I feel ya, I've always been a mix of "not ready" and "not wanting". Then my perspective on what fatherhood even is shifted and I was able to unshackle myself from the Christian thing.
That said, if you don't want kids for yourself then what impact are you having on those 20 somethings when you soapbox about how difficult and dangerous the world is?
Have those people committed to not have kids until those issues are resolved? And have they set thresholds of easier, safer, more affordable to trigger their child rearing?
Here's a random paranoid tangent before lunch! I was reading recently about the evolution of theater in England over a hundred years from ~1550-1650. Elizabeth ruled during the first part of that interval, and Shakespeare wrote. His plays included perspectives from wide slices of society and were performed for royalty and commoners alike. Elizabeth died and private theatrical commissions began to outgrow public theater, which according to wikipedia "sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades".
Starting in 1642 theaters were closed entirely by act of a Puritanical Parliament. That ban lasted 18 years and once the audience was Quite Thirsty, the English Restoration restored theater abstractly and filled it with bawdy raunch.
Yada yada, Disney then hired a crew of weepy Christian writers in the 20th century to repackage folk tales into Little Mermaid and Iron Man, which seems parallel enough to Shakespeare retelling Ovid. Film flourished, and in the early days of broadcast TV anybody could star in their own very own program. The Writers were on the brink of delivering us Heroes, but they up and left before they could save the cheerleader.
Now this age of regurgitated, computer animated-and-written, crowdsource produced art seems familiar, too. We're filling the gaps with what we know, and the Appalachians wielding the pen are finding gaps they didn't know were there. It's odd being here, but my point is that if we are stuck in a loop then there's the potential that on the horizon is a period of Hollywood producing a bunch of light hearted Boob Comedies.
This post is creating company culture by its promotion of ditching coworkers and seeking validation through memes. Disassociation is the problem!
moralizing "diminishing relationships to promote etc" sounds like ayn-rand-libertarian-christian-nationalist-trumper lizard folk valuing the ability to say horrible things to people then hoist blame on them for corrupting society while camouflaged behind a veil of repentant self-exile
11 shots of tequila
why wouldn’t they?
a task you need to be sober for
Did somebody get drunk and imagine herself the victim again?
"Hey wanna hang out?"
"I can't sorry, a Catholic witch on the Internet was on her hands and knees crying begging me to live a tortured life and I felt bad telling her no"
losing sleep over Big Values because you got caught pirating is common catholic crybaby, but the cheapskate won't pay to enter and find out
me: picking imaginary fights with made up enemies is toxic
some jerk: no it doesn't!
I love to uncle, too. I passed on military entirely and rejected workplace leadership for awhile, but aging into "older male" triggers that itch sometimes. I've always joked that I like to rent not own, now my friends have kids and I got bonus nieces and nephews. It sounds like yours do have someone looking out for them. Good job, man!