Why do women have kids?

Why do people want to have biological kids?

(I thought this would be a good subreddit to post on since many women here are parents)

As someone who genuinely loves kids and even works with them, but I would never, under any circumstances, have children of my own.

I’m not asking this to be provocative, I honestly want to understand, because I cannot wrap my head around it.

To be clear, I do understand the desire to raise and care for a child. Kids are great. What I cannot understand is why anyone would willingly go through pregnancy and childbirth to make that happen.

Childbirth, is one of the most extreme forms of pain and trauma a human body can experience. When I think about it, it makes me feel angry and unsettled, not judgmental, but genuinely distressed by this extreme body horror that occurs so frequently.

Pregnancy isn’t something you can consent to, in the same way we cant consent to other serious bodily harm. For example, if someone begged a doctor to amputate a healthy limb, we wouldn’t allow it, because no one considers that a rational or ethical choice. So I struggle to understand how childbirth is fundamentally different.

People often respond with, “But it’s natural—the body is made to do it.” But bodies are also capable of enduring torture, organ failure, and extreme pain without dying. That doesn’t make those experiences acceptable, or something we expect people to volunteer for.

From my perspective, the only explanations I can come up with for someone willingly becoming pregnant are:

1.	Social or partner pressure

2.	Being misinformed from how intense childbirth is

3.	Self harm / belief that suffering is necessary or noble

4. An extreme masochism kink 

5. Feeling like there is no other option

And even if someone initially consents, consent is reversible. But once labor begins, there’s no real way to stop it. That’s another reason it can’t be true consent.

People say, “Well, what if you just really want to raise a child?”

My response is: cervical pain is often described as the most neurologically intense, traumatic pain humans can experience. How could anything possibly be worth that, especially someone that you don’t even know yet? (I’d be more understanding if it were necessary to save your sister or partner or moms life)

Aside from that

There are many children who need to be adopted. And when people say, “Adoption is long, hard, and expensive,” I honestly don’t understand how that could be worse than childbirth itself.

Another argument I hear is, “If people don’t have kids, humans won’t continue.”

I don’t have a polished response to that, I just know that no abstract idea, even the continuation of humanity, could ever justify that level of physical trauma on anyone. And I don’t understand why that burden falls completely on women.

I also really struggle with the role men play in this. I don’t want to hate men, but I genuinely don’t understand how someone can claim to love their partner and be not only willing but want to put them through something so painful traumatizing and dangerous. It is the ultimate act of betrayal. This makes me question if men are even capable of empathy.

And then lastly how is having sex with the intention of “making a child” not disgusting to everyone?

Like I dont kink shame but involving children in your sex life is disgusting and unethical, children should have nothing to do with and not be involved in sex, and I would think this would be obvious and not controversial.

I’m not trying to shame anyone or say parents are bad people. I’m trying to understand how so many women have gone through childbirth and still view it as acceptable, or even positive

If you’re a parent, especially a mother, I genuinely want to hear how you understand this differently.

Because I genuinely don’t understand why so many women throughout history went through childbirth and didn’t just kill themselves instead, and how anyone could possibly mentally recover from something so horrible.