Having Kids: Being Anti-Anti-Natalist. REAL TALK.

hey guys we're doing the most hateful
and invidious form of YouTube video today the response video everyone hates responses but all the time well not all the time we don't even want you to both dr. Wiesel yeah but whatever we do you're like how we should recorded us watching yes sometimes we watch YouTube and we make catty remarks and it's like well why didn't we just record ourselves makes it upload that to YouTube so we started watching this old video from that vegan couple about the perennial debate between antenatal estándar anti antenatal ists I mean nobody is a pro needleless nobody not even those Catholic people who say they are I mean okay you got to be a really sheltered Catholic ooo remember Steve from high school yes Steve who became a crackhead do you think he should raise kids metal crackhead Steve or crack it was a lot of fun you really think oh you'll see I mean unless unless you're so sheltered that you do not no crackhead Steve nobody feels that everyone should have kids and I mean like the more cynical the more terror it's not okay cynical is the wrong word it depends in the society or live in and and your your Vantage on that society like what parts of it you perceive like you know I've known people I've known a couple different people worked in like social housing yeah I'm not a couple of people were crackheads those people they they are exposed to so much addicts behavior so much Bab if so many so many other clients they will try to help or chronically unemployed and unemployable and over time they seem to come to the worldview that like only ten percent of humanity should reproduce you don't agree there like about 90 percent of people are not up to this task and other people are like 50/50 and 6040 but like ultimately you only gotta make the decision for one person you got to make the decision for you but not normally there's no point debating it unless crackheads Steve is your brother and now my father had nine kids say about eight of them are crackheads oh I'd say I'd say of my own brothers and sisters do I think even one of them should have kid do what do I think I myself should have I mean you know it's it's a struggle we're gonna let me know next couple years the question is can we get settled enough in terms of having an income and having a home and all that stuff you want up you want to build the nest before you lay eggs in it but sure I would be delighted to have one one more kid I already got one I would be led to have one not two not three no let's dig and you know now my girl from the Radley she has the experience of taking care of my daughter so you know you know it's everything you got goes into that one kid unless they're spaced out by like 10 years you got a full 10 years from you two kids you can swing it something like that what no I was just gonna say I don't have very much experience working and you know working with crackhead but um you know I did work for a psychologist and oh yeah I saw clients who were trying to get government disability funds so a lot of them had children and it was really sad reading about their stories because I would type up whatever my whatever the my boss would dictate to me typing up reports about the clients and yeah it was had so many of them had many children was like you know different partners and um and they weren't mentally or financially in a position to really raise their own kids yeah oh yeah like you know all of them had mental disorders it was for it was for this this type of disability because it was a psychologist but yeah and I also interviewed at a foster clinic so like basically they were in charge of transporting children from the foster homes to this to this location where parents could meet with their children for one or two hours and I didn't I didn't get the job you know but just seeing it as I was in the waiting room but like waiting for the interview just seeing like some of the reunions was there are people who are those medians in jail you know what I mean yeah anyway yeah so I'm definitely not arguing that every so this length of the video is some people are antenatal estándar Li aunty aunty Nate Nate list or neutral and you know I know nobody is pronatalist you know but like put it this way if you think you shouldn't have kids probably you shouldn't like you know you talk to somebody like durianrider durianrider is really set in the idea he's never gonna have kids do you really want to talk him down off that ledge do you really want to be the person who convinces durianrider to get someone pregnant or even to adopt really you you want to have that on your on your conscience for the rest your life like yeah you know yeah now we got durianrider jr. and now now we got Jerry right are doing you know self-important videos about how to buy your kid matching outfits and that would be all can you imagine his channel would take on a whole new direct clothing clothes shopping for your two-year-old with durianrider I don't write three-wheeled the three wheel bikes for your preschooler and all that yeah you're right so right this is a fate we're all narrowly avoiding if you have a crackhead Steve in your life you don't want to convince him to have kids and just when I've known people look you know what that's even like my dating life though I told you like there were other women hitting on me right around the same time Melissa came onto my life and one of them said well you know like she was really dressed of me but she said she didn't think I'd be old interest in her it was like well you're probably right you know I you know I trust your judgment and you know when I talked to Melissa Melissa was completely confident that this was gonna work I was like well maybe you know what you're talking about let's let's find out the hard way you know taking other people's opinion seriously is it's it's it's one of the key crucial skills of middle age and say as opposed to like when you're a little kid in the schoolyard you're saying no no you don't you're talking about no anything anything people say to you is really easily refuted with thatthat schoolyard mentality all right so this is that vegan couple and I don't know you get to watch us roll our eyes well we listen to their their life-changing advice about not have kids in September 2014 it was a mutual decision I'm not going to talk about the reasons of why we had the operation we'll link up the videos here go watch those videos and and you will understand more about this whole process and why we chose to go ahead with it in this video I want to give the perspective of a woman who is living with a man who has chosen to have a vasectomy as a wife a woman who I will never experience being pregnant I will never experience giving birth I will never experience raising our own child and we have zero intention of adopting or fostering we don't want to raise a child we are very content with the people that we help online we have so many young people saying you're like my online mum and dad so we feel like God so all all 140 people who watched my last YouTube video I claim you as my children you know that's that's like the worst delusion of all and on the other hand if somebody sent me an email like that if someone sent me an email saying they felt like I'm their dad just feel like oh my god that's the process there probably are people who feel that way about me but they keep it bottled up contained those emotions just keep them inside you should be ashamed of yourself you feel that way well I'm not your father well okay but you actually offer moral lessons yeah like in life advice and you have a lot of different experiences and that you talk about in your channel like I can see people being like yeah like to me like but I'm also I'm also self-loathing you know I'm also you know like I really don't set myself up to be this moral figure whenever people want to get into this kind of pissing contest with me about who's moral and who's iam or who's better than Who whereas currently some other youtubers turn to I always just come out the gate and say yeah look I'm a terrible person you know let's start on that basis look I totally own the fact that I'm a terrible person now where's this where this conversation gonna go from here I was just thinking like in comparison to I don't really watch their channels but I was you know they got mukbangs school yeah right you opened up a mukbang video no like okay so look there are some anything well there are some people who are in such a low situation lives who are so depressed that they feel like that's their mom sitting there watching this woman do a mukbang they feel like that's a paternal relationship I can understand that but that's that's dark man if people write to you and say yeah watching your mug bang I feel like you're mine and you're gonna come on YouTube and boast like me to have it's cuz I have my talk to YouTube you should be weeping yourself to sleep and if you believe that and the people on the other side of the equation should be weeping themselves to sleep at night also this is tragedy being misrepresented as triumph raising children from a distance via social media and we're very contained never really hate on the idea of having children it definitely was expected of me as a woman but also I have a European background and you know getting married having children is just part of the course that's what we do I remember at one stage was thinking I would like to experience that she said like it's a European thing like I think it's just an everywhere thing very good I think there's pressure on women to have kids and like every society China yeah if you haven't gotten married by the time that you're thirty year basically an old maid yeah the odds are slim for you that's right sure yeah I think think there are pressures I just assumed she was she was alluding to something we don't know that's like like it's a euphemism you know I have a European background and like people in the audience know what she male that's what I assume oh I mean yeah I assumed there's something more to that story I have unknown to me so regular viewers will know what she said to get yes being pregnant I thought it was quite freaky like having someone grow inside exactly any lien and I used to think of it as more of an experiment than something that I really hate Lee wanted to do I didn't have strong maternal instincts I don't feel until I was about I think 29 30 years old and the main reason for that was that we were living in Thailand and we'd spend our weekends volunteering at a orphanage and this was amazing this was the first time that we were in real contact with babies and we loved those kids we had a ball they became ours we were their mum and dad they were our children and this is the number one reason why I'm making this video too honest to you I mean we can joke around all you want but I think this is a really serious sick sad delusion and when I saw this video for the first time a couple years ago now December 2015 I guess you know I sent them an email I assume was an email it's possible some other kind of text message but I thing was an email and I said look you know you guys need to recognize you're saying you felt like these were your children no you know just straight up no you had no responsibility for these kids you know they got the photographs here of them playing games these kids you didn't you know put them to bed at night that's not your crib you're not responsible for their education in their lives and so on you you have no sense of responsibility you're not making up in the middle of the night with nightmares that your kid is okay which I had not only when I was with my daughter but after I was separated from my daughter you don't have any of the agony short-term or long-term of responsibility and responsibility is a huge part of being a parent you were a tourist who paid a fee to spend a couple of hours with a kid in a in an orphanage you know but I mean for you to say on camera that you were their parent and they were your children well then you abandoned them didn't you so for a couple of days or a couple of weeks and in our long she doesn't say you were a part-time babysitter for these kids and that's it and if you don't if you don't really know and don't really appreciate how deep the difference is between that and being their parent or they're being your child you know not just in the level of feelings although everything else you know a shame on you I think that's really shameful I think that's really a dangerous delusion that they're spreading here and I also want to say you know orphanage tourism is itself dangerous you don't think it's damaging for these kids so what they have a different couple of white washed-up hippies make donations to play make-believe foster parent for a couple of weeks and then get on the next airplane to the beach to go swimming you know if you felt like they were your kids you'd be haunted by a sense of guilt you know after after leaving them behind and I hadn't I knew one couple who were in that situation but so the kids were fairly grown up they were looking to adopt it's two kids they were brother and sister so they were really involved they were doing the paperwork they don't set out they were gonna adopt these two kids in Cambodia I don't know how old the kids were but from the whole way it was told to me it seemed like they were old enough to kind of reason and talk with them so these were you know orphans but you know not not tiny little newborns or something and then the dude out of the couple he had a motorcycle accident it was either a motorcycle of one of those four-wheel-drive type of things some of that and injured his spine they just left town they just had to evacuate from Cambodia of England and go get surgery for spine and they're scarred for life you know and then they never adopted the kids they never know oh so they you know they were just in those startup phases but I was that was the question was of responsibility and taking on responsibility for these kids right through to when they go to university or whenever it is whenever they get their own job and achieve independence which is normally about five years after you graduate University in this century minutes it's a long term commitment but no you you don't know what it's like you know sorry that what I'm gonna just go to that vegan couple you know kind of shame on you for saying this and I think any parent watching this would really cringe I know the word cringe is overused but it's it's cringe-worthy to hear someone in her position claim that she knows what it's like to be a parent and that these were her kids and vice versa you want to weigh in mm-hm hit that play button aunt was so so strong I've hummed a very special bond if the bond was so strong why did you leave like that is to me if you said the bond was so strong that you stayed for five years I'd be like okay I respect that the bond was so strong it meant so much to me until I got my next airplane ticket and went to the beach and carried on my parent vacation life though the bomb was so stronger than I went skiing and forget it but like what are you talking about so you spent a couple of weeks with these kids you kept these photos and forgot about where were they today you know like the bond was so strong that you really enjoyed those two weeks and then you know it's sick you and you and she believes this and she's encouraging others to have this kind of delusion you know no you didn't have a strong bond again when I was separated for my daughter believe me I woke up with Acadian golden nightmares you'd wake up in the middle of the night with the this pure evolutionary instinct of whereas my daughter is my daughter okay you know look it's not even a nightmare you're not dreaming it's an instinct as pure and raw as if you walk into a dark room and there's a snake coiled in the corner hissing at you you know so you may not have had experience of that but if you have it's not even fear but you have this instinct that fills in your mind there's a snake in the corner you know it'll leaps out at you your whole mind you know becomes very clear and bright you got millions of years of evolution behind you for that kind of reaction there are moments like that where you feel instinct without any of the intermediate layers of cognition and imagination and reason where you know your mind reacts sure I wake up in the middle of the night you know where is my daughter is my daughter okay it's awful that's what it's like being bonded to a child you know it's and you know living love it's because for the first year of my daughter's life I was with her 24/7 I didn't even a job I was a full-time stay-at-home parent and hold her and cradled her and Walker and feed her and you know wipe her bum and all this all the stuff you do I don't know if you did any of that with these kids but fundamentally I mean there's a you know there's a there's a crash in the background there there's a there's a cot there's a baby's you know crib you didn't buy that crib you didn't assemble that crib you didn't sit there next to that crib reading a book while the kid was sleeping you know I don't think you even cooked the food and his stuff you know because a fully functioning orphanage and I I don't think you even knew one percent of what it means to be a parent with two children a boy and a girl and the girl in particular very very strong connection we just loved each other and that was the only time in months where is she now they just love each other but you didn't adopt her you didn't ever go back you didn't well what do you think does she send you email now cuz you're so into being an Internet parent a social media parent you can't she something is you're crying it said it said but the the self-deception makes it worse in my life that I actually thought yeah I definitely want to be a mother when I have children I wanted to adopt this girl we looked into adoption and from that point we were definitely thinking of starting a family we continued with the idea of wanting to have a family for some years and we were preparing for that kind of mentally we weren't vegan for that time at the orphanage and we didn't know a lot of things about the reasons why we would ultimately choose not to have children at that stage so it was very interesting going from that feeling that was very very strong don't get me wrong I mean oh my gosh like my heart was breaking and I really wanted a baby I wanted to experience breastfeeding I just thought it was all wonderful so to go from that to having decided not to have children was quite a journey quite a process then again all the details are in the other videos that with lint what was interesting is the last time we came together sexually before the operation was really really emotional for me I was kind of thinking like oh my god this is it this is my last chance of ever being a mother and I remember thinking oh well if the condom breaks and I happen to fall pregnant oh but that's just the universe giving us a sign we were meant to have a baby and that will just be it well of course that was never gonna happen and it obviously didn't happen but I was actually called hashtag condoms I did cry that night it was just like this the finality of it sunk in and yes of course you can freeze your sperm for later on and you can also have the operation reversed but we knew that once we made this decision we didn't want to do either of those options later on so it was very much a final oh this is it this is happening now post vasectomy operation completely different feeling I felt like a thousand tons of pressure and weight worth lifted from my shoulders once he got the snip it just felt so right and so a hundred percent in the decision and I've never ever looked back in fact I actually found like there was more I don't want to call it doubt but kind of going over the pros and cons more before the operation and once the operation happened I was like a hundred percent this is perfect spot on I feel so good about this I've never even thought about it twice with any doubt any hesitation I'm so so happy that we decided this so I think it actually became easier once the operation but I noticed there's no consideration for the orphan or the orphans plural that you were so wanted to you're claiming they were your kids you could have a vasectomy and still adopt those kids or just move in next to the orphanage and see them regularly just be a regular member of the support staff at that orphanage or something to be a part of their lives that way you don't even have to adopt them you could just you could just make it a point to go there three days a week teach the kid English or whatever you don't speak Thai you don't speak Thai or Cambodian or any other language it's not like you're inspired enough to sit down hit the books and learn a language that I taught myself while chopping firewood and doing humanitarian work in villages of no electricity blah blah blah I didn't you know yeah but you know these guys obviously have the wealth and the leisure to live this way both on permanent vacation and to go and do with the volunteer work so you probably had the wealth and leisure to make a positive impact in those kids lives even if you're just an english-speaking [ __ ] it can't get your act together to learn the language that those kids speak but that's sorry but that's I want a cast rate on that because you're not volunteering in Norwich in New York City where the kids would speak English you're not volunteering in an orphanage and you know London England this is Thailand what possible venue and you guys are not trained educators they're not qualified to be teachers they're not qualified through child care work which as you know has very definite credentials attached to it and you never made the effort to learn the language so you you self-entitled Dharma tourist what makes you think you can take care of these kids at a minimum they should be taking care of us someone who speaks the same language they do when you were 2 years old how good were you at coping with a complete stranger speaking a foreign language as your primary caregiver and then them cutting out when they want to get back on their vacation schedule go something sorry it's dark I mean it's it's dark it's funny too I don't even see the vasectomy itself you know as an operation this way because it's really easy to manage pregnancy within a monogamous relationship I don't really see a vasectomy at the point being to prevent your husband from it you pray I think the vasectomy then you're confident your husband isn't going to get some other [ __ ] pregnant because like there are so many ways with too in a regular relationship it's really not hard to manage pregnancy and lack thereof I know and by the way my dad had nine kids and then he had a vasectomy so we know so we know we know he didn't get never be traded after that he maxed out at nine operation was just done with then beforehand because you've kind of got a foot in both worlds like should we should aware yes no once it's done it's done and then it's just easy and I know a lot of women are saying but what about our natural instincts are maternal instincts it's natural to have a baby to be a mother and that's 100 percent right and I'm not disagreeing with that but we have created a very unnatural world so following our natural instincts does not always match up or marry up with the artificial crazy world yeah I agree with this I think that is a good reason to not have kids because it's really like trying to raise a child in today's world is totally different than how you would in a tribal society you know you have you would have more help in a tribal society you would have just more time with your child I mean most most women most parents want to get back to work and they don't have as much time with their children as they would and in the past like it just a biological like instinct level like what we I think I mean you know I think there is no natural Society I think in each culture in each society yeah different people would have to make that choice for different reasons if they get to make the choice but you know I think you know a lot of societies women didn't even have that choice yeah yeah absolutely a lot of traditional societies women didn't choose who they married you know it's arranged by their parents or what have you but yeah if we're talking about being able to make a choice sure you know different different cultures and different levels of Technology dictate you know different choices but for most of human history in terms of the first pregnancy with women is like a 50% chance they're gonna die and so the second pregnancy if there were much safer now if you survive your first your first pregnancy then you're likely to survive a second yeah but it was pretty much flip the coin so for most of our history a life-and-death decision you know for the mother let alone for the the fate of the child and ever after yes ideally in a perfect ideal world Luke and I would have very much enjoyed having our own children and unraised them whoa so I actually wasn't expecting to go there for me that's a plot twist yeah I didn't think she'd blame the world for why they don't have kids you see I don't see that way at all I think it's a judgment call about who you are I didn't watch the other video that she mentioned mentioned that she said that she didn't know they weren't vegan at the time that they were at his orphanage and they didn't know the reasons for going vegan and I assume they think it must be like knowing about I clogged ecological damage and the future of our planet in an environment futures but but look to me that's that's I mean look so I got a cousin who's a gambling addict you know compulsive gambler for him to make the decision not to have kids okay pretty straightforward but it's about who he is it's about what he's capable of etc to make the decision because of the on the basis of what the world is I I don't know if I can get behind that you know I just I think that's though I think you've got it the wrong way around I just don't think that's the way to think about what you were talking about in your discussion with ask yourself you know like you're okay with putting yourself put it raising a child in Compton or whatever like a lot of people would say that there not a lot of people are just you know they'd see doom on the horizon okay look regardless of whether it's you know Compton or Berkeley California or London or Cambodia or Thailand wherever you're living having a child is a hundred percent your responsibility so it's a hundred percent your or you know your glory or whatever if you if you do it right I just see it as a hundred percent you if you can't live if you can't cope with life in Thailand you can't cope a lot of people can't so don't have a kid you know if you can't cope with life in Compton or if you have any limit I just don't see that as it as a decision I just don't see this line you can pin on the world or pin on the city of New Living it you know whether it's you know Compton or Chiang Mai you know I just I just see that that being an example of a decision that has to be a hundred percent on you you know like okay a lot of people shouldn't drive a car that bad vision they have attention deficit disorder I new guy had a nervous disorder disorder of the nervous system or you know he had these peculiar twitches and I'd been in the car with him driving he was a member of the Green Party yeah I was like all right you know like okay you're that you got through you got a driver's license this way was amazing you know his whole face would seize up and so his hands these Wow okay periodically he'd twitch out this way alright I think a lot of people should voluntarily choose not to drive a car but I wouldn't really pin that on the world different places you live you know different circumstances different you know traffic is better or worse or the roads are safer but you got to make that decision based on who you are I think that's kind of a hundred percent absolutely your own responsibility right you know what the world notwithstanding yeah but look millions of people in Thailand are having babies millions of people in Compton are F babies you know none of these places are a warzone and of course what you see is even in a war zone as long as you're a few absolutely a few kilometers back from where the live fire is people still make the decision that babies it's just not a scenario that we see is feasible in the world that we have collectively created so I have found that that maternal instinct very much died down well before we decided to have the peseta me I still got to say that little girl in the orphanage so you decided the world wrong you just decided that world's gone to so so that kid so that kid doesn't need your help let you know it this this actually is kind of incoherent to me in a pretty profound level again if you decided because it was who you are if you decided that you are not a positive influence for that you wouldn't be a good parent yeah my cousin he's a he's a compulsive gambler okay whatever you know maybe he's got other good qualities maybe not but you know if you make that decision then obviously that means both you wouldn't adopt or whatever but you're fronting on this idea that you were this kid's parent that you have this really deep connection etc etc and then it just seems to be disposable for these pretty evanescent reasons and it hasn't come back I'm now 35 and almost a half years old so I'm entering my 36th year and I feel completely fine with this decision I don't have any regrets at all and I'm also really glad that I just say if if what she's saying is true it may be but if it's true so there's a little girl who was deeply bonded with you and he thought you were gonna adopt her and become your mom do you think she's left with regrets for the rest of her life there was a wealthy white couple who did long-distance cycling who were gonna adopt her and you suddenly decided she doesn't matter you know I mean it's up might my biological daughter I mean you know yeah this weird situation if she is my biological daughter but because the court dates have been so spread out because the French court systems has been such a disaster and because of my ex-wife's incredibly immoral misconduct within that legal system we've had periods of time where my daughter has no memory of Who I am where she meets me like a complete stranger you know I mean you know so what you want me to say I have no regrets I think it's like even my daughter would read you know at least hypothetically you know you think this kid has no regrets I don't know II think the the rest of the people at the orphanage have no regrets or owned up to it and admit that what you were doing at that orphanage was just Dharma tourism it was no more meaningful than claiming used to be a Buddhist monk because you spent two weeks to put a smartass theory on a Dharma tourism program there were there were some there's some one a series where two weeks would feel like a long time there are some but that's not what the the white tourists do they just - they just this kind of but you know to me that's there's you know either you kind of own up to your on one side of it or you recognize the tragedy on the other side of it so those kids are now still with that at that they're still at that orphanage but they're all five years older I guess you had your personal growth and you say you've got no regrets what about them at tombos maternal instincts that I was feeling back when I was 29 and 30 years old because they passed so in the heat of the moment yes it was a hundred percent so powerful and strong and I really want to talk baby but that passed so it's cool she's being honest she's being real and I appreciate that but like I don't think the question of whether or not my cousin should have kids is about his feelings I don't think that's the question you know I think it's about his capability I think it's about what he has to offer right now back when I was a single male teaching myself lotion chopping firewood and boiling lentils and learning Pali and doing research and humanitarian work back when I was doing that why would I not have gone to a an orphanage and done this kind of volunteer work because I didn't think I had anything to offer you know that's a different judgment entirely it's not about my feelings you know what I mean and again once you offer that if you really do have a meaningful connection with these kids if you do find you have something positive offer you know now what now now you're in a position of there's that big word with the letter R again responsibility abdication response if you take on that responsibility and it means something and you're not a piece of you're not a crackhead you really have something to offer well what then you know what is that what does that mean anyway I have read a lot of reports by the way evaluating some of these Christian charities in Thailand that have tourists fly-in and the tourists very often our drug addicts who've just gone through rehab they've gone through a Christian rehab and then they fly over to Thailand and do you know volunteer work with these orphans and most of them they're not even orphans it's another wee aspect that they have living parents who've dropped them off there for various reasons and the parents still come and visit too so things get complex quick but you know and they're people who don't have again don't have any education in caregiving or being you know kindergarten teachers don't have any preparation of doing that they don't have any of the language skills necessary they understand anything about the culture so you know how would you have felt even if you take the racial element out of it so what if you were a kid it was an orphan in the United States or Canada and you were just being taken care of by Russian tourists who showed up only speaking Russian you had no common language who flew in for two weeks and then flew out as one stop on their their cross-country tour so they could have these deep emotional feelings with you and then move on I'm not gonna say it's exploiting the kids but I mean obviously there's a way that those it's a way that those orphanages raise raise money is by you know bringing these people in and soliciting donations there's requiring donations from them for doing this work that's what the Christians were doing - it's a way of you know reaching out to people's you know most basic instincts and getting the money out of their wallet to support yours for your organization I think it takes a lot for an organization to refuse to do that in those circumstances to say no the role of educator is not something that can be done by a tourist no you're not qualified to play with these kids on the floor just because you donated money to us you know to say no we're a professional organization and we're not going to do that it's a very hard thing to say if you're in Cambodia Laos or in this case Thailand Thailand is not that poor Thailand is really not a third-world country they don't really have the excuse but they got a lot of our friends in Thailand they got a lot of mothers who have an in their kids enjoy it because again I was in the humanitarian sector and I've read about it and I talked to other people working in the sector and yeah I talked to a lot of people have that experience there again but most of the quote-unquote orphans in Thailand are not or focus discover new information that would shake my life forever so I'm really really grateful that we didn't act in the moment and respond to those innate feelings and I do want to mention that a few years ago when we were seriously considering starting a family a friend about a mother of about a seven or eight year old son she was also married confided in us that she really wasn't happy with how her life turned out she loved her son but basically she said to us that if she could turn back time and make the decision again she would not have fallen pregnant so she told us how hard it was how many challenges there were and it was just a very realistic view to this romantic idea that sold about raising children and that was a real wake-up call because from the outside they look like this happy beautiful perfect family but inside she was still crying like the kid was like saying seven or eight years old and she was still having moments of breaking down and this is hard and I didn't I've actually seen I've seen mostly you know far left-wing feminists talk about this this issue of romanticization of pregnancy and childbirth as opposed to the reality or what you ought to think if you agree with this person ideologically you know so I'm a nihilist I openly describe myself as an historical nihilist and my nihilistic perspective on this is as soon as we are adults when you are an adult you take responsibility for your own ideology doesn't matter that your parents raised you Catholic it's your choice now you're responsible for your religion is you're responsible for your beliefs doesn't matter that you grew up with a romanticized notion of car ownership there's a huge thing 1950s 60s even 70s a lot of people grew up with romanticize guess what the reality of cars is you don't guess what you've got a romanticized notion now you've got a deprogram yourself you've got to figure out what the reality is in so many ways in terms of its financial cost the ecological impacts there were just a lot of reasons to be disillusioned with car ownership social impacts - sure cities are structured and I come from I've come from the Motor City I mean right it's very obvious that yeah it was built for cars not for people as opposed to Venice the differences in culture in a city where you can walk around one place to the other versus yeah you drive everywhere and you know whenever I was hanging with my professors at UVic it just was so even in Saskatchewan it's hilarious to me these people their lives revolve around parking meters you know boat parking being this huge stress and Sun so ok you grew up with a romanticized view of car ownership is that going to be your Excuse till you're 65 years old you're an adult now what is romantic and what is not is up to you your parents may have told you that dandelions were poisonous you're an adult now you know better you can make dandelion tea you can make dandelion wine you can grow a whole garden full of dandelions if you want to you can you can make dandelion coffee that's right you can make all these things out of dandelions you can farm dandelions in your backyard if you want to whether it is a weed or a vegetable is up to you to decide your parents ideologies not yours society's ideologies not yours it is nobody's responsibility but yours and yeah you may have you may have really grown up with I mean to some extent I sympathize like old childhood misconceptions you may have grown up with romanticized notions about having kids but it's on you it's 100% your responsibility to grow that to make those decisions and have nobody to blame you know nobody to blame nobody to thank but yourself what's gonna be like this and it was just a reality check so we need the lastest well what if you regret the decision to not have children we always think of this woman and what if you regret the decision that you have had children gain what so I just wanted to give this different perspective I just say the the thing with orphanages in adoption it puts it into a surreal contrast do you think that kid regrets that she doesn't have parents didn't that kid like the kids gonna look back and wonder if only I was cuter if only somehow I snuggled up to these people or only somehow I'd manage to convince them to take me of their lives and take responsibility for me instead of being a ward of the state I would have grown up with all the advantages of these teaching me how to ride a bike make a vegan salad or whatever you know whatever they got to teach I don't know their background um you know maybe they got a lot maybe they got a lot to share but obviously you know I mean it's an interesting way to it's way to look at it well okay your parents with no children but you you claimed you had a parental relationship with this whole classroom full of full kids and those are now all kids with no parents so I don't think your regrets are the only ones to be considered here if you're making that claim deep on the topic if you have any questions ladies please post them down below and thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next video bye for now so that got dark quick closing thoughts from you you went through a period of your life when you thought you'd never want to have kids no mana was that like ten years long or something something like that no maybe less eight years of some well no I mean uh you know I expected it but you know I I can relate to quite a lot that you mention you know like it's expected of you yeah so you know I was with my ex-boyfriend for over six years and his family was really urging me to think about getting married no kids my parents were you know expecting that I would hold off on that until I had my career figured out I agreed with them you know I wasn't I wasn't eating to have a kid and start a family um but also it was just the relationship that I was in and I expected that I would be in that relationship for the rest of my life yeah um that really did influence how I viewed it and it be it was clear pretty soon into the relationship that I I didn't feel like the um I didn't want to have a kid with him because just what he was into you and I didn't think he would change I didn't think he would really you know get his act together if we did have a kid so look I just wanna say for some reason that I was shocked people when I said that they just never thought of that people asked me do you want to have kids obviously before I had a kid I would just say it depends on the woman I'm with yeah because you know when I was with my blond ex-girlfriend we were together for years like you know we might as well have been married it was that kind of close long term relationship but with her I would have never added kids I think she would have been terrible parent and yeah wet cetera it was just no so if I stayed with her forever then that would have been never having kids basically or yeah well yes he adopting is kind of a different question I mean I never got into that I mean maybe it would have been possible to adopt her mmm with a bunch of other circumstances of it no I would have never had kids with her but then some other woman some other circumstance some other deal sure then you know I would you know so you know obviously you know it's easy for me to relate to that for a lot of women that's gonna be the same you're looking at the family unit you're creating and in our culture in this day and age the family unit is pretty much just two people it's very rare to meet people who are even in a group of four or raising kids it happens but it's it's rare and that's I think ultimately because the nature of job security and job insecurity the way people have to move around for whatever gig they can get so and so forth yeah yeah yeah anyway I'm Sam no no no I mean for for quite a few years there I because I expected to be in this relationship forever I like you know I I did feel kind of I don't know I guess I just felt gonna mm-hm I had mixed feelings about it I was ambivalent cuz you know like I I had expected of it was expected of me to have a family and I plan to at the time I was plant trying to plan a career so that I could have kids and afford to have kids because I was clear that I would be like the main breadwinner so I was like you know it was at this point where I was trying to decide what if I should go into a certain career mostly for the money to have this this you know responsibilities mostly on my end and so you know there was a certain part that was like a part of me that was like relieved that I didn't have to be worried about that and I'm sure you know I don't really know why why that began couple didn't have kids but you just listen for explanation you stole another wife okay right go you just throw them explain why they didn't have kids yeah so you know I don't know if they felt like they they couldn't afford it but you know I would know evidently not that's that's not the reason at all sorry they're they're wealthy enough to live this permanent vacation lifestyle and I'm happy for them I kind of wish they'd do something more positive with their wealth and leisure but this is what they do money is nothing I was realistic because I was with somebody that didn't have college education it was clear he would never have college education so that really limits what you can tell what you can earn and what what kind of positions you could have in the future so for me I was like thinking that this this would be something that the response would be responsibility would fall on me so anyway yeah it but I also was you know you you you build up like you said you you have a romanticized view er you build up like what what weight kind of life you're gonna want and and I did think you know I'm a responsible person I think I would be a good parent so like there was a certain part of that oh yeah and like when I would talk to my mom about it she was she was like like no like you were the type of person that needs to have kids because like you're functionally you're you're like you know but look to stick with the car or the car crash analogy the fact that you can drive a car doesn't mean you should are you lost yeah like I agree like you know look look not everyone's capable of driving a car not everyone's capable of being a good parent but the fact that you are capable doesn't mean that's the right decision for you but yeah yeah yeah so I guess I'm merely aunty antenatal estate you know like so in some ways it was easy to accept Oh also like I did not grow up babysitting like I was youngest to my family I didn't have any family members that had young children so like it was kind of easy for me except that I would that I wouldn't be a parent um but like there was still you know kind of wondering like you know she yeah you know what what it could be like in anyway so I think part of that was why I used to peruse the child-free subreddit because those it's a group of people who don't have kids but I yeah it's it's filled with a lot of awful awful posts but some of them are some of them are useful and some of them I could relate to but um yeah I think it probably had to do with like feeling having mixed feelings about it and you know like wanting reassurance that this was the right decision that I would that I made because hmm everything else in around me it was saying like no you should have kids like and anyway and then she fell in love with me and then she wants that gets my blond ex-girlfriend I think she was really in denial about where she stood in those issues she really did I think want to have my baby especially after an early like six months into the road ship or something you know but early on she said no she would never have kids like she had decided she was never gonna have kids and you know the the final like tragicomic moment when we had already decided to break up because there were airplane tickets involved so it was like okay so like two months from now you'll go back on this airplane kind of thing and she had a job so it was like okay so you're gonna finish teaching she was teaching English and so when her job and she'd go back to Canada on this kind of thing and she was taking those pregnancy vitamins those prenatal vitamins during you know our last two months together whatever it was you know I forget exactly maybe it was our last three weeks together I forget but it was you know that the date was on the calendar the airplane ticket have been purchased we knew we were gonna break up and you know she said in this remarkable show they said oh yeah you know I'm taking these vitamins because you know you never know it's kind of it's like and I just said to her straight I said look I don't know what you're thinking or what you're fantasizing here and maybe you haven't really thought it through yourself but if you get pregnant now at a stage in the relationship where we both know we're gonna break up and what there's no doubt in my mind I never wanna have a child with you you know that would just be a you know a tragedy for the both of us and for the child oh now this is oh there's almost a verbatim quote and you know me I I'm very creative remaining calm when the woman in life is loosing her toddler is upset is like I didn't say it in a mean or angry way I really was speed you know and she immediately just felled the ground weeping you know she just burst into tears we were at home by the way it's not like we're in a shopping mall or something when this conversation happen yeah I think through the whole relationship she was in a state of cognitive dissonance over overused terms like I think she was really in denial but the extent to which she wanted to have a baby she specifically wanted to have my baby because she really thought of me as a good person and as someone with a lot of redeeming quality and my DNA which you know a lot of ways I feel I'm not living up to my genetic potential to be quite honest I know always I'm a genetic underachiever but you know I think I think that really was something she she wanted and maybe didn't want to admit to herself you know that was what she wanted even when she had already decided she would shoot break up with me you know I can really but I wasn't it wasn't the first six months it's the first two weird that I was like yeah I want that now yeah she had a really cute baby crazy period it would have been more fun well and if you've got and bright you you'd have a baby right about now we're coming up on our nine month anniversary so if you'd if you just stuck with the program we could be going back to Canada with you having a big belly and you'd be you be in your final trimester now go back and give birth in a Canadian Hospital yeah but you know that's another fear people have you know why is living in poverty so scary because so me and my ex-wife when we made the decision to have a kid you know we had our short-term financial situation together we are both University educated she had a PhD and I had my glorious BA in reality my ex-wife had just destroyed all of my career in education plans like right at that time so all of my career plans had just been cancelled which Mehta was available for for raising a child she just destroyed everything I was working on everything I was planning to do with the rest of my life but be that as it may he had this opportunity but for sure you know I think we were realistic and it's like well yeah you know we have enough money for the next couple of years but sure we can end up living in poverty you know again we've both her and I of them research she was an anthropologist and I'm more of a political and historical person but I've I have lived in poverty I've lived around people apart I've studied poverty like even from an economic perspective like studied the reality of what is poverty and you know I mean um it's a fear but you can you can get over it and I think for a lot of people it's a choice like whether it's a risk of poverty because like look my ex-wife has a PhD but she could be unemployed for the rest of her life still I still entirely possible she's got a lifetime unemployment or underemployment ahead of her it doesn't guarantee or a job we can look in that situation and say ok we can have a kid and live in poverty and we could not have a kid if live in poverty anyway but you know maybe this is a new visitor risk worth taking but obviously poverty you know poverty carries stigma but doesn't really carry with it danger you know is that really something we should be afraid of something else you don't have medical insurance if you can't afford medical insurance but you can but you can meet those people and you can live with them and you can see their struggle and see how they raise kids because I did in Cambodia and Kimbo you want to tell me about bad healthcare the poorest people in America better health care than the richest people in Cambodia you know what I mean and and they do it and you see them do it Emile I'm sorry but I those are not insuperable barriers those are superable barriers they're their problems their struggles I know I know but you can see I say I I think if you have that experience to live with us we can overcome those fears you can get comfortable with the reality of what poverty means especially when you talk about moderate poverty because it wasn't like my ex-wife and I were signing up to go work on a rice farm in Cambodia which is also something I've something I've visited and studied and no book you know you know I know about the reality of what that would be like and millions of those people raised their kids and they're happy and the kids grow up happy and you know a lot of ways they're less neurotic than people living in the suburbs of Los Angeles appear on um the look on level of fear I mean I think fear and pure instinct is one of the most neglected topics in modern philosophy I can remember a time when I was really afraid to be bitten by a leash now in Sri Lanka there are a lot of leeches little men leeches there used to be in Laos then we cut down all the jungles they're not really many leeches and Laos anymore so I knew living in these places and doing humanitarian work and going to put his temples a lot of Buddhist temples or in the last little piece of jungle temple Buddhist temples seemed to prevent deforestation you know I knew I was going to be exposed to to leashes and there was a time when I felt a very natural fear and this is millions of years of evolution it wasn't psychological you know I mean it's not like doesn't come out of a childhood trauma or neurosis nothing it's a pure you know instinctual evolutionary fear and then you know what I had the experience of leeches biting me you know for several times and so on he's a really no big deal it is really no big deal and I mean I guess I could give a counter example I remember I had no fear at all of being stung by wasps when I was in Laos and all the other Lao people were terrified of this and I allowed myself to be stung on the hand but one of these tropical jungle Wassa then I found out why they were terrified because those Lost's in the jungles of Laos are about 10,000 times more venomous than an American wasp by the way you know my whole hand you know like doubled more than doubled in in thickness my hand and yeah yeah yeah so it was really some getting bit by that wasp was it memorable no by the way another fasten thing the wasp if they bite you on the scalp sting you on the scalp it permanently discolours your hair so there are a lot of people now who have like a circle of blonde hair and the rest of the hair is jet black caused by the wasp enamines yeah yeah and it's either permanent over the last decades but like yeah you saw that because it's pretty common like a stun but yeah because you know think it trapped in your haircut hey yeah you know these you know fear you know and a lot of times what we're talking to yours fear of the unknown you don't know what it's like to be bitten by a leaf you know a leech bites you on the ankle and you take the time and you you roll the leech off your skin you don't even kill them by the way it was a practicing but us at the time I wouldn't kill the leech without killing it I'd roll it off my skin and put it on a leaf and keep going it's not it's not that big a deal and I don't know I mean poverty you know poverty may be scary to you in a lot of ways but in terms of you know what matters to me in my life you know my sense of dignity in my sense of code of ethics and so on there were a lot of situations in which I'd choose poverty over over money especially if the money I feel is in any way unethical or you know violates violates my code I don't want to lie to people to get rich I don't want to hurt people to get rich or even to just get out of poverty you know I'd take I take poverty with my own strange sense of dignity and I'd passed it on to my kid I'd say guess what kid you're living in poverty because I wouldn't lie cheat steal rob and plunder you know so you get to be one of those people yeah that just shows it in so many ways he'd be a good father [Applause] right this is this is the advantages she's really seen me parenting she knows exactly what I'm like as a father so yeah so at this point it's not hypothetical anymore whether or not I'd be a good father but obviously you know anyone watching this video course there were huge challenges for both of us just in terms of earning a living and you know we're gonna have the joy of going through that together but I don't think but in this simple sense I don't think your personal poverty is it really is a really compelling reason not to have children and you know again I really do kind of despise Canadian culture but which I mean white english-speaking Canadian culture I grew up very dissatisfied with that culture in that society and you know for that reason it was an intentional decision that my daughter does not have a Canadian passport she has both a French passport and an American passport and I cut it off there because I know how terrible the Canadian education system is and some and so forth and you know I don't know when my daughter grows up if there's some reason why she'd want to live in Canada rather than France the United States you know I can imagine you know we're grading that decision I can imagine some circumstances if Donald Trump actually nukes you know to the civil war or France also good to send it the Civil War who knows but you know I could imagine something like that but with that being said you know even that even those choices you don't like where you're living you can move you don't like living the way you're living you can change you know you gotta take you've got to even take responsible that of course there's a sense in which I can never take responsibility for Canadian culture or British Empire culture it's like when I was talking about genocide before there's no way you can take your so much but still you take responsibility for your place in it and you say well even though the society I grew up in it's a bad culture in these various ways or I personally disagree with coaching surveys I'm gonna do my part to raise this child you know with my culture with my antidote to those problems in the culture I grow I grew up in a culture where nobody cares about reading books or history or what-have-you whereas by contrast like a place like South Korea I totally that's what I South Korea is very appealing culture to me a little ways in some ways South Koreans serve in some ways it's unpleasant I'm not gonna get into that here but you know South Korean culture I looked at that and said wow here's the culture where people really read books and really care about politics in history but I can raise my child sense these things you know you're not gonna you're not gonna go out and cut down all the thorny bushes you know you're gonna educate your child as to what is and isn't a thorn so they're not going to step on a thorn you know what I mean you're not gonna cover the mountain with leather you're gonna take a small piece of leather and make a make a shoe you know make a shoe out of it so that you can walk over the whole mountain it's a non-vegan image that comes from medieval Buddhism fiction you know but it is it is a standard logic puzzle where you say look the solution to the problem isn't to cover the whole Road with leather because it will cover the whole mountain with leather its jetted up just enough and in that same way to arm your child with just enough information and detachment and insight yeah yeah I'm not saying you know I have a lot of experience with this and I'm you I mean I'm a young person you know but in the limited experience I'm just talking about my my personal history wasn't with this with this topic um after I started dating you I was like well there were there was a bit of a gap you you you kind of you started staying in my apartment and then there was the point where you set up your own closet and hung your clothes I think that was that was when it was really committed right no you're like okay I'm good no I think that's fair to say yeah when you were first dating me for lack of a better word yeah yeah and I had this desire to have a kid with you like I had never had that at all and you know I was just thinking about it from this video she was talking about I'm eternal is I'm not I'm not saying it's my turtle instinct but like you know that urge to have a child like I had never felt that before and that really did change my perspective on things so and I'm not saying this will apply to other people but like like like you said like you shouldn't if you have this desire to have a child and it's do if you're not a crack head if you're not a gambling addict then you know you should take that seriously - you should take like natural desire seriously - look I I met so many people in Laos people who really grew up in poverty who really wanted to own a car and imagine their lives to be so much better I remember reading in a newspaper an interview it was in The Economist actually an interview with some people people in India and I was so pathetic how they really believed their lives to be so much better if they only owned a car and these are these are even people who owned motorcycles but it would never own a car this was their big aspiration in life and you know the article was talking about this this aspect of culture it's like well you know you don't know what you're missing you know like I know you imagine this and even uh you know you met Lao people who really felt their lives to be so much better if only they could ride a train she's also really because of that time Laos didn't have any trains in the whole country you know they couldn't imagine what it was like living in a society like Japan or every day you haul your ass on and off of the same train like most people living in Japan are spending more than an hour a day and that kind of public transport and it's not a joy and a delight anymore you know what I mean the novelty wears off will wears off quickly so yeah I mean I do think we need to be very skeptical about that when you're talking about a desire to have something you've never had when you're talking about a desire that's fundamentally rooted in ignorance and wishful thinking I think that's always dangerous desire to have a car or desire to have a child or what have you but no that's the thing I don't think it is rooted in ignorance for me because I don't know I'm like you know really looked into it like I sure made like list many times like her I think the pros and cons and surely I thought about extensively when you're talking about a given person in the abstract and you talk about them feeling like they want to have a kid or not feeling like the one I have a kid yeah I just think it's really worth asking okay so empirically what's that based and some people you mention this before your ex-boyfriend he basically raised as it raised his own younger brother right yeah you know were like six years young on them younger siblings but they were much younger so he one was like you're younger than him and then the other one was four years younger okay I don't need to know okay all right so all right so I was off there but all right there are some people where they really do have a very definite sensible raising kids to be like cuz their own family because the professional works something like this sure I'm just saying as a general warning I think you need to be more than cautious when you're talking about desire where the object of that desire is something that maybe unknown or unknowable to you even if it's something as simple as writing the tree don't work yeah or uh you know what it's gonna mean to you to have kids and raise kids and for sure I've known all kinds of people who feel like we talked about this the other day their lives are so occupied by taking care of the kid that they never get to be who they really are you know and maybe I would feel differently about having a kid if I hadn't already done everything in my life I wanted to do I've already I've said this before I've already been everywhere ever wanted to go like I have I have no desire to ever travel in South America or Africa yeah I have no desire to even to travel again in Cambodia you know Cambodia's but you know nothing in terms of everything in terms of philosophy and you know all the things I wanted to learn I already learned them so sure I was definitely a point in my life where I would never feel resentment against my child that my child was depriving me the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do and I'll for a lot of people it's the exact opposite yeah where their kid they feel has cut them off from all their ambitions or what they could have been on have you yep your father could have been a dentist for example okay all right it's not too late no you can still go back though sorry did have been inside joke there all right okay is that a wrap having kids if you think you shouldn't do it you probably sure