What if everyone thought like you?

I've gotten this a couple times in an attempt to convince me that if everyone thought like me, there would be no more babies, and as a result the entire earth would be depopulated. Riiiiiiight....that's gonna happen. When someone says that, I know two things...1. they like babies. and 2. they've been thinking about babies and haven't heard a word I said.

Go ahead, like babies all you want. I kind of do as well. I like their super soft skin, their tiny digits are cute, it's funny how they all look like tiny Churchill's, they get the best smelling lotion and they don't move very far or very fast. However, none of these are compelling reasons why a person should have one without thinking about it ahead of time, or in spite of their desire to NOT do so.

However, if you think I want to keep everyone from experiencing such blissful wonderment, I'm either not expressing myself well enough, or you aren't reading/listening carefully. All I really want are two things:
1. I want parents to be honest about their experiences and acknowledge that it's a difficult job that not everyone can, or should, do. I don't want to be fed a line of "butterfly kisses and Kodak moments", I get enough of that from popular culture. I want you, as a parent, to say "This really is a difficult and time consuming job. If you don't do it right, you are fucking up someone else's chances of being a happy and productive person. I've had to change my life radically and well, sometimes I don't actually like it. It's expensive. Everything just doesn't 'fall into place', it's not 'different when it's your own' and it's thankless, messy, chaotic and difficult." See? Easy and honest.

2. I want people without children to be able to think ahead of time and decide whether or not having children is the right choice for THEM. If they don't feel it's the right choice, then they should be free to NOT make that choice without the rest of society looking down their nose at them. Having children should not be something you feel obligated to do to make anyone else happy, it should not be something you feel required to do to be a part of society as a whole, it should definitely not be something you "just do". It should be something you WANT and are WILLING to do in spite of the fact that you know about all the work that goes into it.

What would happen should these two things EVER happen as commonly as people "just have kids" currently?
People would know, without a doubt, what parenting is like. They wouldn't have had smoke blown up their asses by parents spewing "I'd never known happiness before my child", "I didn't want one at first, but then one just came along and now it's great", "My child is the most wondrous thing I've ever experienced without a moment of regret or anger".

With accurate knowledge, people could then go through the decision making process with open eyes. Some people do want to do that work, but there are a goodly number of people who don't. The people who don't want to do that work could then say "No, not for me" and go on being productive and happy citizens. The people who do want to do that work would enter into it with the full knowledge of what they're in for so they're not surprised at the vast amount of work needed to raise a human to be a productive member of society. As a result, there would be FEWER unwanted and abused kids because...GASP...the people who never wanted them in the first place would not feel compelled to have them!

It's disgusting to me to know that for most people, thinking ahead and making a decision as to whether or not to have children is considered "bold" or "unusual", especially if one decides to not have one. No...wait...disgusting isn't a strong enough word....abhorrent, contemptable, loathsome, offensive? Yes, it is completely and utterly loathsomely offensive to me that most people do not think for even a moment whether or not to have children, that they just "do it" like animals. Do you take a moment to think before you buy a new car? Did you take half a second to think before you moved to a new apartment? Did you pause a moment before you purchased a house, changed a job, or relocated? Would you take a few seconds and think "do I want my lung removed?" if you were told you had cancerous cells in one? My guess is most parents would say "Yes" to all of the above questions, but when asked "did you think whether or not you wanted kids before you had them?" they would look at you like you just copped a squat and shat the floor.

When you do a shitty ass job of raising your kid, because you never really wanted one in the first place and "just had one" because it was the thing to do, or you were knocked up anyway or whatever...YOU ARE FUCKING EVERYONE. Your messed up kid will eventually become a messed up adult who will either make your mistakes all over, make someone elses life miserable, and/or have to spend years of their own lives clawing their way to a sense of normalcy and happiness...all because you just "had" them without thinking because it's just "something people do".