But they don't exist at the moment you make them, so before they exist you have no reason to sacrifice anything for _them_ because there is no _them_.

If you give up a job to move somewhere to move to a city to meet your future partner, you didn't sacrifice your job for them, at least not in the sense that any nobility can be derived from that act. You gave something up, yes, but not for _a person_ because you don't even know them yet. You can make sacrifices for a person that you have personal love for, but you cannot have personal love for someone who doesn't exist yet.

Once the children exist you can make sacrifices for them of course. But at the moment of choosing to have kids, you are not making sacrifices in the same sense (unless you are having kids for the good of society etc.). So deciding to have kids, even if you have to give something up, is not some selfless or noble act, as parent said.

> So deciding to have kids, even if you have to give something up, is not some selfless or noble act

Sure, but assuming that you know the decision will lead to such sacrifices, it can hardly be called a selfish one either. Especially since the gratification of "wanting something for themselves" (which you claim it's all about) also doesn't actually manifest until later, actually after the sacrifices do.

> So deciding to have kids, even if you have to give something up, is not some selfless or noble act, as parent said

Is anyone actually seriously suggesting that the decision itself is an act of sacrifice? Surely it's kind of super obvious that the sacrifices are in raising the children, not in deciding to have them?