You don't think that having children is a selfish decision in itself? I have thought long and hard about whether I want kids or not, and ultimately I concluded that I should only have kids if I myself really wanted to raise kids (regardless of say, whether my partner wanted to have kids). Kids do not ask to be born, and life is not a guaranteed net positive.

Personally, I've never understood the selfishness argument, especially by parents, as 1) Isn't it more selfish to create a literal new entity of life just for your own whims? and 2) What is wrong with selfishness, especially in light of their own selfishness in 1?

This is not even to mention that many parents simply do not care for their children well, as parental child abuse cases as well as the number of potential adoptees in the world is non-trivial. Now that is truly a cruelly selfish act more than any amount of not having kids can be, to bring a conscious entity into the world and then to let it suffer.

The argument of selfishness still assumes that having children is the default and there’s something wrong or negative at play for those who choose not to go down that path.

I’d also point out that the decision to have children is almost always one motivated by what people want for themselves, not some altruistic obligation. If asking people why they chose to have kids wasn’t taboo, I’d be willing to bet that the answers you’d hear back would be about what the parents want for themselves. At its core, “We’ve always dreamed of starting a family” is about the life the parents desire to live.

Who are they being selfish to?

Or maybe parents are selfish? They ever asked their unborn child if they want to be born?

a lot of people say things like "ive always wanted kids". seems kind of selfish as well. just pick any of the cliche things, passing on your genes etc, its all selfish in a way

I don't think there's any real mystery on the increase in selfishness, though I think that's the negative perspective of it.

Individualism has been the cultural focus of education and child rearing for a long time. Having children changes who you are and can stand in the way of achieving your personal or professional goals.

I'm not sure it's a bad thing but it's easy to see how that could lead to less people wanting to be parents, especially women who've had a much more dramatic cultural shift in the last several decades.