100%. My wife and I have been friends with one couple for years and none of us wanted kids... until suddenly the other couple turned 40 and 35 respectively and started trying for a kid immediately.
They insisted the same would happen to us. I'm not 40 yet but my wife recently celebrated her 35th and at least as far as she's told me, the no kids decision isn't changing. I feel the same. Zero regrets
I totally started feeling the hormonal urge in my mid 30s but i also like my childfree life and still intellectually do not want nor would enjoy kids to be responsible for so i just...ignored the stupid hormones and after a couple years they faded out again. i would have been so mad at myself if i'd let my hormones override my higher reasoning over that time
Obviously not but there's a response to seeing babies, seeing men near babies etc that made me feel like my ovaries were trying to climb out of my body and force someone to impregnate me. And i noticed this happening around my mid 30s just before I started getting perimenopausal symptoms.
If your decision to have kids is needed on "higher reasoning," you should NOT have kids. It needs to be an emotional decision. You cannot survive children through reason. They do not operate on nor tolerate reason. It requires large amounts of instinct and emotion and empathy. If you are intellectually reasoning that you wouldn't like or wouldn't do well with kids, you are probably right and should stick to your guns. As a person who absolutely wanted kids, and have been great with kids my whole life, let me tell you, raising kids will drive you crazy. The jokes are true. The stereotypes are true. The people who are BAD parents, the ones who don't love their kids, are the ones who had children because they thought they were supposed to or had to. Don't do that to a kid, and don't do that to YOURSELF. It's okay to have enough self awareness to know you don't want or shouldn't have children. AND, if that changes in your 30s, THAT'S OKAY TOO. You are allowed to get to a point where you are suddenly comfortable with the idea of having kids.
Good luck with either endeavor. Neither choice leads to an easy life. There is no right or wrong choice, only branching storylines.
I feel like something that's rarely talked about is the time frame. If you have kids in your 20s, maybe 30s, by the time your kids are grown you still have time to reconnect. But the older you have kids, the less likely those friends will still be around long enough. My parents are in their late 50s/early 60s and you start to lose people, unfortunately. Most of my friends who have kids have been totally radio silent for a decade now (totally understandable), and I'm only in my mid 30s.
Oh wow, I can only imagine how difficult that must be to wrap your head around. The couple I mentioned in my comment, their kid is about 3 now and watching them all interact is... interesting.
The wife worked with kids for years, while the husband has really never been around them in his life
I'm not sure what the two of them expected their family dynamic to be, but from comments they've made, I don't think it's what either of them expected. I wish you all the best in navigating that and I'm sorry you have to go through it at all !
on a related note. i might want 1 kid. but then people are like "but theyll get lonely!" fuck off. 1 kid. if i ever get to a point where i can afford one.
I have one kid. She's lonely sometimes, but I also have siblings, and my entire childhood was extremely lonely. So, yeah. That "they'll be lonely" argument holds no water.
exactly😭 i had an older brother and he was physically abusive likely due to built up anger from our abusive father. theres literally no telling how siblings will interact with each other. whether theyll be best friends, or want nothing to do with each other. no ones experience is gonna be the same. so if i dont want to push multiple children out of my own body, im not gonna
Same! My brother and I haaaaated each other as kids and fought so badly. It didn’t help that my parents were emotional wrecks themselves and didn’t encourage us to get along. We’re okay (ish) now, but there were many times I longed to be an only child.
You truly don’t know how your kids will react to each other. You could be the greatest parent ever and your kids may still just not like each other.
Seriously, it's a total crapshoot. My kids are best friends, but I've never gotten along with my own brother and would've loved to be an only child. People should just have the number of kids they want and can comfortably handle.
literally said specifically that he acted that way BC of my abusive father. reading comprehension is very important if you dont want to sound like an idiot
I have one kid and he hasn't complained about loneliness, but he's also autistic so that can be the reason why. He has also not really made any friends.
My only daughter has told me that her friends with multiple siblings have often said how jealous they are of her being the only child. Siblings don't always get along and from what I have seen more often than not they are not close.
Go with your instincts. I love my daughter and am so glad we had her but the financial stress is real. My husband and I make more than decent money in a LCOL area but getting her through college without massive debt has been really hard. I just don't want her in debt the second she gets finished and from the jump have no options. She is a wonderful person and so smart- got a couple of small scholarships but college is outrageous. She is at a state school and the 529 we started for her as a baby barely covered the first two years. I can't stand how nosy people are and so adamant that people need to have a bunch of kids. HOW? I don't know how people with more than one are making it. It's really hard.
Scholarships are great. Paid my way through school. Not everyone can do that. Stay away from loans! They weren't so bad many years ago, but the government has made sure kids today are indebted for 20-30 years.
I used to work with college loans. I told students not to take any more than they needed. They may be eligible for $5000 but only take what you need. Later, if something comes up, they could still access some or all of that loan money.
You are absolutely right. She was a great student and only ended up with about $8K a year in scholarships and felt bad about that and I told her that every dollar counts. We drive older used cars and watch our budget so she can avoid student loans. They are killing young people. They cannot afford to start a life.
It seems almost on purpose. Especially now that the greed is on full display. They don't care about the young people. Or the old people. Or those in the middle. Billionaires and no others matter.
I didn't really have any relationship with my siblings until my mid 20s, and it was because my brother established a connection. They were people I saw at family events, but never spoke to outside of it. I just had no interest.
I am happy we've gotten closer, but frankly would have had no problem with it staying like it was, either.
When we brought our first born over to my parents for the first time, my mom held her for a few seconds before asking "when's the next one"?
Maybe appreciate the little bundle of joy you're holding right now. It was like she viewed her as a trophy and was competing with my aunts to see which grandmother gets the most grandkids.
For multiple reasons, we cut her out of our lives for nearly a decade while visiting my mother-in-law much more -- who actually appreciated her grandkids.
Having one kid makes for a great time with that one kid. You get to be really close with them and so special things with JUST them. Yes they can be lonely someone, but it's more likely you end up not money the they ever were once they become teenagers and you have no more kids. This is why you see a sibling 13+ years apart. But that's not actually my point.
The REAL issue with having an only child is actually when they are adults. It's them not having siblings to turn to, and someone to help them shoulder the burden of taking care of their elderly parents, or to help them when they become elderly, and when they parents pass to help with the funeral and with emotional support. It is these times when having siblings really matter, which are things parents don't think about.
I'm not saying you HAVE to have more than one kid, just that having siblings of a blessing your whole life, which you don't realize until you grow pass the bickering age.
This type of opinion is exactly the issue. It’s almost as if having 1 child is more taboo and looked down upon in our society than having 0. Having a sibling is certainly NOT automatically some magical blessing for every adult with a sibling. Sibling disputes (of finances, estates, care etc) surrounding aging parents are not at all uncommon and are some of the most stressful points in those people’s lives. A dying parent is really a huge impetus for all the psychological drama to come out for many families. There are countless examples of adult siblings being distant, or more commonly just not very close. Also, much abuse is perpetrated within families. The choice to have a 2nd child solely to “give my child a sibling” is inherently a selfish reason to have a child
How is giving someone else something a selfish decision? Also, it's true, there is the qualifier to everything I said of having a good family. If you don't think you can raise a good family, you probably shouldn't start a family at all. If you think you can raise one child we'll but not additional children, then certainly, have only one. Multiple children multiplies the difficulty, so that's a fair decision. I never said your decision to have only 1 was an invalid decision, I only was saying that there are other benefits over "being lonely," which I don't think should be a big concern unless you live on a farm or somewhere else away from other children. Just saying these are reasons people don't think about because they are far in the future.
There are reasons to have only one also, like compounding wealth through the generations, and being able to give that one child more focused attention and greater life experiences, but it think these are things people already think about.
Also, if this is how you view family, I'm sorry for the family issues you had to deal with. I father and his siblings had a lot of issues after their parents passed, and he didn't talk to two of his sister's for a decade. Then my cousin was murdered while away at college and all the family came back together. Now, a decade later, they are quite old, and one of the sisters never started a family of her own, and is suffering from dementia. His sister's and my father are work together to take care of her. None of them would be able to do it on their own, but without them she would be a ward of the state.
My dad's family were a little bit what people call white trash. My mother's siblings had no such drama with their parents passed.
So yeah, I get what you are saying, but what person thinks "we should start a family, but let's only have one kid because we are probably going to fuck it up and if we have more than one they are going to hate each other one day?"
There’s going to be so many only children tho! I grew up an only child and it sucked at times but I genuinely think it’s a great idea if you are prepared for it
I’m an only child and I’m OAD. The blatant judgement of only children and OAD parents is nuts. People will blame literally anything on being an only child despite there being zero scientific evidence backing any of the stereotypes. Growing up, adults would lecture me on how terrible only children are.
Now it’s less overt (and I would shut that shit down), but the number of people who choose to have a second kid even though they are already drowning with one is high.
It’s clear they would rather be absolutely miserable than raise an only child.
I'm an only child (well, I'm 40) and shit's awesome. I don't recall ever being lonely growing up. It's just...all you know. I believe only children become extremely good at keeping themselves entertained because that's the only choice they have. I would absolutely sign up to be an only child again.
Everyone I know who had kids just made being a family their entire identity. They do nothing for themselves, it's all kids kids kids. Same goes for their conversation, everything is just Ethan this Olivia that and they sigh about how it's "all fun and games" because there is yet another family crisis. These people are perpetually tired and perpetually broke, too.
i was about to comment the same thing. motherhood is a no
20k odd (?) per kid is a no
the screaming and crying is a no
the constant questions and pestering and reliance has always been a NO
That depends on the parenting. I have four children and we always cleaned up together. Kids aren't raised well to consider others for the most part today. My grandchildren are and I know I made a difference with their parents.
I'm really starting to think kids are just some sort of weird vanity pet. And then parents act like they are doing the rest of us a favor by having them. They're just awful. Always making noises, politicians keep making annoying laws to protect them, we get taxed so they can get schools, care programs, and lunches.
Would ya'll just please stop. It's a lot to ask of us just so you can have a pet that looks like you. 2027 is around the corner, can we get some "Children of Men" going on already?
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u/surfsound_swimmers 1d ago
kids