Neither AC wants kids. I can't help feeling like I failed.

[Anonymous]

Tell your kids since no grandkids going to donate all your funds Trump re-election campaign. That should get then moving

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither my brother nor i ever wanted kids. We are both in our 50s so no, we never changed our minds." Sheesh.

My sister did want kids and she had one.

OP, let your kids live their lives as they see fit.

Well you should not have kids with your brother, that’s creepy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD has said she was a teen that she didn't want kids. Ha-ha ok you will change your mind is what everyone always told her. No, she's never wavered. She's in her late 20s and has been married for 3 years now (with her husband for 8 years total). She just told me that she found a doctor who was willing to do a tubal ligation so she could be done with birth control. It felt like a gut punch when she told me.

DS is in his early 30s and is getting married this fall. He's been with his fiancée for 4 years and they too have told us they have zero desire for kids. I thought for sure they would have kids as she's an elementary teacher and works at a kids camp in the summer.

How do I get over these feelings of failure? I know I raised great kids but at the same time, I feel like both are being selfish and it makes me angry. Is this something therapy helps with?

Working as a teacher or at a kid's summer camp is FANTASTIC birth control.

I babysat every weekend and many weeknights too most of my pre-teen and teenaged years. I never ended up having kids - still love them, I'm a group leader at the moment at a YMCA before/after school program, but I don't really regret not having kids. Part of my hesitation was having had a man in the home who did not behave like a loving father and having been very selective in my dating as to the kind of man I was willing to stay with and ultimately didn't find one I wanted to reproduce with.

But today's young people have a lot of reasons to balk at parenthood. It's ridiculously expensive and there are few supports. The planet is warming and the future could be very bleak if governments fail to act, soon. Inequity in our society is off the charts and kids today don't have any certainty of meeting their parents' standard of living, much less improving it. Also 8+ billion humans on the planet, we don't really need more - we just need to relocate some of them to the USA to grow our economy and fund our social security system into the future.

Enjoy your adult kids, OP. They will have much more time to care for you as you decline into old age if they don't have kids of their own. You could volunteer at the Y, at Boys & Girls Club, or as a Big Sister/Big Brother or CASA if you really want to be instrumental in the life of another child before you die.

[Anonymous]

OP, you should rent this documentary film on Vimeo and try to grasp how your AC feel about having children.

https://myselfishlife.com/upcoming-events

[Anonymous]

Reiterating what the poster above said. I’m in my late 20s, DH and I preparing to have kids soon. We wouldn’t be able to afford kids without having to dip into savings unless we make 200k HHI minimum. As for a house we barely bought in time, 2 more years and it will probably be impossible for us to buy in a decent neighborhood with decent public schools unless we work full remote. Also, the time commitment for children is massive - we recognize all our hobbies and personal interests are going to be on hold for the next 10 years. Every single one of my friends from high school/college wants to be childless and I absolutely don’t blame them.

I’m sure your kids already made their decision regardless, but I know if I want to be a grandparent someday I’m going to have to be heavily funding my kids and donating my time for babysitting to make it happen. Were you prepared to do that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are not selfish to not want kids. It could be argued that it's more selfish TO have kids than not to. It's a difficult world to live in, especially at this point in history. Having kids is subjecting a new generation of people to the hardships of life. (I am saying this as someone who has 2 kids myself, always wanted to have kids, love my kids immeasurably but I'm the first to admit that me choosing to have kids was because I wanted them which is selfish).

I understand you are sad that you likely will not have grandchildren and won't get to see your kids as parents, which would be a joyous thing to experience I think. But it's not fair for you to be angry at them or accuse them of being selfish.

I find these comments so surprising and I hear them often. People today are better off than any other time in human history. Obviously you know what a struggle life was in the 13th century when we had plagues and collapse of many civilizations. Or during ww I or II or even the depression? How can you call this a difficult world when history shows just the opposite? Have we lost all sense of history? I almost wonder if the LACK of hardship makes people unhappy because I hear this so often and it’s so objectively false.

This. Life has never been easier.

The expectations for children all those centuries were very different. People often didn't name babies for a year because so many of them died. Children were working beside their parents in fields and factories at very early ages. They were not really nurtured or well educated among the majority of the populace. They were not cherished as they are today, and there was not an entire fetishization of motherhood/parenthood/childhood that comes with ridiculous costs of everything from onesies to childcare to school supplies and beyond.

And also, people didn't have a real choice about having children until a few generations ago - 50 years ago, give or take a few. Now they do, and they are choosing more and more commonly not to have them, or to limit the size of their families significantly. This is not a bad thing, because until recently childhood was much more nasty and brutish than loving and leisure filled. A great many people who had no burning desire to parent got stuck doing it because they had a burning desire to get their rocks off or take a load, and they were not good parents.

It's a different world, and thank goddesses we have choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell your kids since no grandkids going to donate all your funds Trump re-election campaign. That should get then moving

I'm so lonely! Nothing to do all day but watch Fox and OAN and go to the voting booth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would feel sad, too, Op. I think your feelings are normal.

+1 This is becoming sadly common with this generation. I have 21 cousins (aged 50-70) and between us, 40 kids, and yet there are only six grandchildren, and the ones young enough to still have kids all express some version of not wanting to marry or have kids. I'm hearing similar things from lots of friends.

What is going on?

The young people are struggling just to support themselves and are smart enough to know that bringing a baby into the mix is a terrible idea.

None of the Gen Z or younger Millennials in my family want kids either.

This. They see how much work and frankly self sacrifice is expected of parents these days, in order to produce competitive and achieving children, who then - despite having a lot more skills and knowledge than their prior generation, will still have a harder time getting into good colleges, buying a house, achieving financial stability. The young people I know want 1 or no DC. Couple this with the fact that there are fewer potential DHs for educated women (as women now are better educated than men and men often marry down in terms of education).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Such hypocritical replies. This board is populated with women who are probably the biggest social conservatives in the Western hemisphere (so many threads are about catching high-value men who can afford a SAHM) and for sure would be devastated if they didn't have grandkids. But it's easy to judge OP as regressive when her desires are in fact aligned with the general sentiments prominent on this board. Also, I can't believe that helicopter parents who spend so much time/resources on kids wouldn't be disappointed with OP's scenario.

This. Exactly. OP, your daughter is really young to get a tubal ligation. I'm surprised she found an OB/GYN that would do it. I wouldn't make a big deal about it. She (or your son and his wife) may change their mind. Wanting to procreate is a strong biological drive. Come back to us when they are mid to late 30s and let us know where they are at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, way to make it all about you.

I don't understand why parents are often so into their kids having kids. They are more likely to be around to help with your elder care if they aren't busy with kids.

I think it’s because baby snuggles are such a magical, fleeting stage to someone who did have and raise children and your only chance to really have this kind of closeness with little children at that age is through your grandchildren.

Could you even imagine more selfish people than potential grandparents who require their own DCs to assume all this work and responsibilities just so they can get a few snuggles and then return the kids to their parents when it comes to work and responsibility? OP is the embodiment of egotism.

[Anonymous]

You know when you should be sad? If god forbid your kid died. If you still have healthy happy kids enjoy your time with them and stop worrying about their reproductive choices. Would you want them to have kids and regret it or feel like they were guilted into it? I have one child and it’s highly unlikely I’ll have biological grandchildren…pretty unlikely any kind. Sometimes I think this could hurt when I’m 65 or 70 and I know a lot of people with grandkids. But I’m making my peace with it now because my kid gets to make their own choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, way to make it all about you.

I don't understand why parents are often so into their kids having kids. They are more likely to be around to help with your elder care if they aren't busy with kids.

I think it’s because baby snuggles are such a magical, fleeting stage to someone who did have and raise children and your only chance to really have this kind of closeness with little children at that age is through your grandchildren.

Could you even imagine more selfish people than potential grandparents who require their own DCs to assume all this work and responsibilities just so they can get a few snuggles and then return the kids to their parents when it comes to work and responsibility? OP is the embodiment of egotism.

Who said "require", number 1? And number 2, I see how you get to "selfish" but I think it is more wishful than selfish. It's ok to be disappointed but, in the end, it's not the parents' call as to whether their kids have kids. If my DC decided to not have kids, I'd be disappointed and a little worried, but it would ultimately not be my call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, way to make it all about you.

I don't understand why parents are often so into their kids having kids. They are more likely to be around to help with your elder care if they aren't busy with kids.

I think it’s because baby snuggles are such a magical, fleeting stage to someone who did have and raise children and your only chance to really have this kind of closeness with little children at that age is through your grandchildren.

Could you even imagine more selfish people than potential grandparents who require their own DCs to assume all this work and responsibilities just so they can get a few snuggles and then return the kids to their parents when it comes to work and responsibility? OP is the embodiment of egotism.

Who said "require", number 1? And number 2, I see how you get to "selfish" but I think it is more wishful than selfish. It's ok to be disappointed but, in the end, it's not the parents' call as to whether their kids have kids. If my DC decided to not have kids, I'd be disappointed and a little worried, but it would ultimately not be my call.

What would you be worried about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting married and intentionally deciding not to have kids is quite strange. This is not normal human behavior.

Oh be quiet! Its not strange to not want kids. Having multiple kids with no time to spare is strange in todays time. What year are you living in?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, way to make it all about you.

I don't understand why parents are often so into their kids having kids. They are more likely to be around to help with your elder care if they aren't busy with kids.

I think it’s because baby snuggles are such a magical, fleeting stage to someone who did have and raise children and your only chance to really have this kind of closeness with little children at that age is through your grandchildren.

Could you even imagine more selfish people than potential grandparents who require their own DCs to assume all this work and responsibilities just so they can get a few snuggles and then return the kids to their parents when it comes to work and responsibility? OP is the embodiment of egotism.

Who said "require", number 1? And number 2, I see how you get to "selfish" but I think it is more wishful than selfish. It's ok to be disappointed but, in the end, it's not the parents' call as to whether their kids have kids. If my DC decided to not have kids, I'd be disappointed and a little worried, but it would ultimately not be my call.

What would you be worried about?

Loneliness. Not having a family support system after we pass. Regretting the decision too late to change it. Just off the top of my head.