My father’s counterargument to my refusing to procreate is exactly this. “Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?” What that told me is his main reason for having kids was to have someone do that for him. Funny, because despite having lived under the same roof, he wasn’t much in my life, or has made any positive inpact on me. Everything was on mom (and sometimes grandmother). And now listening to him talk like some day I will move back to the country and abandon my entire life to take care of him/them, while right at this moment he’s being extremely financially irresponsible? Cool cool cool. My partner’s mother expects the same, all the while she doesn’t work at all because it’s beneath her.

With that said, I find having children for the sole purpose of them taking care of me in my old age not only selfish (especially with the imminent climate collapse), it’s also risky (and I’m not even talking cases where the child has disabilities and can’t take care of their own needs). And that’s in the case I even live that long.