I applaud you for being so brave to share your experience. Many parents feel the same way but lack the courage to say it out loud. I never wanted to have children, and it's the best decision I've ever made. Too many people have children to follow someone else's script and later regret it. I have many close friends who told me that as much as they love their children if they get the chance to choose again, they would not have children for the same reasons you called out.

Outside of work, I volunteer to help childhood abuse survivors, and the saddest thing to witness is how trauma passes from one generation to another. Abuse happens, most often, when one unhealed, traumatized child tries to raise another.

Also, isn't our planet already overpopulated and polluted? Instead of tax laws that give parents deductions for bearing children, we should have them pay to offset their children's carbon footprint. After all, the rest of us have to suffer dirtier air, water, higher housing price, and more congestion because of their said offsprings. We can make the system more egalitarian by allowing each person a certain quota of free kids (ex: 2 kids per couple), after which people would have to pay exponentially more for each child they wish to have (ex: if the 3rd child is $10k, the 4th one would be $100k, and so on).