad to be selfish with such an enormous life decision.

Humans are, by their very nature, a mix of selfish and prosocial traits. Every animal is selfish in some ways, because otherwise they would die. We are programmed by biological impulses to fulfill our needs, such as food, shelter, water, enrichment, and so on. But as a social species, we are also expected to give back.

In the early days of our species, the ways to "give back" were pretty clear-cut: tend the fire, hunt for food, gather berries, guard the tribe, have children so that someone else can do all these things in the future. But, in return, we did those things for ourselves as well. We have sex and make children because it feels good and satisfies urges. We eat because we need to. We guard our resources because we want them.

But now the world's much more complicated. There are different ways to be selfish, and different ways to contribute to the wellbeing of the world. Things that were once selfless are now either neutral or selfish.

Not everyone on the planet needs to have children anymore. We have 8+ billion people; the tribe isn't going to die out if some of us don't have kids.

This "oh no you're contributing to the decline of the human race" is, frankly, idiotic. It makes you sound like you think we still live in bands of 100-200 people who are beset by sabertooth tigers at every turn. That's not true. One person not having children isn't going to destroy the human race. Our species is doing fine - too fine, actually. We've kinda overdone it.

But anyway, we have the choice not to have children if we don't want them. We also have the choice to have children if we want them. That means both of these choices are, in many ways, completely selfish acts. Having kids is no longer an imperative that makes or breaks the survival of a clan for most of us.

Yes, there is plenty of selflessness involved in parenthood. You have to put the needs of your child above your own a lot of the time. But at the root of it, you chose to have children (assuming you had the choice) because you wanted them. You knew it would require selflessness and some altruism, but you chose to do that because it made you feel good. The selflessness was born out of a selfish desire to do that thing. It becomes a morally neutral action because it is both selfish and selfless.

You are not a better person for having children. You are not a worse person for having children.

You're not a better person for not having children. And you're not a worse person for not having children.

You're a person who made a decision that you hoped would make you happy. If it doesn't make you happy, then that is the consequences of your choice, and it is what you have to live with either way.

But your decision either way, and your feelings about your decision, don't give you the right to claim moral superiority over someone else. Because you have no moral superiority here. You did something because you wanted to, and other people did other things because they wanted something different.

You have one shot at this particular life. You need to sit down and think carefully about what you actually want rather than being pushed by societal demands.

Take a cold hard look at the repercussions of either decision rather than relying on the Hallmark Movie images.

Having kids doesn't mean constant frolics in autumn leaves or holding a cooing baby that never suddenly vomits on you or releases a toxic spray of diarrhea. Not having kids doesn't mean you're going to be able to party life away forever.

Pregnancy and childbirth can kill you, and they can leave you with lifelong complications that few people want to discuss. Go look at diastasis recti or fourth-degree vaginal tears if you don't believe me. People have their teeth fail out or their joints dislocate because of pregnancy hormones. Some people go into kidney failure or develop cardiac issues.

Not to mention the struggles of single parenthood or the stress that children put on a relationship. Having a child dramatically boosts your risk of divorce. Your husband might become abusive when you're pregnant. You might be forced to become a stay-at-home parent because you can't afford childcare, and now you're entirely dependent on someone else. That's a very terrifying position to be in.

But not having kids doesn't mean you'll have endless free time, unlimited money and resources, or no aches and pains. You have to worry about the future and how you will care for yourself when you're old, how to save money, how to balance the needs of your family (yes, childfree people do have families, just not children) with your own desires. It's scary getting older and knowing you will have to primarily rely on yourself.

What if you live alone and you fall and break a hip and can't get to the phone and are stuck there for hours trying to crawl to call 911? Those things do happen, and they are terrifying.

What if you suddenly find yourself unable to work, but you don't have any relatives you can move in with, and you become homeless? One unexpected bill and you're screwed if you don't have an emergency fund.

You might be forced to be a caretaker for elderly relatives, or become disabled, or find yourself in an abusive relationship. The dangers of everyday life don't go away because you didn't choose to take on the responsibility of children, though they might be mitigated a bit by being able to make decisions without worrying about how they will impact vulnerable people.

As a single childfree person in my 30s, I worry about dying alone and not being able to find love. It's hard enough to date as a lesbian, harder still to find a woman my age who doesn't have kids. I don't want to be a stepmom, either.

Admitting this fear doesn't mean that I've made the wrong choice - it's just a consequence of my actions that I have to consider. Acknowledging downsides of any decision does not negate the benefits. It just means you're looking at it realistically, which is the mature and responsible thing.

If you've really assessed parenthood and decided you're willing to deal with the downsides, I'm proud of you and happy for you. I bear you no ill will and wish the best for you and your children. It's great to do things that make you happy with a clear-eyed perspective, and understanding what you're getting into will help you immensely when things get tough.

But still:

Your choice does not mean other peoples' choices are wrong.

You made the decision that was right for you. Other people want different things. Neither is better or worse if done right.

It's possible to be an insufferable childfree asshole who makes everyone else feel like shit. Plenty of serial killers were childfree, and plenty of domestic abusers don't have kids.

It's possible to be a shitty negligent parent. A lot of serial killers were parents, too, as well as your garden-variety abusers.

It's also possible to be a kind, prosocial childfree person who improves the world. I'd like to think that my writing helps people, and I have volunteered with refugee services and sexual assault couneling centers before. Nikola Tesla was childfree, as were Emily Dickinson and Vincent Van Gogh, two of my idols.

And it's also possible to be a wonderful, loving parent who brings joy to everyone around them. My mom is just one of many examples of excellent parents who have greatly improved the world. I have plenty of parent friends who I love and who I think are just some of the best people around.