Moral Standards For Parenting Need To Be Achievable By Mediocre People
On average, to maintain the human race, each woman must have two children.
Therefore, if you have standards for the minimum morally acceptable parenting, and you would like humanity not to slowly go extinct, these standards must be achievable by most people.
There is no way around this. You can, for example, create a standard that only 50% of people can meet, but then the average mother must have four children—so your standard must be achievable by someone who has six or eight kids (to counterbalance the mothers who only have one or two).
What’s more, some people who would be good parents don’t want to have children. So if you would prefer not to pressure people who don’t want kids to have kids, your standards of minimum acceptable parenting need to be even lower.
In particular, your standards should be achievable by:
Poor parents.
Parents who have strongly held life goals that have nothing to do with their children.
Parents who live in cities with an ongoing housing crisis.
Parents who really like working.
Parents whose ability to tolerate children maxes out at like thirty hours a week.
Short-tempered parents.
Dumb parents.
Lazy parents.
Emotionally unintelligent parents.
Sometimes I see people say things like:
“If you’re going to have kids, you need to make sure each child has their own bedroom.”
“Parents should never yell at their children.”
“Parents should always respect their children’s autonomy and decision-making, and not just use rewards and punishments to get the children to do what the parents want.”
“Parents should always empathize with their children, validate their feelings, and try to problem-solve.”
“Parents should move at their children’s timetable instead of rushing them from place to place to get things done.”
“Parents shouldn’t leave their babies to cry until they learn to soothe themselves to sleep.”
“Mothers should stay home with their babies the first two years of the child’s life.”
“Mothers should breastfeed their babies unless there’s a medical reason not to.”
“Parents should homeschool their children instead of sending them to public school, which is basically child prison.”
“Sex workers shouldn’t have children because other kids will bully them.”
“Responsible parents always help with their children’s homework and put their children in lots of activities that will look good on their college applications.”
“Teenagers shouldn’t be responsible for making dinner every night, providing afternoon childcare for siblings, or navigating bureaucracies for their parents.”
“Parents shouldn’t stick their children in front of iPads.”
“Parents should always monitor all of their children’s media consumption.”
And I don’t think most of the people who say these things realize they’re anti-natalist.
It’s fine to say that you have a high standard of bare minimum acceptable parenting, and if that means humanity shrinks every generation, so be it. But you should be aware of the tradeoff you’re making here.
I personally am troubled by low fertility, and also would prefer not to force people to become parents against their will. So my standard of bare minimum parenting is something more like:
You shouldn’t rape your kids, or force your children to work in coal mines, or shoot up heroin in front of them, or anything like that.
You should feed your children, clothe them, house them, and give them basic medical care.
Society should make sure you can do this no matter how much of a dumbass you are.
You shouldn’t hit your kids.
You shouldn’t insult or humiliate your children, and if you do in a fit of anger you should apologize.
You should unconditionally love and accept your children.
This might seem like a high standard but human beings evolved to be able to do this.
Obviously, it is better to go beyond the bare minimum of acceptable parenting. I personally strive to validate my child’s feelings, respect his autonomy, not yell at him, not send him to child prison, etc. But I think, if you expect to be able to hit my minimum standard, it’s okay and indeed praiseworthy for you to have kids.
The thing is, there's no real obligation for the right thing to be achievable. That's how I felt in the worst of the parenting trenches when people would say I was doing fine when it was apparent that I was not. Just because it's impossible to do better doesn't mean I am doing enough!
Now I do think that slightly better parenting is better than bad parenting. There's parenting that increases crime rates, and then parenting that makes your kids turn out okay but resent you, all the way up to parenting that will make your kids go "I want to do things exactly how my parents did." (Not sure I've ever seen anybody say that.)
Then we get to the question of which corners it's okay to cut. Me, I think extracurriculars are kinda optional and I don't very much care about my kids' grades, but I am always there for them when they're upset. Is that the right approach or should I focus more on achievement and less on emotional health? For these kids who are very smart but not great on emotional regulation, this is probably the right course, but for different kids it might not be.
Then there's the question of, which advice, if given, will result in actual better parenting in the recipients? Which is why I think "don't hit" is good advice. Even if not precisely followed, it'll probably result in LESS hitting. Whereas "never use formula, breastfeed only" may result in babies not getting enough to eat, so it's not such good advice unless carefully tempered.
Anyway these are just some thoughts; I'm not sure I have a takeaway. Just that your post doesn't really take the pressure off. I still want to be the parent my kids need, whether or not that is possible to achieve.
This super aligns with my hypothesis about why many culturally middle class and above people, especially potential mothers, are reluctant to have children (on top of availability of attractive alternatives).
I do think widespread dissemination of "shared environment isn't really all that important" data could, maybe, help? And genuinely increasing social status of reproduction and having more childre. (I come from a culture where a "multi child family" is a social concept, and is associated with not just poverty but low status, stupidity and backwardness, and while it might have changed now, this used to be so strong that I did a double take every time I encountered someone normal/intelligent who has more than two siblings -- I can't help but think it's one of the reasons it now has a fertility rate of 1.26).
But I have another comment here, less side-bar like. Many of these ott standards are not straightforward moral standards but hinge on factual beliefs on what is (1) important (2) better. And most of them have zero to negative reliable, credible evidence. Maybe they could be knocked down via that route....