Discussion should people with mental illness have children?

[noaccount]

Should people with bad karma have children?
Should people with an excess of black bile have children?
Should people with phlegmatic humours have children?
Should people with phrenological predispositions to crime have children?
Should sinners and heretics have children?
Input question does not compute, category is not legible or valid

 

[Let'sgetoutofHERE]

I'm an anti-natalist (I don't talk to anybody about it though because I still want to have a social life) and so I don't think people should have children in general; this applies even stronger to mentally ill people (or people with severe inheritable physical illnesses, for that matter) imho. Choosing to have a child, knowing it will suffer, just because you personally have a longing for it is really selfish imho.

 

[Vault of Memories]

This is something I've always debated in my mind. I'd feel really guilty if my child inherited my "bad genes", with me knowing it was a possibility beforehand. I'd hate to bring someone into this world just to have them suffer like me. I suppose adoption is always an option, but I don't think I'll ever be stable enough to raise a child. Living through my own day to day nightmare is draining enough as is.

 

[Naysha]

No, no one should have children under any circumstances. Sooner people embrace the antinatalism better for the unborn people who will suffer if they get brought into this world. Life is just suffering, sparkles of happiness here and there can't justify creating someone new just because of selfish reasons. I stand by it till the end of my days.

 

[Sunshine]

No, they shouldn't. Even mentally healthy parents should only have children if they're really secure with their lives and relationships. But if you're mentally ill (unless it's a very mild form of OCD or something like that) you should not force children into this life. They are likely to inherit your issues and suffer from them too eventually.

 

[Worthless_nobody]

My personal opinion is no. In have definitely have mental illnesses passed on to me like Asperger's and depression. I was supposed to have a daughter but she died before birth. This happened to me without my consent but I decided I wanted to keep her. Im in a strange spot because the death of my would be child is one of my main reasons for ctb because I cannot get past the trauma and the grief. Yet I'm an anti natalist because I can't in my right bring a child into this world now with my current mind just so I don't have to be lonely or I can have some "purpose" in life. Also the state of the world is just so bad now. I simply cannot gamble with someone else's life seeing as how it's more likely they would inherit my problems and the odds are against them for having a good life anyway.

 

[FreedomInDeath]

A lot of children suffer not because they inherit the mental illness but because of how their parents affect them. Not to say they cannot be good parents, but also seeing a parent psychotic, depressed and suicidal is a lot for them to deal with. I also know a lot of people without diagnosed mental issues are bad parents though as well. I guess humans should just not reproduce.

 

[21Neberg]

i know this might spark some controversy. however my father suffers from mental illness and so do I. My psychiatrist explained that mental illness can be hereditary and there are studies done which supports this fact. so i'll leave this out for everyone as a discussion. should people with mental illness be more incline to not have children knowing that their offspring will be more susceptible to experiencing mental illness?

There's a bit of nuance to this. Mental illness itself - let's take depression as an example - isn't inheritable. Factors that increase risk to develop depression, are.

Watch out lol, wall of text that is only interesting if you like the subject...
Take for example the gene for the serotonin transporter. Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter that is involved in all sorts of processen in your brain, but most people know it for it's influence on our mood. Now there's two types of this gene - a long a short version. So you can have two short genes, two long genes or one short and one long gene for the serotonin transporter. People that inherit two short versions of this gene tend to (thus not always) react more intensely to all situations - so they laugh louder for example, but they also experience more intense sadness or grief when something negative happens as opposed to people with two long versios of this gene. It is this more intense sad reaction to negative events that makes these people more likely to experience depression in life.
But! That is only if you experience said negative events. I'm not talking about not getting the toy you wanted when you were little, think more like traumatic events such as losing a significant other or experiencing bullying. So they have an increased risk, but it is not predetermined that these people will experience depression.

In the end though, mental illness is influenced by so many factors.
Excuse me if there's any mistakes in the wall of text above. I'm no neuropsychologist haha.

 

[Emily123]

No

 

[Anti-Natalist]

I would argue noone should have children. I believe existence is an unnecessary burden imposed on birth, and not everyone wants to play the game of survival. Why bring someone into existence when there's the possibility they "want out" at some point? Once we come into existence there's no turning back. We may ctb but we did exist at one point. Considering that "exiting" the game is not something society is ever gonna make easier I don't think there's any gain in passing the human curse, since this ("gift of life" /s) is not easy to return.

Of course genes may be considered better or worse or whatever, but in the end I don't think eugenics makes for a better world, which already has very deep underlying issues that have little to do with the gene pool...

 

[Dydaks3302]

No no absolutely not