No, it's not a bad thing.

There really is an upper limit to the number of humans this planet can support. What that number is doesn't matter. All that matters is it's somewhere in front of us, blocking the road and we're picking up speed every day.

I even think of it as an evolutionary adaptation, a kind of homeostasis regulator. The closer we get to overpopulation, the fewer of us want to procreate. Makes all kinds of sense to me.

A bad sign of what?

I'm not having children (and I'm 40) because I've never been crazy about kids and want to keep living my own life.

Look around... not many people are truly happy, and we live in a social structure that promotes waste, consumerism and greed, and it's not making many people happy. Exactly what is bad about not wanting to push a child into that environment? How is it a "bad sign" that I don't need to find fulfillment externally or through someone else?

How is it a bad sign that I live in a day and age when I CAN actually make these choices with some ease?

How is it a "bad sign" that my lifestyle uses less resources? More gasoline and plastic junk for the rest of you LOL...

I think it's mostly socioeconomic. Children cost a lot of money in our society usually and people don't really reach a period of suitable income until their 30s or later. We have a disconnect between when it's appropriate in our "lifecycle" to have children culturally/economically and when it's appropriate in our biology. One of the biggest causes of infertility is simply waiting too low, though there are some other worrying things out there like the major decline in semen quality in all men of all ages.

Personally, I know I'll get a lot of flack for this, but I think women should start family planning in their late teens/early twenties so they can adjust their relationships and career trajectory based on their family goals. On one site people attacked me for saying that since "things change." Yeah, of course things change in EVERYTHING, but that doesn't mean making plans doesn't help people.

Maybe because I was homeschooled I spent a lot of time growing up around older women (at church and other places) who were struggling to conceive and it had a big effect on me. Every women has different priorities, but I decided to make having children before 30 a priority.

EDIT: There has been some talk here about how having a child reduces risk of breast cancer. In the extremely enlightening article "The breast/nipple/areola complex and human sexuality" I learned that this only works if you have the baby (not just get pregnant) before you are young (before 24, though before 30 seems to have an effect, albeit a lesser one). Luckily, merely stimulating the nipples (IE in a erotic situation) seems to also have an effect 0_o

I think it's a very good thing. We have enough people on Earth. And there are always going to be plenty of people who want kids.

Once a country achieves a good quality of life (and reliable contraception) for both women and men, the birth rate plummets. It's just how it is. Give people choices in how to live their lives, they will choose to have fewer children on average and more will have none at all. Having kids is expensive, and while it can be rewarding, it's not exactly fun and games. Totally understand people who choose not to reproduce, although I know I want at least one biological child.

I don't really see a decline in children where I live; but it may also be that since getting pregnant and having a child, most of the places we go are child friendly. There are plenty of children being brought into the world right now.

I think that if you don't want to be a parent - you shouldn't! It is NOT an easy job - especially to be a good parent. It's full of sleepless nights, worry, lack of social-life, sex-life, stretch marks, leaky boobs etc. etc. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE being a mom - but if you aren't sure, or don't want to be I totally support your choice.

Growing up, my parents were the only couple out of their friends to have a child - the lives that the DINKs (double income no kids) were able to have were rich and amazing. So was our life though too - I really think it's all about what you want out of life.

According to the article, my husband and I are "undecideds" and it's for a multitude of reasons and "unhealthy" isn't one of them.

Most parents I see look exhausted, slightly aggravated by, and ready to bolt from their children. Sure, there are other parents who obviously love spending time with their kids, but none of them seem energized by it and even they are almost constantly correcting the kid. It's an always on, no-break job.

I have thought about it and realized I would be in a perpetual state of worry if I had a kid. I still claim Undecided status as, since I haven't actually ever had a kid, what if I'm wrong? But I haven't convinced myself it would be healthy for me--or the poor kid who would have to live with me--to take the chance and then deal with all that stress.

Besides, I have plenty of nieces and nephews. 8)

On the contrary, it's actually completely unnatural to desire to procreate and is wholly the result of cultural influences. Humans are the only animal that says, "I want a little fat version of myself to be brought into existence." The rest of the organisms on Earth simply copulate and then cope with the result. If you raise a human in a lab, they don't ever have a conscious desire to create babies unless you introduce the idea to them. It's not hard-wired simply because it's not necessary to do so. We have evolved to have sexual desire, which indirectly leads to reproduction, so there's no need to hard-wire an actual desire for the end result itself. The "biological clock" as it is often described is a total myth; it's a cultural clock.

I embrace my sentience and choose freedom over self-imposed slavery to offspring.

An interesting hypothesis, but I am doubtful. I don't see how ill health would lead to a desire not to have children or lack of desire to have children. The most plausible mechanism would be ill health reducing sex drive and thereby leading to people not wanting to have children. But I don't think that this is the explanation, because however far ill health is reducing our sex drives, I don't think that this is the cause of increasing numbers of people not wanting to have children. If this were so, then the people not wanting to have children would also not be wanting to have sex, but I suspect that this isn't the case. In fact, I should think that many of the people not wanting to have children still want to have sex (and maybe don't want to have children because they still want to have sex unimpeded by children) and that there are lots of people with no sex drive, but who want to have children.

I suspect that the explanations are all primarily sociological and these reasons are easy enough to imagine. The article cites enough though: "We watched [parents] struggle to pay bills, find suitable apartments or houses to fit their families, and work at jobs they didn't like because they needed the insurance."

I appreciate that this is going to be totally controversial but this is said from the viewpoint of a teacher in a deprived area in the UK. What I seem to see (and I may be wrong) are intelligent educated thoughtful people choosing not to have children whilst people with less aspirations and who place much less value on education or even employment having more than two children - in some cases many more. It may just be what I see but I know families with 5 generations living - grandparents in their 30s and 40s, parents in their teens and early 20s who have never worked. Obviously there is an issue here with our benefits system but if you are implying that poor health leads to a decrease in desire to reproduce then I'd say the opposite - it is the poor, uneducated and most unhealthy who have the most children round here. I hope it is just a symptom of the particular area I teach in - still recovering from the closure of the mines by Thatcher in the 80s - and not a nationwide trend but I have to say that it worries me.

Evolution induced the instinct to have sex, not to procreate. It's only very recently that they haven't amounted to the same thing. If current trends continue, then evolution will start favouring those humans who actively want to have children. Previously, the conscious desire to have children was not necessary to get people to reproduce.

This is an interesting question. I would guess that it's more sociological than biological. Let's face it. A lot of women are in the workforce now and so taking care of a child requires a great deal. Indeed, you will have two jobs, the 9-5 one and then the one at home. Also there is a not so subtle cultural message to resist anything averse to your own personal freedom.

[edit: change "no the joys" to "know the joys". Talk about your freudian slops. } I have three children and know the joys that it brings. However, it is a burden of sorts and I think a lot of people are incapable of imagining the joys and only reflect on the burdens. That's just my opinion.

Now, another thing to consider is the "nuclear" family. Imagine if you lived in a "hunter-gatherer" society where paternity might not be know or might be attributed to numerous men. You would have a number of parties interested in taking care of the children and so the "burden" would not just fall on two parents.

Just read the book Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton. He makes it quite evident to reproduce in times like this is counterproductive to the future of humans. Bruce Lipton is one of the leaders in epigenetics and quantum mechanics. Think of this.....we humans have fallen in a terrible rut for the last 100 years.....we keep doing the same thing and expect different results...well that is the definition of insanity! We cannot continue making the same mistakes over an over again or there will be an apocalypse. The law of attraction does work.....those who think the end of the world is coming (religious people) have thought and possibly brought their beliefs to reality. Sound crazy? Nope it's not....read the book....and there are plenty more like it that just make since.

It's profoundly unhealthy to avoid having children. It's not like you've got to actively go round trying, but to actively short circuit the system? This is just like eating soy, wheat, etc... it's just a different domain.

Think of contraception as an I.Q. test. It's a low bar, but it is a bar. Some can actually follow the instructions on the package; others get pregnant. So, unless intelligent people actually commit to having children, things will be pretty bleak for the human race. (Things will also be pretty bleak for Gaia too, you planet-loving hippy, if your kin ain't around to stop Idiocracy from turning into a documentary.)

The happiness research has been downright silly. Parents tend to be worried about more stuff, mainly because they are responsible for their children. So when you call parents, versus when you call a singe person and ask them if they are happy, who's more likely to say they are happy? Do we even have a reasonable expectation to believe both people mean the same thing when they say they are happy?

Over-population continues to be a myth. Since the Population Bomb in the 70s onward, every prediction these people make has failed to materialize. We've got a large population but it doesn't matter as much as people think, and the trend is toward fewer children. Russia is actively trying to encourage reproduction; China is in real trouble with a mostly male population; the 'western' countries have low birth rates associated with affluent women; the Japanese are old; I could go on, but I think I've killed my quota of semicolons for today.

And then, what is psychologically healthy? I think there exists an unhealthy assumption among those that seek to find themselves. The search assumes you are static and that you are not wherever you are. Meanwhile, obviously you have a body, so you are there in some meaningful way and you change! Children are a part of that change, part of the full range of human experience.

By "flirty" excuse me forty...women have a different agenda anyway!

We are more concerned with our slowly decline in feminity and overall lifespan as a rule this is a midlife time for reflection of the past and making the most out of the future to come!~

Typicaly by this time a child could possibly greatly hinder both meanwhile maintaining it's own progression, the very definition of motherhood. If you are ready for this very real, purposful and initially bloody self-sacrifice (said tongue in cheek)...PROCREATE