It's a commitment. If you are not willing to have your life completely changed then yeah, you better not do it.
It's not a path for selfish people. There is not a lot of "me time", as a parent.
IDK that I'd be so quick to refer to people who don't have kids as selfish.... Certainly there are selfish people that shouldn't have kids for that reason, but not all people who are willingly childless, are selfish.
Not saying it that way. I'm saying if you need / prefer to focus on self, well, being in a couple may already be hard, and being a parent is gonna be an exercise in frustration.
It's okay to not want to devote your life to others.
That's fair. Take my comment more as a clarification of what you were saying.
Being single and childless or being in a relationship and childless, isn't in and of itself a problem with someone being selfish.
Personally, I choose not to have children because gestures at everything.... I don't even want to be here, why would I forcibly make someone else live with gestures at everything again all this....
The world is crazy. I don't want to subject my offspring to what's happening. I'd rather that they don't exist than to do that to someone who I love more than anything.
They don't and will never exist, and I love them enough to not subject them to the insanity that is our society.
Unless we get to star trek levels of prosperity before I'm beyond the age where I am able to create offspring, then I don't see me having any. I'm not even talking about space ships, and FTL/warp speed, I'm taking about the principles under which they lived in the federation. Unified, peaceful, and free.
Realistically, that won't happen in my lifetime, so I guess I'll never procreate.
And a note before I go. While I don't want to be here, I'm trying to be a net positive for the world while I'm here. I'm not depressed nor suicidal, I have no inclinations to harm myself or others. I'm here, I've dealt with that fact, I'm making the best of it. I just got engaged, and I'm looking forward to growing old with my partner, and peacing out after another 30-40 (maybe more?) years on this planet, hopefully making everything I touch just a little better as I go for those that will survive after me. My entire life is in the service of others....... and I'm not religious. Go figure.