Why do people want kids?

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Oh i definitely didn't mean to imply poor people shouldn't have kids! I'm sorry if it came across like i was attacking people from a certain economical background, that def wasn't my intention! And you and your wife sound like great parents so i wasn't talking about people like you at all!
What i was talking about was people who don't have the emotional maturity/ stable home life like alcoholics or people who beat their wives, people who don't even like their children but have them because of societal pressure. Or people who leave their wife and children if the child has an illness because they don't want to deal with that. (this is VERY common in my country) So basically of course people shouldn't wait to be rich to have children, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any sacrifices and responsibilities and they should be prepared for that!
(Btw sorry for my english it's not my first language)

Your English is great, so don't be worried! Something I have noticed about second language English speakers is their English is better than native speakers. When you speak a language long enough you forget the rules, something we in "Mericuh" are guilty of. Where I'm from, English is barely recognizable. lol

If I may ask, where are you from?

I agree with your thinking...
Procreating is one of my worst nightmares, btw...

If you believe there is no inherent meaning to life...
If you believe in the principles implicit in the book "The selfish gene" by Richard Dawkins...
If you believe evolution has infused the urge to reproduce...
If you believe "love" is a dissociative state with the "express intention" <sic> of inducing procreation...
If you believe society is complicit in the dissemination of the parenting meme...
Then perhaps parenting is not for you...



No offense intended but...
In your situation with a child, your are hardly in a position to be totally objective...

In a nutshell...
Most aspies are intellectuals/rationalists...
Most Neurotypicals are emotionalists, not rationalists...
Overwhelmingly, most on this website are autistic...
Hence the overwhelming posts regarding the realities of life...
Simples <meerkat smile>

Thank you I actually thought the opposite, most people around me say my english is good but i thought it would be different for a native speaker.
I'm from Turkey, and people here are kind of pushy about the need to have a family so maybe that's why i came across a little harsh, again sorry for that!

It's really not. The bare basics of neurology as a response to stimuli explains the drive to procreate. Sure, you could frame it in terms of social pressures, add psychological nuance and a thousand other contextual arguments which revolve around morality, culture, and so on, but we're really not all that different from other primates when it comes to sex, sexuality, sensuality, etc.

People want kids because we're hardwired to seek out and enjoy the activity which leads to having kids.

We justify it to ourselves with semantic platitudes that fit into our perceptual social construct, but it's simply part of our "programming".

I was addressing the question of why sex feels good. Subjective qualifications aren't simply a matter of neurology. If that were true, we'd ask why orgasms feel so good, not why does sex feel so good. If it were a matter purely of reproductive instinct, you wouldn't have the complication of sex for pleasure rather than babydancing. Humans aren't alone in non-reproductive intercourse, but we are unique in that we can determine whether recreational sex is a conscious choice that defeats a reproductive instinct, i.e. we can choose NOT to have sex rather than be purely driven by instinct or arousal. And I haven't even touched religion/morality, societal norms or pressures, culture, etc. Neurology/physiology don't adequately cover it.

Why does it subjectively feel so good? Why does a smoker prefer a specific brand of cigs? What makes a bottle of wine "better" than another? I don't have a long list of women I've slept with, but I've had enough to know what physical traits and behaviors of women affect my perception of sex and what type of woman I'd prefer to have sex with. That's not purely a matter of neurology. Stimulation is stimulation, so results have to be consistent among all sexual participants. Except not. So there's yet another layer of convolution there beyond a physiological process.

Check out Adam Safron's (Northwestern University) work. Neuroscience has got a pretty decent handle on the whys and wherefores of sexual pleasure. In essence, sex directly stimulates us via our erogenous zones which in turn alters the rhythmic patterns in the rest of the brain, focusing our neurons on the activity and creating an altered state of consciousness.



Who said it was purely reproductive? Sex and intimacy play their part in bonding with a mate (loved one, partner, whatever you prefer) which is in turn beneficial to our young, who are unique in terms of their period of infant vulnerability - largely due to our big brains requiring massive amounts of energy over time to grow and develop.



But the question is "why do people want kids?", not "why do some people not want to have sex?". As I suggested, we can go into all manner of justifications as to why people 'choose' to have children (or sex), but the automatic "awwww" response to observing small children is near-universal.



Poor examples. They're not remotely similar. A better analogy would be "why do most people seem to like music?". Rhythms and melodies tap into our brains at the same primal level that sex does.



You're conflating sexual selection with the act of intercourse, which could take us down something of a Freudian rabbit hole as we try to decide which part of the tripartite psyche holds dominance over pleasure during sex.



Is there? How well do you understand the underlying process of your personal preferences in a partner? It's likely as simple as your subconscious mind associating specific traits with pleasant experiences (and others with negative ones), though we shouldn't rule out the facial symmetry as an indication of healthy phenotype hypothesis. The point being that, whatever your aesthetic preferences, sexual stimulation unleashes serotonin and dopamine on your brain and orgasms follow that up with a healthy cocktail of prolactin and oxytocin.

God I luv what people say on this website...

Totally agree with you (on NT forums I think it against the rules of conduct to do so)...
Well almost...

However...
I would like to point out that these days pregnancy is almost exclusively optional...
Hence, the sex isn't the cause of having kids...well mostly...

Having children is more to do with culture, love dissociation, having someone to look after you and keep you company in old age, etc...
A large aspect of having children is also the component of stupidity/laziness...
Based on surveys in the past, roughly one third of children are born through accidents...

Oy vey!
30 seconds of pleasure...
30 years of pain...

Warning, i havent read the entire thread, im posting directly to the OPs question.

Well, because of biogical programming. The only original purpose of every mammal is to produce as much offspring as possible and to die in the end. People can talk themselfes into all kinds of reasons why they want kids, but at the very core its really just this primitive "survival of the species" thing. We (as a species) arent that different compared to other species only because we learned how to reason. Many things we do is still regulated by our most primitive instincts. You can often even read about woman who rather suddenly had the hormones kicking in and out of nowhere suddenly wanted kids, even when beeing indifferent to the topic right before. This also correlates wth birth rates beeing much higher in uneducated demographics than in highly educated ones. The more we overcome our instincts, the less reason there is to have a bunch of kids.

For my part, im not interested at all. We have some 8 billion people on this planet, estimates strongly rising. It doesnt matter if a "genetic gold mine" (sarcasm) like me decides to bring another person into life or not. Our species will survive until it will destroy itself, so i am not needed in this scenario. From all the expierence i have gathered in life, i would rather not be responsible for another person possibly having to go through this. And beeing honest with myself, i wouldnt be a good dad either. I had to watch over a co-workers kid some times and 70% of the time i wanted to bang either its, or my own head against the wall for beeing loud, beeing needy and sometimes just soley for beeing. Beeing a parent is probably the greatest responsibility there is, and i am pretty sure that i wouldnt be able the take this responsibility. So from a responsible viewpoint, it is a good thing if i never have kids. I know from personal expierence what it means to have a bad father, so making sure this all doesnt repeat is the best thing i can do to my kid that will never exist...

Peace
TK

Without sexual attraction/stimulation the genesis of humanity and other more complex organisms would have had a very short existence...
Mutual back scratching is a pleasurable experience but doesn't usually create an ankle biter...<chuckle>

But consider this:
There are quite a few exceptions where individuals resist the evolutionary urge to procreate...

The number of individuals in Japanese society is shrinking because a lot of breeding aged individuals choose not to have children and prefer to focus on their careers...
And just look at how many aspies in this thread totally reject the concept...

Do I see a connection/pattern here?
A trend explaining this lack-of/lessened interest in procreation?
I believe I do...

Consider:
The more intellectually oriented an individual is, the less influence genetic programming has on the individual...

This is hardly surprising since the urge to reproduce is heavily governed by our lesser evolved components of the brain, namely the "reptilian brain" that incorporates instinctual behaviour, and the limbic brain that is heavily governed by emotional concerns...
The neocortex obviously has an influence in the rationalisation (the good/rational rationalisation) of procreation, but it is the less evolved aspects of our brain that are the major culprits...surely...

It has been my belief for quite some time that the sexual dissociation/dissonance that many autistic individuals experience initially is due to a lesser connectivity/affinity with the less evolved aspect of the brain...
This would explain our lower EQ (emotional quotient)...
(Conversely, it also explains our greater IQ due to our greater connectivity with the neocortex...)

Not rocket surgery when you think about it, eh? <chuckle>

Why didn't you ask their names?

2/3 of my kids were accidents. #1 on purpose, #2 bad timing, #3 condom broke.

We're giving serious thought to #4.

Aye. Those are the higher-thinking justifications of which I spoke. Most of them revolve around the notion we shouldn't have kids because X rather than arguing for having kids - which is pretty obvious, really, and actually of more interest/pertinence. The Japan situation is alarming in a way that 'overpopulation' isn't.

I do believe people, at times, have "noble" reasons for having kids.

I'm not one of them. I never had kids simply because I never felt mature enough to take care of a child. I rather regret that I've never had children. It's weird knowing people my age who are grandparents.

Why are you in my face? <chuckle>
What are you saying?
I can speculate but I'd prefer you say what you mean and mean what you say...



If it will make you feel better, I'm open to the idea of my being adopted...
Should I call you daddy or pops?

Silly! There have only ever been 6. Yes, I still remember their names. lol