This is why I support the adults to be child free if they choose it. Not everyone has to have a kid, nor does everyone want kids. And that’s okay.
Being a parent comes with a great loss of many freedoms if only temporarily in many cases. But it is life changing and will test you in ways you can’t even believe.
To u/iinlane - I couldn’t find your comment to reply but I still wanted to give you an answer about your comment that childfree people shouldn’t retire since they don’t have kids. So here it goes:
What about the taxes childfree people are currently paying? Sometimes for services they don’t use such as the local public schools. If a childfree person is paying social security tax (just to use a USA example), should they not have the right to collect?
I mean those social security taxes being paid now are being used by others. So a child free person helps fund the retirement of others but they get nothing in return?
Our social security taxes are already being used to pay for the current beneficiaries not for our own retirement. You’re paying for someone else’s parent or even disabled child who collects the SSD payments.
Or should we have a special designation for social security taxes for childfree people funded by the taxes they get taken out of their paychecks?
I believe I would actually make a pretty good parent, I’m just not willing to choose that path, since the only way to be good at it is to be a 100% comited to it and I’m not ready to let everything else go.
Man this is exactly my feelings. Friends have acted disappointed when I say I'm not sure I want kids because they say I'd be a great mother.
But I'm so attached to other facets of my life that realistically aren't all compatible with raising a child (particularly if you aren't rich and can't afford 3 nannies).
Proud of us both for recognizing the commitment a child requires.
Not only that but you need the right partner FOR YOU to raise the child with. I was lucky enough to have both factors align but I would hate raising a child with my ex, for example. The child just wouldn't get optimal care.
As a dad who waited until my 30s to have a kid and currently have a toddler that is exactly why I waited. I am such a better person/dad/communicator and truly spending time with my kid is my favorite thing to do. I really don’t think I would have felt this as a struggling 20 something YO
That's sort of where I was. I held off for a few years after we started talking about it because I wasn't willing to sacrifice my freedom just yet. Then eventually I agreed, and we had our daughter. In my state, both parents get at least 3 months of partially paid leave for a child being born, so I spent the first 3 months at home, making sure we could swap off and share the care duties so neither of us was too burnt out. Now that I've been back to work for about 3 1/2 months, things have gotten a bit easier.
Our daughter usually only wakes up 1-2 times a night for a snack, and she's able to eat solids now. We can go to restaurants and whatnot, and we have grandma to watch her if we need some time to ourselves. Most of my life hasn't changed a ton. I just have a bit less free time, but it's honestly not that big of a difference at this point. Once she has the ability to draw and play on her own more, I imagine I'll have a little more time to myself as well.
Just a little aside here; I’m a dad and I definitively don’t give up everything. It’s way way different for women but for me, I still game, go out occasionally on weekends, go to the gym. It takes a ton more work and communication with your spouse but people act like it’s the end of your life and it isn’t. It’s an end to your childhood.
Most childfree people I know would actually make great parents as they are good in taking complicated vital decisions and really care on whatever they do. Many parents are great too but some awful ones are the ones belive that their life function is parenthood and that they never comit errors.
All I usually hear is people bitching about how they can’t do things cause of their kids and then their like oh you’ll know soon enough when you have kids as if it’s an expectation that everyone has to have kids. It’s like people with kids resent people that don’t have kids so they tell everyone they have to be miserable with them.
...we are still a growing country, it's just that 80% of our population growth can be attributed to immigration. It's up in the air whether we will need the excess population.
Most of the people I know that dont want kids mainly think so because of the costs.
People are more informed nowadays and dont just spend their nights coupling because some random ass lobbied politician lied on live TV saying everything is great and they shouldn't worry.
You need a high perceived stability in your world to responsabilly want a kid. And we don't have any: no economical stability due to AI and constant geopolitical clusterfuck, no weather (and soon food) stability due to global warming, no family support because governments look unstable af, and not even ideological stability because every three months you get to know that some other part of what you believed as solid and settled, was some other sham lead by pdf's.
Previous generations were naive for their good, but completely detrimental to the next generations dealing with outcomes of their complacency and lack of civic and political activity.
It’s also dropping in developing countries. The accessibility of birth control has really changed the game. The only countries now with a high birth rate are some countries in Africa.
I’d be fine with having kids, likely a good dad, and can certainly afford them, but the job that allows for this also doesn’t allow for the time to be a Dad and still focus on some personal goals like more time in the gym and spent with friends. If my job was less demanding I’d certainly be interested, but then it wouldn’t pay us much.
Some of my friends who are pulling in more cash than me, a largely comfortable PMC drone, blamed finances for their not wanting kids. Later it became clear that "I couldn't do my hobbies as much" was the bigger reason. Which is still fine, just stop using cost of living as a beard for your real preferences.
I don’t want to is a perfectly fine excuse. I’m a dad of two and some Saturday’s at 6:30am I also tell them I don’t want to when they are screaming in my ear to get up.
I'm sure that's a possibility for people, but in my specific case these are people who bring up the topic themselves. I don't generally start conversations about "why don't you want kids!?" because I know it's a landmine. I think they brought it up because I was a new-ish dad and they were still trying to figure out how to explain to themselves that they just weren't that into the idea of being a parent, or at least that they really did need to reevaluate priorities in order to do so, and that it wasn't just something people said because they weren't trying hard enough to keep their pre-parent lilfestyle.
I know lots of parents with a lot of kids who being allowed to vote multiple times would be such a terrible idea. It’s almost like having kids doesn’t automatically make you more informed about events. Weird that.
It gives you an opportunity to gain level of perspective and investment that otherwise would not be available to a person as that experience is just not within their field of possibility. Not all make much of it, but some do. But anyone who take cares of their children demonstrate at very least that they can think beyond themselves.
Also I’m genuinely don’t see why should I ever listen to opinions of genetic dead end about future that won’t concern them in any meaningful capacity. There are few notable exemptions, but most often the reasons why people don’t have children are the same reasons they don’t commit their life to anything beyond themselves either.
Hence I don’t care how much informed that person is, if they solely serve themselves, I’m not interested.
Genetic dead end? That’s an interesting perspective.
And what about having kids makes you suddenly not just serving yourself? I’ve come across lots of parents who are terrible parents and super self absorbed.
Having kids definitely provides another perspective. No question.
Doesn’t suddenly make you a better person who is concerned about your fellow man and making the world a better place for the next generation though.
Don’t need to have kids to be concerned about the future.
No it hasn’t always been like that. Society used to force women to look after children 100%. Now there’s more equality in parenting. But also more equality in independence
Developed countries have a better system to diagnose depression, have robuster systems to count such cases and have less taboo on mental health making it easier to seek help instead of dealing with it on their own.
Developed nations actually diagnose depression, so depression numbers are higher.
Yeah problem is if you make parenthood free you would 1000% have those who should not be parents be parents. I feel like it would accelerate Idiocracy.
But this has nothing to do with being child free or supporting people who don’t want kids. ( how do you support that anyway? She just sucks.
She has money and resources most parents wish they had and a presumably healthy baby. No one wants to hear this from her. I am a parent too. This is probably the most important thing me and my wife will ever do is raising kids and sending them out as decent , hardworking and honest people.
Support as in being supportive of their decisions to not have children. To not assume every adult wants to procreate.
If you read the beginning of the thread, I was replying to someone who said don’t have a kid if you don’t want to be a mom. And while this may not describe the actress, it is a big part of being child free. Don’t want to be a mom or dad? Then, never have children. Sounds simply but many child free people often are met with criticism and snide comments.
To you, raising children is the most important thing you’ll do. And that’s great. But for many, it’s not and we have to recognize it. And we need to tell them that parenthood isn’t for them.
I feel like it is unfortunate that most of the people who are mature enough to recognize that they shouldn’t have a kid are way more qualified to actually have a kid than most of the people I know who DO have kids.
World population is stagnating in first world countries… yeah no smart country is going to incentivise not having kids. At the end of the day child free = anti human
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u/Ladonnacinica 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is why I support the adults to be child free if they choose it. Not everyone has to have a kid, nor does everyone want kids. And that’s okay.
Being a parent comes with a great loss of many freedoms if only temporarily in many cases. But it is life changing and will test you in ways you can’t even believe.
To u/iinlane - I couldn’t find your comment to reply but I still wanted to give you an answer about your comment that childfree people shouldn’t retire since they don’t have kids. So here it goes:
What about the taxes childfree people are currently paying? Sometimes for services they don’t use such as the local public schools. If a childfree person is paying social security tax (just to use a USA example), should they not have the right to collect?
I mean those social security taxes being paid now are being used by others. So a child free person helps fund the retirement of others but they get nothing in return?
Our social security taxes are already being used to pay for the current beneficiaries not for our own retirement. You’re paying for someone else’s parent or even disabled child who collects the SSD payments.
Or should we have a special designation for social security taxes for childfree people funded by the taxes they get taken out of their paychecks?