i dont want to be a daddy in these dark times

[Bhaisahab]

my wife has been bringing up this issue with me more often these days. she wants a child, i dont. i dont because i have no doubts in my mind that peak oil is real and it is just around the corner. to bring a child into a world that will see increasing levels of brutality and violent struggle is not a good thing, in my opinion.
my wife, and i love her a lot, sees peak oil as an intellectual passtime that i indulge in - all that doom and gloom scenario is not her cup of tea. i need to convince her that it's real, it's here and knowing our personalities, i do not think we will be able to cope with the situation with a little child to take care of.
can someone point me to a couple of essays that lay out in clear terms what the impact of peak oil is going to be on society/economy? the articles i read are too scientific. i need to show her a convincing case in simple english.

[punpirate]

1. I think the most plain-language--

--and pessimistic--view I've read is James Kunstler's The Long Emergency.

Cheers.

[WCGreen]

2. Look at the price of college....

Look at the shrinking job market

Look at the endless war they are talking about

Look at global Warming.....

Look at the rise or Red China.....

Look at the gated communities, they are gated for a reason, to keep people out when the shit hits the fan......

[Droopy]

3. Hmmm

I can't point you to good articles. But I can tell you that if one of you does not want to have children then you should not.

It's really a tough call. You would probably be a good parent based on what I see as your desire to create a better world, but you are pessimistic about our future.

I can understand not wanting to bring another person into this world. That's basically the reason for my solitude. So I guess I can't really be of much help.

[Bhaisahab]

5. thanks droopy. but u dont understand

this is such a HUGE dilemma for me. my wife's 34 (fast approaching the medically "unsafe" age for child birth), while i am 30. she doesn't have much time, and last night, this beautiful woman begged me for a child. no one ever begged me for anything you know. and to see her, my one true love, plead - "love, i can have a child, can't i? just one... only one. i promise" - it just brought tears to my eyes. i'd do anything for her u know, but my concern for the future of a child in a die-off scenario is too strong for me to really hesitate this one time.
thanks again for posting your views...

[Droopy]

6. I understand

It's a tough choice.

[Kenneth ken]

14. love is everything

you'd do anything for her? Apparently not. She begged and you would refuse her?

Cetainly the future looks bleak from here, but the future is always unknown. I think the idea of having a child scares the heck out of most everyone; but people do anyway.

You worry about something years in the future and overlook you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I'm really not an advocate for having children, but I am an advocate for giving your whole being to the woman you love.

[Spinzonner]

4. If there are no children there won't be anyone to solve the problems

and your child may be one of those important to the solutions, particularly if s/he is sensitized to the issues by your concerns.

And, consider that every generation has had an imperfect world to deal with and some have had things a lot tougher than recent ones. The world now has the knowledge and tools to solve many of the things that threaten both life itself and the way of life - if it has the will.

If you just don't want children or the responsibility for raising them be honest with yourself and your wife. But try and look at the world REALLY objectively and not apocalypticly.

[Bhaisahab]

7. you have a point

perhaps i really am deflecting my own insecurities on to a global event. thanks for bringing it out. i'll do some introspection.

[LastKnight]

8. my parents were concearned on similar grounds.

concearned taht the world was getting to violent in general to bring a child into it. they had nothing specific to point to... except everything going on through their mid-late childhood from vietnam on up to the point of my birth in the mid 80s. and yea. we have gotten more and more bruital to each other as people.

but ya know what, im here, im alive, i have 2 beautiful siblings. me and my sister are both budding young activists in our local community due to our parents' concearns, and im sure my brother will be once hes old enough to understand politics at any level (hes 5 right now). we havent been robbed of our childhoods. we are here.

no matter what the circumstances - people have an amazing tendancy to do that, to persist, no matter what. who knows, like others have said; maybe your child(ren) will be someday instrumental in solving a major problem due to your concearns.

[Droopy]

9. Nice post

[RummyTheDummy]

10. I'll never forget my mom talking to me about this

My wife and I are torn on having kids as well. I brought it up to mom, citing many of the same reasons you do, and she said she went through the same thing as a younger woman. My parents were married in the late 60s. She recalled 1968, when RFK and MLK were both murdered and the Vietnam war was raging and the Cold War was in full swing. At that time she didn't want to have kids. Three years later I came into the world and my sister was born in 1978. I know where you're coming from.

[IChing]

11. The universe will provide, the challenge is to understand that if it your

"Thing"
The risk is that you lose that thing you have with the one you Love
that enables you to grow with each other
Life and children are part of that natural process
between male and female.

she sounds like someone you love
Children make a better world.

and both of you sound like good people.

So the question is not
education( you are educated), peak oil, bitter world (you can teach)
We need good humans, educated (You sound like you can)
help the world.

So that is the responsibility
that you are really asking

[rawtribe]

12. If you love

your children, you won't have them. I wouldn't want to be born today.. why would I do that to another person. 6.5 billion and counting...

[REP]

13. Be Honest with Her - and Yourself

I don't want children and have been sterilized twice, and Peak Oil sounds like a BS reason to me! I'm not saying that to knock you - I'm sure it's a very real concern to you - but it might be helpful if you examined your reasons for not wanting a child (expense, loss of free time, loss of intimacy, giving up things that are important to you for the child's sake, plain ol' not liking babies/toddlers/children/teens, overpopulation, consumerism, etc) and discussed them with your wife. If you truly have no interest in children under any circumstances, tell her - and if reproducing is that important to her, than let her go so she can fulfill her ambitions. To force you into fatherhood would unfair to you (and any child); to force her to remain childless if mommyhood is truly important to her is unfair to her.

In the meantime, be sure to take care of your own protection; "accidents" often happen during these times that can be a financial anchor on a man for the next 18 years.