When a person doesn't want children, sometimes he'll gravitate toward a political view justifying that desire. Rousseau, for instance, who abandoned each of his five children at an orphanage as soon as they were born, argued in The Social Contract that the state owes more to the child than does the family. More recently, Prince Harry of the British royal family told Vogue that he and his wife, Meghan Markle, the guest editor for Vogue's special edition, would be having a “maximum” of two children on account of — well — climate change.
Never mind that Markle is nearly 40 — it's the rising sea levels they're thinking of!
That this is disingenuous is obvious, and also unsurprising. After all, don't most people attempt to organize their beliefs around their lifestyles (as opposed to the other way around)? And isn't that because most people — notwithstanding the many opportunities for redemption — are rather thoughtless and selfish? Rousseau argued otherwise, naturally. But at any rate, I digress. Why are we — people of child-bearing age — so reluctant to have children?
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