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It's such a huge and personal decision. You shouldn't really make a decision based on how other people describe their experience. I saw this on reddit ages ago and this is is probably the single best summary of the experience I've seen.
I can describe my experience, but you need to understand people's biases. My bias is that I always liked kids. I enjoyed playing with nephews and nieces. I now work with children and have 2 of my own kids. The decision for children doesn't come about in a vacuum. I had a wife who wanted kids too. I had a stable job and felt ready. Even then I had no idea what I was in for. Kids put major demands on your time, money, energy, patience and marriage. I have one child which some might call "a difficult child" and one who is very demanding (as expected for a "normal" child). This is definitely life on hard-mode. Children really force you to face your own issues and get over yourself. It has been great for me. I wouldn't change a thing about my "difficult" children. Giving them a good life and catering to their needs is an undescribable satisfaction and fulfilment in itself. I'm learning more than I'm teaching them. I wish work didn't take so much of my time and energy so I had more for them. I asked my wife if she wanted to work full-time, because I would happily stay at home or work part-time and spend more time with the kids. I can't get enough of my kids and the time you get at each stage of their life flies by in an instant.
That's starkly in contrast that with large proportions of Lemmy (and Reddit) which have quite vocal child-free populations with a very individualist ideology. Everyone's circumstances and biases are different.
Edit: People also tend to be more open about defending their current position rather than expressing regret (i.e. had children and hated it, or didn't have children and regretted it); both of these populations exist and tend to be quieter because of social stigma.
I was onboard until you described the child-free movement as individualistic.
It is not selfish to decline child creation, especially given current affairs.
I didn't interpret their use of the word individualistic as an assertion that those who choose to be child-free are selfish. Selfish has a negative connotation to it that I don't feel they were going for. I think they were just contrasting that while being a parent requires putting yourself aside and focusing on a different human, being child-free allows a person to focus on their individual goals, whims, what have you.
I also agree with you that there is nothing wrong with a person choosing not to have kids, and there's a lot of reasons to pick from. For me, those are:
•I have never yearned for motherhood
•I find pregnancy impressive from a biological perspective but at the same time horrific and something I never want to go through
•I am prone to depression which makes it hard for me to care for myself on a consistent basis so I am not going to bring another life into this world only to be too swamped in self-loathing to take care of them
•I detest humanity, we have spent our entire existence as a species ravaging the earth as well as each other and I see no end to it. I hate that realistically I will have to watch people be cruel to each other for the rest of my life and have decided not to create another human who has to trudge through this hellscape which undoubtedly will only be worse off in their future
Relating individualism to selfishness is a leap you've made, not me. I haven't even referred to being child-free as a negative anywhere, just pointing out the variety of stances and opinions to OP and I've actually emphasised that everyone's situation is different.
You've argued against some logical leap/straw-man in your mind rather than anything I've said.
I'm not the person you replied to, but what exactly did you intend individualist to mean in this context? When I look at individualism on Wikipedia, it seems to be a self-centered philosophy - 'Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government.'
Signing up to take care of and be at the whims others is less “individualist” than the alternative. News at 11.