So who here doesn't have any kids?

Well said, Perks. I'll never understand people who think they can or should tell other people how to live.

Having children is not required in order to live a fulfilling life, and I have to wonder how many people would make different choices in that respect if there wasn't so much societal pressure, guilt, etc. A number of people have admitted to me the only reason they had kids was because of pressure from parents ("We want grandkids!" or "You need to carry on our name!"), not to mention being told repeatedly that you cannot be happy (or know what love is) until you've had children. Hell, my husband and I fell into that, and as a result, we tried for four years before realizing it wasn't what we wanted. I'm just thankful we never succeeded, though I really would like those hellish four years of my life back.

No one should ever be guilted or pressured into having children. That's just asking for a miserable parent who resents their children, and then everyone involved is unhappy. It simply isn't anyone else's decision, and I have absolutely zero patience for anyone who tries to persuade someone else to have kids.

I have children. Always wanted them, but I can certainly empathize with those who don't. I have a 35 year old daughter who is in the final stages of the no children decision. I support her 100%. Life is too short to be saddled with a lifestyle that brings you no joy, only burdens. Thank god for the technology that allows us choices. I am a teacher and see far too many kids being raised by joyless parents. --s6

You know where my writer brain goes with this discussion? I wish I could know the feeling of how time, in decades, not days or weeks or years, is perceived differently when you don't have kids.

To me, there has to be a difference - neither good nor bad, just different yardsticks. We all measure time by the mirror and the intensity of the aches upon waking. But my fifteen year old just drove us all around on errands for the first time on Friday and, for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking of her when she was two and highly skeptical when we were showing her how to decorate a Christmas tree. (It wasn't a lump-in-the-throat moment for me. Just super weird.)

Other people's kids make me feel much older than my own do, for the most part. My friend's son Jeremy will always be six years old in my head, except that he just got back from Afghanistan and got married.

thethinker42 said:

Having children is not required in order to live a fulfilling life, and I have to wonder how many people would make different choices in that respect if there wasn't so much societal pressure, guilt, etc. A number of people have admitted to me the only reason they had kids was because of pressure from parents ("We want grandkids!" or "You need to carry on our name!"),...

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Back in the late 1990s, I came across a library book from a woman who wrote a dissertation and rewrote that into a book. Her dissertation was WHY do people choose to have kids. I can't recall the name and after an Amazon.com check, I can't find it.

After she did all her number crunching her conclusion was brainwashing. She went into great detail in her book and much it was along the lines of what you wrote. I wish I could provide the name.

It was a turning point for me because I had always felt what she wrote.

I don't have any yet and maybe I'll have one in ten years. I'm in the same boat as the OP, everyone my age is getting engaged, having kids and I'm over here like, "Sweet, my Pokemon poster came in the mail today!" I've become a lot more career oriented in mind, with a good stable job with benefits and working on my book and getting a house win my other half... The kids I graduated with that have the kids aren't married (usually), aren't together, or don't have jobs... And I was raised in a stable household where marriage came first (not even a religious thing but you need to have commitment to bring a life into he world), and you needed a stable income to support your family. I came from a fortunate, put together home that instilled in me some nerdy old world values, I think, and I want to continue that.

Plus I have two sisters with 6 nieces and 1 nephew, so I got plenty of time to hang with the kids.

No kids for me. They're sticky.

I've always been told I would change my mind, but... nope. I'm 34 now. They're still sticky.

I have to admit to being the world's proudest aunt, though. I have 4 nieces and 2 nephews, and they're all excellent little humans who adore me, so I think I've got the kid thing covered.

Faye-M said:

No kids for me. They're sticky.

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LOL I am so putting that on a T-shirt...

I've been in this same camp: don't have children unless you are absolutely sure and ready for them. I'm 28 and 5 months along and happy to be bringing my future spawn into the world under ideal conditions: I'm happily married to a good man who is excited about being a father, we have a steady income and some decent knowledge of budgeting, and (thanks to me) our cats are used to being rolled on and hugged tightly (I love pretty aggressively). Though, I have to admit, I feel it's more freakish luck that things turned out this ideal than actually planning it this way.

In my current experience, pregnancy is freakin' miserable enough without stressing over whether I really want the kid or what kind of life I'm bringing them into. The idea of being a parent is still somewhat terrifying, but at least I know I have my bases covered so that takes a major load off my mind and I actually have enough room to get excited. So many fun and nerdy things we plan on doing with her.

Of course, waiting this long was pretty challenging since I didn't date anyone for four years straight and it seemed that everyone around me was moving on and popping out children. I even had one boss remark, "But you're from Tennessee! How is that you're not already married with at least two kids?" RLY, dude??

If you choose to be childless, way more power to you. In fact, I think more people should consider that option. Don't have children unless you really truly want them, that you want to make that change in your life. There are many decisions that should never be taken lightly, and children is close to if not the top of that list.

Channy said:

I don't have any yet and maybe I'll have one in ten years. I'm in the same boat as the OP, everyone my age is getting engaged, having kids and I'm over here like, "Sweet, my Pokemon poster came in the mail today!" I've become a lot more career oriented in mind, with a good stable job with benefits and working on my book and getting a house win my other half... The kids I graduated with that have the kids aren't married (usually), aren't together, or don't have jobs... And I was raised in a stable household where marriage came first (not even a religious thing but you need to have commitment to bring a life into he world), and you needed a stable income to support your family. I came from a fortunate, put together home that instilled in me some nerdy old world values, I think, and I want to continue that.

Plus I have two sisters with 6 nieces and 1 nephew, so I got plenty of time to hang with the kids.

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Niki03 said:

One woman I work with actually cried (we aren't friends, simply co-workers) when I told her I probably wasn't having kids. Cried! As if me having kids in ANY WAY affected her.

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Some people are as bizarrely invested in a woman's decision to not have kids ('What??! That's so unnatural! It's what you're made for! There's no greater joy' etc etc) as they are in a person's choice to not eat meat ('What??! That's so unhealthy! Animals like to get eaten! Where do you get your protein??' etc etc).

I am both of those people, but at 35, at least people are starting to take my decisions seriously. The last 10-15 years have been a trial though...

RightHoJeeves said:

My main takeaway was that whenever someone has kids, they start struggling financially. I like my life way too much to want kids (as in I like sitting around and reading books in cafes and drinking tea), and I also believe there are way too many people in the world anyway.

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Ayup. This is me to a T. (Or to a 'tea', if you will.) Except my finances are already threadbare.

HerNameIsLizzy said:

I am both of those people, but at 35, at least people are starting to take my decisions seriously. The last 10-15 years have been a trial though...

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If I had a dollar for every time I heard "You'll change your mind"....

HerNameIsLizzy said:

Some people are as bizarrely invested in a woman's decision to not have kids ('What??! That's so unnatural! It's what you're made for! There's no greater joy' etc etc) as they are in a person's choice to not eat meat ('What??! That's so unhealthy! Animals like to get eaten! Where do you get your protein??' etc etc).

I am both of those people, but at 35, at least people are starting to take my decisions seriously. The last 10-15 years have been a trial though...

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Ha! "There's no greater joy" is my favourite. They just expect you to ignore all the complaints they've made about pregnancy pain and discomfort, unsupportiveness of husbands, sleep deprivation, middle-of-the-night hospital visits, getting puked all over, the constant stress and worry, discipline drama, their children embarrassing them in public, being declared their kid's most hated person, etc etc.

Some women do genuinely enjoy bringing life into the world and get a thrill from every aspect of that, and thank God for that or there would be no good mothers in the world, but... I am not one of those women. I would pity any kid who ended up with me for a mother! I would not be able to deal with the above list and still think motherhood was a joy. I much prefer spending pleasant afternoons with my nieces and nephews and then SENDING THEM HOME when they start getting tired and cranky.

Faye-M said:

Ha! "There's no greater joy" is my favourite. They just expect you to ignore all the complaints they've made about pregnancy pain and discomfort, unsupportiveness of husbands, sleep deprivation, middle-of-the-night hospital visits, getting puked all over, the constant stress and worry, discipline drama, their children embarrassing them in public, being declared their kid's most hated person, etc etc.

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That just kills me. The parents who are *most* vocal about our decision to not have kids (as if it's their business) are also the ones who complain the most and the loudest about how hard it is and how no one knows what "tired" means until they've become a parent and so forth. I hope none of them work in sales...

I appreciate this thread.

It's amazing how flimsy the supposed innate drive to perpetuate your genes is, when you take away societal or family pressure to reproduce, and invent reliable anti-baby technology.

Coming to the firming realisation that the biosphere won't survive another few centuries of human depredation helps with the decision for some of us.

We're thinking animals, we have a concept of the future, and we can make evaluations of what our lives would be like with or without babies. We also have the benefit of a society of such surplus that it can take up the burden of caring for us in old age, even as we extend that phase of life to unknown depths. More and more people will be childless in the future. This is neither good nor bad. It's just what happens to late-phase industrial civilisations, evidently.

thethinker42 said:

That just kills me. The parents who are *most* vocal about our decision to not have kids (as if it's their business) are also the ones who complain the most and the loudest about how hard it is and how no one knows what "tired" means until they've become a parent and so forth. I hope none of them work in sales...

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I can only guess that, for people like that, having children is more of a status thing than anything else. I think they derive as much joy from the sympathy they get when they complain as from the children themselves. Telling someone who doesn't have children that they should is a way to justify their lifestyle and elevate their position as morally superior, even though secretly they sometimes wish they could have the freedom of a childfree life and (perhaps subconsciously) wish they could take ours away.

Or am I getting too cynical now?

There are people who truly do want to be a parent -- I know several for whom having kids was their major life goal, to the point that one of them was pretty stressed about dating because it was so important to her that she have kids someday. At twenty-five, she had already decided she'd get artificially inseminated if she reached thirty and was still single.

In other words, there are people who genuinely don't grok why anyone would not want to have kids -- but what's interesting is I've never seen the people who were most sure they wanted kids pressure anyone else. When they hear about your decision not to have children, they might say, "Oh, I totally do; I can't wait," or even, "Are you sure? You and your spouse would be such awesome parents," but they never make any pronouncements like, "Your life is incomplete until you do this."

As for the ones who do pressure others, there's this saying I've heard: "Snobbery is the public face of insecurity."

I think when people try to portray themselves as being in a position of superiority, they're really trying to convince themselves. All the blather is because they don't want to examine the possibility that they aren't doing the right thing, and they won't shut up about it because the blather can't really kill their lingering doubts. Convincing others to join their "team" is just another way to convince themselves they couldn't possibly have made a mistake, because they feel like there should be safety in numbers. i.e. If no one dissents, then they couldn't possibly be wrong, right?

Cathy C said:

...I'm sometimes asked by people whether I have children and when I say no, the response is usually, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" "Lucky you!"

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I never had that maternal thingy either, though I occasionally enjoy the company of (well-behaved) children and they seem to really enjoy hanging out with me too.

To be honest, I felt it was my "duty" to have at least one (for the Hubby), but after I hit 40, and it didn't happen naturally, we were like: "OK, fahgeddaboutit"

jjdebenedictis said:

As for the ones who do pressure others, there's this saying I've heard: "Snobbery is the public face of insecurity."

I think when people try to portray themselves as being in a position of superiority, they're really trying to convince themselves. All the blather is because they don't want to examine the possibility that they aren't doing the right thing, and they won't shut up about it because the blather can't really kill their lingering doubts. Convincing others to join their "team" is just another way to convince themselves they couldn't possibly have made a mistake, because they feel like there should be safety in numbers. i.e. If no one dissents, then they couldn't possibly be wrong, right?

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Exactly. I'd never heard that saying before, but I'm totally going to start using it now!

regdog said:

... My niece pipes up "Can't someone shut that little bastard up?" I nearly laughed myself into an asthma attack.

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OMG, I think I'm having one too, Reg!!!!!

I always imagined I'd have kids. But it was more that I couldn't imagine not having them than anything else, even though there are many childless people in my family. I figured I'd develop stronger feelings towards the issue as I got older...but I haven't. I'm in my late twenties, and I'm still at the point where I can't quite imagine not having children, but don't have a strong urge to have them. My partner doesn't have a strong desire to have kids, either. When his sister started having kids, I thought maybe this would sway me one way or the other, but it hasn't. Although she's pregnant with twins now, and when I heard the news, all I could think was "what a nightmare."

One thing I have started to wonder is whether it would be a good idea for me to have kids with my mental health problems. I'm also convinced I would get terrible post-partum depression.

As well, I always thought my mom would be there for me when I had kids, and I could talk to her about pregnancy, she could help me in the first few weeks...But my mom's dead now. It's hard to imagine having children without her.

So I'm guessing I won't have kids, and that does make me a little sad. But just a little.

thethinker42 said:

That just kills me. The parents who are *most* vocal about our decision to not have kids (as if it's their business) are also the ones who complain the most and the loudest about how hard it is and how no one knows what "tired" means until they've become a parent and so forth. I hope none of them work in sales...

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It's misery poker.
"Ugh, today sucked. X happened."
"You think that's bad? Let me tell you how today I suffered more than anyone else in the history of mankind!"
People love to have it worse than others.

The husband and I got the question a lot after our wedding. Some people were downright personally offended when we told them we weren't having kids. One in particular: "Pfwt, you guys just want to live the good life."

Yeah, well, duh.

We have no parental instincts, mildly unsafe jobs with weird schedules and we like our DINKy lifestyle. Some disposable income, no babysitters, fragile electronics just sitting out there in the open, safe and sound. (I wish I could say you're not going to step on a Lego in the dark either, but, well.) And it's not like I regularly get scheduled to work more weekends and holidays than people with less seniority than me because they have kids and I don't. Oh, wait...

regdog said:

I'll give a perfect example of my "parenting skills"

My sister called to tell me she, my b-i-l and 6 year old niece had gone to their favorite diner. A very young boy was there, yelling, shrieking and carrying on. My niece pipes up "Can't someone shut that little bastard up?" My sister and b-i-l were horrified. I nearly laughed myself into an asthma attack.

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Oh, I would have died laughing if that had been my child. I can almost see my middle one doing something similar.

But I long ago discovered that my typical responses to many things are not what society typically expects.

And frankly, I really don't care whether someone chooses to have children or not. It's not really my business and doesn't affect my opinion of them as a human being. I find it irritating that people are judged for not having children. I know several people that do not and I don't think any less of them. Many of them are terrific aunts, uncles, and friends to kids of all ages.

tjwriter said:

I know several people that do not and I don't think any less of them. Many of them are terrific aunts, uncles, and friends to kids of all ages.

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Thank you for saying that.

veinglory said:

I am not having kids. No specific reason. I think you need a reason (like wanting to?) for having kids. I never had one....

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This is exactly how I feel. Do you have the same trouble I do explaining it to others?
"You'll change your mind one day..." stfu