Comment by toomuchtodo

I would reject that the goodness of children or parenthood is a matter of opinion. They are objectively good and intrinsically meaningful. What may or may not be a good idea is being a parent yourself. Parenthood requires a basic maturity that some people don't have, and some people may have lives that are too prohibitive or demanding in some manner, or they may have chosen to sacrifice parenthood for some noble end (like running an orphanage), but these are outliers, among others.

Parenthood is very central to our humanity. Fatherhood is a core expression of masculinity while motherhood is a core expression of femininity. Of course, parenthood isn't always expressed by having biological children. In the Catholic Church, for example, priests assume a paternal role in their parishes, while religious sisters often assume a maternal role by becoming teachers or by mentoring young novices. In such cases, such people choose to sacrifice their biological parenthood for the sake of a worthy good, and here, a parental role that isn't biological. Pathological expressions of the subconscious parental desire can be seen when people treat their pets like children (like those women who push their dogs around in strollers and pamper them in obscene ways).

However, in a healthy society, most people will choose to have biological children. The outliers do not disprove the general. And the fact that so many people are actively choosing not to have children is a sign of cultural decadence and decline.

When you speak of "autonomy", what is this "experience" of the one life you have in mind? Being a parent is, of course, such an experience, and not just one of many you can choose from, but an experience that is deeply central to being human. That so many are choosing not to have children is not the result of some spiritual awakening where they are choosing to sacrifice having children for some worthy noble end. The argument from autonomy is really an argument from self-indulgence. The objective richness and centrality of parenthood to human life is typically traded by such people for a life of pointless and empty "experiences", or lesser goods. By hiding behind "autonomy" and some relativized notion of preference, parenthood becomes as banal as choosing a flavor of ice cream, which it isn't.

No one is forced to have children, and no one in particular needs to have them, but as I said earlier, when a culture is healthy, most people will choose to have them. That so many are choosing not to is not a matter of choosing chocolate over vanilla, but usually, it is a matter of trivializing one's life by choosing comfort, self-indulgence, and the avoidance of responsibility and commitment. These stand in the way of a voracious, egotistical autonomy. But such autonomy does not make us grow as human beings. It stifles our development, feeds narcissism, and imagines us and our appetites as the center of the universe. In the end, it is a dehumanizing recipe for unhappiness and misery. So the basic problem is not firstly the falling statistic, but the narcissistic attitude engendered by vacuous hyperindividualism.