I suspect it had something to do with the survival of the species.
Not that I think it's going very well for us.
Sure, some awesome people have great kids, and that's fantastic.
But it seems that some of the most prolific procreators are the ones that should be weeded out.

It basically comes down to the following evolutionary logic: creatures who didn’t have the urge to have sex, raise children, spread genes, etc wouldn’t pass on their genes to the next generation by definition. So the genes and behaviors that cause one to spread their genes is what survives. All of us who exist are the result of that process, therefore 99% of us have the urge for sex/children/family/etc because our acestors did. The past creatures who did not have the urge to spread their genes, didn’t have any offspring, so those genes and behaviors faded.

Cause we 're inherently programmed to procreate and pass on our genes..

It's an ego thing...we like to make little copies of ourselves.

No kids, no desire to have any. They are expensive, will wreck your car, and marry someone you don't like.

Not everyone wants/ is capable of having children. My best friends, married about 35 years never had kids and are extremely close. Most stable relationship of anyone I know. My one and only sister never had kids - 2 marriages, 1 common law marriage. Some adults like to travel, dine out and live the lifestyle without kids.

Not me. I have never been so vain or arrogant that I believed the world would cease to exist if I didn't procreate. Given that there are also 7.5 BILLION humans on this dying rock....it's also selfish and harmful to breed more humans.

If you knew me you woudn't have to ask why I need to pass on my genes. I'm all kinds of awesome.

I didnt know there was one, I thought it was just an innate desire to have sex that leads to procreations.

How else will the species be continued?

Those of the species who didn't strongly have the desire eventually died out. Those who did survived to pass on that trait to their offspring and their kind flourished.

damned if I know ! In any event - it's gone way too far.

Without that desire, the species would already be extinct. No species can exist without reproduction.

I don't want to have any kids. I don't want to be a mother. I have a hard enough time taking care of myself, that it wouldn't work out for me to fail at being a mom and taking care of myself. I would be setting myself up for failure.

My perfect number of children is zero. I did give in to societal demands and conceived three times. My genetic scans since show a lot of damage, if I hadn't miscarried, I'd probably have children with very severe health and developmental disabilities and be quite miserable.

As a corrollary to this question, why is it that infertile women, when presented with the idea of adopting, so often whinge that it's 'not theirs'? That just pisses me off. I was adopted and went through, among other things, resentment from my mother that I wasn't 'hers.'. You MAKE it your kid in your mind. We aren't the kind of animals that abandon or mistreat young just because our scents don't match, you know.

There is a distinct body chemistry that goes on when a person wants to reproduce. Depending on the level of mind in the person, they will be respectively better or worse at regulating this.

It is th eresult of evolution. We are animals, an dwe have evolved isincts, once of which is a desire to reproduce.

The 64 thousand dollar question. Survival

I wish I knew. The species isn't going to die out any time soon, after all.

I’m not a biologist and only have a rudimentary understanding of biology; however, my intuition says that it ultimately ties back to the 2nd law of thermodynamics which says:

For a closed system, entropy must always increase.

The universe is such a system whereas our little planet is not. However, the fact that such complex organized creatures like us and other life forms exist means that more and more entropy will be created in the universe. In a way biological life forms are like super entropy generation machines. Basically what I’m saying here is: the more life forms there are, the more the entropy of the universe increases. There was actually a paper on this very topic I remember where I had the paper, but here is an article about it

[quantamagazine.org]

Again, this is just a guess, but it is self consistent with the 2nd Law: doesn’t mean it’s right, just that it doesn’t contradict fundamental laws of physics which is a start.

Program of biology at the most basic level. "survival instinct" Human beings are more self aware and have a wider range of emotions. This adds a side component which simplier species have no need for.

That, and The Family Name.... As far as I am concerned, it benefits nothing.

Real men? Sounds like a put down. I do remenber a woman I had a relationship with definitely wanting a child, so far a short while until she was pregnant we did have "procreative sex". Once she was pregnant, it was just normal passion.

Yes there are couples who desperately want a child, and there are many more who do not want anymore children yet still participate in making love. Which is why we have family planning programmes or perhaps more honestly should be renamed family avoidance programmes?