Because I see this world as more broken than good, and while I do believe there are ways for individuals to carve out their own psychological refuges and extract meaning from suffering, I am not confident that civilization on the whole will ever be anything other than a thin veneer over incomprehensible depravity/brutality/self-interest driven monsters colluding behind the scenes at the highest ranks. Maybe there’s even some part of me that wants it all to burn down, and that’s just not very compatible with introducing my own children into the world.

Material security is another major factor. I am more prone to fearfulness about money than the average person.

But mostly, I think it’s because I was raised by irresponsible, childlike adults so I came to associate children with that same sort of smothering neediness. This probably isn’t even totally fair though—children have legitimate, temporary needs whereas underdeveloped adults who remain like children on the insides have an insatiable infinite unjustifiable neediness. But regardless, I became repulsed by the concept of permanent responsibility for someone else, being mostly helpless to defend them against this world, and remaining tethered to them by involuntary instincts/emotions/processes. Fear, I guess. But experience-based, well-founded, legitimate fear.