David | Collapse and the Ethics of Procreation

Raised in a conservative Christian family in Germany, David was raised with the belief that marriage and children were inevitable, an assumption he carried into his relationships despite privately questioning the morality of procreation. When he learned that his fertility was severely impaired, he felt an unexpected sense of relief. As his concerns about climate change, animal suffering, and an uncertain future intensified, David committed to his childfree convictions, underwent a vasectomy, and now works as a vegan advocate.

• TRANSCRIPT

  David (00:00):

  I was maybe 11 or 12 years old when I had an interesting thought for the first time. I'm not a Christian anymore, but back then I was very convinced of what I had been raised in. And my thinking was, okay, according to scripture, most of us will end up in hell, the non-believers anyways, as we were taught, and most of the Christians even. So having children seemed to be a cruel gamble to me, gamble with a child's future fate for all eternity. So I asked myself how my parents or other Christians for that matter could justify to themselves bringing children into this world. And this thought stuck with me in a way that you must have really good reasons to bring a child into the world and that it's not something which should be taken lightly.

  Nandita Bajaj (01:01):

  That was today's guest, David. Hi everyone, and thank you for joining me. My name is Nandita Bajaj and I'm the host of Beyond Pronatalism: Finding Fulfillment With or Without Kids, an interview series in which through intimate conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, I explore how they are courageously and creatively navigating pronatalism - the often unspoken pressures to have children, whether from family, friends, or the culture at large. Each episode features a personal story, born out of liberated and informed choice, about redefining what family means, including being childfree or childless, having biological kids, adopting or fostering children or animals, or creating close-knit communities of friends and loved ones. Hello and welcome to Beyond Pronatalism, David. It is so lovely to have you today.

  David (01:57):

  Thank you so much. I'm very glad to be here today. And as I said in the intro when we got to know each other, kudos for the great work you're doing.

  Nandita Bajaj (02:07):

  Oh, thank you so much. And looking at your story, I feel there's so much that we overlap on with regards to our values around speciesism, pronatalism, and planetary health. So I'm very excited about unpacking your story. So let's begin with a brief introduction, David.

  David (02:31):

  Yeah, my name's David. I'm from Germany, 40 years old. I like to call myself an author because I just recently have started writing books. But as a matter of fact, for a living, I teach German as a second language to adult migrants from all around the world.

  Nandita Bajaj (02:48):

  And you shared a little in your story about your different interactions with pro-natalism throughout your life. Why don't we start with the beginning? What kind of values were you raised with around pro-natalism?

  David (03:04):

  This is interesting because my parents and grandparents were very religious folks. So I was raised in a household with mixed Catholic and Lutheran Christian ideologies, and my family was very strict and conservative compared to the people around us and German society, even back in the late '80s and early '90s. So I wouldn't say that pronatalism per se was very prevalent, which might sound curious, but my parents and my grandparents were not ever actively pushing on any of us the idea of having to have kids, procreating. It was more like general family values, and I think marrying and having children was just thought of as par for the course. But I was maybe 11 or 12 years old when I had an interesting thought for the first time. I'm not a Christian anymore, but back then I was very convinced of what I had been raised in.

  (04:05):

  And my thinking was, okay, according to scripture, most of us will end up in hell, the non-believers anyways, as we were taught, and most of the Christians even. So having children seemed to be a cruel gamble to me, gamble with a child's future fate for all eternity. So I asked myself how my parents or other Christians for that matter could justify to themselves bringing children into this world. And although as I have said already, I'm not a Christian anymore, I have deconstructed my Christianity long, long ago, but this thought stuck with me in a way so that you must have really good reasons to bring a child into the world and that it's not something which should be taken lightly. And then there was another incident at school, I was maybe 13 years old when my Latin teacher told us to our class that given our lifestyle in Germany, earth could only support two to three billion people.

  (05:07):

  And to me, this was a shocking revelation. I already had a vague knowledge of environmental destruction, but hearing that was quite shocking to me. But it sounded even without any further research into it, it sounded quite convincing or quite plausible. Nowadays when people tell us population is about to collapse, we're too few and we have to have more children, I'm really baffled actually.

  (05:37):

  I mean, we used to be one billion 200 years ago when my grandparents were born, we're nowhere near extinction. And now with eight billion, extinction is actually much more probable due to our technology going rogue maybe and the environmental destruction of course.

  Nandita Bajaj (05:55):

  Yes. Just so fascinating that your questioning of pronatalism came from actually within a religious context where you were thinking ethically about bringing a child into a world, especially if they were bound to go to hell. And how cool to have had a teacher to expose you to an environmental worldview at such a young age. And so did you ever talk to anybody about your views about the ethics of bringing kids even within a Christian context?

  David (06:28):

  Rarely so. Maybe a couple of times I tried to talk it through with my mom, but I guess I pretty quickly got the feeling that no one could really relate to my thoughts. So it was just, as I said, par for the course that you have to have children. It's just the way life goes and we don't want to get into the weeds of it and that's it. Although this is also funny because in my childhood home, my grandma, for example, she had a very pessimistic worldview and was often lamenting the difficulties and hardships of life and had gone through very hard experiences throughout her life. And she sometimes used to say things like when a new child was born, the worst is still ahead. So outlook on life is probably really bleak. It's funny anyways that you can have this cognitive dissonance. It's very typical.

  (07:23):

  I overhear it quite often. People will say, for example, okay, the world is in such a bad state and it's going to get worse and whatnot. But when it comes to procreation, all of a sudden something switches in their head it seems, and all these issues and matters are forgotten. And I don't want to talk down to people. I can understand that people take a decision for having children or against having children. I'm just saying that sometimes it's taken a little lightly.

  Nandita Bajaj (07:55):

  Sometimes being maybe an underestimation, I think a lot of the times it's taken very lightly. And to your point about people being so aware of the ecological crises, and then when it comes to procreation, like you're saying, there's a cognitive dissonance. And sometimes I notice also people use the justification of the child giving them a sense of hope for a future that is so bleak. And coming back to your question about the ethics of bringing a child to whether it's a religious analogy of hell or real ecological hell, the question still remains, do we have the right to do that to a child to put that kind of burden on them to be a source of hope for us? So I think it's a good question to hold as people are questioning whether or not to bring a child into this world. But when it came to that question for you, as you were getting older and into adulthood, did you stay with that question or were you being exposed to other ideas?

  David (09:03):

  It was always present in the back of my mind, but I would say that as pronatalist thought is probably the air we breathe. I didn't dare to question it, but I always had my concerns. And there are two points I want to make here. First of all, in Germany, we have a saying, hope dies last. And while I can relate to this adage, and I think it has its value and its worth, when we talk about children and having children and the trope that children are our hopes and children give life meaning and children are cute and so on, I often found it curious that we have such a restricted timeframe as if the person you're creating ends at age 10 or some other arbitrary level and will not go on to live for maybe another seven, eight decades and see whatever comes. And this was something which I always felt really hard to ignore so that this life hopefully wouldn't end at 10 or 15, but go on to have all its hardships as well as beautiful moments and purpose.

  (10:14):

  And I don't want to deny that, but I think we should put both into the equation. When I studied economics, I wrote a bachelor thesis about pronatalist policies affecting birth rates and why around the world most pronatalist government policies seem to have been in vain. And even then I didn't really question the underlying default assumption that we need to have more kids.

  Nandita Bajaj (10:43):

  Right. So fascinating. So you were, on the one hand, the back of your mind, you had this question of procreation being ethical or not, and then not really questioning why we constantly need more people to keep this growth engine going. So at what point in your life did you start having more kind of conscious thoughts around questioning pronatalism?

  David (11:10):

  Oh, don't get me wrong. I mean, these thoughts were always there on a conscious level, but they got pushed to the back of my mind because I thought and said to myself, maybe I'm just wrong. And because virtually all people around me have a certain opinion and mindset, so I'm just the one off and maybe I'm just wrong. It is the same with animal issues, by the way. So from an early age on, I was 11 years old when we traveled to my mom's childhood home and visited relatives who had a big, big turkey farm. And when I walked or looked into the shed, it was like maybe 80,000 turkeys. It was huge. The sound was so off-putting, the smell was horrible, and it kicked me all of a sudden that all these 80,000 animals are individuals and how they must feel, how it must be to be confined in this small space.

  (12:09):

  And these thoughts stuck with me, and yet it took me another maybe two and a half decades to walk the talk actually, and to come to terms with that this is really not okay. Such a cruelty is not justified because it was just normalized.

  Nandita Bajaj (12:27):

  Yeah. And your point reminds me of this recent interview we had with an animal liberation scholar, Vasile Stanescu. And he talked about how at a very young age, most children are quite aware of the food that's on their plate versus the animal that they know to be an individual with a full life and they don't have the cognitive dissonance. As soon as they wake up to it, they want to fix it. They want to stop consuming that animal. And it takes a lot of propaganda from culture to normalize that. He talks about the suppressed trauma that we all live with when we have to keep pushing down these awakenings that we've had in our life, whether it's about pronatalism, speciesism, or other types of exploitative harms when either our families or our teachers or our culture tell us that it's okay and that there's something wrong with you for thinking or questioning the norm.

  (13:32):

  So it's not surprising to me that it took you a couple of decades before you finally realized that the thought that you had when you were 13 was once again reawakening in your 30s. And so yeah, I'd love to hear more about both your awakening to animal rights and to procreative ethics. When did that happen for you?

  David (13:57):

  Okay, let's start with animal rights because it's a little easier to pin down. So it was very gradual. Throughout adulthood, I always consumed meat just on rare occasions and mostly because I was convinced of the health needs of getting enough protein and whatnot. But I didn't really think about the issues with milk and eggs and other, and the issue of lab animals was quite present to me because I knew some people had worked in animal research and that's why I was aware of the problems there. But when it came to food, I just imagined that yeah, organic farms are kind of okay. And since my mother was born and raised on a farm, what grandma, grandpa did couldn't have been so bad. Even at times when my grandpa told me a little how they did handle pigs, for example, it didn't sound right to me. It sound very cruel, but that's just the way things are. Yeah, so I think it was very gradual.

  Nandita Bajaj (15:00):

  Very interesting. And how about for pronatalism?

  David (15:03):

  When it comes to pronatalism, I must say that my family was always laid back, laissez-faire, didn't interfere. Maybe I heard my mother say on a couple of occasions, it would be nice to have grandchildren soon, but that was that. Funnily enough, from many other people in my surroundings, I heard quite often, When do you want to have kids? It's about time. By the age of 30, we will surely have our first child, and comments like that. So I assumed it would be the same for me. And all relationships I had been in in my 20s and early 30s were more or less built on the assumption that long-term goal was having a family, including our own children. And this was something I just took for granted, like a natural law almost, you might say. Interestingly, these conversations always made me a little uncomfortable, and part of it was that I deep down knew that this was not my path.

  (16:08):

  I can say so in hindsight now, but back then it didn't seem that way because I didn't have the strength to swim against the tide and to go against everybody else's opinion and mentality. I believe I was not unique in this respect because it seems that there is a lot of pressure, especially on young people, to fit in, to fulfill certain expectations, societal expectations, and not everyone is made for rebellion or for going against it from an early age, I think. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine, I was 19 or 20 years old. It was back in my childhood home and she had come over to have dinner. And when I was preparing food for the two of us, she looked at me and said, You will make a really great dad one day. And she back then was of the conviction that she wanted to settle down, have seven children exactly.

  (17:06):

  We haven't been in contact for some years now, but the last I know is that she still didn't have any children. And when we had the conversation maybe four or five years ago, she said to me, It seems too bothersome to me.

  Nandita Bajaj (17:21):

  Things changed.

  David (17:22):

  Yeah, things have changed quite a lot. But back then when I was told that you will make a great dad, I took it as a compliment, of course, as it surely was. This is one occasion where I remember that someone so bluntly told me, You will pursue this path. And I didn't know about the term childfree back then, but if I had stated, Okay, I don't want to have kids, in my imagination, it would've been almost impossible to find a partner as a consequence.

  Nandita Bajaj (17:50):

  I think that makes a lot of sense, and I think that's a very real experience for people who are clear about not wanting children, I think especially 15, 20 years ago when it was not as common to say childfree or that you didn't want kids. So I think that was a very valid fear. And yeah, I appreciate you using the word strength or courage or rebellion because it feels like within that deeply pronatalist landscape, courage is what it takes to stand up to it and say something that, as you said, goes against the tide, which is a real shame because I think so many of us don't have the strength and shouldn't need the strength to live a life that we want to live. And so did you have a conversation like this with potential partners, and how did that go, if you did, about having or not having kids?

  David (18:46):

  Yeah, sure. For a long time, I didn't dare to question the underlying assumption that, okay, in a couple of years I will be a father. And interestingly, I had a fertility test done a couple of years ago, and when the results came back, I learned that my fertility was severely impaired, not to the point where it was impossible to have a child, but the doctors told me right away that without IVF, it might prove really difficult. And of course, any kind of health revelation or diagnosis is shocking at first, but rather quickly, maybe after one or two days, I felt a sort of relief, which I couldn't pin down at that point where it was coming from. But when we look at it on a global level, there are many people who are coerced into parenthood and others are, there's not outright coercion at play, but very strong societal pressures or total lack of contraception and so forth.

  (19:49):

  But to many other people there, I think there is at least a possibility to question the pre-assigned life path, but it takes some clarity and some earnest conversations, first and foremost, with yourself to make up your mind. Of course, I should say, this is always a good thing to be as open as you can with a potential partner. So with my current relationship, we approached things differently because it became clear from the very beginning that we're on the same page here. Both of us don't want to have kids, although maybe reasons might differ a little, but for all practical intents and purposes, it doesn't matter. So we share the same vision that we don't want to have children. And I also, I had a vasectomy last year because it just seemed like maybe a natural next step actually.

  Nandita Bajaj (20:43):

  And what was that experience like?

  David (20:45):

  It was interesting because my urologist, because he knew about my fertility issues, he asked me about it and I said to him, I don't want to have children anyways. When I asked him about a vasectomy, he said to me, Well, I won't send anyone to a colleague for surgery before the age of 40.

  Nandita Bajaj (21:04):

  Oh, wow.

  David (21:06):

  Well, okay. Tell me something about ageism, right? So I mean, in my honest opinion, when someone is 18 years old and we say, Okay, you're of a legal age and you can buy a house, found a company, marry, vote, why shouldn't you be allowed to decide for a vasectomy? This being said, I can understand that people in this current day and age think, okay, you might come to regret it, ignoring the fact that you might regret having a child also, but you might regret it, so wait a couple of years. Don't take such a drastic decision at 18 or 19. I can understand that to a degree, but I'm against patronizing people and telling them, no, you can't have a surgery. And come on, I mean, 40, so basically had two decades to come to terms with what you want or don't want. So I found it really weird.

  (22:05):

  Then I booked an appointment with another urologist to have the vasectomy performed. And in the interview before the surgery, she said to me, Are you really sure? You don't have any doubts? You're glad you came to me because all my colleagues in our city won't do vasectomies at all on men of any age who don't have children.

  Nandita Bajaj (22:28):

  Oh my goodness.

  David (22:30):

  So welcome to the 21st century. But I was quite lucky. It was chat of 10 minutes. I convinced her that I was dead sure and I didn't fear any regrets. I was sure I wanted to have the vasectomy performed and I did it.

  Nandita Bajaj (22:45):

  Thank goodness. What an ordeal. We did an interview with a guy who got a vasectomy at 18. He's pursuing medical school and he was very, very sure, and he'd been thinking about it for many years too. And it was the same discussion, and they said you have to be at least 21 or 25, but 40 seems ridiculous. I mean, that is just coercive pronatalism that is basically preventing you from making your own decision about your body. So how did it feel after you got a vasectomy?

  David (23:20):

  Relief. I can say in simple terms, yeah, I felt relieved that this matter is off the table.

  Nandita Bajaj (23:27):

  Congratulations.

  David (23:28):

  Thank you.

  Nandita Bajaj (23:30):

  Well, that's great. And so now that you're kind of on the other side of that decision with that much clarity, where would you say you're at with your life and what does life look like for you today?

  David (23:43):

  Interesting question, and one I ponder about quite a lot lately. When you turn 40, you may think, okay, half of my life is behind and the other half is maybe ahead. So I don't feel like I'm stuck in the midlife crisis, but I feel like I should make the best out of the remainder of my life and of the years ahead on this earth. So the best out of it in terms of things I want to see and explore and learn, but also changes I want to see in the world. I enjoy my job. I enjoy teaching to people from so many different cultures and learning about people's backgrounds and their stories. This is something I find really inspiring, and I know that I make a difference in people's lives who want to integrate or find their place in this society. But on the other hand, I think issues like especially veganism are very dear to my heart.

  (24:44):

  So I'm thinking about getting more active in this respect. And it may sound very broad or philosophical, but I'm under the impression that we as people have a marvelous ability of compartmentalizing and abstracting away from things. And this is a gift and a curse at the same time. So we might have these abstract ideas about life, about other people, for example, and about what it means to be a parent or what it means to be a child and having a child. But when it comes down to the day and day experience of being a parent or having a child, we get lured away of the sometimes harsh realities of it. To give you an example, I had two friends over a couple of months ago, and both of them are in their 40s and don't have children and are single. And both of them are, as you might call them, quote unquote, doomers when it comes to environmental and societal issues.

  (25:48):

  So one of them said, Yeah, by 2040 or 2050, one billion people won't be able to live at the places they are living or will be living then, considering the children, the generations that are still to be born. And yeah, then we will have climate migrants and wars over resources and climate change will turn really horrible and then biodiversity crisis on top of that. And he said, Anyone having children right now should teach them martial arts and self-defense skills. And then I asked him, So why not refrain from having children at all when prospects are so bleak in your estimation? And then he just answered, Whoa, yeah. Now you're taking it too far. And I think we have this marvelous ability of thinking all the bad things, for example, on one hand, but then when it comes to practical matters, ignoring all the rest and just focusing on what we've been convinced and thinking.

  Nandita Bajaj (26:50):

  Yes. That's a very good example to show the degree of compartmentalization and the dissonance. We're okay with the prospect of subjecting a potential child to harm, but we're not okay with the prospect of not bringing a child into this world at all and not subjecting them to any harm. It is amazing how much pushback there is to the question of not having kids. And even among a lot of progressive people, they see that as an act of despair somehow that you're given up. It's like, no, you could make a decision for the sake of someone else's wellbeing.

  David (27:31):

  Yeah. And I don't want to sound too defeatist, say, yeah, we are in such a big mess there that it is beyond repair and beyond hope. But I think if more and more people took matters seriously in this regard and would think at least twice about having children and population growth would come down even more quickly, we might find ourselves in not such a big pickle as we are right now and are heading towards. And for the children who will be born, it might turn out a better world in the end if there are not so many others around.

  Nandita Bajaj (28:11):

  Yes. And to your point about the question of despair, it doesn't mean that by not having kids you are engaging in defeatism. It just means that you may be able to find other ways of loving and finding community rather than necessarily having your own child. It doesn't mean that we lose all hope for doing all we can to reduce suffering and to bring about better conditions. It just means we can do that with the people that are already here and the animals that are already here and the ecosystems that already exist. It doesn't need to be a new person that is only deserving. So yeah, I think it's a very important point that you bring. I want to thank you so much, David, for taking time today to share your story with me and for empowering so many other people to get that clarity for themselves and get that validation and relief that comes with that clarity. I had a really lovely time chatting with you.

  David (29:12):

  Thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate all the work you do. And yeah, it was a lovely interview.

  Nandita Bajaj (29:19):

  Amazing. That's all for this edition of Beyond Pronatalism. To share feedback about the show or a particular episode or to share your own story on the podcast, please get in touch with me using the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it widely. We couldn't do this work without the support of listeners like you and hope that you will consider a one-time or a recurring donation. Thank you so much again for joining me today as we collectively discover and celebrate the many different pathways to fulfillment beyond pronatalism. This podcast is brought to you by Population Balance, the only nonprofit organization advancing the rights and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet by confronting pronatalism and other harmful ideologies. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Nandita Bajaj, with the support of my production team, Josh Wild and Alan Ware.

More like this

Share your story!

Would you like to share your own story on the show? We’d love to hear from you!

Join our mailing list

Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know when a new episode is launched.