That makes more sense. Maybe I misread your comment & if I did, my bad.

I actually appreciate this thread giving me a voice to express how I feel. I typed up a big long thing and deleted it, but basically, I can trust most people and certainly my family to not want to listen to what I have to say, and also probably not to understand it.

It's nice sometimes to put some of it out there. Like "these are my thoughts and I don't expect them to be your thoughts but I have them and I am sharing them." Of course I don't want to argue with people about why I'm not inclined towards having children, and putting my opinions out there can open that door. But it can also, perhaps, make me feel as if other people understand where I am coming from and why I feel the way I do.

I don't want to pass my problems on to a kid. They are significant enough that I cannot imagine how I would avoid doing so. This is compounded by the idea that all parents parent as a reaction to how they were parented (whether good or bad). My parents overcompensated for some stuff. It backfired. It's a double ding: a) My personal conflicts would influence my parenting, whether I tried (effectively or not) to suppress them and b) my experience of being parented, which would inescapably impact my parenting model, did not teach me effective parenting, but instead how to pass on my issues.

For the record, like, global warming's on the list, too, man. It ain't all heavy shit. I don't keep the list to show it off to others, but more a mental file: things that give me pause.

But I do agree I was coming off defensively - but I'd frame it at least partially as "in defense of selfishness." I think many people see selfishness as unilaterally bad. I feel that selfishness, some amount of it, is required for self preservation. It is okay to be selfish. Sometimes, I think it can be for the better.