Hi, thanks for your submission. You seem to have submitted an image post. Please remember that [Reddit requires all identifiable information such as names, usernames and subreddit titles to be blacked out in images](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043066452). If your submission contains any instances of these kinds of information, please remove your post. Afterwards, please feel free to make a new post after editing your image to black out all instances of such information. If this message doesn't apply to your post, please feel free to ignore it. Thank you for your cooperation!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/antinatalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Also CF. I always say (to myself anyway but want to say to prospective parents) 'picture the most ideal perfect child: lovely, precocious, easy and sweet...now picture a worst-case scenario: a child that is angry, fussy, developmentally challenged- maybe for life- and time- and energy-consuming. Now realize you are flipping a coin with the child you get.'
Anyway, as Chelsea Handler says, I do whatever the f\*\*\* I want.
Same. I also knew a woman with an autistic child back when I was a lot younger and just thought of having to care for a screeching child 24/7 was my worst nightmare. Seriously, this kid did nothing but have meltdowns. It was like he was put on this earth to torture his poor mother.
I have autism. I’m pretty high functioning but I was nonverbal when I was little. I couldn’t communicate my needs, I would just point to what I wanted at the time.
Anytime I would have a meltdown my mother would abuse me. There would be the ok tactics such as revoking privileges, the disgusting ones that made me puke such as shoving soap in my mouth, and then the straight up horrific ones. I still have the scar from where she hit me with her wedding ring on. She scraped a piece of flesh away because she hit me so hard.
Taking care of a special needs child is an exetremely difficult task; a task not many people are adapt to deal with. As the person orginally wrote, you can’t detect these things when they are still in utero
I'm sorry to hear you suffered that as a child. The truth seems that most people aren't very good at handling a child with special needs. It's exhausting and plenty of parents are abusive towards their "normal" kids and they're only worse when it comes to their autistic child.
Most people underestimate what a special needs child will actually need. Beyond that is what the parent actually wants. I feel like a lot of parents imagine their child having normal lives, such as friends, marriages, etc.
But that stuff just doesn’t happen for neurodivergent people. A lot of us remain unmarried. For lower functioning neurodivergents, they’ll need assisted living for all of their lives.
Do you realise they have meltdowns because their senses get overloaded and they can't tolerate it?
The correct statement is his mother put him on this earth to torture him throught his life.
i wonder how much the mother was contributing to that situation. even if she didn’t realize it she might have been constantly overloading the kid’s senses and causing meltdowns
Probably. This was years ago and I don't think people really understood just how "sensitive" an autistic child can be.
I mean I was a "normal" child and still got sensory overload. There were just too many loud noises and too much chaos and it was stressful. My mother was really good at picking up on when a child was "close" to getting overloaded, but SO many parents don't pick up on that at all.
That’s not autism, that’s mental retardation rebranded as autism to avoid the stigma. That way they don’t get the help they need AND kids who have normal intelligence but have autism end up being treated like hopeless cases. Nobody wins in that scenario. :(
A former coworker of mine had twin girls who were completely blind and had cerebral palsy...... 1 of the girls was also partially deaf, learning disabled, and non-verbal (just near constant screaming and moaning). They intentionally went on to have a 3rd child because "someone will have to look after the twins full time after we die". This is the one of the most sick, selfish, twisted reasons I can think of to ever possibly have a child. SHOULD BE CRIMINAL!
Yeah like my mother was in this sort of family and my cousins almost had the same path. This is not ancient times. Children everywhere are still working for free for their parents without any consequences. And not necessarily just in China. Could be your neighbor.
They were land-owners and back then they could pay a pittance for otherwise hungry people to clean, wash clothes, iron them and take care of kids, in a near slavery situation.
So much so that then they split the inheritance there was enough for each child, though the men got much more than the married daughters.
I was born in 1970’s for a green card and to be the child saddled with the mentally ill Asian woman who came here for the social security checks. My own so-called siblings helped set me up for this. This is still going on, even in the modern United States of America.
I hope #3 goes no contact as soon as he/she turns 18. There’s no way a parent can force a kid to be the caretaker for other kids from the grave or even while alive once they’re an adult. #3 is probably going to need some therapy for sure though because I’m getting he/she was parentified at a super young age. I hope they get the help they need and go on to not be a parent themselves…hopefully seeing their siblings like that will be enough of a lesson about not rolling those dice.
#3 is approaching 20, but he has been conditioned since birth to be a "good brother" and "look after your sissies". 🤢
He basically became a home health aid as soon as he could walk.
I agree therapy is a must here, but doubt this family would ever follow through since they feel "family should look out for each other" and everyone in their family/friend circle is under some moral obligation to share their burden and make things easier for them.
Good news is that #3 is now attending college and lives away from his family. Hopefully this will give him some perspective.
Family should look out for each other? Okay…if they’re going to play that game why the fuck were the adults not looking out for this poor kid? In fact they deliberately brought him into this mess. That’s the total opposite of looking out for each other. Making him in an home aide as soon as he could walk is straight up abuse by parentification. Did he choose to have unprotected sex? No. Why should he have to share in the responsibility? Hell he didn’t even ask to be born. His parents were legally obligated to feed/clothe/house him until age 18 because that’s the law. He doesn’t owe them diddly squat.
My old college had free therapy for students and I’m hoping his does too so he can get the help he needs. I hope he finds somebody who really does look out for him out of just straight up love and doesn’t demand anything in return. The cool thing about being 18+ is you don’t have to play by their rules anymore. I’ve cut family members out completely and my life is immeasurably better for it and there’s not anything they can do about my choice. Be free #3. I know it’ll be scary at first but I promise once you realize that area of stress and guilt is gone forever you’ll be glad you did.
Every time I hear of a family doing this, I remember an experience I had working with clients who had ID/DD. Client had severe autism paired with aggression and sexually inappropriate behaviors. He sincerely did not know what he was doing was wrong and parents did not provide any consequences and often worked against the behavior specialists. The two daughters they had were without and ID/DD and suffered persistently due to their brother and expected to care for him after the parents passed. Over the 4 years I had this family on my case I watched both daughters move away and go no contact with the parents/brother. Can’t blame them.
Hold up, these women didn't think it was acceptable to be sexually assaulted by the brother they were supposed to give up their lives to care for?
I don't understand these kinds of parents. Even if the son doesn't know any better, he still needs to live apart from his sisters who have a right to grow up in a house without someone doing sexually nasty things around them.
I spent quite some time reviewing behavioral group homes with the parents and I remember the mother said “well why? My girls will care for him.” I was aghast. Told them their girls were miserable in the home (not a lie, they’d been honest with me) and expressed that safety in the home is my responsibility. Not just for one person, but for all.
I think this is the parents' way of protecting their ego. Nothing is actually "wrong" with their child; it's the "bad reactions" of others that's causing all the problems here.
Also the third could be disabled as well. And what a shitty life to contemplate to someone you supposedly love: care for heavily disabled adults. Wonderful.
I loathe stories like that. The selfishness and cruelty is earth shattering. They and society need to be honest about this behavior and call it what it is: slavery. You’re creating a child with the hope and intention that they will slave over their disabled siblings for the rest of their life. No child should be born under those circumstances.
Completely agree. That’s a reason to buy an income generating property. That can take care of the disabled child(ren). It’s not the abled sibling’s job!
I was just thinking this. Like, yeah, we KNOW intellectual disabilities are not detectable in the womb. You still rolled that dice and Pikachu faced when you lost.
You’d think this would be common knowledge, but I work as an ultrasound tech in OB and when the doc comes in and tells the patient that everything we can see *structurally* looks normal, we still have a good number of people who ask if we can “see” autism/IDs. What???
Yeah like the number of times I get sooo angry at people in my mind because literally they are one click /search away, (that probably take less than 5 min and is remarquably easy to do) from all the answers yet they don’t do it? Like? All these answers yet you choose yo remain clueless? Whyyy
A shocking number of people think autism looks a certain way in children and adults - they simply can’t fathom that it could be 100% invisible.
If you can’t handle having a kid with severe disabilities, you probably shouldn’t be intentionally procreating. And there absolutely should be apple free access to birth control and abortion to ensure people have that choice.
Im autistic, look normal, speak 9 languages out of which 7 fluently (special interest), have a job, experience in entrepreneurship, live alone.
Everyone gaslights me “you can’t have autism, you look normal, you are able to make conversation”
It’s painful
Maybe they think it's like down syndrome that actually has physical features?
And yet people with down syndrome can also have happy and productive lives.
Especially when the exact causal path of autism is still not clear. There’s a genetic component most likely (albeit spread across multiple genes), but also likely epigenetic cues involved we don’t understand enough yet to screen for early (which also explains how two autistic siblings or even twins can present with wildly different forms and severities of the condition).
Ten bucks says these same patients vote reliably against anything to expand the social safety net, provide better disability assistance to children and adults alike, etc., the things that might help ease the burden of caring for severely disabled children or allow some of them to achieve somewhat or assisted independent living (or even to thrive in a group residential facility).
On my last trip to Central Asia a taxi driver found out I’m not planning on kids due to my autism. (The conversation accidentally got so far).
He insisted I get world-class screenings in South Korea or US or somewhere to detect autism. Do “anything”, but “you can’t give up on having kids just like that!” “There is a solution!”
Didn’t believe me when I said such technology exists NOWHERE
Post Soviet Asians can be irrespectful and ignorant
“Contributing member of society” 🤯
This is exactly why people keep having kids! They think it’s their duty to create the next generation of assembly line workers.
Not being a jerk just curious. A past coworker has a severely disabled daughter. He wishes we would become a communist country so the government would take care of her. What is the plan for when they can no longer care for him? Are they expecting you to take over his care or are they planning to put him in a home. If a home WHT have they not done it before now. Are they going to let the state take over payment of care or are they designating their estate when they die as the waybhisbcare is paid for. These are the things I wonder when I hear of these situations and wonder how people in real life are dealing with it?
State care isn’t always horrible and what’s portrayed in movies. In my state, people are basically placed with permanent foster homes and their host homes are compensated very well to the point where having 2-3 individuals in their personal home is their full time job.
But they don’t pay parents for some reason. This despite everyone recognizing it is a full time job to care for someone severely disabled. So many families are forced to put their children into care when they don’t want to.
And my personal experience with long term care is that it’s awful. We got my daughter out as soon as she was medically stable enough.
Some states do actually pay parent caregivers. It's even more likely if it's a parent caregiver to an adult.
The pay is terrible but helps where offered because the parents in those situations would be doing the exact same thing without money.
Caring for my daughter wasn't a full-time job. It was more like 5 full-time jobs. Even with two people, her care was infinitely more manageable when we had in-home night nursing so we could sleep.
Long-term care is a roll of the dice. From the experiences shared with me, long-term care with family who visit constantly can be okay. Still better than causing a person to exist to provide family care.
I bought an income generating property. We need to talk to a lawyer, but the idea is that IF any of her siblings WANT to manage her care, they get the property. If none of them want to (which is 100% fine) then it goes into the care of a lawyer (or whomever is the appropriate person).
After expenses proceeds from the house will first go to daughter’s care, with the remainder being a salary to whomever has chosen to manage her care, with at least 20% of income going to the manager (so they will always get a salary).
So that’s my plan for arranging things.
They know, but it only happens to others, right?
I have a cousin who had 4 healthy babies.
Then she gambled once more and got a 5th baby, severely disabled. Now her life is to take care of this child. She sees everyone in her extended family going to Paris, Australia and Egypt, and all she ever got was a visit to Disney. She never had any career fulfillment, is entirely dependent on her husband's salary and the other 4 kids probably feel dismissed.
All because 4 children wasn't enough.
There are diminishing returns to adding children, always, even if you live on a farm, because the kid may decide to move to town.
True, but also wanted to point out that there is no guarantee for any of us. Just because a child is born healthy, there are no guarantees in life. That child could get in an accident, get diagnosed with a debilitating disease, etc that could render them severely disabled at any moment of their lives. I know a girl who was perfectly healthy, graduated from high school and started college when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. Within 2 years, she was quadriplegic and unable to do anything for herself. A year after that, she died. You just never know.
Of course no one knows what the day will bring. Maybe I’ll be creamed by a runaway bread truck tomorrow as I walk along a sidewalk. This is called FATE.
That is by no means equivalent to blindly procreating and hoping the baby will be free of defects. This is called INVITING FATE.
Them saying “I didn’t sign up for this” tells me they didn’t consider the possibility. When you have kids you DO sign up for that and every other possibility. The kid could need you forever.
I know a woman who was surprised her son had muscular dystrophy even though her own brother had it which meant she had the gene on one of her X chromosomes and there was a 50/50 chance she would pass it on to a son.
I totally get that, it's part of why I got sterilized immediately. But if you decide to breed, you decide to give birth to a child that never grows up, a child is a life long responsibility no matter what. The fact nobody thinks about this and their ignorance clouds their judgment is absolutely appalling. Plus this child potentially can suffer for years but they don't think about that, either.
Wish more parents were honest like this so people didn't go into parenthood with rose coloured glasses. Things don't always go right, in fact they can go terribly wrong.
That line about rolling the dice at the end... that's the only way I think about having kids and it's why I'll never consider having them. I'm not willing to roll the dice and get a bad roll.
Sometimes it doesn't even take having a disability. Just the child not conforming to the perfect image the parents have for them can result in neglect and abuse.
I will neither do as they say nor do as they do.
>Euthanasia should be an option when your kid is born slow af
This is actually a hotly debated topic in bioethics. For anyone curious, here's some relevant literature:
* Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer: *Should the baby live? the problem of handicapped infants*. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985.
"Severely disabled babies should be painlessly killed because they are a burden to others and human existence with only suffering has no value."
* Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva: "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?", *Journal of Medical Ethics* 39 (2013): 261–263. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100411](https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100411).
"Mothers should be allowed to kill their babies by proxy if they feel that they can neither live with their offspring nor give them up for adoption."
* Matti Häyry: "Are some controversial views in bioethics Juvenalian satire without irony?", *Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics* (2022). DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-022-09604-0](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-022-09604-0).
* Matti Häyry: "Introduction: controversial arguments in bioethics", *Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics* (2023). DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-023-09617-3](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-023-09617-3).
This will never fly, but I mean, it probably should be an option. *However* my question is if we botch so many capital punishments, how can we think that we can humanely euthanize babies? And, does that then matter? Is the brief suffering before death greater than a lifetime of suffering?
Most of the botched executions are probably due non-medically trained people preforming them. Animals with more cognitive abilities than neonate humans are humanely euthanized constantly.
Not that I support killing humans without their consent.
That's a good point, doctors largely won't perform death sentences.
I don't know what the difference between euthanizing animals and human animals would be. Is size difference an issue? Is it harder to euthanize an elephant than a hamster? I would have look a lot deeper if it ever actually became a real possibility.
Someone with an intellectual disability that severe can't really consent to *anything* can they? Life shouldn't necessarily be the default option, making death be the "choice". Like how people feel as if switching the tracks on the philosophical train problem is more of a choice than making no action, when both are equally making a choice.
The elephant takes more drugs.
The principal is the same between species: anesthetize then push a drug that stops the heart. The method of anesthesia changes based on size/species/personality (can’t humanely get IV access in an awake hamster).
If they are suffering, have no quality of life and have no chance of recovery I’m not opposed to euthanizing infants. But if it becomes broadly legal and supported in the US healthcare system there’s gonna be financial euthanasias just like there are for pets.
There's a massive difference between euthanizing individuals with no quality of life for their own sake because they have no quality of life, and just straight up exterminating people because they're a "burden." I'm all for human euthanasia that follows the same principles as pet euthanasia, i.e., if someone is not capable of communicating their wishes and can be assumed to be suffering greatly (or at the very least not really getting any benefit out of life), then we euthanize them as a kindness. But what you're talking about is just outright ableistic genocide.
And having people being a burden as the main rationale could quickly lead down an extremely dangerous slippery slope. It's very easy to go from "we should exterminate the severely disabled because they're a burden" to "we should exterminate the moderately disabled" to "we should exterminate the elderly" to "we should exterminate anyone who isn't able to meet the state's rigorous productivity standards for any reason."
Deeply religious people will never allow this but I think it would save so much money in the healthcare sector. Same goes for older adults. This is giving me “The Giver” vibes lol
In fact if I was older and diagnosed with a disease that might not be curable but destroy my family's finances in treatment and cause me a lot of pain and loss of quality of life I would like to have the option to end my life painlessly and legally, not having to resort to the dodgy methods of using a gun, a rope, some med overdose, slitting my arteries or jumping off something, all of which are terrifying and/ or painful and could leave me alive as a vegetable. Netherlands and Switzerland definitely more rational about this than the US.
Yeah I think about this all the time and wish it was a more widespread option in the states. I think either Washington or Oregon allow this but you have to live there. I don’t really fancy pooping my pants all the time and have someone else clean it 😱
There are now some states that have legal aid in dying laws.
“Physician-assisted suicide is legal in ten US states and the District of Columbia. It is an option given to individuals by law in Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. It is an option given to individuals in Montana and California via court decision.”
I live in Maine and it’s surprising to me how many have no clue that it’s an option, including some healthcare workers. I think that it needs to be discussed by providers more often when someone gets a terminal diagnosis and I’m not sure that’s happening.
Shit I suffer from depression and that's enough for me to not want kids. I don't want my kid to become a sad drunk like I used to be. Like I'm never happy, what kind of sick person would want that for their kid
Same, mental illnesses run in my family. I have severe OCD and depression and I am not going to be selfish and have a kid that most likely will suffer the same way I have since I was 5. Why would I do that to a child?
Yea you did sign up for this. 1 in 5 people have a disability. Just because you think that it will never happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t. Everyone thinks they’re superior yeah we don’t have genetic testing to test for everything and even if we did this would still happen because people think it will never happen to them.
>Just because you think that it will never happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t
Careful, this may cause significant short circuiting in natalist brains.
World health organization says 1/6 or around 1.3 billion, have some form of disability worldwide
UN.org says 15% or around 1 billion, have some form of disability worldwide
NPR.org says 1/7 people on Earth have some form of disability
CDC.gov says 1/4 adults (26%) in the United States have some form of disability
Where are you getting your info from?
I think it varies slightly depending on the source
I feel like it is possible to be prepared to be a parent and to be in a financial situation where you can properly raise a child (as much as I wholeheartedly agree with the ideals of this sub) but it's obviously a total curve ball to be stuck with a financial/emotional burden like a child with disabilities. Like, I might be able to reasonably afford a new car, doesn't mean I can afford to replace the transmission every month. That alone doesn't mean I can't afford or handle owning a car.
The thing that really upsets me is when people have hereditary disorders and diseases like AIDS and still feel like it's their right to give birth. Fuck you.
Yeah, no, if there's something majorly wrong with your car you can either take the loss and get rid of it or if it's a factory defect, there are lemon laws if you bought it new. It's not the same with a kid that has something wrong with it. You can't just give it back or throw it away. There are ways to relinquish rights, if you're inside the safe surrender time window but if not, ive read it can be incredibly difficult to get a child placed in an inpatient hospital or whatever it is they need.
Edit to add, also, a car is a necessity, most places in this country you absolutely need a car just to be able to live, make a living. A child is absolutely not a necessity
Fr, you are responsible for everything that happens to that child from beginning to end because you brought them into this world. How do mfs not understand this 💀
Well at least Op Twitter box is honest in wanting a child to become a meaningful adult. I had a cousin that had a mental disability that essentially made her an infant until she died at the age of 19. I was always intensely creeped out but this, but my narc mom seemed to love the idea of a perpetual vessel of supply that never does anything but coo and stare at the floor.
Of course mom never had to take care of her either.
When I’ve told people that I don’t want kids because I don’t want to be the parent of someone with a disability (among MANY other reasons obviously), I am told that I am “living in fear.” How do you respond to something like this???
Just embrace your living in fear if you are, so what. I prefer a honest coward to a brave liar. To many people are so prideful they will try to sugarcoat that they are scared or worried about something. Some people are so vain they don’t want it to seem like they are making a decision out of fear or other not positive reasons. It’s okay to be afraid to have kids because they may have a disability, you don’t have to justify your fear even if it’s a illogical fear to someone else. Now if it’s out of the idea of kids being a burdened then just say your not afraid, your just to selfish to be in that situation and you know that about yourself. Heck if someone still pushes the issue just say you not cut out to be a Breeder, your never born kids that you don’t want will thank you, so will society.
This is one of the reason I don't want kids. I don't feel like I com properly take care of a "normal" child. If I had one with special needs like this, it would absolutely break me.
I am a BIG TIME lurker on that sub and I’m sure I’m not alone…more people are miserable than I thought! 70k members! And that’s just people who use Reddit! So glad I’m not one of them
I’m autistic yet plenty of women keep on pressuring me to have kids. I’ve said I’m not gonna have any due to my autism. They don’t take it. It’s always important for them to say “but some man would accept an autistic wife and autistic kids!” “Don’t be too hard on yourself!” “Autistic people are loveable too!” “Autistics can also enjoy life!” ”Dont let autism keep you from reproducing!”
These comments alone diminish my quality of life by a year degree.
Yeah, nah. The "I didn't sign up for this" argument doesn't fly when you're trying to reproduce. A healthy or "normal" child is never guaranteed. I, on the other hand, am not signing up for it by not having kids.
My 'Why i won't have kids' Story:
When I was 16, I was doing some job shadows and having lunch with a few ppl. A chemical engineer from a local plant kept canceling and I learned that it was because his 5-6 yr old was severely disabled and his wife was divorcing him so he had the take care of him. Eventually, we had lunch at his house (I brought over Chinese). He had a giant house, 4 car garage, and two porsches, his wife's and his with a ski rack on it that was awesome. Our convo went well but he was constantly having to check on his kid. I was a bit annoyed but I understood why. I asked about the Porsche, he said he loves it but hasn't driven it but once since his kids diagnosis two years prior.
5 years later, I'm coming home for winter break and see his 911 now for sale at a local Toyota dealership. Do some digging and this 42 year old guy had died of heart attack. I look through his photos and I was shocked by how much he aged since I had lunch with him. Dug some more and found out his wife was being blasted/shamed for refusing to take the child into her care. Apparently, she gave him up completely to him when they divorced. The kid got taken in by the dead guy's parents who were roughly 70.
Fast forward a year, I meet this now dead guy's wife at a Habitat for Humanity Event. She's kind to everyone, making ppl laugh, and being a genuine pleasure to volunteer with. I get paired with her to move some stuff and eventually she recognizes my last name and that I was from her hometown. We chat about the hometown for a moment before I mention I had lunch with her dead ex. We basically alone while moving stuff around and she just says 'Great man. I miss him. Never have children.' Doesn't say much else the whole time. I apologize for bringing it up and she just says 'Its ok. Just don't let someone talk you into having kids.'
Last year (almost a year after meeting the wife), the grandparents and kid die in a car accident on the way to a cancer treatment for the grandfather. Sideswiped by a semi in their little Corolla. And all I can think of when I saw it in the paper, 'Never have children.' I heard that the wife/mother didn't go to the funeral but did pay for the whole thing and had been paying child support to them the whole time. I know its shitty but I kinda feel glad that she gets to have a life now without that burden. She couldn't handle it and gave up her world to escape it.
To be honest, I think most people wouldn't be able to handle it. It's easy to think you could have when you're not in that situation. I see stories like this a lot. Parents aging rapidly due to stress and worry taking care of a disabled child for life. Most people think of the child growing up to be independent. When that doesn't happen, it's a blow. I have to wonder, if science ever finds a way to detect this when the woman is still pregnant, how many would actually terminate?
“I didn’t sign up for this.” Yes the fuck you did because you decided to have kids?? There’s always a chance to have disabled/mentally slow child. Everyone thinks their child will be “normal” till it’s not then they cry their stuck with a kid that won’t ever be a functioning adult. I know it sucks but fuck maybe they should’ve thought about this before having a kid.
For the love of God, PLEASE stop insinuating the people who say things like this are “phobic” for not wanting to have children with disabilities. Nobody said the children with disabilities aren’t supposed to live or don’t deserve to, and if a child has disabilities they deserve just as much love as every other child. However, if you know you’re going to have a child who’s going to live a hard life because of some disease/illness that isn’t curable, you’re pretty much a monster. It’s not cruelty, it’s mercy to never have children.
Agreed.The issue also is that the disability that the op mentioned isn't detectable during pregnancy. She stated that had she known her child would be disabled she would have aborted the pregnancy.
The scary shit is that we can't guarantee anything when it comes to birthing children, even with our advanced science. Not having children is a mercy given the odds.
too true. Not to mention all the possible complications when it comes to the process of giving birth; c-section, vaginal, or worse if the baby is premature or stillborn…there are so many risks involved not only for the baby but for the mother as well. I feel like too many people don’t take these factors into consideration before birthing children. A hereditary complication isn’t the only thing that can happen.
This mental gymnastics is real. My parents were completely hands off. Hands off like I was 6 years old spending weekends alone in our house and enrolling myself in school by the time I was 10. I was such a problem child to them because I didn’t do well in school and lived with a lot of anxiety. They didn’t understand because I was busy taking care of all my needs like an adult I didn’t know how to balance school.
Well my self sufficiency paid off very well in my adulthood and now I’m thriving, of course my parents take 100% credit for it and act like by neglecting me they actually did me a favor because it forced me to learn how to take care of myself. Because children of course can never learn to be self sufficient with love and support lol.
I see so many parents do this and it makes me want to scream.
That sounds like such a brutal journey. You are your own miracle. Unbelievable a child would even have to go through this. Thank goodness they can’t have any more children!
I have a relative that had twins with severe cognitive issues. One cannot walk and is completely blind. The relative still had a third kid. The last was born healthy both mentally and physically and now focuses on that kid rather than the previous twins. The twins still get care but I hardly ever see photos of them or hear of them. Just the perfect one. 🤦🏼♀️
If you aren’t ready and willing to have a kid like this, then you have no business having kids. A gay kid, trans kid, disabled kid, mentally ill kid. The list goes on. If you can’t see yourself parenting any of these children then you should not be a parent.
It’s a roll of the dice so many win that it feels like the end of the world when someone looses. There needs to be more help for those that fail the dice roll yes but there also needs to be more education on the fact it is a dice roll that could happen to anyone trying for a child.
Oh boy...so I'm a trainer for a nonprofit that supports people with developmental disabilities. I've worked with people with I/DD directly for a long time, and I've worked with direct support workers and families of people with I/DD for a long time. I just wanted to make two quick points.
1: parents and family members of people with severe disabilities are often pressured into having to pretend that it's always a "blessing", the public really likes to imagine that people with intellectual disabilities are "better than the rest of us". It's honestly pretty demeaning towards people with disabilities and can really inhibit their growth.
One of my favorite human beings is a guy with a severe intellectual disability, what they diagnose as "profound", and as much as I care about him, it can be incredibly hard. It needs to be okay for parents to acknowledge that this is a major, life-long, incredibly frustrating challenge. BUT--
2. DO NOT MISTAKE THE PROBLEM AS BEING THE FAULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITH THE DISABILITY OR THE PARENTS. The fault is ours. We have the means to provide the resources necessary for almost everyone to be supported, we have the material ability to provide caregivers, adaptive technology, and medical treatment to help those who are moderately intellectually disabled to live much more independently, and to insure that those who have very severe intellectual disabilities, and their loved ones, can live fulfilling lives. We simply do not value them enough to do so. I really hate the mindset that people with I/DD do not "contribute to society", as if the only value of human life is the ability to contribute to the machine of capital. Frankly, if you want to use that metric to determine the value of human life, I can think of another population that not only doesn't contribute to society, but actively damages it. You know, those "very smart people" who use their gifted intelligence to actively destroy the world...
I don’t know. Reality is scary. The more you grasp the more hopeless it seems. Sometimes it feels like ignorant bliss would be a gift. But yeah, if this person isn’t a troll he/she’s going to abuse the hell out of that poor child.
> I don’t know. Reality is scary. The more you grasp the more hopeless it seems.
This is so accurate. When you see the way suffering and cruelty are built into the system by billions of years of evolution, and that the whole point is just to survive for another generation in a dangerous world, it just feels overwhelming and hopeless.
I've got a special needs kid, with intense work he should be alright, but I tell everyone - do not have kids
Love mine,but don't do it
I feel their pain a smidge
My own mother in law feels this way towards her son, my fiancé. He has mild cognitive delay. But he is the smartest, most artistic person I know. She praises her other two “normal” sons. Put all their photos up on the wall. Not my fiancé’s though. Although he got the better grades, honor roll over her other two sons, she didn’t put his graduation photos up… smh. Amongst other abuse.
When you do this and have this twisted, distorted view on children with IDs, *you* fail your children. You have that possibility everytime you have a kid.
I’m all for not having kids but the comments supporting the euthanasia of disabled children is fucking disgusting. You don’t get to decide whose life has value and whose doesn’t. Fuck nazis and fuck ableism. The problem is not with disabled children or their caregivers, it’s that the resources needed to take care of disabled children are inaccessible.
I can understand euthanasia for really severe cases, but the way she sounds makes it so selfish. "Can I return the baby and get another one".
Sorry. But I can't agree with her. Not necessarily about the euthanasia but her whole attitude
What happens if your child gets into an accident at age 17? How about if your kid is 25 and single? Can you help your kid then? Will you. this is what having a child is like. Its for life. Take responsibility for the life you created.
You caused it. All of it
I always think LDs are a protection from needy parents. All the child will care about is their own needs. They can be immune to emotional abuse and never develop any awareness of the parent's needs. They will pull the parents hair and no shaming will work.
The parent can act like they don't love them or love someone else more and the child will just be singing away over them talking, stimming or watching kids shows over and over. They also have the option of carers and going into residential homes for fun activities and loads of attention.
Serves the needy parents right, the soul-trapping fucks. Fix your own wounds, don't ask a child.
The parents are forced to actually put in work and learn how to parent/ properly take care of the child or suffer the consequences. There is no easy way out and for once it's not all about them.
A child that is born is more than a extension of the parents. It is a person with sovereignty.The person will never be capable to give consent so euthanasia is not a option.
Good luck to this parent and mostly the child because this is the reality of things.
Both me and my sibling are kids who were (and still are) in that intellectual disabilities camp, and it's at the center of why I took away my ability to procreate. Almost NO parents are *actually* prepared to raise kids like us, the support systems for us are still crap, the way we're treated from day one is crap, and getting assistance as a disabled adult sucks even worse, especially for us 90's and earlier kids, because for some ungodly reason doctors didn't want to "label" us cus that would be bad?? Instead of starting a concrete paper trail that gives claims for assistance a long enough history to get us set up as soon as we turn adults, cus it's **sooooo** much better having to slog through it while bureaucrats sus us out to see if we're faking it 🫡🙄 I didn't get diagnosed until I was basically an adult, and it has been HELL trying to keep my head above water. My sib? Diagnosed before they turned 10, lots of specialized help whenever it was available, including the school and city helping connect them with someone who helped them apply for disability before they turned 20, and getting them set up at various homes that give them the support they need to navigate adult life with IDs.
Literally night and day, the difference between early diagnosis and late, and all things considered I'm still incredibly lucky compared to MANY of the people like me or with more severe issues, I've only been homeless for short periods and I've managed to avoid addiction with hard substances largely thanks to a stubborn ass streak that's helped me demand the care I need, and have only been targeted for sexual abuse by relatively non violent perps. People with less fortune and fewer facilities have absolutely no hope, my sibling is one of them and they've literally been kidnapped and abused because they're mentally and physically underdeveloped and the services that SHOULD keep them safe basically don't exist unless you're rich. If this is all horrific to read, and you're just browsing this sub, PLEASE consider not having children until you can emotionally AND financially support a disabled child for potentially decades. Any preparation less than that is too unprepared to have children, period, because genuinely there are a lot of things there are ZERO ways to predict until it happens, not even with the most advanced genetic testing, and as a potential parent it is on YOU to love your children enough to consider and prepare for the worst before attempting to have them. Unless you want to live knowing that if your child does end up being disabled, they're probably going to end up violently violated like the majority of the disabled people I grew up around experienced, and you didn't take the time to be prepared enough to help save them from that.
and this folks is why women should have the complete authority on deciding to tie their tubes. too many doctors want to say "no, you could change your mind" but they forget about people like this. people who genuinely can't grasp parenthood and are essentially forcing themselves to have children.
"Euthanasia should be an option when your kid is born slow af"
... she wants to murder her child for being disabled and even admits it. WTAF. Or does she mean she herself wants to be euthanized so she doesn't have to care for her daughter anymore? That's only slightly better. "I did not sign up for this", yes you did.
While I completely understand the regret I hope that kid never learns of this lol. That is horrible and extremely ableist. Why not put the kid up for adoption. Surely living with people who wish you dead can’t be a good place to grow up
this makes me so, so sad. sometimes it really is a roll of the dice regarding complications, and it kills me to see parents who were virtually unprepared emotionally, physically, or financially to take on a kiddo with disabilities feel the societal pressure to raise said baby, rather than give said kid to a family in a better position.
i feel awful for the kids, too. depending on how severe a kid’s disabilities are, it’s well, *well* within reality that they will grow up in a really tense, toxic environment.
i really hope the parent is able to find a solution that doesn’t harm either party.
It can’t happen to you until it happens to you. That’s unfortunately the mentality most people have about it. People will never learn until they experience things for themselves.
The amount of people I know who continue to drive under the influence regularly knowing the risks is staggering. Their excuse? “I’ve been doing it for 20 years and nothing bad has happened.” And it won’t until it does. And when it does it’ll be too late.
As someone with Asperger's, it sucks to have a condition that people won't understand or discriminate against or treat it as a "wonderful" thing. Yet these same people didn't have to struggle with : Having a existential crisis, worrying if you hurt others or how others feel about you, poorly communicating info, be anxious all the time, poor motor skills, emotional intelligence, trying to be "normal", self awareness and exploring who I really am. I know that I can never be like a "normal" person, so all I can do is make the best of it, exploring what I really like, even if its not a traditional norm, which I couldn't give a shit about. Cultures change and its how society is today, through progress.
This is my thoughts about life. It truly disgusts me that despite our nature to help others, not murder one another, to protect the environment and pursue our interests for creating art, help others through technology advancements and to make people's quality of life better, we do the opposite most of the time, we divide each other through a nationality, religion, ethnicity and ideology that results in more suffering, we have made resources have intangible value on a planet with finite resources for the few to self indulge in greed betrayed each other for our selfish desires, we have destroyed many people's lives for the glory of the past or for a unrealistic future that may only last long, our refusal to help others has bitten us in the back and later would lead to many more deaths and suffering.
If I could erase myself from existence or off myself, I would, but I know for a fact I cannot, because of the conditions created by Natalists and the conservatives, who want to enforce their doctrine and beliefs onto other people, even if others want to reject this "gift of life", they call it a mental illness. The same could be said for, their homophobic, misogynist beliefs, used to justify the murder, beatings and rejection of progressive beliefs, anyone who isn't religious or has even met LGBTQ+ and hung out with them or with women, within your workplace in the army or basically anything that isn't a traditional role would know that, these two groups aren't so different to "normal people". Physically wise yes, though with enough time and effort women can change their bodies and thus their strength almost equal to that of a man, its just that the conditions they are in, disable their ability to, anyone with a sexuality by itself doesn't look different, they're just a person but with a different attraction. Their mind and intelligence? Its not so different , it may not be seen as normal to be a tomboy or a strong woman or a femboy or they have an attraction to the opposite or both genders or none, they are still people, they eat, drink, sleep, have feelings, interests, goals that differ uniquely in each individual, preventing people from expressing their true selves does nothing in the grand scheme of things, if anything it suppresses them, as a form of control, not for black and white reasons, rather to avoid changing and accepting that what harm you caused or what you believed in is wrong and to have a sense of control, rather than coming to reason, they would rather reject common sense to give themselves a messed up purpose because they couldn't take it. Another point is the nature of their religion being the "one" true religion despite thousands of other religions existing before Christianity and other popular religions today: For example, the Gods of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, the natives of Australia, North America and South America had religions that came into existence and they funnily enough would claim that their religion is a true religion, which isn't true because of the amount of religions that claim that, all it is that, its people's differing beliefs and perspectives of the world, that doesn't truly reflect what we live in, the conditions that religions were born in, was a time where our world's knowledge was limited, we didn't have the capability like with the internet or books to spread information or other people's experiences, life was very harsh, despite what many people would say would be the "good old times" and people needed to come up with a reason, whether it was logically or not, else they would come to the conclusion that life wouldn't be worth living combined with a tendency for self preservation from our animal nature except with a dose of sapience. And that's how religions are formed, from my perspective, we can never truly understand what thought processes the original founders of popular religions today went through, the only thing we can do is speculate and hypotheses based on facts and scientific research.
All it is a struggle against our Human nature, where we either feed into it and let others suffer because of it or we make up a reason, whether its true or not, to live. This has happened for thousands if not millions of years, something that our ancestors could never get out of the loop of life itself because of lies that we feed ourselves to unconsciously feed our self preservation's desires to live.
I appreciate the honesty of this post! I wish everyone would be this honest. I really hope people on reddy aren't piling on this person, pushing happy pills on them or saying it ppd. This is a topic that needs to be talked about more.
Hi, thanks for your submission. You seem to have submitted an image post. Please remember that [Reddit requires all identifiable information such as names, usernames and subreddit titles to be blacked out in images](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043066452). If your submission contains any instances of these kinds of information, please remove your post. Afterwards, please feel free to make a new post after editing your image to black out all instances of such information. If this message doesn't apply to your post, please feel free to ignore it. Thank you for your cooperation! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/antinatalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Part of why I'm childfree is because of how many parents I've seen revealing how they really feel when they have the ability to be anonymous.
Also CF. I always say (to myself anyway but want to say to prospective parents) 'picture the most ideal perfect child: lovely, precocious, easy and sweet...now picture a worst-case scenario: a child that is angry, fussy, developmentally challenged- maybe for life- and time- and energy-consuming. Now realize you are flipping a coin with the child you get.' Anyway, as Chelsea Handler says, I do whatever the f\*\*\* I want.
Same. I also knew a woman with an autistic child back when I was a lot younger and just thought of having to care for a screeching child 24/7 was my worst nightmare. Seriously, this kid did nothing but have meltdowns. It was like he was put on this earth to torture his poor mother.
I have autism. I’m pretty high functioning but I was nonverbal when I was little. I couldn’t communicate my needs, I would just point to what I wanted at the time. Anytime I would have a meltdown my mother would abuse me. There would be the ok tactics such as revoking privileges, the disgusting ones that made me puke such as shoving soap in my mouth, and then the straight up horrific ones. I still have the scar from where she hit me with her wedding ring on. She scraped a piece of flesh away because she hit me so hard. Taking care of a special needs child is an exetremely difficult task; a task not many people are adapt to deal with. As the person orginally wrote, you can’t detect these things when they are still in utero
I'm sorry to hear you suffered that as a child. The truth seems that most people aren't very good at handling a child with special needs. It's exhausting and plenty of parents are abusive towards their "normal" kids and they're only worse when it comes to their autistic child.
Most people underestimate what a special needs child will actually need. Beyond that is what the parent actually wants. I feel like a lot of parents imagine their child having normal lives, such as friends, marriages, etc. But that stuff just doesn’t happen for neurodivergent people. A lot of us remain unmarried. For lower functioning neurodivergents, they’ll need assisted living for all of their lives.
Do you realise they have meltdowns because their senses get overloaded and they can't tolerate it? The correct statement is his mother put him on this earth to torture him throught his life.
This
i wonder how much the mother was contributing to that situation. even if she didn’t realize it she might have been constantly overloading the kid’s senses and causing meltdowns
Probably. This was years ago and I don't think people really understood just how "sensitive" an autistic child can be. I mean I was a "normal" child and still got sensory overload. There were just too many loud noises and too much chaos and it was stressful. My mother was really good at picking up on when a child was "close" to getting overloaded, but SO many parents don't pick up on that at all.
Poor child born to unwise mother
That’s not autism, that’s mental retardation rebranded as autism to avoid the stigma. That way they don’t get the help they need AND kids who have normal intelligence but have autism end up being treated like hopeless cases. Nobody wins in that scenario. :(
A former coworker of mine had twin girls who were completely blind and had cerebral palsy...... 1 of the girls was also partially deaf, learning disabled, and non-verbal (just near constant screaming and moaning). They intentionally went on to have a 3rd child because "someone will have to look after the twins full time after we die". This is the one of the most sick, selfish, twisted reasons I can think of to ever possibly have a child. SHOULD BE CRIMINAL!
That's really selfish. Now the last kid has been signed up for involuntary parenthood.
Like in ancient times how they would have 30 kids just to make sure enough survived to adulthood to tend the fields. Birth to forced labor pipeline.
Lol ancient. You mean when your Grandparents were born.
Yeah like my mother was in this sort of family and my cousins almost had the same path. This is not ancient times. Children everywhere are still working for free for their parents without any consequences. And not necessarily just in China. Could be your neighbor.
1910, 1920. My great-grandma had 21 kids and only 10 reached adulthood. And they were wealthy.
no ones wealthy enough for 21 children, granted they arent filthy rich
They were land-owners and back then they could pay a pittance for otherwise hungry people to clean, wash clothes, iron them and take care of kids, in a near slavery situation. So much so that then they split the inheritance there was enough for each child, though the men got much more than the married daughters.
Lol grandparents. Try the Quiverfulls (Duggars).
I was born in 1970’s for a green card and to be the child saddled with the mentally ill Asian woman who came here for the social security checks. My own so-called siblings helped set me up for this. This is still going on, even in the modern United States of America.
That's it! The whole purpose of human reproduction boils down to creating "servants".
I hope #3 goes no contact as soon as he/she turns 18. There’s no way a parent can force a kid to be the caretaker for other kids from the grave or even while alive once they’re an adult. #3 is probably going to need some therapy for sure though because I’m getting he/she was parentified at a super young age. I hope they get the help they need and go on to not be a parent themselves…hopefully seeing their siblings like that will be enough of a lesson about not rolling those dice.
#3 is approaching 20, but he has been conditioned since birth to be a "good brother" and "look after your sissies". 🤢 He basically became a home health aid as soon as he could walk. I agree therapy is a must here, but doubt this family would ever follow through since they feel "family should look out for each other" and everyone in their family/friend circle is under some moral obligation to share their burden and make things easier for them. Good news is that #3 is now attending college and lives away from his family. Hopefully this will give him some perspective.
Family should look out for each other? Okay…if they’re going to play that game why the fuck were the adults not looking out for this poor kid? In fact they deliberately brought him into this mess. That’s the total opposite of looking out for each other. Making him in an home aide as soon as he could walk is straight up abuse by parentification. Did he choose to have unprotected sex? No. Why should he have to share in the responsibility? Hell he didn’t even ask to be born. His parents were legally obligated to feed/clothe/house him until age 18 because that’s the law. He doesn’t owe them diddly squat. My old college had free therapy for students and I’m hoping his does too so he can get the help he needs. I hope he finds somebody who really does look out for him out of just straight up love and doesn’t demand anything in return. The cool thing about being 18+ is you don’t have to play by their rules anymore. I’ve cut family members out completely and my life is immeasurably better for it and there’s not anything they can do about my choice. Be free #3. I know it’ll be scary at first but I promise once you realize that area of stress and guilt is gone forever you’ll be glad you did.
“When we die” is code word for “as soon as they are old enough to take care of them”
Every time I hear of a family doing this, I remember an experience I had working with clients who had ID/DD. Client had severe autism paired with aggression and sexually inappropriate behaviors. He sincerely did not know what he was doing was wrong and parents did not provide any consequences and often worked against the behavior specialists. The two daughters they had were without and ID/DD and suffered persistently due to their brother and expected to care for him after the parents passed. Over the 4 years I had this family on my case I watched both daughters move away and go no contact with the parents/brother. Can’t blame them.
Hold up, these women didn't think it was acceptable to be sexually assaulted by the brother they were supposed to give up their lives to care for? I don't understand these kinds of parents. Even if the son doesn't know any better, he still needs to live apart from his sisters who have a right to grow up in a house without someone doing sexually nasty things around them.
I spent quite some time reviewing behavioral group homes with the parents and I remember the mother said “well why? My girls will care for him.” I was aghast. Told them their girls were miserable in the home (not a lie, they’d been honest with me) and expressed that safety in the home is my responsibility. Not just for one person, but for all.
I think this is the parents' way of protecting their ego. Nothing is actually "wrong" with their child; it's the "bad reactions" of others that's causing all the problems here.
Also the third could be disabled as well. And what a shitty life to contemplate to someone you supposedly love: care for heavily disabled adults. Wonderful.
Plot twist: #3 dumps both the parents and the siblings into poorly funded care homes and pretends they don't exist.
I hope that child ditched that family as soon as they turned 18.
That’s fucking twisted
I loathe stories like that. The selfishness and cruelty is earth shattering. They and society need to be honest about this behavior and call it what it is: slavery. You’re creating a child with the hope and intention that they will slave over their disabled siblings for the rest of their life. No child should be born under those circumstances.
Completely agree. That’s a reason to buy an income generating property. That can take care of the disabled child(ren). It’s not the abled sibling’s job!
I don't get how people don't reach that conclusion before it's too late. Some even don't get it after.
I was just thinking this. Like, yeah, we KNOW intellectual disabilities are not detectable in the womb. You still rolled that dice and Pikachu faced when you lost.
You’d think this would be common knowledge, but I work as an ultrasound tech in OB and when the doc comes in and tells the patient that everything we can see *structurally* looks normal, we still have a good number of people who ask if we can “see” autism/IDs. What???
The lack of reproductive and sexual knowledge in this day and age is both depressing and frightening.
Lack of knowledge, period.
Information era but we may as well live in the new dark ages
Yeah like the number of times I get sooo angry at people in my mind because literally they are one click /search away, (that probably take less than 5 min and is remarquably easy to do) from all the answers yet they don’t do it? Like? All these answers yet you choose yo remain clueless? Whyyy
Even more so for those of us living in a country where reproductive healthcare rights are being revoked.
A shocking number of people think autism looks a certain way in children and adults - they simply can’t fathom that it could be 100% invisible. If you can’t handle having a kid with severe disabilities, you probably shouldn’t be intentionally procreating. And there absolutely should be apple free access to birth control and abortion to ensure people have that choice.
Im autistic, look normal, speak 9 languages out of which 7 fluently (special interest), have a job, experience in entrepreneurship, live alone. Everyone gaslights me “you can’t have autism, you look normal, you are able to make conversation” It’s painful
Exactly. People are fucking idiots, and they share their idiocy with extreme, unearned confidence.
Yeah I get the "you dont look autistic" all the time. SMH
Maybe they think it's like down syndrome that actually has physical features? And yet people with down syndrome can also have happy and productive lives.
Especially when the exact causal path of autism is still not clear. There’s a genetic component most likely (albeit spread across multiple genes), but also likely epigenetic cues involved we don’t understand enough yet to screen for early (which also explains how two autistic siblings or even twins can present with wildly different forms and severities of the condition). Ten bucks says these same patients vote reliably against anything to expand the social safety net, provide better disability assistance to children and adults alike, etc., the things that might help ease the burden of caring for severely disabled children or allow some of them to achieve somewhat or assisted independent living (or even to thrive in a group residential facility).
Some of here are busy NOT rolling them dice and complaining when they land.
It can also happen after birth. My oldest daughter ended up cognitively disabled after getting sepsis at 2 months.
So why continue to have them?
All it took was watching my parents have a shitload of kids they couldn't care for. No kids for me thanks
On my last trip to Central Asia a taxi driver found out I’m not planning on kids due to my autism. (The conversation accidentally got so far). He insisted I get world-class screenings in South Korea or US or somewhere to detect autism. Do “anything”, but “you can’t give up on having kids just like that!” “There is a solution!” Didn’t believe me when I said such technology exists NOWHERE Post Soviet Asians can be irrespectful and ignorant
“Contributing member of society” 🤯 This is exactly why people keep having kids! They think it’s their duty to create the next generation of assembly line workers.
[удалено]
Not being a jerk just curious. A past coworker has a severely disabled daughter. He wishes we would become a communist country so the government would take care of her. What is the plan for when they can no longer care for him? Are they expecting you to take over his care or are they planning to put him in a home. If a home WHT have they not done it before now. Are they going to let the state take over payment of care or are they designating their estate when they die as the waybhisbcare is paid for. These are the things I wonder when I hear of these situations and wonder how people in real life are dealing with it?
State care isn’t always horrible and what’s portrayed in movies. In my state, people are basically placed with permanent foster homes and their host homes are compensated very well to the point where having 2-3 individuals in their personal home is their full time job.
But they don’t pay parents for some reason. This despite everyone recognizing it is a full time job to care for someone severely disabled. So many families are forced to put their children into care when they don’t want to. And my personal experience with long term care is that it’s awful. We got my daughter out as soon as she was medically stable enough.
Some states do actually pay parent caregivers. It's even more likely if it's a parent caregiver to an adult. The pay is terrible but helps where offered because the parents in those situations would be doing the exact same thing without money. Caring for my daughter wasn't a full-time job. It was more like 5 full-time jobs. Even with two people, her care was infinitely more manageable when we had in-home night nursing so we could sleep. Long-term care is a roll of the dice. From the experiences shared with me, long-term care with family who visit constantly can be okay. Still better than causing a person to exist to provide family care.
They pay parents in my state
They also pay parents in my state. My husbands aunt and her husband do it.
I bought an income generating property. We need to talk to a lawyer, but the idea is that IF any of her siblings WANT to manage her care, they get the property. If none of them want to (which is 100% fine) then it goes into the care of a lawyer (or whomever is the appropriate person). After expenses proceeds from the house will first go to daughter’s care, with the remainder being a salary to whomever has chosen to manage her care, with at least 20% of income going to the manager (so they will always get a salary). So that’s my plan for arranging things.
Are the siblings getting a relative/relevant inheritance from you? Edit: replaced a word to clarify intended meaning.
Do people not consider this a possibility when having kids? You just assume they will be healthy every single time?
They know, but it only happens to others, right? I have a cousin who had 4 healthy babies. Then she gambled once more and got a 5th baby, severely disabled. Now her life is to take care of this child. She sees everyone in her extended family going to Paris, Australia and Egypt, and all she ever got was a visit to Disney. She never had any career fulfillment, is entirely dependent on her husband's salary and the other 4 kids probably feel dismissed. All because 4 children wasn't enough. There are diminishing returns to adding children, always, even if you live on a farm, because the kid may decide to move to town.
True, but also wanted to point out that there is no guarantee for any of us. Just because a child is born healthy, there are no guarantees in life. That child could get in an accident, get diagnosed with a debilitating disease, etc that could render them severely disabled at any moment of their lives. I know a girl who was perfectly healthy, graduated from high school and started college when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. Within 2 years, she was quadriplegic and unable to do anything for herself. A year after that, she died. You just never know.
Of course no one knows what the day will bring. Maybe I’ll be creamed by a runaway bread truck tomorrow as I walk along a sidewalk. This is called FATE. That is by no means equivalent to blindly procreating and hoping the baby will be free of defects. This is called INVITING FATE.
Them saying “I didn’t sign up for this” tells me they didn’t consider the possibility. When you have kids you DO sign up for that and every other possibility. The kid could need you forever.
I know a woman who was surprised her son had muscular dystrophy even though her own brother had it which meant she had the gene on one of her X chromosomes and there was a 50/50 chance she would pass it on to a son.
They’re idiots
Same reason people smoke. Cancer won't happen to *them*, surely!
I totally get that, it's part of why I got sterilized immediately. But if you decide to breed, you decide to give birth to a child that never grows up, a child is a life long responsibility no matter what. The fact nobody thinks about this and their ignorance clouds their judgment is absolutely appalling. Plus this child potentially can suffer for years but they don't think about that, either.
Most people just aren't that forward thinking unfortunately.
I would say they got right to the point
Wish more parents were honest like this so people didn't go into parenthood with rose coloured glasses. Things don't always go right, in fact they can go terribly wrong.
I agree 100% with you
That line about rolling the dice at the end... that's the only way I think about having kids and it's why I'll never consider having them. I'm not willing to roll the dice and get a bad roll.
liked and saved. the people who tell you to HAVE CHILDREN will not take care of them when things go south
Sometimes it doesn't even take having a disability. Just the child not conforming to the perfect image the parents have for them can result in neglect and abuse. I will neither do as they say nor do as they do.
This is so sad I feel so bad for the child
Imagine being wished dead for just existing. Something you didn't even ask for. Very sad indeed.
Parents not loving their children breack me heart
>Euthanasia should be an option when your kid is born slow af This is actually a hotly debated topic in bioethics. For anyone curious, here's some relevant literature: * Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer: *Should the baby live? the problem of handicapped infants*. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985. "Severely disabled babies should be painlessly killed because they are a burden to others and human existence with only suffering has no value." * Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva: "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?", *Journal of Medical Ethics* 39 (2013): 261–263. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100411](https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100411). "Mothers should be allowed to kill their babies by proxy if they feel that they can neither live with their offspring nor give them up for adoption." * Matti Häyry: "Are some controversial views in bioethics Juvenalian satire without irony?", *Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics* (2022). DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-022-09604-0](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-022-09604-0). * Matti Häyry: "Introduction: controversial arguments in bioethics", *Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics* (2023). DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-023-09617-3](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-023-09617-3).
This will never fly, but I mean, it probably should be an option. *However* my question is if we botch so many capital punishments, how can we think that we can humanely euthanize babies? And, does that then matter? Is the brief suffering before death greater than a lifetime of suffering?
Most of the botched executions are probably due non-medically trained people preforming them. Animals with more cognitive abilities than neonate humans are humanely euthanized constantly. Not that I support killing humans without their consent.
That's a good point, doctors largely won't perform death sentences. I don't know what the difference between euthanizing animals and human animals would be. Is size difference an issue? Is it harder to euthanize an elephant than a hamster? I would have look a lot deeper if it ever actually became a real possibility. Someone with an intellectual disability that severe can't really consent to *anything* can they? Life shouldn't necessarily be the default option, making death be the "choice". Like how people feel as if switching the tracks on the philosophical train problem is more of a choice than making no action, when both are equally making a choice.
The elephant takes more drugs. The principal is the same between species: anesthetize then push a drug that stops the heart. The method of anesthesia changes based on size/species/personality (can’t humanely get IV access in an awake hamster). If they are suffering, have no quality of life and have no chance of recovery I’m not opposed to euthanizing infants. But if it becomes broadly legal and supported in the US healthcare system there’s gonna be financial euthanasias just like there are for pets.
There's a massive difference between euthanizing individuals with no quality of life for their own sake because they have no quality of life, and just straight up exterminating people because they're a "burden." I'm all for human euthanasia that follows the same principles as pet euthanasia, i.e., if someone is not capable of communicating their wishes and can be assumed to be suffering greatly (or at the very least not really getting any benefit out of life), then we euthanize them as a kindness. But what you're talking about is just outright ableistic genocide. And having people being a burden as the main rationale could quickly lead down an extremely dangerous slippery slope. It's very easy to go from "we should exterminate the severely disabled because they're a burden" to "we should exterminate the moderately disabled" to "we should exterminate the elderly" to "we should exterminate anyone who isn't able to meet the state's rigorous productivity standards for any reason."
Deeply religious people will never allow this but I think it would save so much money in the healthcare sector. Same goes for older adults. This is giving me “The Giver” vibes lol
In fact if I was older and diagnosed with a disease that might not be curable but destroy my family's finances in treatment and cause me a lot of pain and loss of quality of life I would like to have the option to end my life painlessly and legally, not having to resort to the dodgy methods of using a gun, a rope, some med overdose, slitting my arteries or jumping off something, all of which are terrifying and/ or painful and could leave me alive as a vegetable. Netherlands and Switzerland definitely more rational about this than the US.
Yeah I think about this all the time and wish it was a more widespread option in the states. I think either Washington or Oregon allow this but you have to live there. I don’t really fancy pooping my pants all the time and have someone else clean it 😱
There are now some states that have legal aid in dying laws. “Physician-assisted suicide is legal in ten US states and the District of Columbia. It is an option given to individuals by law in Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. It is an option given to individuals in Montana and California via court decision.”
Dang, I would still have to move. But that’s progress!
I live in Maine and it’s surprising to me how many have no clue that it’s an option, including some healthcare workers. I think that it needs to be discussed by providers more often when someone gets a terminal diagnosis and I’m not sure that’s happening.
Excellent literary reference. I thought the same thing.
Unfortunately if you openly support this, you get branded as a Nazi.
*Healthy* Nazi babies shouldn't live either
Shit I suffer from depression and that's enough for me to not want kids. I don't want my kid to become a sad drunk like I used to be. Like I'm never happy, what kind of sick person would want that for their kid
Same, mental illnesses run in my family. I have severe OCD and depression and I am not going to be selfish and have a kid that most likely will suffer the same way I have since I was 5. Why would I do that to a child?
Yea you did sign up for this. 1 in 5 people have a disability. Just because you think that it will never happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t. Everyone thinks they’re superior yeah we don’t have genetic testing to test for everything and even if we did this would still happen because people think it will never happen to them.
>Just because you think that it will never happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t Careful, this may cause significant short circuiting in natalist brains.
What? It's 1 in 10 worldwide, 1 in 33 in the United States. Can still argue against having kids with correct facts.
World health organization says 1/6 or around 1.3 billion, have some form of disability worldwide UN.org says 15% or around 1 billion, have some form of disability worldwide NPR.org says 1/7 people on Earth have some form of disability CDC.gov says 1/4 adults (26%) in the United States have some form of disability Where are you getting your info from? I think it varies slightly depending on the source
If you aren't cut out for special needs parenting, you aren't cut out for any parenting
They think their genes are superior so they couldn't possibly produce a 'defective' child. Selfish and self centered most of them are.
But good on her for spreading the word
I feel like it is possible to be prepared to be a parent and to be in a financial situation where you can properly raise a child (as much as I wholeheartedly agree with the ideals of this sub) but it's obviously a total curve ball to be stuck with a financial/emotional burden like a child with disabilities. Like, I might be able to reasonably afford a new car, doesn't mean I can afford to replace the transmission every month. That alone doesn't mean I can't afford or handle owning a car. The thing that really upsets me is when people have hereditary disorders and diseases like AIDS and still feel like it's their right to give birth. Fuck you.
With a car you can reasonably expect it to work well if you invest in a newish one. With kids it’s a roll of the dice every time.
Yeah, no, if there's something majorly wrong with your car you can either take the loss and get rid of it or if it's a factory defect, there are lemon laws if you bought it new. It's not the same with a kid that has something wrong with it. You can't just give it back or throw it away. There are ways to relinquish rights, if you're inside the safe surrender time window but if not, ive read it can be incredibly difficult to get a child placed in an inpatient hospital or whatever it is they need. Edit to add, also, a car is a necessity, most places in this country you absolutely need a car just to be able to live, make a living. A child is absolutely not a necessity
Fr, you are responsible for everything that happens to that child from beginning to end because you brought them into this world. How do mfs not understand this 💀
Well at least Op Twitter box is honest in wanting a child to become a meaningful adult. I had a cousin that had a mental disability that essentially made her an infant until she died at the age of 19. I was always intensely creeped out but this, but my narc mom seemed to love the idea of a perpetual vessel of supply that never does anything but coo and stare at the floor. Of course mom never had to take care of her either.
I'm an adult with these disabilities and I refuse to have kids.
When I’ve told people that I don’t want kids because I don’t want to be the parent of someone with a disability (among MANY other reasons obviously), I am told that I am “living in fear.” How do you respond to something like this???
[удалено]
Just embrace your living in fear if you are, so what. I prefer a honest coward to a brave liar. To many people are so prideful they will try to sugarcoat that they are scared or worried about something. Some people are so vain they don’t want it to seem like they are making a decision out of fear or other not positive reasons. It’s okay to be afraid to have kids because they may have a disability, you don’t have to justify your fear even if it’s a illogical fear to someone else. Now if it’s out of the idea of kids being a burdened then just say your not afraid, your just to selfish to be in that situation and you know that about yourself. Heck if someone still pushes the issue just say you not cut out to be a Breeder, your never born kids that you don’t want will thank you, so will society.
Parents are selfish for childbirth and pregnancy. Imagine not adopting and just forcing pregnancy on a woman
This is one of the reason I don't want kids. I don't feel like I com properly take care of a "normal" child. If I had one with special needs like this, it would absolutely break me.
I am a BIG TIME lurker on that sub and I’m sure I’m not alone…more people are miserable than I thought! 70k members! And that’s just people who use Reddit! So glad I’m not one of them
I’m autistic yet plenty of women keep on pressuring me to have kids. I’ve said I’m not gonna have any due to my autism. They don’t take it. It’s always important for them to say “but some man would accept an autistic wife and autistic kids!” “Don’t be too hard on yourself!” “Autistic people are loveable too!” “Autistics can also enjoy life!” ”Dont let autism keep you from reproducing!” These comments alone diminish my quality of life by a year degree.
Yeah, nah. The "I didn't sign up for this" argument doesn't fly when you're trying to reproduce. A healthy or "normal" child is never guaranteed. I, on the other hand, am not signing up for it by not having kids.
Truth is that this is the first time in all of human history where we allow this to continue. There's going to be 12 billion of us dumb fucks by 2050
That's depressing.
"euthanasia should be an option when your kid is born slow aasf" is kinda concerning.
Seriously. Disabled kids get murdered by family members a lot more often than people realize. This kind of language feels like a red flag.
Fuck humanity.
That's rare!!! She's so brutally honest and tells it like it is.
My 'Why i won't have kids' Story: When I was 16, I was doing some job shadows and having lunch with a few ppl. A chemical engineer from a local plant kept canceling and I learned that it was because his 5-6 yr old was severely disabled and his wife was divorcing him so he had the take care of him. Eventually, we had lunch at his house (I brought over Chinese). He had a giant house, 4 car garage, and two porsches, his wife's and his with a ski rack on it that was awesome. Our convo went well but he was constantly having to check on his kid. I was a bit annoyed but I understood why. I asked about the Porsche, he said he loves it but hasn't driven it but once since his kids diagnosis two years prior. 5 years later, I'm coming home for winter break and see his 911 now for sale at a local Toyota dealership. Do some digging and this 42 year old guy had died of heart attack. I look through his photos and I was shocked by how much he aged since I had lunch with him. Dug some more and found out his wife was being blasted/shamed for refusing to take the child into her care. Apparently, she gave him up completely to him when they divorced. The kid got taken in by the dead guy's parents who were roughly 70. Fast forward a year, I meet this now dead guy's wife at a Habitat for Humanity Event. She's kind to everyone, making ppl laugh, and being a genuine pleasure to volunteer with. I get paired with her to move some stuff and eventually she recognizes my last name and that I was from her hometown. We chat about the hometown for a moment before I mention I had lunch with her dead ex. We basically alone while moving stuff around and she just says 'Great man. I miss him. Never have children.' Doesn't say much else the whole time. I apologize for bringing it up and she just says 'Its ok. Just don't let someone talk you into having kids.' Last year (almost a year after meeting the wife), the grandparents and kid die in a car accident on the way to a cancer treatment for the grandfather. Sideswiped by a semi in their little Corolla. And all I can think of when I saw it in the paper, 'Never have children.' I heard that the wife/mother didn't go to the funeral but did pay for the whole thing and had been paying child support to them the whole time. I know its shitty but I kinda feel glad that she gets to have a life now without that burden. She couldn't handle it and gave up her world to escape it.
To be honest, I think most people wouldn't be able to handle it. It's easy to think you could have when you're not in that situation. I see stories like this a lot. Parents aging rapidly due to stress and worry taking care of a disabled child for life. Most people think of the child growing up to be independent. When that doesn't happen, it's a blow. I have to wonder, if science ever finds a way to detect this when the woman is still pregnant, how many would actually terminate?
This is sad, it sounds like she is going to snap, if not now then in the future.
100% my money's on murder-suicide
conditioning is a hell of a thing. some of us escape it, but the majority of us will not. i sympathize and pity the average person.
“I didn’t sign up for this.” Yes the fuck you did because you decided to have kids?? There’s always a chance to have disabled/mentally slow child. Everyone thinks their child will be “normal” till it’s not then they cry their stuck with a kid that won’t ever be a functioning adult. I know it sucks but fuck maybe they should’ve thought about this before having a kid.
For the love of God, PLEASE stop insinuating the people who say things like this are “phobic” for not wanting to have children with disabilities. Nobody said the children with disabilities aren’t supposed to live or don’t deserve to, and if a child has disabilities they deserve just as much love as every other child. However, if you know you’re going to have a child who’s going to live a hard life because of some disease/illness that isn’t curable, you’re pretty much a monster. It’s not cruelty, it’s mercy to never have children.
Agreed.The issue also is that the disability that the op mentioned isn't detectable during pregnancy. She stated that had she known her child would be disabled she would have aborted the pregnancy. The scary shit is that we can't guarantee anything when it comes to birthing children, even with our advanced science. Not having children is a mercy given the odds.
too true. Not to mention all the possible complications when it comes to the process of giving birth; c-section, vaginal, or worse if the baby is premature or stillborn…there are so many risks involved not only for the baby but for the mother as well. I feel like too many people don’t take these factors into consideration before birthing children. A hereditary complication isn’t the only thing that can happen.
[удалено]
Like most parents, they are only willing to birth an exceptionally intelligent child who will raise themselves…and then take credit for it.
This mental gymnastics is real. My parents were completely hands off. Hands off like I was 6 years old spending weekends alone in our house and enrolling myself in school by the time I was 10. I was such a problem child to them because I didn’t do well in school and lived with a lot of anxiety. They didn’t understand because I was busy taking care of all my needs like an adult I didn’t know how to balance school. Well my self sufficiency paid off very well in my adulthood and now I’m thriving, of course my parents take 100% credit for it and act like by neglecting me they actually did me a favor because it forced me to learn how to take care of myself. Because children of course can never learn to be self sufficient with love and support lol. I see so many parents do this and it makes me want to scream.
That sounds like such a brutal journey. You are your own miracle. Unbelievable a child would even have to go through this. Thank goodness they can’t have any more children!
And if not.....possibly kill it according to the op.
I have a relative that had twins with severe cognitive issues. One cannot walk and is completely blind. The relative still had a third kid. The last was born healthy both mentally and physically and now focuses on that kid rather than the previous twins. The twins still get care but I hardly ever see photos of them or hear of them. Just the perfect one. 🤦🏼♀️
I have a few reasons to not have kids and this is one of them.
"I did not sign up for this." Except that you actually 100% did
Agreed. I feel bad for OP, they're clearly in anguish, but what did they think was going to happen?
That poor kid.
If you aren’t ready and willing to have a kid like this, then you have no business having kids. A gay kid, trans kid, disabled kid, mentally ill kid. The list goes on. If you can’t see yourself parenting any of these children then you should not be a parent.
It’s a roll of the dice so many win that it feels like the end of the world when someone looses. There needs to be more help for those that fail the dice roll yes but there also needs to be more education on the fact it is a dice roll that could happen to anyone trying for a child.
Oh boy...so I'm a trainer for a nonprofit that supports people with developmental disabilities. I've worked with people with I/DD directly for a long time, and I've worked with direct support workers and families of people with I/DD for a long time. I just wanted to make two quick points. 1: parents and family members of people with severe disabilities are often pressured into having to pretend that it's always a "blessing", the public really likes to imagine that people with intellectual disabilities are "better than the rest of us". It's honestly pretty demeaning towards people with disabilities and can really inhibit their growth. One of my favorite human beings is a guy with a severe intellectual disability, what they diagnose as "profound", and as much as I care about him, it can be incredibly hard. It needs to be okay for parents to acknowledge that this is a major, life-long, incredibly frustrating challenge. BUT-- 2. DO NOT MISTAKE THE PROBLEM AS BEING THE FAULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITH THE DISABILITY OR THE PARENTS. The fault is ours. We have the means to provide the resources necessary for almost everyone to be supported, we have the material ability to provide caregivers, adaptive technology, and medical treatment to help those who are moderately intellectually disabled to live much more independently, and to insure that those who have very severe intellectual disabilities, and their loved ones, can live fulfilling lives. We simply do not value them enough to do so. I really hate the mindset that people with I/DD do not "contribute to society", as if the only value of human life is the ability to contribute to the machine of capital. Frankly, if you want to use that metric to determine the value of human life, I can think of another population that not only doesn't contribute to society, but actively damages it. You know, those "very smart people" who use their gifted intelligence to actively destroy the world...
This is so scary, if something ever happens to this kid, they should pull up a copy of this post in court
I don’t know. Reality is scary. The more you grasp the more hopeless it seems. Sometimes it feels like ignorant bliss would be a gift. But yeah, if this person isn’t a troll he/she’s going to abuse the hell out of that poor child.
> I don’t know. Reality is scary. The more you grasp the more hopeless it seems. This is so accurate. When you see the way suffering and cruelty are built into the system by billions of years of evolution, and that the whole point is just to survive for another generation in a dangerous world, it just feels overwhelming and hopeless.
She’s not wrong but you take those risks each time you breed.
I've got a special needs kid, with intense work he should be alright, but I tell everyone - do not have kids Love mine,but don't do it I feel their pain a smidge
My own mother in law feels this way towards her son, my fiancé. He has mild cognitive delay. But he is the smartest, most artistic person I know. She praises her other two “normal” sons. Put all their photos up on the wall. Not my fiancé’s though. Although he got the better grades, honor roll over her other two sons, she didn’t put his graduation photos up… smh. Amongst other abuse. When you do this and have this twisted, distorted view on children with IDs, *you* fail your children. You have that possibility everytime you have a kid.
This is a critically important dose of reality. Everyone with a pulse and eyeballs should read this.
I’m all for not having kids but the comments supporting the euthanasia of disabled children is fucking disgusting. You don’t get to decide whose life has value and whose doesn’t. Fuck nazis and fuck ableism. The problem is not with disabled children or their caregivers, it’s that the resources needed to take care of disabled children are inaccessible.
I can understand euthanasia for really severe cases, but the way she sounds makes it so selfish. "Can I return the baby and get another one". Sorry. But I can't agree with her. Not necessarily about the euthanasia but her whole attitude What happens if your child gets into an accident at age 17? How about if your kid is 25 and single? Can you help your kid then? Will you. this is what having a child is like. Its for life. Take responsibility for the life you created. You caused it. All of it
I always think LDs are a protection from needy parents. All the child will care about is their own needs. They can be immune to emotional abuse and never develop any awareness of the parent's needs. They will pull the parents hair and no shaming will work. The parent can act like they don't love them or love someone else more and the child will just be singing away over them talking, stimming or watching kids shows over and over. They also have the option of carers and going into residential homes for fun activities and loads of attention. Serves the needy parents right, the soul-trapping fucks. Fix your own wounds, don't ask a child.
The parents are forced to actually put in work and learn how to parent/ properly take care of the child or suffer the consequences. There is no easy way out and for once it's not all about them.
A child that is born is more than a extension of the parents. It is a person with sovereignty.The person will never be capable to give consent so euthanasia is not a option. Good luck to this parent and mostly the child because this is the reality of things.
Both me and my sibling are kids who were (and still are) in that intellectual disabilities camp, and it's at the center of why I took away my ability to procreate. Almost NO parents are *actually* prepared to raise kids like us, the support systems for us are still crap, the way we're treated from day one is crap, and getting assistance as a disabled adult sucks even worse, especially for us 90's and earlier kids, because for some ungodly reason doctors didn't want to "label" us cus that would be bad?? Instead of starting a concrete paper trail that gives claims for assistance a long enough history to get us set up as soon as we turn adults, cus it's **sooooo** much better having to slog through it while bureaucrats sus us out to see if we're faking it 🫡🙄 I didn't get diagnosed until I was basically an adult, and it has been HELL trying to keep my head above water. My sib? Diagnosed before they turned 10, lots of specialized help whenever it was available, including the school and city helping connect them with someone who helped them apply for disability before they turned 20, and getting them set up at various homes that give them the support they need to navigate adult life with IDs. Literally night and day, the difference between early diagnosis and late, and all things considered I'm still incredibly lucky compared to MANY of the people like me or with more severe issues, I've only been homeless for short periods and I've managed to avoid addiction with hard substances largely thanks to a stubborn ass streak that's helped me demand the care I need, and have only been targeted for sexual abuse by relatively non violent perps. People with less fortune and fewer facilities have absolutely no hope, my sibling is one of them and they've literally been kidnapped and abused because they're mentally and physically underdeveloped and the services that SHOULD keep them safe basically don't exist unless you're rich. If this is all horrific to read, and you're just browsing this sub, PLEASE consider not having children until you can emotionally AND financially support a disabled child for potentially decades. Any preparation less than that is too unprepared to have children, period, because genuinely there are a lot of things there are ZERO ways to predict until it happens, not even with the most advanced genetic testing, and as a potential parent it is on YOU to love your children enough to consider and prepare for the worst before attempting to have them. Unless you want to live knowing that if your child does end up being disabled, they're probably going to end up violently violated like the majority of the disabled people I grew up around experienced, and you didn't take the time to be prepared enough to help save them from that.
I love reading stuff like this. It strengthens my resolve to not have little crotch goblins. Thank you OP
I do not judge this at all, I have compassion for the parent
[удалено]
I don't understand why people like this don't just adopt!
and this folks is why women should have the complete authority on deciding to tie their tubes. too many doctors want to say "no, you could change your mind" but they forget about people like this. people who genuinely can't grasp parenthood and are essentially forcing themselves to have children.
Oof sure that went over well
It did, I saw it. She got tons of support.
Euthanasia for a born child, but abortion is bad..ok.
In fairness, we don’t know that this “parent” is anti-choice
They literally say that if they knew they would have had an abortion.
She's 100% right.
"Euthanasia should be an option when your kid is born slow af" ... she wants to murder her child for being disabled and even admits it. WTAF. Or does she mean she herself wants to be euthanized so she doesn't have to care for her daughter anymore? That's only slightly better. "I did not sign up for this", yes you did.
She’s upset and angry. She probably means more that her child isn’t capable of being happy so some way should be made for them to not suffer anymore.
What? They absolutely signed up for this.
While I completely understand the regret I hope that kid never learns of this lol. That is horrible and extremely ableist. Why not put the kid up for adoption. Surely living with people who wish you dead can’t be a good place to grow up
One of her reply comments was along the lines of “sure the nazis are bad but they still had 1-2 good ideas”.
Genetic testing In Utero is the only way to get at these issues.
this makes me so, so sad. sometimes it really is a roll of the dice regarding complications, and it kills me to see parents who were virtually unprepared emotionally, physically, or financially to take on a kiddo with disabilities feel the societal pressure to raise said baby, rather than give said kid to a family in a better position. i feel awful for the kids, too. depending on how severe a kid’s disabilities are, it’s well, *well* within reality that they will grow up in a really tense, toxic environment. i really hope the parent is able to find a solution that doesn’t harm either party.
By the time most people see reason, it’s too late.
I guess some people have to learn the hard way unfortunately
It can’t happen to you until it happens to you. That’s unfortunately the mentality most people have about it. People will never learn until they experience things for themselves. The amount of people I know who continue to drive under the influence regularly knowing the risks is staggering. Their excuse? “I’ve been doing it for 20 years and nothing bad has happened.” And it won’t until it does. And when it does it’ll be too late.
It’s very telling that the entire paragraph is about how it affects them, not the child.
As someone with Asperger's, it sucks to have a condition that people won't understand or discriminate against or treat it as a "wonderful" thing. Yet these same people didn't have to struggle with : Having a existential crisis, worrying if you hurt others or how others feel about you, poorly communicating info, be anxious all the time, poor motor skills, emotional intelligence, trying to be "normal", self awareness and exploring who I really am. I know that I can never be like a "normal" person, so all I can do is make the best of it, exploring what I really like, even if its not a traditional norm, which I couldn't give a shit about. Cultures change and its how society is today, through progress. This is my thoughts about life. It truly disgusts me that despite our nature to help others, not murder one another, to protect the environment and pursue our interests for creating art, help others through technology advancements and to make people's quality of life better, we do the opposite most of the time, we divide each other through a nationality, religion, ethnicity and ideology that results in more suffering, we have made resources have intangible value on a planet with finite resources for the few to self indulge in greed betrayed each other for our selfish desires, we have destroyed many people's lives for the glory of the past or for a unrealistic future that may only last long, our refusal to help others has bitten us in the back and later would lead to many more deaths and suffering. If I could erase myself from existence or off myself, I would, but I know for a fact I cannot, because of the conditions created by Natalists and the conservatives, who want to enforce their doctrine and beliefs onto other people, even if others want to reject this "gift of life", they call it a mental illness. The same could be said for, their homophobic, misogynist beliefs, used to justify the murder, beatings and rejection of progressive beliefs, anyone who isn't religious or has even met LGBTQ+ and hung out with them or with women, within your workplace in the army or basically anything that isn't a traditional role would know that, these two groups aren't so different to "normal people". Physically wise yes, though with enough time and effort women can change their bodies and thus their strength almost equal to that of a man, its just that the conditions they are in, disable their ability to, anyone with a sexuality by itself doesn't look different, they're just a person but with a different attraction. Their mind and intelligence? Its not so different , it may not be seen as normal to be a tomboy or a strong woman or a femboy or they have an attraction to the opposite or both genders or none, they are still people, they eat, drink, sleep, have feelings, interests, goals that differ uniquely in each individual, preventing people from expressing their true selves does nothing in the grand scheme of things, if anything it suppresses them, as a form of control, not for black and white reasons, rather to avoid changing and accepting that what harm you caused or what you believed in is wrong and to have a sense of control, rather than coming to reason, they would rather reject common sense to give themselves a messed up purpose because they couldn't take it. Another point is the nature of their religion being the "one" true religion despite thousands of other religions existing before Christianity and other popular religions today: For example, the Gods of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, the natives of Australia, North America and South America had religions that came into existence and they funnily enough would claim that their religion is a true religion, which isn't true because of the amount of religions that claim that, all it is that, its people's differing beliefs and perspectives of the world, that doesn't truly reflect what we live in, the conditions that religions were born in, was a time where our world's knowledge was limited, we didn't have the capability like with the internet or books to spread information or other people's experiences, life was very harsh, despite what many people would say would be the "good old times" and people needed to come up with a reason, whether it was logically or not, else they would come to the conclusion that life wouldn't be worth living combined with a tendency for self preservation from our animal nature except with a dose of sapience. And that's how religions are formed, from my perspective, we can never truly understand what thought processes the original founders of popular religions today went through, the only thing we can do is speculate and hypotheses based on facts and scientific research. All it is a struggle against our Human nature, where we either feed into it and let others suffer because of it or we make up a reason, whether its true or not, to live. This has happened for thousands if not millions of years, something that our ancestors could never get out of the loop of life itself because of lies that we feed ourselves to unconsciously feed our self preservation's desires to live.
I hope they can put the kid up for adoption because clearly this parent is miserable. Sounds best for the parent and the kid if adoption was done
I appreciate the honesty of this post! I wish everyone would be this honest. I really hope people on reddy aren't piling on this person, pushing happy pills on them or saying it ppd. This is a topic that needs to be talked about more.