It is my experience that most people who say something like "yea well, I don't care that much for children" or "Well maybe, I'm not sure yet" are stil at the age of "choice".
Like children are an accessoire to add to the Ikea couch and the big screen tv.

At some point, the biological clock will go off for most of us and there will be a strong urge to reproduce, raise and care.

Instinctually I would try to populate a whole continent with as many women as I could. Unfortunately that wouldn’t work out in reality. Plus, all those damn diapers!

How the hell did you come up with THAT idea?

It seems to me you just took personal offense to some of the views expressed in this thread and used that comment in order to lash out against those who expressed them. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

I understand why you posted this and it's obviously a popular subject for discussion so this isn't directed at you or anyone who's replied here but I think it's pretty weird how many total strangers think it's appropriate/proper to ask me the title question. Which is kind of presumptuous to begin with.

Do people really feel entitled to this kind of personal information? Is it a means of gaging my worth or respectability? I don't know why but the question invariably provokes one of two responses in me: utter head-aching exhaustion and a big old wide-eyed dead pan stare or spitting out some thoroughly socially unacceptable response like, "However many I can fit in the oven."

I sort of understand how having kids can factor into judging someone. I, personally, am in total awe of good parents. I think they must have Herculean strength on infinite levels and epic amounts of patience. And also have some kind of mutant talent for selective deafness. That doesn't mean that every parent instantly earns my respect though. I get really tired of hearing how great someone is just because they've had or support a child in some way. I think there's a little more to it than having the biological ability to reproduce.

I don't view children themselves as a burden. What I view as an unnecessary burden, for ME, would be the role of being a parent. I simply weighed the pros and cons, and made the decision to remain childfree*. Satanism is a religion for individuals, and if a Satanist weighs the options and decides that they want to be a parent, then it's none of my damn business.

(* - Considering that both the High Priest and High Priestess of the Church of Satan came to the same personal decision for themselves, I'd hardly call it unsatanic.)

If you look at your OWN children as burdens and punishments, I'd say you have to seriously consider how that is affecting your kids. Fucking them up is certainly not Satanic.

But that sentiment is not unSatanic in itself. Children are a burden. A burden that many gladly, joyfully, ecstatically bear. But not this Satanist.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Frankly, they scare me.

In all honesty though, I do like children. I am planning on having them. And not because of a twisted interest to see a recreation of the movie "Alien". I just like kids, and I want to experience the joys, hardships, and inevitable bitter, jaded misery of having one of my own.

And when he is eighteen, he's out the door.

I'm not sure about how I feel concerning procreation. Considering how young I am, I don't really see that as a problem, but it is something I've thought a lot about.

Most kids give me headaches. But seeing as how most adults make me want to shove my head into a brick wall, that's not really a big deal. I've always found young ones to be freakishly insightful, funny, and more alive than most people passing off as having heart beats. Sure, they're loud and messy at first, but I've found most kids who have good loving parents to be well natured by around age four. If they're still a screaming little shit by that point, I say it's safe to blame it on the parents.

While I will agree with Shade insofar as a "good parent" doesn't automatically make a great person, I've had the fortune of having outstanding parents who are outstanding people by themselves. If I ever have kids I don't want to do any less.

Plus, I've always wanted to teach someone how to play drums, and all the older kids are real flakes.

As for how many, I'd say two. As cliche as that answer is, it worked out pretty well for my brother and I.

Well, the best things in life come in pairs.

Like vaginas.

Too young to give it much more thought than preventing it right now. I like the idea of children, but I don't know how it would actually work out. Would it be wrong to play potentially traumatic pranks on them? Like having a bunch of friends dressed up like a SWAT team come breaking in during one of their parties?

Yeah seems like a bad idea to reproduce.

I'm from a very Catholic family, and I'm the last one among my cousins in my age range to not have a child. Personally, I find it a great triumph to not have gotten knocked up in my late teens or early twenties by some drunken "esse", but the rest of my family doesn't seem to think that. Most women in my family were married and popping out kids by the time they were eighteen. I'm 23, but I've already been called a "spinster" and an "old maid" at family get togethers.

I dated a number of men before I came out, and to this day my mother makes comments about how she wishes one of my ex boyfriends had gotten me pregnant so she can have a grandchild. I don't feel the need to plan for children anytime soon, especially while focusing on school and work, and it alarms her.

My partner is indifferent and says the decision is all mine. She didn't want children on her own, but she'd be open if I wanted to try. To me, it's not something to be indifferent about, but that's something to deal with later.

I'm keeping my options open. I think the most "Satanic" thing to do is just focus on your own wants and needs, and not take onlookers' thoughts into account.

Some days I dislike the idea of being burdened with such a big responsibility, and some days I have that strong maternal need to nurture and to care for someone...

Maybe I'll just get a puppy.

Personally, I like to keep a few pairs of those on hand. You can never have enough vagina. Read in the paper today they can cure blindness. Which is great, because I think my artificial vagina has significantly dimmed my vision.

Or maybe they were talking about carrots?

I believe there is not much one can do in such matters. I think it is funny when a person or a couple say we plan to have such and such number of children. This almost always never happens the way it is expressed. One may have enough desire for a plethora of little squirts, but may fall short into financial difficulty, relationship tornado; infertility or several other situations which might not have been foreseeable from the time the number was predicted. I personally will leave it up to chance with a simple dice roll, it matters not to me “I always aim for snake eyes”. What really matters is that I can provide for my child or children to be raised in an environment that will open their minds. That they have the chance to live life in an environment that will allow them to be free of all the corroding mental restraints that by the grace of herd mentality, are allowed to exist and destroy the very foundations that are responsible for the creation of society in which we live. So…that one day by the power of my will, my children will live life with enjoyment, that they may finally one day find their own truth and thrive.

Good riddance to the inferior breed!

I don't have anyone to have children with (and I don't see it happening) and I probably wouldn't make a good father either. I probably won't be very old either so I'll spare any eventual child the trouble.