Voluntary childlessness

[Spankytoes 1739]

How’s this for an answer?

Have had kids since I was 19 years old. Got married at 20 and just celebrated 20 years in June. We became empty nesters in July with both sons moving to Texas for college. Next month, my SIL is immigrating from Russia. With her, she is bringing her 18 year old son and 7 year old daughter, both of whom have no relationship with their respective fathers. I’m 90% OK with the fact this temporary living situation is really permanent. 

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

8 hours ago, tantric superman said:

Hats off to married folks with no kids. 

This to any married couples with more than two kids.

We have too many people on this planet.  Women need to voluntarily have two or less kids.  Men need to sire two or less kids.

 

Fewer, gotdammit. Fewer. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

39 minutes ago, Spankytoes said:

How’s this for an answer?

Have had kids since I was 19 years old. Got married at 20 and just celebrated 20 years in June. We became empty nesters in July with both sons moving to Texas for college. Next month, my SIL is immigrating from Russia. With her, she is bringing her 18 year old son and 7 year old daughter, both of whom have no relationship with their respective fathers. I’m 90% OK with the fact this temporary living situation is really permanent. 

So, a hot SIL ?

Having kids when you're young means they get to usually know grandma and grand dad and maybe even their great grandparents.  

Edited September 15, 2019 by Onboard 2.0

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

Thread mimics real life.  Ask about not having kids, and 90% of the comments are about having them. 

However people without kids can’t tell you how much better their life is without them. Even if you have the exact life you wanted, it’s impossible to state you’re 100% better off without kids.  

At the end of the day, we need to make the best life for ourselves, and those around us, regardless of the circumstances.

 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

3 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Thread mimics real life.  Ask about not having kids, and 90% of the comments are about having them. 

However people without kids can’t tell you how much better their life is without them. Even if you have the exact life you wanted, it’s impossible to state you’re 100% better off without kids.  

At the end of the day, we need to make the best life for ourselves, and those around us, regardless of the circumstances.

 

The making was one of my favorite parts.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9324]

My dad has always been understanding of our decision not to have kids even though I'm his only son. His first wife (aka the birthing device for my sisters & me) was a deeply ill woman whose impact on us as children was bad. Very, very bad. My sisters were brave enough to overcome that & have each raised a pair of lovely children (adults now). 

There's only been one time when he's expressed any remorse over my wife & me not having kids, and that was a couple years ago when I was visiting with him to talk about his will & estate planning. He told me that the only thing he regrets about us not having kids is that he & his wife (#3) never had the chance to spoil those kids like they think they did with the other 4 grandchildren. I damn near spit out my beer over that comment since my sisters' kids have non-existent relationships with my dad & his bitch of a wife. They "spoiled" them by sending them lots of cheap, bargain shit that his shopaholic wife bought. No emotional connection. No warmth. Constant criticism and comparison of grandkids.

Enjoy your life.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Everyone should make the choice to have kids based on what is best for their family and what they feel.

My only issue with childless couples is their constant refrain of “We can do whatever we want because we aren’t tied down and have our freedom.”

Some parents make the huge mistake of making their kids the center of their family and basically make the kids the boss; they mold their family around the kids instead of integrating the kids into the family with the parents as the bosses.

We have two kids - both in college now - but we never let them stop us from living our lives. The kids were along for the ride and we made it work.

Sure, some compromises were made along the way but we didn’t put our adult lives in a box just because we reproduced.

I find couples who make their entire lives kid-centric to be quite insufferable and they are often the ones who end up with spoiled bratty kids and a terrible marriage with all kinds of resentment.

My husband and I were here first. Couples that become “Mom and Dad” at the expense of their own identities are doing their marriage and their kids a huge disservice.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 words never uttered in our home ever ............ SWIM TEAM....  The height of forfeiture of your life to hours of insufferable boredom.

[Helobious 9454]

2 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

2 words never uttered in our home ever ............ SWIM TEAM....  The height of forfeiture of your life to hours of insufferable boredom.

My dad introduced me to baseball, football, and basketball at a very young age, and I naturally gravitated to those sports as I grew up. He never really talked about or showed me any other sports. Now that I’m older I think he was just making sure I’d participate in sports he actually enjoyed watching. Genius. 

[Buzzrock 14920]

Well he did make one mistake: pee wee baseball is the worst. But f swim team.

My favorite description of parenthood is it’s the greatest thing that you’d never do again. I don’t know many people who are childless by choice. Seems rare but there are lot of examples in this thread.

[austingirl 2191]

I absolutely remember how great it was pre-kids to be able to pick up and do whatever whenever. I never understand people who are all "I can't even remember what life was before them!" I do and it was kickass. Impromptu weekend road trip? Last-minute happy hour with coworkers? Check and check. My oldest was a NICU baby and was so incredibly high-maintenance that I hated maternity leave. All he did was scream and nurse. I was afraid to leave the house with him. I didn't go out to eat for dinner for 6-8 months after he was born because I knew I would pay later if he didn't get to bed by 6:30 pm. I could not WAIT to go back to work. To be perfectly honest, then, in the bowels of motherhood, I wondered what on earth inspired us to try to get pregnant. I had never really been around kids and thought that some latent maternal instinct would kick in. Eventually, after MANY months, it did, but in the darkest days I worried if I'd made a huge mistake.

Point is, people can fuck right off with their opinions. If you're cruising along childless and loving life, I'm certainly not going to tell you you need kids to be fulfilled or whatever. I have two kids and I would lie, cheat, steal, and murder for them, no questions asked. They bring untold joy to me and I never regretted the decision to bring children into my life. But I think it's so intelligent to really think about how children can affect your life, and how ok you will be once you realize that parenting consumes all of you, in ways you probably don't understand yet. 

More than almost anything else, parenting asks everything of you and asks you to just go with it, blindly, believing that it gets easier and one day you can be you again. This was probably the biggest thing for me to get used to. I'm a control freak, and there's nothing like pregnancy and babies to really bring home that there are things you may never be able to affect, no matter what you do. This lesson hit home when I had a miscarriage between my two boys. I couldn't have done anything about it, and yet, 8 years later, every now and then I'll think about that baby and what it could have become, and I think maybe if there's an afterlife I'll get to meet it and see what made it so special that it was called back at 8 weeks gestation.

If we have auras, I think mine would be a bit dimmer than it was before then, before that baby left us and before my post-partum depression decided to stick around permanently. For all that, though I wouldn't go back and do it over differently. Because of lessons learned while raising children, I've become a more patient, empathetic person. I'm less uptight than I was, both at home and work, because after you have a baby that screams the first year of its life and after losing the next one, you realize that you can only do so much, and focus on things you may be able to affect instead of things you won't. 

These are lessons most everyone learns at some point. Sometimes you learn them on the childfree track, and sometimes you learn along with your kids as you raise them. Both ways are great, but both is not for everyone. Godspeed, childfree friends.

[Anastasis 23471]

On 9/13/2019 at 4:36 PM, HenryJames said:

I had a kid because the world needs more of me.

Yeah. Kinda feel an obligation to the human race to keep my genetics in the mix. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

2 words never uttered in our home ever ............ SWIM TEAM....  The height of forfeiture of your life to hours of insufferable boredom.

I take it you’ve never been to a dance recital

[wild_turkey 3159]

Went to a cookout this afternoon. There were 4 pregnant women in attendance and lots of kids running around. Wife texted me in the middle to say “let’s get out of here”.

Went home and cooked some great pasta, drank wine, watched adult TV, hung out with our dogs, booked a vacation, and spent “quality time” together. Life is pretty good around here.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

4 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I take it you’ve never been to a dance recital

Oh we did those, they were only 3 hours once, at the end of a series of dance lessons, but that's a nice lemon juice laced, paper cut you just reminded me of.

[F250 28777]

13 hours ago, Helobious said:

My dad introduced me to baseball, football, and basketball at a very young age, and I naturally gravitated to those sports as I grew up. He never really talked about or showed me any other sports. Now that I’m older I think he was just making sure I’d participate in sports he actually enjoyed watching. Genius. 

Reminds me of the time my wife asked if we should put our oldest in soccer. Me, "No, soccer is boring. I don't like it." She didn't understand what my like or dislike had to do with it.

 

['stache 21816]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:01 PM, tantric superman said:

Hats off to married folks with no kids. 

This to any married couples with more than two kids.

We have too many people on this planet.  Women need to voluntarily have two or less kids.  Men need to sire two or less kids.

 

A high school friend on facebook has like 8 kids. I don't judge her for having that many kids, but I do have some level of skepticism towards her and her husband because I know it is based on hardcore Catholicism. I have significant disdain for that religion based on the damage it did to me being raised in that environment. And I wasn't even molested, that revelation just made my decision to leave easier. 

[F250 28777]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:05 PM, tantric superman said:

Deciding to have kids - sorry, you're completely open to judgment as to how many you have, how you raise, them, and how they end up.  You're decision to procreate affects our society.  Society can, and should, fairly judge you.

How does society judge you and why would it matter?

If someone said something to me about having more than two kids I would tell them "fuck off, cock sucker" just like I do when someone complains about me dipping Copenhagen on an airplane.

 

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

13 minutes ago, F250 said:

I would tell them "fuck off, cock sucker" just like I do when someone complains about me dipping Copenhagen on an airplane.

I would grab your flip flop and smack you upside the head

[alincoln 2371]

12 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

Went to a cookout this afternoon. There were 4 pregnant women in attendance and lots of kids running around. Wife texted me in the middle to say “let’s get out of here”.

Went home and cooked some great pasta, drank wine, watched adult TV, hung out with our dogs, booked a vacation, and spent “quality time” together. Life is pretty good around here.

[tantric superman 4667]

2 hours ago, F250 said:

How does society judge you and why would it matter?

However they want, and not sure it would matter.  Would depend on if your offspring were great or horrible.

Given the fact that we are going to be at 11 billion by 2100 (by one estimate) my thoughts are that society would benefit by generally favoring parents who stick to 2 kids and attempting to assist countries that aren't at that level with education and economic support. 

The "judgement" may simply be err on the side of providing the education and economic support.

[tantric superman 4667]

2 hours ago, F250 said:

How does society judge you and why would it matter?

If someone said something to me about having more than two kids I would tell them "fuck off, cock sucker" just like I do when someone complains about me dipping Copenhagen on an airplane.

 

 

My response would be "you need to teach your wife to suck cock more often". 

How could you get peeved at that?

[tantric superman 4667]

19 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

2 words never uttered in our home ever ............ SWIM TEAM....  The height of forfeiture of your life to hours of insufferable boredom.

In retrospect, (primarily soccer and gymnastics) swim team is about 10 times better than any other sport. 

No "team sport" drama (my kids a much better forward than that kid) and it's a sport they can do for life. 

[Guest Lobo]

Only good news about swim team is your son/trans is 7x more likely to get an athletic scholarship via swimming than they are via baseball, basketball, or football.  We do hundreds of scholarship reviews each year.  

[housious 468]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:01 PM, tantric superman said:

Hats off to married folks with no kids. 

This to any married couples with more than two kids.

We have too many people on this planet.  Women need to voluntarily have two or less kids.  Men need to sire two or less kids.

 

Well, given the fact that population declines in western countries are going to have major negative impacts economically, you're partially wrong. 

Our biggest problem is that the people that can actually afford to raise children are having fewer children, or none at all. 

[housious 468]

11 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

In retrospect, (primarily soccer and gymnastics) swim team is about 10 times better than any other sport. 

No "team sport" drama (my kids a much better forward than that kid) and it's a sport they can do for life. 

Golf. That's the sport you're looking for. 

[tantric superman 4667]

1 minute ago, housious said:

Well, given the fact that population declines in western countries are going to have major negative impacts economically, you're partially wrong. 

Our biggest problem is that the people that can actually afford to raise children are having fewer children, or none at all. 

Survival of our species>survival of other species>negative economic impact.

We need to plan for negative impacts through appropriate immigration and economic policy (aid/economic incentives) to countries with high birth rates.

 

[tantric superman 4667]

5 minutes ago, housious said:

Our biggest problem is that the people that can actually afford to raise children are having fewer children, or none at all. 

I think that's awesome.  What we glean from that is how we fashion public policy to better educate the parents and children of lesser economic means who do have children.

[F250 28777]

2 hours ago, tantric superman said:

How could you get peeved at that?

I have a short temper.

2 hours ago, Lobo said:

Only good news about swim team is your son/trans is 7x more likely to get an athletic scholarship via swimming than they are via baseball, basketball, or football.  We do hundreds of scholarship reviews each year.  

Need to do better after letting Swam through the process.

 

 

[F250 28777]

2 hours ago, tantric superman said:

Survival of our species>survival of other species>negative economic impact.

We need to plan for negative impacts through appropriate immigration and economic policy (aid/economic incentives) to countries with high birth rates.

 

Or not do anything and the population problem works itself out?

 

[tantric superman 4667]

5 minutes ago, F250 said:

Or not do anything and the population problem works itself out?

 

How is going to 11 billion in 2100 (or 9 billion) with increased concern about global warming "working itself out"?

https://medium.com/p/2f606c1ef088/responses/show

It was less than three billion 60 years ago. 

 

[F250 28777]

7 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

How is going to 11 billion in 2100 (or 9 billion) with increased concern about global warming "working itself out"?

https://medium.com/p/2f606c1ef088/responses/show

It was less than three billion 60 years ago. 

 

People will eventually die out.

That'sTheJoke.gif

 

 

[tantric superman 4667]

9 minutes ago, F250 said:

People will eventually die out.

That'sTheJoke.gif

 

 

[SydneyCarton 48107]

I was really enjoying this conversation and the different thoughts and perspectives until page 4, when Tantric Superman showed up and shat all over the fucking thread to push his personal Cloak Room adjacent agenda and subject us all to his heavy vaginal flow. 

Hey, shithead, this isn't a thread to discuss global warming, overpopulation or anything else. It's a philosophical thread about the personal life choices that people make in regards to personal priorities and fulfillment. No one fucking asked you how you felt about the world population, and since you haven't contributed anything to the conversation laid out in the original post and have just shown up to talk about Public Policy and The Education of Those With Lesser Means, why don't you exit stage left and start a completely different thread? Or better yet, just shut the fuck up in general and fuck right off. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by SydneyCarton

[closetojumping 62737]

50 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I was really enjoying this conversation and the different thoughts and perspectives until page 4, when Tantric Superman showed up and shat all over the fucking thread to push his personal Cloak Room adjacent agenda and subject us all to his heavy vaginal flow. 

Hey, shithead, this isn't a thread to discuss global warming, overpopulation or anything else. It's a philosophical thread about the personal life choices that people make in regards to personal priorities and fulfillment. No one fucking asked you how you felt about the world population, and since you haven't contributed anything to the conversation laid out in the original post and have just shown up to talk about Public Policy and The Education of Those With Lesser Means, why don't you exit stage left and start a completely different thread? Or better yet, just shut the fuck up in general and fuck right off. 

There are times each day in which I ponder how I'd most enjoy seeing you put to an end. This is not one of those times. Well stated.

[fattyflattie 4639]

11 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

There are times each day in which I ponder how I'd most enjoy seeing you put to an end. This is not one of those times. Well stated.

Fuck. Ran out of rep.  Just know it’s coming. 

[LABEVO 928]

Wife and I are early 30s and  decided not to have children. That may change but for right now that is how we feel. I am apathetic on having kids and her view is that life is misery so why bring a life into the world to experience that misery. I don't understand the rationale as she has a very comfortable (economically speaking) life but result is positive for me. 

As a result, our lifestyle means that we can live in multiple cities which we do and tend to plan every event / travel last minute. It has been great and now that we have a dog it has reinforced our desire to not have a kid. It is too much responsibility. 

Her view which I believe we could afford is that we would only have a child if we had a nanny 100% of the time. It comes down to neither of us feel a strong desire to have kids and both agreed before marriage that we would only have them if we both REALLY wanted it due to cost and time commitment.  

[huge 3793]

9 minutes ago, LABEVO said:

 her view is that life is misery so why bring a life into the world to experience that misery.

Insert some sort of YOU'RE A TERRIBLE LAY joke here

[Sbbruin 21855]

Haven't read through the whole thread, but I fault no one for choosing not to have kids.  And I certainly wouldn't characterize it as selfish.  Selfish are the ones who have kids with the expectation that the gubment is going to contribute to their upbringing.  

My wife and I dated for 6 years before getting married, and another 7 before having kids.  We just never felt ready.  But once we did, we both know without a doubt that it was the best thing we've ever done. But damn if it isn't demanding in every way imaginable.  Financially, emotionally, physically.  But the reward is something no one can adequately describe to you unless you go through it.   

I do see the childless choice becoming more prevalent in younger folks who work for us.  With the cost of living being what it is, and home ownership being so difficult, they are just electing not to burden themselves with it.  And that's OK with me. 

[Bernard 879]

Just turned 50. Never had the desire for kids, which probably bled over into never really having the desire for a wife. I’ve had many options for both over the years. Had many relationships end when the GF started talking about marriage and kids. I’m a bit of a lazy, selfish, asshole. No regrets. I’m quite happy with my independent life. I dog sat a friend’s dog for three days last week. JFC that was a pain in the ass. I can’t imagine dealing with a wife and kids 24/7/365 for two or three decades nonstop. I’m way too far down the road of living life on my own terms and making decisions without a care in the world for how they might affect my dependents since my dependents don’t exist. I have plenty of friends. And good times. That’s all I want. 

There’s no right or wrong answer. I doubt you’ll find many people on either side of the fence who have major regrets. No matter what choice you make, you live with it. Those decisions become your life. All the other infinite other roads you didn’t take become not-your-life. In the end most people find a way to rationalize how their choice was the right one for them no matter how your life actually works out.

I saw an interview with one of those Murderball guys once. He made a decision that put him in a wheelchair for life. He dealt with it and moved on with his new wheelchair life. He had zero regrets. He said if he a time machine he’d make the same bad decision that got him paralyzed again in a heart beat. His life, his friends, his wife, his sport all came into his life after his accident. All those things became his life. Without the accident he’d have none of that. He’d have a different life, but an unknown life, one of an infinite range of other possible lives that might have played out had his accident never occurred. In the end he only knows his actual life, and he was happy with it. I wish the same for everyone. 

Bernard

Edited September 18, 2019 by Bernard

[Mantis Toboggan, MD 1501]

I don’t fault anyone for not having kids. If a person is happy about not having kids, they might not have been good parents. Maybe they would have, who knows. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Raising my boys is the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t feel like I have lived my full life had I not had kids. It is the most meaningful thing I have or ever will do. Part of me pities people who don’t experience that level of love and service because it is so meaningful and life defining to me. But it also requires huge sacrifices. So I’m sure people without kids enjoy that life as well.

 

 

[RPM 26321]

I had a daughter from my first marriage that was born with CP. She had an exceptionally hard and painful life with many surgeries. We were young and it was tough. She died a week before her 3rd birthday. I haven't had any children since.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

Can we judge the childless boomers who look down on those who had "too many kids" all while refusing to take any cuts in Social Security?

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

10 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Can we judge the childless boomers who look down on those who had "too many kids" all while refusing to take any cuts in Social Security?

Can you keep the fuckin CR out of this ?  It's a social issue not a political one.

[Aqua Buddha 14597]

36 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Can you keep the fuckin CR out of this ?  It's a social issue not a political one.

Actually, there is a lot of overlap.  The birth rate is down to all time lows at this point and it's not merely driven by lifestyle choices.  Things like land use/housing policies, educational spending, health care, day care, etc. all have a direct effect on the birth rate.  Sure, there are other factors at play but government policies do have an impact.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

Acknowledging that we have a social issue called Social Security that relies on an ever increasing population at a time when we realize that that sort of population growth is unsustainable for our planet is not necessarily political. And it is certainly relevant in a thread about voluntary childlessness. Arguing about which party is most likely to fix it or how best to fix it is certainly political.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

25 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Actually, there is a lot of overlap.  The birth rate is down to all time lows at this point and it's not merely driven by lifestyle choices.  Things like land use/housing policies, educational spending, health care, day care, etc. all have a direct effect on the birth rate.  Sure, there are other factors at play but government policies do have an impact.

This topic isn't SS costs is it ? It's about choices why people decided not to have kids or have kids.

[Aqua Buddha 14597]

2 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

This topic isn't SS costs is it ? It's about choices why people decided not to have kids or have kids.

And part of those reasons might be economics.  Duh.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

And part of those reasons might be economics.  Duh.

 And that doesn't make it necessarily political duh.

 

the reasons listed up to that point were lifestyle . Please explain how SS has jack to do with deciding to have kids ?

[alincoln 2371]

20 hours ago, LABEVO said:

Wife and I are early 30s and  decided not to have children. That may change but for right now that is how we feel. I am apathetic on having kids and her view is that life is misery so why bring a life into the world to experience that misery. I don't understand the rationale as she has a very comfortable (economically speaking) life but result is positive for me. 

As a result, our lifestyle means that we can live in multiple cities which we do and tend to plan every event / travel last minute. It has been great and now that we have a dog it has reinforced our desire to not have a kid. It is too much responsibility. 

Her view which I believe we could afford is that we would only have a child if we had a nanny 100% of the time. It comes down to neither of us feel a strong desire to have kids and both agreed before marriage that we would only have them if we both REALLY wanted it due to cost and time commitment.  

I highly recommend you don't have children with your current wife.  You may also want to consider immediately divorcing your current wife.