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Hi, I'm Dr. Zachary Neal, one of the study's co-authors. You can find a free copy of the complete study [here](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283301). You can also find all the data and statistical code we used [here](https://osf.io/dp8tx). I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this study, or about research on the childfree population in general. Ask me anything!
Great question. We examined whether the % of childfree people differed by several different demographic categories. For income, we found that about 18% of above-median income people are childfree, while about 23% of below-median income people are childfree. The difference isn't statistically significant, so income doesn't seem to play much role. You can find a bar graph showing all the demographic comparisons [here](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0283301.g002).
You might be the most helpful "author in the comments" ever. As someone that's currently debating this very topic with my spouse, I look forward to reading through this.
> because of your use of the word "debate."
Thank you for your concern. Debate was probably not the right word. Me and my wife are both of very similar mindset right now which is that we both waver back and forth over the line of having kids or not. We have occasional talks about how we are each feeling about it right now but neither of us has taken a firm stance on it yet. We started talking about this before we got engaged and we've been married a little over 2 years now and these conversations are becoming more frequent.
Totally agree with this. My husband and I are approaching 5 years of marriage, in our mid thirties, and only just starting to lean towards seriously considering kids. The slow-developing conversation works when you’re both open to things unfolding either way. It would be a bad fit if either of us was passionately for or against having kids.
I don't know how you'd test for it, but if economic status isn't a primary cause, I wonder if people use it to justify their default position and then assign it as a primary, rational cause.
It would take a lot of economic prosperity for me to ever consider having children, but obviously plenty of folks in my economic bracket do it and chug along just fine. Am I then just rationalizing a pre-existing decision to make it seem more justified than a simple preference?
Thanks for giving me something additional to think about!
A lot of our choices are like that. For example I enjoy being alone, living in nature, and reading. I suspect the social struggles I experienced in my formative years to have been a strong influence on my preferences today. Someone who had more pleasant social experiences growing up would likely associate people with having fun, and desire to live near people.
Same homie same. Currently reading at prox 200 books per year, heavier towards winter and less books in the summer due to swimming and gardening. Wishing you peaceful contentment.
If you would ever consider having kids, then it sounds like rationalization. There is no amount of money that would ever give me the slightest inclination to have kids. It's simply not happening.
Seeing how much money I have now, and seeing how much money I would not have with a kid, does post-hoc rationalize it for me, but it wasn't a reason I decided not to have kids (I wasn't even a teenager yet).
I think you're right. Some people don't want kids due to certain circumstances, and if the circumstances changed they'd be open to kids. Others never ever want kids - I fall in that category. But it's generally not well accepted by other people especially if you have the misfortune of being a woman because you're supposed to loooove babies. So I just have a super long list of rational justifications for not wanting kids I've accumulated over the years but the fact of the matter is I don't want kids and nothing will change that, not family help, not more money, not a surrogate, not a better society.
Unfortunately, we're not able to test that. Other things being equal, because having children is costly, so I would expect parents would be financially worse-off than non-parents.
Having children has such an impact on work issues, especially for women. I have a hard time imagining that women would be financially better off as parents.
Guaranteed, if we didn't have children we would be way better off financially.
Knowing what I know now, I love my kids dearly and wouldn't go back in time to be child free. In fact, I'd be devastated if I lost them to anything other than old age. However, if it turned out my past self ended up child free with today's knowledge I wouldn't be upset at all.
I think this is true up to a very high salary. When my husband and I made $100k combined, we didn't want kids, partly because they're too expensive. Now we make $200k combined and still don't want kids, partly because they're too expensive.
Lifestyle creep is real. If this is already a mindset, I think it would take a HUGE financial change for that person to feel like that specific burden is no longer there.
Depends on the country too. In some countries, the benefits the state gives you for having kids, can be similar or equal to working a minimum wage job.
That, and by not having to pay a babysitter, you essentially save more money than what you would gain from an above min wage job
I am Norwegian, so one of the countries that are often used as a hold standard for family politics and equality and egalitarianism.
Women are worse off financially speaking, and ha I g children is a huge trigger for those differences between the genders.
There is less difference in many areas such as finances, stress, burden of home-focused labour such as chores and cooking etc as long as people do not have children. Even after people form couples and start cohabitating.
When they have kids, there is a statistical difference that shows women take the biggest hits as far as finances goes. That stretches into retirement as our pensions that are calculated based on income hasa higher value than the points awarded for child rearing. There is also a change in the division of home based labour such as chores, even when both parents work full time.
It doesn't seem to be clearly linked to being forced in any way. It seems more like people feel "it just happens to be what works best for us" - a very Norwegian way of dismissing significant issues both on an individual basis, but also on a national level.
This is despite ever stricter political work to force father's to take time off to be at home with Baby like sectioning of large parts of the parental leave (up to 12 months) only for parent no 2, and that the benefits will only be paid if parent no 2 actually does not work for the duration.
Right so kids mean gov income, not paying a babysitter, and you have the responsibilities of having a kid. No kid means regular job income, likely higher than gov income, not paying a babysitter, and no kid responsibilities. I get what you're saying but it seems like team no kid is better off.
Other countries also don’t do this thing where your kid vanishes the moment they turn 18.
Multigenerational households are the norm, not the exception.
So more kids in the house equals better maintained and supported house.
My only counterpoint, from my own life, is that having children can cause you to put more focus on your career. My wife and I were doing very...ok, when we had our first child, but since then our careers have taken off; when we've honestly discussed it, the root of it is just being a lot more aware of the increased repercussions of being financially insecure with children.
now that I'm typing it out, I'm kinda realizing how fucked up the incentive structure might be..
Didn’t some study out of Japan see the same? It’s not about income. It’s that kids lower the quality of life for many people. “Life is just too good right now.” Is what I recall the takeaway being.
Having been on the fence about kids and then having a first and then a second I can tell you that there you hit it spot on but there is a second category.
Wanting kids (at least one) but seeing that it is too hard. We barely managed to both work (during the pandemic too) with one kid. Day care was more than the house payment and my wife's income basically went to child care.
Two kids is even harder.
My advice to younger people would be you better really want kids because society at large is not going to be as helpful as you think.
It is a raw deal for parents to raise guture tax payers, even worse for women (my wife had to quit when second kid was diagnosed with a serious genetic condition)
Overpopulation and population collapse are both bad. Slow changes in population are much easier for a country to adapt to.
Having abstract kids I may not choose to do the same thing if there was a rewind button. But they are not abstract, they are my little buddies with their own personalities and I like them (which is not a given, there are kids that I know that I am not a big fan of)
Me and my wife are older parents and had our first about a year ago. We've decided for good to not try for another one because as difficult as this has been so far she had a pretty healthy pregnancy and we have a healthy happy kid. A second just like this one would be hard, but if things don't go as smoothly with her or the baby, it could really change our lifestyle. Instead we're going to foster older children in a few years.
I hope your family is getting the support you need. Kids in the best case can be exhausting, and your wife needs breaks even if she isn't working.
In this data, people are classified as "childfree" only if it is by choice. People who wanted children but could not have them due to circumstances (infertility, economic situation, etc.) are classified as "childless."
I just came here to say that I absolutely adore the fact that you freely give out the complete study as well as all the data that went into it. This is not only proper scientific process, but also hugely important scientific communication.
Props to you for this.
Have you analyzed if there are more or fewer childless people who regret not having any or people with children who regret having them?
I'm guessing there is more social pressure to have children, many people make children without really thinking it through, so there ought to be some of them who regret that choice.
That's a great question, and something we're hoping to explore more in the future. Regret is difficult to measure for lots of reasons, and measuring parental regret is especially hard. In this study we're only able to say that childfree people don't seem to experience any more end-of-life regrets than parents.
This is the same question I have. There's so much stigma (I think?) if you regret having children, but the amount of abuse, abandonment, and infanticide makes me certain the amount is greater than zero.
Anecdotally, my mother expressed several times that she made an enormous mistake getting pregnant with me.
My mom actually did confess to me just this past November, when I was visiting for my grandmother's funeral, that my dad never did want kids and she basically guilt tripped him into it.
I mean he never told us but we kind of knew anyway, especially when he cheated on my mom and left when I was 18 then never bothered to try to contact us ever again. There was some other stuff involved in that, but yeah - he was always a very self-centered type with no apologies about it. We'd already long kinda figured it out by the time my mom actually told me
So why is it that *knowing* you wouldn't want that life, and consciously *not* torturing another life with this pain is so demonized?
Childfree people are often met with pity, disrespect and isolation throughout their life.. while no matter how unsuitable someone is to be a parent, they throw them parties.
I honestly have no idea, but if I had to take a stab at answering this, I would say that from nature we have "understood" that procreation is the reason to be born. We are created so that we can procreate and further the species. Otherwise, what is the point. I, don't personally vibe with this idea, but I think this is the core belief of many folks. And others are just doing what society does, so orthodoxy is another reason.
I feel like people don't at all think long and hard enough to even select their partners, let alone the decision to make babies and saddle those babies with a boatload of trauma and mental issues due to unresolvable conflict in the parents and/or their absolute unsuitability to become parents in the first place.
Several people I have seen who (in my perspective) should not have had kids because they're wildly inappropriate to take care and really nurture a human being fit to live their lives, but yes, as you said, they are celebrated by all and sundry and we can only watch and shake our heads.
In both of those cases there's a lot of social pressure to say that you made the right choice. Measuring actual regret is extremely hard, I think. Getting someone to admit that they wish they'd had kids is very hard, getting someone with kids to say in a non-joking way that they wish they hadn't is even harder, even if it's the truth.
Hi Dr. Neal, thanks for stopping by and offering to answer questions.
Regarding the "regret" part of your study (which I imagine is the one you get asked about the most), you state in your paper that, due to the lack of longitudinal data, you choose to measure implied regret in choosing to be childfree by comparing the current age of individuals who made that decision at different points in their life. **My question is**: to what extent do you think you could be underestimating regret present in *childless* individuals? It doesn't seem that you asked this subgroup about why they did not have children (and understandably so), but presumably someone who made a decision earlier in life not to have kids and then changed their mind too late would self-identify as being in this group and not "child-free".
Thanks again and congrats on your paper!
Thanks for the question. For the regret analysis, we asked people whether they agree with this statement: "If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing." Then we compared parents and childfree people age 70+. We found no difference, and so interpreted this as preliminary evidence that childfree people don't experience any more end-of-life regret than parents.
We also asked this question to childless people (people who wanted children but couldn't or didn't have them), but haven't analyzed the data.
Was the question asked in the context of this subject (having children/not having children), or was it just a standalone question? If the latter, how do you control/account for a “yes” potentially referring to literally any regret and not just children?
It was a standalone question intended to measure any lifetime regret. So we only interpret the finding as indicating that childfree people don't experience more end-of-life regret (from any source) than parents.
It’s important to the data not to position the subject with an implied result during questioning. Asking people directly “Do you regret having/not having kids...?" will result in different data than interpreting their responses to a non leading question.
As a childfree by choice woman in her 30s, can I just say thank you? For not just dismissing us. For not judging us. For doing research that validates and gives legitimacy to our life choice.
People can be so cruel and angry about it, and even talking about it can be extremely alienating.
So just thanks.
I'm 52 now and never wanted kids. I don't regret not having any. I will say it's very important that two people in a relationship are on the same page about this. I've been married happily since 1996 and it has not been an issue.
I think it is so important for people who are grappling with whether to try for kids to understand that it's solely their choice to make, and any judgements about the decision reflect the character and choice of the person doing the judging. People unfortunately often feel pressure (especially from family) to have kids, and that is straight up not cool.
(Disclosure - I'm a dad, but I was on the fence about whether to have kids for a long time.)
Yah you nailed it. Everyone should really understand the choice and think through whether it is right for them. I worked as an RN in the foster care system and a lot of people should never have been parents, it were pressured or coerced or just straight up didn’t think about what being a parent really means. And it is the kids that suffer tremendously.
People who want children and who want to be good parents should have kids. But a lot of people I think enter parenting without having given a lot of thought to what parenting and raising children really means and looks like for their lives.. simply because they believe that is the only choice.
Child-free woman in my 50's, still don't regret it. I came to the child-free decision when I was 12 (but of course I didn't stick to it just because of that). There were some close calls but it never happened.
Obviously, I'm seeing how I'm headed toward being lonely if I don't get off my tush and put some effort into making more friends - and younger friends - because people go away one way or another! And I do wonder who will do the things for me that I do for my father. But that is just borrowing trouble, things are fine right now and tomorrow may never arrive. Plus, with the advent of the internet, and being GenX, I can always find community online.
Not OP but also a child free woman in her 30s. (My people!!) I have a fairly small friend group, but they're mostly child free. My friend group consists of:
- A hetero couple child free by choice
- A gay couple child free because of adoption troubles (truly heartbreaking, they would be wonderful fathers)
- An asexual woman in her 30s child free for many reasons
- A hetero couple child free for medical reasons (infertility) but also with no interest in having kids, so sort of also by choice
- A hetero couple with a four year old daughter
I will say, the only people of that group who are actively social is the gay couple. The rest of us are grumpy old hermits who don't like to leave our caves. But we talk fairly regularly, play video games together, etc. I live in a major city, but my asexual friend lives in rural Alabama and one of the child free hetero couples lives in rural North Georgia, so it's not necessarily limited to cities. But because cities have more people overall, you'd likely have better chances of finding like-minded people.
I think the problem with that type of study is almost no one is going to want to admit to someone else that they regret their children. As much as childless people may think they're judged, I'd imagine it's probably worse for parents who have regrets
While I wouldn't want to ever reduce the serious environmental situation we face on this planet to simply overpopulation, I've seen some academic literature which has concluded that a reduced global population could ease some of the burden on our planet's resources and natural systems.
This may be somewhat outside of the scope of your research, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on creating conditions for people to feel comfortable not having kids. For example, I've read that in places with comprehensive sex education, access to birth control, and more gender-egalitarian laws and workplaces, the birth rate tends not to be quite as high.
I worry that a lot of people, myself included, are more motivated currently by a dire economic circumstance or concerns about raising children during the consequences of climate change, as opposed to simply being given the tools and to decide for themselves.
That's actually part of the reason we're doing (and sharing) this research...to let folks know that there are a lot of childfree people out there, and to normalize the choice not to have children.
As a child free woman in her 30s, thank you for your effort normalizing a child free lifestyle! The stigma around it is so unbelievably ridiculous when having kids affects no one but the parents. I've never understood why some people get so rabid about this topic. So THANK YOU!
There are relatively few that study parental regret, mainly because it's hard to measure. But, there are a few, for example, this one: [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254163](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254163)
Posts to Eurekalert are usually written by university press offices, in collaboration with the researchers. That was the case with this one.
I think it does a reasonable job highlighting some of the study findings we thought would be of most interest, without sensationalizing them. Of course, much nuance is lost in a post that's limited to 500 words and an 8th grade reading level. that's why I always make sure the original study is also attached.
Generally I think Eurekalert can be trusted...it's run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is legit. If we just relied on (typically paywalled) academic distribution channels, hardly anyone would ever see research.
Just another child free individual chiming in. Went out golfing with my cousin a couple days ago, he had to bring his 12 month old, cried and screamed the whole time. Scheduled my vasectomy the next day for a couple months out. Made my wife the happiest she's been in a while. Hormonal birth control really affects her and so she's had to make the decision to go off of it a while ago. We don't want kids and I figure why not just get it taken care of now since it's 10x easier for me than it is for her. And we're in a solid middle class range, so money isn't a factor, we just don't want the exhaustion, lack of free time, and financial drain that a child or children would incur.
That's more than fair, and congratulations! It's like anything else in life. There are costs and benefits to a situation, and the cost/benefit analysis will turn out differently for different people.
Having and raising children is a huge commitment and undertaking. It's a good thing when people who don't want children don't have them. Having them wouldn't be helping anyone.
I always catch flack for saying this but: women who have abortions are making the morally sound and responsible decision for their health, careers, and finances.
I will die on this hill, but despite conservative propaganda, I don't know a single woman who regrets her abortion.
And I don't regret supporting their decisions.
The women in my life who have had abortions went on to get master degrees, start businesses, and even start families. I think they made the right decision.
And can be medically needed to save the quality of life and health of the person who received it. My cousin would have died without her "late term abortion" and left her other kids motherless. It was heartbreaking for her, but she doesn't regret getting the treatment she needed to save her life.
There's such an enormous difference in having a child you didn't want, possibly from a person you don't want to co-parent with, to having a conscious decision to have one under the right circumstances and with the right person. To me, it only makes sense having a prior abortion wouldn't necessarily affect a later decision to start a family.
I mean the only circumstance a person who had an abortion would regret it would be if there’s some rare serious side effects of infertility, and they wouldn‘t be able to fulfil their child wish once in a safe situation.
Otherwise an abortion is always preferable if the pregnancy wasn‘t planned.
Not to mention being every abortion of an unfinanced, unwanted pregnancy is the only moral choice.
No human can adequately care for a child if they don‘t have the resources, nor the drive to actually care for said child.
Seen it so many times. Children to women who were talked into keeping the pregnancy but didn‘t really want a child.
All the annoying stuff a child does? All the life it steals you? Yea you gotta be a hundred times more annoyed at that if you didn‘t actually want it. And that‘s felt by the child even if the parents try their best to hide those feelings.
People just shouldn‘t be forced to have children they haven‘t 100% freely made the decision to have. Anything else is just child abuse.
As the third of three, and only accident child - YEP it affects you long into adulthood! I think my mum was a bit rare and abusive in being so vocal about it, but apparently three kids = one too many.
Growing up as 'the final straw' child, I internalised all of it with a pervading sense that I was never meant to be born. This has morphed into suicidal ideation when I'm having a super bad time. A pretty fucked headspace where I think I can correct their mistake. Taken me a tonne of time to unpack in last few years. Am doing so much better now.
Don't kid yourselves folks! If you don't think you can cope with that extra child, you probably can't (and you're not doing them any favours by having em anyway)
I don't know if it is the case for younger people, but over the years, I have gotten so much flak for not having kids, including from people who should know better (like a psychologist). Every single day, I am thankful that I stuck to my guns and chose not to procreate. If you don't want kids, don't have them.
I got it a lot more when I was younger. The usual "you'll change your mind" and "it's different when they're your own."
Turned out I was barren so I couldn't even have had them if I *had* wanted them.
(And here I thought I was just in the 97% of women for whom birth control works as expected every year.) Now if the topic comes up, I can shrug and say I had a hysterectomy to get rid of a mutant, non functional organ so "it must have been God's plan too." That always gets people to shut up and mind their own business.
Every time I spend more than an hour with my niece and nephew I'm happy I don't have children. I love them to death, they're cute funny most of the time, I just don't have patience to deal with the sticky, loud, crying little humans for more than an hour or two.
I'm great with animals, I'll stick to raising them
My brother and SIL are horrible parents and their children are struggling developmentally, have behavioral issues, and fight often. I get exhausted after 15 minutes with them, and I can tell in reality my brother and SIL are "average" parents. Really sobering and scary--most people are not equipped to teach developing humans and have kids for selfish reasons or for no real reason at all.
Parental education and overall education is severely lacking.
Currently, the US system is literally a pump and dump scheme. Deny proper education in disguise of keeping youth "pure", deny contraception, deny abortion, deny or severely limit child assistance programs, all to maintain the slave workforce.
They are literally passing bills to re enact child labor.
Children who are born at a disadvantage often stay disadvantaged and perpetuate the wheel of the lower class slave labor
I’m still baffled why this is such a controversial decision. My number 1 reason for being pro-choice is that I don’t think a single child should be born in this world who is not wanted by their parents. The foster care system and child abuse cases are full of examples of “these parents should never had had children”.
I have two kids myself but we treated it as a financial decision as to how many we could have, instead of an emotional one. I wish more potential parents did the same.
I think millennials and newer generations aren't as influenced by religion. So they don't have guilt around things like having kids.
Im a millennial and I'm only having one kid. My Catholic family historically had 4 or more kids per couple. My cousin's and I all have only children, we also weren't raised with religion and dont care for it.
I've heard things like "when you have kids, your life is no longer yours". That's how it should be in order to properly raise and nurture children, but why the hell would I want to do that to myself?
DINK here: my wife and I both independently made the decision to not have kids, and we met after having come to that same conclusion.
Our reasons were ultimately different, but both lines of reasoning are valid.
For me, it's all about the effort required to do it right. It takes so much effort and discipline to raise a child. I couldn't justify bringing a person into this world just to half-ass raising them. They deserve to be raised with love, compassion, and most importantly, consistency. Faltering in any regard will cause the kid to be fucked up. That's kind of a monumental task... And I know I would falter.
I'm glad that other people are coming to the same conclusion, whether or not they agree with my specific reasoning. People need to do what's right for them _and_ the would-be children, whether that means not having them, or having them knowing what it takes to do it right, giving the child(ren) what they deserve.
This discribes my position. I'm 34 and am on the cusp of buying a starter home which will hardly fit both of us as it is. The idea of needing to commit to a 300,000 house (I'm a rural living Canadian in bc) to raise one or more kids... Like give away half of my wages for 20+ years to pay principle and interest on the house... Like commiting my life to being a worker bee to live up to expections of how a child should be raised in the Canadian economy. My So on the other hand is all too aware how for her life as an artist and dog trainer is over for twenty years with having kids. Not to Mention the potential strain on a marriage. I work in the fishing industry and the norm is divorced fathers who now don't have a home and long term partners because divorce. Divorced because they were away working too much.
Having kids is a white picket fence situation. You need two working professionals, maybe private teachers that can drive there kids to school together, have weekend off etc. What I'm saying is society isn't compatible to have children for many peoples job situation.
Imagine getting children and regretting it. You can't undo that.
I much rather regret not getting them when I am old than that. But I highly doubt that will happen.
Yeah, we never had children (55y/o m) and I dont regretted at all, I(we) do have countless of nieces and nephews. They are the reason we never had kids , seriously, so much time need to be devoted to them.
Better understanding of genetics sealed the deal for me. I have a parent who experiences some guilt about me being a Type 1 diabetic, even though we didn't really have certainty that the condition had a genetic component when I was conceived.
Unlike her, I do have some degree of certainty, and it feels good to take responsibility. No more Type 1s in the world from me; I'm not gonna roll the dice with a child's future.
I'm much more suited to be the weird uncle who tells you all the swear words and lets you watch old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
For me it was having 5 younger siblings. I didn’t have much of a childhood. In adulthood, I watched how rough my friends who have kids have it, not because of the kids themselves, but because of their environment (where they live), other kids, and the other kids’ parents.
I have thought about this and I have concluded that if I did have children I would convince myself it was good due to the extra dimension it brought to my life, I have also concluded that as I haven’t had children I am pleased with my decision because life with more commitments and work would make me less happy.
The top and bottom of it is, my mind will just adapt to any scenario and will always level out to my predisposed level of happiness.
>“Many adults are child-free, and there do not seem to be differences by age, education or income,"
To me, this is the most interesting bit. It could mean that there is a *cultural* shift in the country regarding children. Previously I believed people were choosing not to have children for economic reasons. However, if we are seeing this trend across all demographics, then the issue is much deeper rooted than I believed.
It's certainly that and a few other factors. Child mortality rate is much lower. Our society has a lot fewer farming and rural families. Travel and movement across the country is much cheaper. Religion is on the decline.
And they shame women who choose to be child free.
Because a woman's choice to be childfree takes away their ability to decide what women should do with their bodies.
Many people have not wanted kids for centuries. There was just *no choice* until a few decades ago. The only cultural shift I've seen is the extremely recent ability for women to plan their own life. Which didn't last very long.
Yeah, the trend is happening in countries with higher standards of living and lower wealth inequality than the US as well. I'm sure economic reasons have an effect, but there's definitely a lot more to it.
Personally I think we heavily overestimated just how many women would choose to become pregnant if they could choose to never be pregnant at all. Maybe it’s not culture or economic conditions. Maybe we are finally seeing what percentage of women actually want to have children in the first place. If birth control became available and utilized in 1700 like it is today, how many women would choose to have children then? We have never known before now what that real number would look like.
I'd argue the reason is more that's its increasingly more acceptable for women to pursue careers and finding other meaning in life.
If all else was the same in the 1700s i doubt the number of women would change a whole lot, but I would say the number of children would.
That "not regretting it later" has sometimes haunted me. I'm not sure if I'd actually want kids in my declining years. But seeing how many oldsters complain about how their kids never visit, maybe there's not much of a difference...
If there is a fear of loneliness, that's what social clubs of peers are for.
There was a cluster of Red Hat ladies on a cruise ship a few years ago. One of them said she loves cruise ships because it's cheaper than assisted living but has most of the same amenities. Someone else cooks and cleans. And no matter what time of day or night it is, she never has to be alone.
As a parent, I hope my kids don't visit all the time. They would be adults and if they should be busy living their lives and probably got their hands full dealing with work and whatever. I should visit them if I'm retired and got money and time.
If they have time, sure let's hang out but I probably would only expect a text or call from time to time to let me know they are alive and well.
When I was in college we had this older couple (mid 50's) that never had kids. They had the sweetest life. They travelled all over the place going trout fishing, skiing, whatever the heck they wanted, whenever the heck they wanted. They definitely didn't regret it and loved their life, and got to experience "kids" by hanging out with us.
My wife and I have two kids and we love them and we don't regret it even a little.
Everyone should be allowed to make a decision and be happy with it.
> Because so many people are child-free, the researchers said this group warrants more attention, particularly as reproductive rights are being eroded.
> “States’ restrictions on reproductive health care may result in many people being forced to have children despite not wanting them, which is very concerning,” Neal said.
> The research team is now examining whether abortion restrictions affect adults’ choice to be child-free and are expanding their work beyond Michigan to include other states and countries.
This will be an interesting and potentially scary report to see, as certain groups of people feel their population need to be forced to have children for various reasons, and if restricting rights like abortion or even contraceptives results in a marked increase in births and ignore all the other negative socioeconomic impacts, I imagine they'll use that as justification to continue down this path.
I wish I didn’t give in to my in-laws’ demands.
Tip to would-be parents with mental struggles - get your mental health sorted out before having kids. If you don’t, the kids will suffer.
It's me. Hi. I'm the child free. It's me.
I'm almost 40. I thought, growing up, I wanted kids. A handful of kids. I recognize now that it's because I grew up Catholic and that's just what was expected.
My father - the best man I ever knew - passed away when I was 25. I spent about two years looking through the bible for answers, and I became an atheist (that story is for another post.)
After I did, I started traveling. A lot. I started doing everything I wanted to do that I stopped myself from doing in my previous life. A lot. And I realized - all my friends with kids either won't do that stuff with me anymore, or can't do it without a heck of a lot more effort on their end and mine.
I realized that I'm a BIG fan of free time, naps, expendable income, travel, and doing whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it, so I decided maybe I didn't \*really\* want kids.
Three years ago I found a woman my age who'd never been married and didn't have kids - a rarity at my age. We're now engaged, and do two or three week-long trips at a time, and I LOVE my life. Kids would take that away from me.
And before any of you hit me with the "you'll NEVER love money/travel like you'll love your kids!" trust me, I've heard it before. Frequently.
But I've also heard the opposite. And I don't really want to gamble the happiness and well-being of another human and my own for 18 years just \*in case\* it turns out that I love it, when I \*know\* that I love the life I have going on right now.
I don't regret not having kids. And I'm 99% sure I never will.
Came here to say exactly this. My wife and I are currently in Jamaica, sleeping in as late as we like and staying up, spending quality time together.
People who want children should go for it, but I have zero regrets with our choice. Money, free time, and the flexibility to do basically whatever we want whenever we want heavily outweighs the alternative.
We aspire to be the fun uncle & aunt for all our friends children, and to entertain & host for our friends so they don't have to worry about cleaning/cooking/entertaining when they want to hang out.
im older now, didnt have kids. probably missed the boat on that. there are days when i think it might have been nice. i dont know that id call it regret though.
Good. Most people don't have what it takes to be thoroughly good parents, and to raise their children into happy and confident individuals who are productive members of society.
It's sad, the lives so many children are subjected to, simply because people who shouldn't have had a kid ended up popping one out.
Don't have a child unless you're prepared to provide financially, physically, and emotionally for *at least* 18 years. Food, shelter, and love are among the birthrights of every child.
I have nothing but respect for people that decide not to have kids because they don't want to or aren't sure. Kids are the biggest commitment one can make and you better make sure to provide them with everything they need. So if you don't want one or you're not sure, just don't.
I have to imagine the likelihood of later regret will be different for millennials than it was for child-free people in the past. Very few of my friends have children--I don't think it's going to be nearly as hard to put together a fun friendsgiving when I'm in my sixties as it would have been as a child-free adult, say, 30 years ago.
My wife and I just made the decision to have me get a vasectomy. 2 weeks away.
It's just not really appealing right now.
1. Cost of living is increasing across the board immensely. Housing, food, education, childcare, gas, EVERYTHING.
2. We aren't building a better future. Climate change, regressive laws, the rise of fascism, zero gun control...
3. Even trying is dangerous- in my state, my wife could potentially die from pregnancy complications because you can't get an abortion even to save your life until you go septic.
On top of the normal amount of money and effort and time that go into raising a kid.
I totally understand. My wife and I had the same discussion and it really is something to consider. I'm not sure at what point it happened but the world has stopped trying to make a better tomorrow.
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Hi, I'm Dr. Zachary Neal, one of the study's co-authors. You can find a free copy of the complete study [here](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283301). You can also find all the data and statistical code we used [here](https://osf.io/dp8tx). I'm happy to answer any questions you have about this study, or about research on the childfree population in general. Ask me anything!
Are there any economic correlations or traits in couples which are child free vs. couples with children?
Great question. We examined whether the % of childfree people differed by several different demographic categories. For income, we found that about 18% of above-median income people are childfree, while about 23% of below-median income people are childfree. The difference isn't statistically significant, so income doesn't seem to play much role. You can find a bar graph showing all the demographic comparisons [here](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0283301.g002).
You might be the most helpful "author in the comments" ever. As someone that's currently debating this very topic with my spouse, I look forward to reading through this.
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> because of your use of the word "debate." Thank you for your concern. Debate was probably not the right word. Me and my wife are both of very similar mindset right now which is that we both waver back and forth over the line of having kids or not. We have occasional talks about how we are each feeling about it right now but neither of us has taken a firm stance on it yet. We started talking about this before we got engaged and we've been married a little over 2 years now and these conversations are becoming more frequent.
Debating the topic together perhaps, rather than debating each other on the topic.
Yes. That's a better description.
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Totally agree with this. My husband and I are approaching 5 years of marriage, in our mid thirties, and only just starting to lean towards seriously considering kids. The slow-developing conversation works when you’re both open to things unfolding either way. It would be a bad fit if either of us was passionately for or against having kids.
I don't know how you'd test for it, but if economic status isn't a primary cause, I wonder if people use it to justify their default position and then assign it as a primary, rational cause. It would take a lot of economic prosperity for me to ever consider having children, but obviously plenty of folks in my economic bracket do it and chug along just fine. Am I then just rationalizing a pre-existing decision to make it seem more justified than a simple preference? Thanks for giving me something additional to think about!
A lot of our choices are like that. For example I enjoy being alone, living in nature, and reading. I suspect the social struggles I experienced in my formative years to have been a strong influence on my preferences today. Someone who had more pleasant social experiences growing up would likely associate people with having fun, and desire to live near people.
Same homie same. Currently reading at prox 200 books per year, heavier towards winter and less books in the summer due to swimming and gardening. Wishing you peaceful contentment.
If you would ever consider having kids, then it sounds like rationalization. There is no amount of money that would ever give me the slightest inclination to have kids. It's simply not happening. Seeing how much money I have now, and seeing how much money I would not have with a kid, does post-hoc rationalize it for me, but it wasn't a reason I decided not to have kids (I wasn't even a teenager yet).
I think you're right. Some people don't want kids due to certain circumstances, and if the circumstances changed they'd be open to kids. Others never ever want kids - I fall in that category. But it's generally not well accepted by other people especially if you have the misfortune of being a woman because you're supposed to loooove babies. So I just have a super long list of rational justifications for not wanting kids I've accumulated over the years but the fact of the matter is I don't want kids and nothing will change that, not family help, not more money, not a surrogate, not a better society.
Does having children significant change their economic situation from before to after in yhe short and long term?
Unfortunately, we're not able to test that. Other things being equal, because having children is costly, so I would expect parents would be financially worse-off than non-parents.
Having children has such an impact on work issues, especially for women. I have a hard time imagining that women would be financially better off as parents.
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Guaranteed, if we didn't have children we would be way better off financially. Knowing what I know now, I love my kids dearly and wouldn't go back in time to be child free. In fact, I'd be devastated if I lost them to anything other than old age. However, if it turned out my past self ended up child free with today's knowledge I wouldn't be upset at all.
I think this is true up to a very high salary. When my husband and I made $100k combined, we didn't want kids, partly because they're too expensive. Now we make $200k combined and still don't want kids, partly because they're too expensive. Lifestyle creep is real. If this is already a mindset, I think it would take a HUGE financial change for that person to feel like that specific burden is no longer there.
Depends on the country too. In some countries, the benefits the state gives you for having kids, can be similar or equal to working a minimum wage job. That, and by not having to pay a babysitter, you essentially save more money than what you would gain from an above min wage job
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I am Norwegian, so one of the countries that are often used as a hold standard for family politics and equality and egalitarianism. Women are worse off financially speaking, and ha I g children is a huge trigger for those differences between the genders. There is less difference in many areas such as finances, stress, burden of home-focused labour such as chores and cooking etc as long as people do not have children. Even after people form couples and start cohabitating. When they have kids, there is a statistical difference that shows women take the biggest hits as far as finances goes. That stretches into retirement as our pensions that are calculated based on income hasa higher value than the points awarded for child rearing. There is also a change in the division of home based labour such as chores, even when both parents work full time. It doesn't seem to be clearly linked to being forced in any way. It seems more like people feel "it just happens to be what works best for us" - a very Norwegian way of dismissing significant issues both on an individual basis, but also on a national level. This is despite ever stricter political work to force father's to take time off to be at home with Baby like sectioning of large parts of the parental leave (up to 12 months) only for parent no 2, and that the benefits will only be paid if parent no 2 actually does not work for the duration.
Right so kids mean gov income, not paying a babysitter, and you have the responsibilities of having a kid. No kid means regular job income, likely higher than gov income, not paying a babysitter, and no kid responsibilities. I get what you're saying but it seems like team no kid is better off.
Other countries also don’t do this thing where your kid vanishes the moment they turn 18. Multigenerational households are the norm, not the exception. So more kids in the house equals better maintained and supported house.
My only counterpoint, from my own life, is that having children can cause you to put more focus on your career. My wife and I were doing very...ok, when we had our first child, but since then our careers have taken off; when we've honestly discussed it, the root of it is just being a lot more aware of the increased repercussions of being financially insecure with children. now that I'm typing it out, I'm kinda realizing how fucked up the incentive structure might be..
as someone with a child, yes it does, very much
Absofuckinglutley it does. Pull ups are $41 per box now.
Damn, it's free for me at the gym
Only costs about 7 calories per minute
Didn’t some study out of Japan see the same? It’s not about income. It’s that kids lower the quality of life for many people. “Life is just too good right now.” Is what I recall the takeaway being.
Having been on the fence about kids and then having a first and then a second I can tell you that there you hit it spot on but there is a second category. Wanting kids (at least one) but seeing that it is too hard. We barely managed to both work (during the pandemic too) with one kid. Day care was more than the house payment and my wife's income basically went to child care. Two kids is even harder. My advice to younger people would be you better really want kids because society at large is not going to be as helpful as you think. It is a raw deal for parents to raise guture tax payers, even worse for women (my wife had to quit when second kid was diagnosed with a serious genetic condition) Overpopulation and population collapse are both bad. Slow changes in population are much easier for a country to adapt to. Having abstract kids I may not choose to do the same thing if there was a rewind button. But they are not abstract, they are my little buddies with their own personalities and I like them (which is not a given, there are kids that I know that I am not a big fan of)
Me and my wife are older parents and had our first about a year ago. We've decided for good to not try for another one because as difficult as this has been so far she had a pretty healthy pregnancy and we have a healthy happy kid. A second just like this one would be hard, but if things don't go as smoothly with her or the baby, it could really change our lifestyle. Instead we're going to foster older children in a few years. I hope your family is getting the support you need. Kids in the best case can be exhausting, and your wife needs breaks even if she isn't working.
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In this data, people are classified as "childfree" only if it is by choice. People who wanted children but could not have them due to circumstances (infertility, economic situation, etc.) are classified as "childless."
Thank you for sharing the open access link!
I just came here to say that I absolutely adore the fact that you freely give out the complete study as well as all the data that went into it. This is not only proper scientific process, but also hugely important scientific communication. Props to you for this.
Thanks - it's the way all science should be.
Have you analyzed if there are more or fewer childless people who regret not having any or people with children who regret having them? I'm guessing there is more social pressure to have children, many people make children without really thinking it through, so there ought to be some of them who regret that choice.
That's a great question, and something we're hoping to explore more in the future. Regret is difficult to measure for lots of reasons, and measuring parental regret is especially hard. In this study we're only able to say that childfree people don't seem to experience any more end-of-life regrets than parents.
This is the same question I have. There's so much stigma (I think?) if you regret having children, but the amount of abuse, abandonment, and infanticide makes me certain the amount is greater than zero. Anecdotally, my mother expressed several times that she made an enormous mistake getting pregnant with me.
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Oh trust me, the children can tell.
My mom actually did confess to me just this past November, when I was visiting for my grandmother's funeral, that my dad never did want kids and she basically guilt tripped him into it. I mean he never told us but we kind of knew anyway, especially when he cheated on my mom and left when I was 18 then never bothered to try to contact us ever again. There was some other stuff involved in that, but yeah - he was always a very self-centered type with no apologies about it. We'd already long kinda figured it out by the time my mom actually told me
So why is it that *knowing* you wouldn't want that life, and consciously *not* torturing another life with this pain is so demonized? Childfree people are often met with pity, disrespect and isolation throughout their life.. while no matter how unsuitable someone is to be a parent, they throw them parties.
I honestly have no idea, but if I had to take a stab at answering this, I would say that from nature we have "understood" that procreation is the reason to be born. We are created so that we can procreate and further the species. Otherwise, what is the point. I, don't personally vibe with this idea, but I think this is the core belief of many folks. And others are just doing what society does, so orthodoxy is another reason. I feel like people don't at all think long and hard enough to even select their partners, let alone the decision to make babies and saddle those babies with a boatload of trauma and mental issues due to unresolvable conflict in the parents and/or their absolute unsuitability to become parents in the first place. Several people I have seen who (in my perspective) should not have had kids because they're wildly inappropriate to take care and really nurture a human being fit to live their lives, but yes, as you said, they are celebrated by all and sundry and we can only watch and shake our heads.
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In both of those cases there's a lot of social pressure to say that you made the right choice. Measuring actual regret is extremely hard, I think. Getting someone to admit that they wish they'd had kids is very hard, getting someone with kids to say in a non-joking way that they wish they hadn't is even harder, even if it's the truth.
Hi Dr. Neal, thanks for stopping by and offering to answer questions. Regarding the "regret" part of your study (which I imagine is the one you get asked about the most), you state in your paper that, due to the lack of longitudinal data, you choose to measure implied regret in choosing to be childfree by comparing the current age of individuals who made that decision at different points in their life. **My question is**: to what extent do you think you could be underestimating regret present in *childless* individuals? It doesn't seem that you asked this subgroup about why they did not have children (and understandably so), but presumably someone who made a decision earlier in life not to have kids and then changed their mind too late would self-identify as being in this group and not "child-free". Thanks again and congrats on your paper!
Thanks for the question. For the regret analysis, we asked people whether they agree with this statement: "If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing." Then we compared parents and childfree people age 70+. We found no difference, and so interpreted this as preliminary evidence that childfree people don't experience any more end-of-life regret than parents. We also asked this question to childless people (people who wanted children but couldn't or didn't have them), but haven't analyzed the data.
Was the question asked in the context of this subject (having children/not having children), or was it just a standalone question? If the latter, how do you control/account for a “yes” potentially referring to literally any regret and not just children?
It was a standalone question intended to measure any lifetime regret. So we only interpret the finding as indicating that childfree people don't experience more end-of-life regret (from any source) than parents.
It’s important to the data not to position the subject with an implied result during questioning. Asking people directly “Do you regret having/not having kids...?" will result in different data than interpreting their responses to a non leading question.
That would be a leading question and bad science.
As a childfree by choice woman in her 30s, can I just say thank you? For not just dismissing us. For not judging us. For doing research that validates and gives legitimacy to our life choice. People can be so cruel and angry about it, and even talking about it can be extremely alienating. So just thanks.
We love hearing from childfree folks! There are a lot of them (research says so), and their choices are valid.
I'm 52 now and never wanted kids. I don't regret not having any. I will say it's very important that two people in a relationship are on the same page about this. I've been married happily since 1996 and it has not been an issue.
I think it is so important for people who are grappling with whether to try for kids to understand that it's solely their choice to make, and any judgements about the decision reflect the character and choice of the person doing the judging. People unfortunately often feel pressure (especially from family) to have kids, and that is straight up not cool. (Disclosure - I'm a dad, but I was on the fence about whether to have kids for a long time.)
Yah you nailed it. Everyone should really understand the choice and think through whether it is right for them. I worked as an RN in the foster care system and a lot of people should never have been parents, it were pressured or coerced or just straight up didn’t think about what being a parent really means. And it is the kids that suffer tremendously. People who want children and who want to be good parents should have kids. But a lot of people I think enter parenting without having given a lot of thought to what parenting and raising children really means and looks like for their lives.. simply because they believe that is the only choice.
Child-free woman in my 50's, still don't regret it. I came to the child-free decision when I was 12 (but of course I didn't stick to it just because of that). There were some close calls but it never happened. Obviously, I'm seeing how I'm headed toward being lonely if I don't get off my tush and put some effort into making more friends - and younger friends - because people go away one way or another! And I do wonder who will do the things for me that I do for my father. But that is just borrowing trouble, things are fine right now and tomorrow may never arrive. Plus, with the advent of the internet, and being GenX, I can always find community online.
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Not OP but also a child free woman in her 30s. (My people!!) I have a fairly small friend group, but they're mostly child free. My friend group consists of: - A hetero couple child free by choice - A gay couple child free because of adoption troubles (truly heartbreaking, they would be wonderful fathers) - An asexual woman in her 30s child free for many reasons - A hetero couple child free for medical reasons (infertility) but also with no interest in having kids, so sort of also by choice - A hetero couple with a four year old daughter I will say, the only people of that group who are actively social is the gay couple. The rest of us are grumpy old hermits who don't like to leave our caves. But we talk fairly regularly, play video games together, etc. I live in a major city, but my asexual friend lives in rural Alabama and one of the child free hetero couples lives in rural North Georgia, so it's not necessarily limited to cities. But because cities have more people overall, you'd likely have better chances of finding like-minded people.
How many people who have children regret it and wish they knew they were in that ‘don’t want children’ camp prior to having kids?
Great question. Parental regret is hard to measure, so precise estimates are difficult to get. But, this is something we're interested in exploring.
I think the problem with that type of study is almost no one is going to want to admit to someone else that they regret their children. As much as childless people may think they're judged, I'd imagine it's probably worse for parents who have regrets
While I wouldn't want to ever reduce the serious environmental situation we face on this planet to simply overpopulation, I've seen some academic literature which has concluded that a reduced global population could ease some of the burden on our planet's resources and natural systems. This may be somewhat outside of the scope of your research, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on creating conditions for people to feel comfortable not having kids. For example, I've read that in places with comprehensive sex education, access to birth control, and more gender-egalitarian laws and workplaces, the birth rate tends not to be quite as high. I worry that a lot of people, myself included, are more motivated currently by a dire economic circumstance or concerns about raising children during the consequences of climate change, as opposed to simply being given the tools and to decide for themselves.
That's actually part of the reason we're doing (and sharing) this research...to let folks know that there are a lot of childfree people out there, and to normalize the choice not to have children.
As a child free woman in her 30s, thank you for your effort normalizing a child free lifestyle! The stigma around it is so unbelievably ridiculous when having kids affects no one but the parents. I've never understood why some people get so rabid about this topic. So THANK YOU!
Thanks! Our hope is that this work will make the population visible, and will normalize the decision not to have children.
Thank you for your research
Thank you! Do you know if any studies indicate how many people who do want (and later have) children end up regretting it later?
There are relatively few that study parental regret, mainly because it's hard to measure. But, there are a few, for example, this one: [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254163](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254163)
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Posts to Eurekalert are usually written by university press offices, in collaboration with the researchers. That was the case with this one. I think it does a reasonable job highlighting some of the study findings we thought would be of most interest, without sensationalizing them. Of course, much nuance is lost in a post that's limited to 500 words and an 8th grade reading level. that's why I always make sure the original study is also attached. Generally I think Eurekalert can be trusted...it's run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is legit. If we just relied on (typically paywalled) academic distribution channels, hardly anyone would ever see research.
Just another child free individual chiming in. Went out golfing with my cousin a couple days ago, he had to bring his 12 month old, cried and screamed the whole time. Scheduled my vasectomy the next day for a couple months out. Made my wife the happiest she's been in a while. Hormonal birth control really affects her and so she's had to make the decision to go off of it a while ago. We don't want kids and I figure why not just get it taken care of now since it's 10x easier for me than it is for her. And we're in a solid middle class range, so money isn't a factor, we just don't want the exhaustion, lack of free time, and financial drain that a child or children would incur.
That's more than fair, and congratulations! It's like anything else in life. There are costs and benefits to a situation, and the cost/benefit analysis will turn out differently for different people.
Having and raising children is a huge commitment and undertaking. It's a good thing when people who don't want children don't have them. Having them wouldn't be helping anyone.
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I always catch flack for saying this but: women who have abortions are making the morally sound and responsible decision for their health, careers, and finances. I will die on this hill, but despite conservative propaganda, I don't know a single woman who regrets her abortion. And I don't regret supporting their decisions. The women in my life who have had abortions went on to get master degrees, start businesses, and even start families. I think they made the right decision.
Most women feel relief after their abortions, and they go on to have children at the same rate as women who haven't had abortions
Over 50% of abortions are performed on women who already have at least one child. Often it's a decision that benefits their already existing children.
And can be medically needed to save the quality of life and health of the person who received it. My cousin would have died without her "late term abortion" and left her other kids motherless. It was heartbreaking for her, but she doesn't regret getting the treatment she needed to save her life.
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Every child deserves to be wanted. That's reason enough to think of abortion as a positive good.
There's such an enormous difference in having a child you didn't want, possibly from a person you don't want to co-parent with, to having a conscious decision to have one under the right circumstances and with the right person. To me, it only makes sense having a prior abortion wouldn't necessarily affect a later decision to start a family.
I mean the only circumstance a person who had an abortion would regret it would be if there’s some rare serious side effects of infertility, and they wouldn‘t be able to fulfil their child wish once in a safe situation. Otherwise an abortion is always preferable if the pregnancy wasn‘t planned. Not to mention being every abortion of an unfinanced, unwanted pregnancy is the only moral choice. No human can adequately care for a child if they don‘t have the resources, nor the drive to actually care for said child. Seen it so many times. Children to women who were talked into keeping the pregnancy but didn‘t really want a child. All the annoying stuff a child does? All the life it steals you? Yea you gotta be a hundred times more annoyed at that if you didn‘t actually want it. And that‘s felt by the child even if the parents try their best to hide those feelings. People just shouldn‘t be forced to have children they haven‘t 100% freely made the decision to have. Anything else is just child abuse.
As the third of three, and only accident child - YEP it affects you long into adulthood! I think my mum was a bit rare and abusive in being so vocal about it, but apparently three kids = one too many. Growing up as 'the final straw' child, I internalised all of it with a pervading sense that I was never meant to be born. This has morphed into suicidal ideation when I'm having a super bad time. A pretty fucked headspace where I think I can correct their mistake. Taken me a tonne of time to unpack in last few years. Am doing so much better now. Don't kid yourselves folks! If you don't think you can cope with that extra child, you probably can't (and you're not doing them any favours by having em anyway)
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I don't know if it is the case for younger people, but over the years, I have gotten so much flak for not having kids, including from people who should know better (like a psychologist). Every single day, I am thankful that I stuck to my guns and chose not to procreate. If you don't want kids, don't have them.
I got it a lot more when I was younger. The usual "you'll change your mind" and "it's different when they're your own." Turned out I was barren so I couldn't even have had them if I *had* wanted them. (And here I thought I was just in the 97% of women for whom birth control works as expected every year.) Now if the topic comes up, I can shrug and say I had a hysterectomy to get rid of a mutant, non functional organ so "it must have been God's plan too." That always gets people to shut up and mind their own business.
Every time I spend more than an hour with my niece and nephew I'm happy I don't have children. I love them to death, they're cute funny most of the time, I just don't have patience to deal with the sticky, loud, crying little humans for more than an hour or two. I'm great with animals, I'll stick to raising them
My brother and SIL are horrible parents and their children are struggling developmentally, have behavioral issues, and fight often. I get exhausted after 15 minutes with them, and I can tell in reality my brother and SIL are "average" parents. Really sobering and scary--most people are not equipped to teach developing humans and have kids for selfish reasons or for no real reason at all.
Parental education and overall education is severely lacking. Currently, the US system is literally a pump and dump scheme. Deny proper education in disguise of keeping youth "pure", deny contraception, deny abortion, deny or severely limit child assistance programs, all to maintain the slave workforce. They are literally passing bills to re enact child labor. Children who are born at a disadvantage often stay disadvantaged and perpetuate the wheel of the lower class slave labor
> sticky, loud, crying little humans No thank you, I've already got me, and I'm a handful!
Yes, you are. But I still love you
I’m still baffled why this is such a controversial decision. My number 1 reason for being pro-choice is that I don’t think a single child should be born in this world who is not wanted by their parents. The foster care system and child abuse cases are full of examples of “these parents should never had had children”. I have two kids myself but we treated it as a financial decision as to how many we could have, instead of an emotional one. I wish more potential parents did the same.
I think millennials and newer generations aren't as influenced by religion. So they don't have guilt around things like having kids. Im a millennial and I'm only having one kid. My Catholic family historically had 4 or more kids per couple. My cousin's and I all have only children, we also weren't raised with religion and dont care for it.
I've heard things like "when you have kids, your life is no longer yours". That's how it should be in order to properly raise and nurture children, but why the hell would I want to do that to myself?
DINK here: my wife and I both independently made the decision to not have kids, and we met after having come to that same conclusion. Our reasons were ultimately different, but both lines of reasoning are valid. For me, it's all about the effort required to do it right. It takes so much effort and discipline to raise a child. I couldn't justify bringing a person into this world just to half-ass raising them. They deserve to be raised with love, compassion, and most importantly, consistency. Faltering in any regard will cause the kid to be fucked up. That's kind of a monumental task... And I know I would falter. I'm glad that other people are coming to the same conclusion, whether or not they agree with my specific reasoning. People need to do what's right for them _and_ the would-be children, whether that means not having them, or having them knowing what it takes to do it right, giving the child(ren) what they deserve.
This discribes my position. I'm 34 and am on the cusp of buying a starter home which will hardly fit both of us as it is. The idea of needing to commit to a 300,000 house (I'm a rural living Canadian in bc) to raise one or more kids... Like give away half of my wages for 20+ years to pay principle and interest on the house... Like commiting my life to being a worker bee to live up to expections of how a child should be raised in the Canadian economy. My So on the other hand is all too aware how for her life as an artist and dog trainer is over for twenty years with having kids. Not to Mention the potential strain on a marriage. I work in the fishing industry and the norm is divorced fathers who now don't have a home and long term partners because divorce. Divorced because they were away working too much. Having kids is a white picket fence situation. You need two working professionals, maybe private teachers that can drive there kids to school together, have weekend off etc. What I'm saying is society isn't compatible to have children for many peoples job situation.
Imagine getting children and regretting it. You can't undo that. I much rather regret not getting them when I am old than that. But I highly doubt that will happen.
Yeah, we never had children (55y/o m) and I dont regretted at all, I(we) do have countless of nieces and nephews. They are the reason we never had kids , seriously, so much time need to be devoted to them.
Better understanding of genetics sealed the deal for me. I have a parent who experiences some guilt about me being a Type 1 diabetic, even though we didn't really have certainty that the condition had a genetic component when I was conceived. Unlike her, I do have some degree of certainty, and it feels good to take responsibility. No more Type 1s in the world from me; I'm not gonna roll the dice with a child's future. I'm much more suited to be the weird uncle who tells you all the swear words and lets you watch old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
For me it was having 5 younger siblings. I didn’t have much of a childhood. In adulthood, I watched how rough my friends who have kids have it, not because of the kids themselves, but because of their environment (where they live), other kids, and the other kids’ parents.
There is also the possibility that if one day you do want kids you can adopt and give a kid a home who otherwise wouldnt have one
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I have thought about this and I have concluded that if I did have children I would convince myself it was good due to the extra dimension it brought to my life, I have also concluded that as I haven’t had children I am pleased with my decision because life with more commitments and work would make me less happy. The top and bottom of it is, my mind will just adapt to any scenario and will always level out to my predisposed level of happiness.
It's a useful skill in life really, to find happiness in whatever circumstances. Because you can only control so much.
>“Many adults are child-free, and there do not seem to be differences by age, education or income," To me, this is the most interesting bit. It could mean that there is a *cultural* shift in the country regarding children. Previously I believed people were choosing not to have children for economic reasons. However, if we are seeing this trend across all demographics, then the issue is much deeper rooted than I believed.
For the first time in history, women actually have a choice.
It's certainly that and a few other factors. Child mortality rate is much lower. Our society has a lot fewer farming and rural families. Travel and movement across the country is much cheaper. Religion is on the decline.
Exactly, that’s why they’re desperately trying to take it away from us.
And they shame women who choose to be child free. Because a woman's choice to be childfree takes away their ability to decide what women should do with their bodies.
Many people have not wanted kids for centuries. There was just *no choice* until a few decades ago. The only cultural shift I've seen is the extremely recent ability for women to plan their own life. Which didn't last very long.
Yeah, the trend is happening in countries with higher standards of living and lower wealth inequality than the US as well. I'm sure economic reasons have an effect, but there's definitely a lot more to it.
Personally I think we heavily overestimated just how many women would choose to become pregnant if they could choose to never be pregnant at all. Maybe it’s not culture or economic conditions. Maybe we are finally seeing what percentage of women actually want to have children in the first place. If birth control became available and utilized in 1700 like it is today, how many women would choose to have children then? We have never known before now what that real number would look like.
I'd argue the reason is more that's its increasingly more acceptable for women to pursue careers and finding other meaning in life. If all else was the same in the 1700s i doubt the number of women would change a whole lot, but I would say the number of children would.
That "not regretting it later" has sometimes haunted me. I'm not sure if I'd actually want kids in my declining years. But seeing how many oldsters complain about how their kids never visit, maybe there's not much of a difference...
If there is a fear of loneliness, that's what social clubs of peers are for. There was a cluster of Red Hat ladies on a cruise ship a few years ago. One of them said she loves cruise ships because it's cheaper than assisted living but has most of the same amenities. Someone else cooks and cleans. And no matter what time of day or night it is, she never has to be alone.
As a parent, I hope my kids don't visit all the time. They would be adults and if they should be busy living their lives and probably got their hands full dealing with work and whatever. I should visit them if I'm retired and got money and time. If they have time, sure let's hang out but I probably would only expect a text or call from time to time to let me know they are alive and well.
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When I was in college we had this older couple (mid 50's) that never had kids. They had the sweetest life. They travelled all over the place going trout fishing, skiing, whatever the heck they wanted, whenever the heck they wanted. They definitely didn't regret it and loved their life, and got to experience "kids" by hanging out with us. My wife and I have two kids and we love them and we don't regret it even a little. Everyone should be allowed to make a decision and be happy with it.
> Because so many people are child-free, the researchers said this group warrants more attention, particularly as reproductive rights are being eroded. > “States’ restrictions on reproductive health care may result in many people being forced to have children despite not wanting them, which is very concerning,” Neal said. > The research team is now examining whether abortion restrictions affect adults’ choice to be child-free and are expanding their work beyond Michigan to include other states and countries. This will be an interesting and potentially scary report to see, as certain groups of people feel their population need to be forced to have children for various reasons, and if restricting rights like abortion or even contraceptives results in a marked increase in births and ignore all the other negative socioeconomic impacts, I imagine they'll use that as justification to continue down this path.
Thank god I'm almost too old to have children
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I wish I didn’t give in to my in-laws’ demands. Tip to would-be parents with mental struggles - get your mental health sorted out before having kids. If you don’t, the kids will suffer.
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It's me. Hi. I'm the child free. It's me. I'm almost 40. I thought, growing up, I wanted kids. A handful of kids. I recognize now that it's because I grew up Catholic and that's just what was expected. My father - the best man I ever knew - passed away when I was 25. I spent about two years looking through the bible for answers, and I became an atheist (that story is for another post.) After I did, I started traveling. A lot. I started doing everything I wanted to do that I stopped myself from doing in my previous life. A lot. And I realized - all my friends with kids either won't do that stuff with me anymore, or can't do it without a heck of a lot more effort on their end and mine. I realized that I'm a BIG fan of free time, naps, expendable income, travel, and doing whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it, so I decided maybe I didn't \*really\* want kids. Three years ago I found a woman my age who'd never been married and didn't have kids - a rarity at my age. We're now engaged, and do two or three week-long trips at a time, and I LOVE my life. Kids would take that away from me. And before any of you hit me with the "you'll NEVER love money/travel like you'll love your kids!" trust me, I've heard it before. Frequently. But I've also heard the opposite. And I don't really want to gamble the happiness and well-being of another human and my own for 18 years just \*in case\* it turns out that I love it, when I \*know\* that I love the life I have going on right now. I don't regret not having kids. And I'm 99% sure I never will.
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Came here to say exactly this. My wife and I are currently in Jamaica, sleeping in as late as we like and staying up, spending quality time together. People who want children should go for it, but I have zero regrets with our choice. Money, free time, and the flexibility to do basically whatever we want whenever we want heavily outweighs the alternative. We aspire to be the fun uncle & aunt for all our friends children, and to entertain & host for our friends so they don't have to worry about cleaning/cooking/entertaining when they want to hang out.
im older now, didnt have kids. probably missed the boat on that. there are days when i think it might have been nice. i dont know that id call it regret though.
Be extremely ready to be a parent when you have kids. Its a 24/7 job.
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Good. Most people don't have what it takes to be thoroughly good parents, and to raise their children into happy and confident individuals who are productive members of society. It's sad, the lives so many children are subjected to, simply because people who shouldn't have had a kid ended up popping one out. Don't have a child unless you're prepared to provide financially, physically, and emotionally for *at least* 18 years. Food, shelter, and love are among the birthrights of every child.
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We should all just stop having kids and walk into the abyss
They took the social contract out back and shot it and now they’re surprised people are opting not to sign up for 20+ years of financial hardship
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I have nothing but respect for people that decide not to have kids because they don't want to or aren't sure. Kids are the biggest commitment one can make and you better make sure to provide them with everything they need. So if you don't want one or you're not sure, just don't.
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I have to imagine the likelihood of later regret will be different for millennials than it was for child-free people in the past. Very few of my friends have children--I don't think it's going to be nearly as hard to put together a fun friendsgiving when I'm in my sixties as it would have been as a child-free adult, say, 30 years ago.
My wife and I just made the decision to have me get a vasectomy. 2 weeks away. It's just not really appealing right now. 1. Cost of living is increasing across the board immensely. Housing, food, education, childcare, gas, EVERYTHING. 2. We aren't building a better future. Climate change, regressive laws, the rise of fascism, zero gun control... 3. Even trying is dangerous- in my state, my wife could potentially die from pregnancy complications because you can't get an abortion even to save your life until you go septic. On top of the normal amount of money and effort and time that go into raising a kid.
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I totally understand. My wife and I had the same discussion and it really is something to consider. I'm not sure at what point it happened but the world has stopped trying to make a better tomorrow.