And those are:
- Because you like/love kids
- Because you know the right way to raise children and want to give them the best
These two reasons lead to mutual satisfaction and benefit for parent and child, and to the optimal growth for the child, so that they are above average, self-supporting, and capable of finding their own happiness, in a world that doesn’t need more average, weak, and misguided people. (or more people, really)
There are many bad reasons to have children:
- Because you want to have a legacy (but remember you don’t fully control who your child becomes, so you don’t fully control what that legacy is)
- Because you want your child to become the person you dreamed you would be (but not only may your child not be capable of becoming that person, but they may choose to revolt against your prescriptions)
- Because you want to bond with your significant other (having children often leads to decreased relationship satisfaction)
- Because you want to force someone to marry you and take care of you (but they can divorce you at any time, and being a single parent is way harder than being a childless single)
- To make your parents or other family members happy/meet expectations (you will, but you’re going to pay a very expensive price) – see below caveat
- Because you want someone to raise you when you’re old (but there are no longer enforced laws that force children to take care of their parents, and your child may not even be capable of taking care of you, and if they don’t grow up to be someone good, you may not want them taking care of you when you are vulnerable)
- Because you want some sort of financial security (but children are economically net neutral, in many cases they may not be as successful as you, and you spend a huge amount of opportunity cost time to raise them, that you could spend making way more money)
- Because your religion tells you to do it (since it probably doesn’t, if you read your holy text – encouraging parenthood is an instruction given by men)
and there are a couple of conditionally “good” reasons to have children:
- Because your society forces you to in order to be middle class
- Because you have a big inheritance riding on it