Growing share of childless adults in U.S. don’t expect to ever have children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spinsters treating animals like children honestly makes me really sad.

OMG, this is ADORABLE - parent here. We have one too, she's my 3rd child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dana is childless, is she not?

Spinster refers to an unmarried woman, not a childless woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are a crap shoot..

I know three ffamilieswho are all very good people. Super involved with their kids growing up. Yet it didn't matter. One son was just a flat out moron. He would do stupid crap no matter how much the parents disciplined him. His brain just had to be wired biologically different than most normal peoples' brains.....he had absolutely zero impulse control. He'd constantly do all sorts of drugs. He ended up trying a stupid stunt jumping out of a window to impress his friends and broke a vertebrate. He ended having to take opioids to treat the pain and ended up falling down into the hole of opioid addiction. Imagine an addictive personality getting involved with some of the most addictive substances known to man. It put the family through pure hell. They spent huge amounts of money on rehab, had things constantly stolen from their house, and ultimately had to cut him out. This was also all after paying for very nice and expensive private schooling all through grade and high school and even paying for college, which the son failed out of. The other family I know had a son who got involved in drug dealing and ended up in jail. He was from a family in plain old UMC suburbia and grew up with all the means in the world. The family basically went broke on lawyers fees. He ends up getting out of prison after about a year or two, commits more crime and is back in jail, this time completely cutoff from the family.. they're scared to death what he might try once he gets out in about another 6 years and whether he may try to seek retribution against his parents for disowning him and making him face the full brunt of the law and punishment after his parents refused to pay for any more lawyers. The third example is from a mom who had to raise three kids alone after a divorce. She never excelled in school, so she never went to college. She had to take bartending and waitressing jobs in her 30s and 40s to keep a roof over their head. Of course those jobs mean you cannot be around during the weekends and won't be around many times at night. She was not a bad person, nor was she a bad mom....she just needed to put food on the table. Her teenaged kids end up mixing in with the wrong crowd because there was just almost no supervision. By the time the daughter turned 19, she was already pregnant with an out of wedlock daughter. She got addicted to heroin and other hard drugs by about 20, and by 21 she started doing armed robberies at banks with some other scumbag who was 38 in order to feed her addiction. Of course she gets caught and was thrown in jail for about 5 years. She's now late 20s, with a daughter who's about 8, and she has very little job prospects available to put her daughter through college or to provide a good life to her daughter. The cycle may repeat.


The point being that even if you are the best parent in the world and spend inordinate amounts of money on childcare and education and are constantly involved in your kid's life that you can still somehow raise a POS. And we aren't even considering the stress involved if you have a child with some chronic medical condition that's expensive to treat or having a kid with some kind of disability that basically wipes out any ability to save. Have kids? No thanks. Between the ridiculous costs for childcare, college, and the total crapshoot of product you can produce even when you are a good parent, why would any sane person want a spawn?

Agree with you 100%. I found this in an Atlantic article and thought it made sense. Why do people want to give themselves more stress?

[Anonymous]

https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/01/the-missing-parenting-is-a-crapshoot/177576/

Can’t get it to share the screenshot but here is the url.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dana is childless, is she not?

Spinster refers to an unmarried woman, not a childless woman.

This. And, do you want a whole bunch of never married women to have children? I mean, it's ok if they do, but I didn't realize being a single mom was preferable to being married and infertile now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dana is childless, is she not?

Spinster refers to an unmarried woman, not a childless woman.

The Oxford American English Dictionary defines spinster as "an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage". It adds: "In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply 'unmarried woman'; as such, it is a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I am starting to get it now that I have a child.
Not having kids is just protecting oneself from setbacks and disappointments (some would call it lazy and cowardly but who knows).
One can have an SN child and all that it entails.
Or a child that just isn’t quite the inspiration and pride of their parents.
One can get stuck in a bad marriage due to shared kids
People just avoid vulnerability
One may call it lazy or one might call it smart
I think it’s great to have a choice

I'm.pretty sure I just don't want kids. Why is this so difficult for some people to accept?
And before someone asks why I'm on a parenting board, I'm also a nanny and that's how I discovered this place

I think it’s natural to want to experience something new and unique, like becoming a parent (even if one doesn’t have a strong reproductive instinct).
Therefore I think when people avoid it - it means some deep rooted subconscious fears or trauma.
But it’s just my theory, I don’t have a problem with people who don’t want kids.

???

First of all, having kids is hardly "unique" or new. Billions of people have done it. And there are tons of new and unique experiences that people could choose -- what about travelling to a particular country? Learning to tap dance? If you don't want to read Ulysses, must you have a deep-rooted fear or trauma? That's just silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dana is childless, is she not?

Spinster refers to an unmarried woman, not a childless woman.

The Oxford American English Dictionary defines spinster as "an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage". It adds: "In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply 'unmarried woman'; as such, it is a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed."

Welp, do you really want to go around using such a misogynistic term?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dana is childless, is she not?

Spinster refers to an unmarried woman, not a childless woman.

The Oxford American English Dictionary defines spinster as "an unmarried woman, typically an older woman beyond the usual age for marriage". It adds: "In modern everyday English, however, spinster cannot be used to mean simply 'unmarried woman'; as such, it is a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed."

Welp, do you really want to go around using such a misogynistic term?

So many people have children out of blind optimism and find their expectations to fall short. You can't control anything about how your child turns out, so why bother? Just seems like a lot of problems and stress for no gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spinsters treating animals like children honestly makes me really sad.

Dogs get cold just like we do. They need jackets in the winter.

I'm a spinster with a dog and so are most of my friends. We do fun things with our dogs. That doesn't mean we think they're our children.
The only people who think "dog parents" actually think their dogs are their children are people with children. None of us think our dogs are children, no matter how much we spoil them. You guys need to stop fretting over us and what we're doing; we're certainly not thinking about you.

[Anonymous]

The word "spinster" actually derived from unmarried women who sewed, as a way to earn an income. They were not dependent on their father or their husband for money. They were women who were free, unlike most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pets have become the new children and fill a gap for many people. I've seen more prescription drug advertisements for pets then ever this year. Clearly people are caring for them and willing to spend money on them like they are children. But unlike children you don't have to worry about daycare or college tuition.

Or heirs or anyone being at your bedside while you die of cancer or old age. Dream big.

This may surprise some people but I want to enjoy my life however long that should be. I want to enjoy those preceding decades to death in my own way. That for me is dreaming big. At my bedside in old age when I am dying I am going to assume I will be so out of it with drugs that I won't know where I am. Hopefully some friends will still be around at that age but really I care more that I have a good hospice nurse who will keep the pain away and keep me comfortable. I am probably likely to be suffering from dementia of some sort if I make it to late 90's.

All of my grandparents died alone. Yes some family visited in the weeks leading up to 2 of them, SOME family, certainly not all children visited and the other two died quickly and suddenly. No bedside vigils for them.

I certainly don't want to dictate my whole life due to some belief that I control my death, its funny to me that we all see ourselves in a bed, pain free, aware and conscious and enjoying those around us. I haven't seen that a lot, not in my family and not in my friends family.

If you need to have kids to help fight your fear of death, go for it. As for heirs, I could not care less. Besides my atoms will go back into the ground and that's what brings me comfort, that I will go back into nature.

I would rather have lots of memories of great friendships and relationships throughout my life and as I leave the world look forward to joining them. I do not want my in-laws life of having two children and four grandchildren and leaving this world where one son and all four grandchildren don't even speak to them and are estranged. People throw out these death bed ideals which sound lovely but life doesn't always end up that way. I look at people with kids and don't want their life. I am happy so far with the life I have chosen. I will hopefully leave this world grateful for the life I chose.

So whilst people throw out the old tired lines of growing old alone and dying alone, it isn't such a threat or a negative. Just be happy with your own choices because on your death bed that is the one certainty, that you will have to live with the choices YOU made. No one else's choices will matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pets have become the new children and fill a gap for many people. I've seen more prescription drug advertisements for pets then ever this year. Clearly people are caring for them and willing to spend money on them like they are children. But unlike children you don't have to worry about daycare or college tuition.

Or heirs or anyone being at your bedside while you die of cancer or old age. Dream big.

This may surprise some people but I want to enjoy my life however long that should be. I want to enjoy those preceding decades to death in my own way. That for me is dreaming big. At my bedside in old age when I am dying I am going to assume I will be so out of it with drugs that I won't know where I am. Hopefully some friends will still be around at that age but really I care more that I have a good hospice nurse who will keep the pain away and keep me comfortable. I am probably likely to be suffering from dementia of some sort if I make it to late 90's.

All of my grandparents died alone. Yes some family visited in the weeks leading up to 2 of them, SOME family, certainly not all children visited and the other two died quickly and suddenly. No bedside vigils for them.

I certainly don't want to dictate my whole life due to some belief that I control my death, its funny to me that we all see ourselves in a bed, pain free, aware and conscious and enjoying those around us. I haven't seen that a lot, not in my family and not in my friends family.

If you need to have kids to help fight your fear of death, go for it. As for heirs, I could not care less. Besides my atoms will go back into the ground and that's what brings me comfort, that I will go back into nature.

I would rather have lots of memories of great friendships and relationships throughout my life and as I leave the world look forward to joining them. I do not want my in-laws life of having two children and four grandchildren and leaving this world where one son and all four grandchildren don't even speak to them and are estranged. People throw out these death bed ideals which sound lovely but life doesn't always end up that way. I look at people with kids and don't want their life. I am happy so far with the life I have chosen. I will hopefully leave this world grateful for the life I chose.

So whilst people throw out the old tired lines of growing old alone and dying alone, it isn't such a threat or a negative. Just be happy with your own choices because on your death bed that is the one certainty, that you will have to live with the choices YOU made. No one else's choices will matter.

+1000 Yes, maam! Completely agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The word "spinster" actually derived from unmarried women who sewed, as a way to earn an income. They were not dependent on their father or their husband for money. They were women who were free, unlike most.

And they still are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spinsters treating animals like children honestly makes me really sad.

So how do you feel about me? I have young twins and while they're very lucky to have been born into a UMC household, I give them intentional hardships to overcome. They need it, I want my kids to have grit. My dog is my baby and many days she makes me WAY happier than my kids do. How sad?