I mean, the reality is there are levels and levels of desperation. The world's poorest, living on less than $2 per day, have had and continue to have children. As someone on Lemmy, the odds are overwhelming that you are in a developed nation or are on the wealthier end of the population in a developing nation. So we have two possible conclusions:

1. If you had kids, you would still be better off than rural villiagers in Pakistan who also have kids, and would probably be able to get them to adulthood without death occurring prematurely.

2. If you had kids, you would be worse off than the worlds poorest people. So to achieve your goal of having children, you should move to a rural, impoverished Pakistani villiage and convert to Islam, since we can see here a clear and regularly successful path to achieving your goal.

This idea is quite persistent on Lemmy, that people need to have some level of comfort, or post-child expected comfort, or expected comfort for their children, before they have kids. But they don't. Literally every mammal that successfully passed down their genes since the dawn of time has been having children in precarious situations and figuring it out. Sure, you might not want to work 3 fast food jobs while being a single parent just so your kid can live the same life - but you could, and deciding not to do it is a choice.

And you may ask the question "Well why would I ever make that choice? That seems dumb." And I agree with you. I also wouldnt make that choice. Personally, I have very little desire to have children at all. But that would probably be different if I'd been more successfully indoctrinated to believe that Jesus is Lord, and Jesus Wants More Babies!