Do you think DINKs are the future?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Says the person who probably grew up with Mommy and daddy money paying for college and a down payment for their first home. And from someone who probably never had significant job loss after 2008 or during COVID.


Life is easy when you have mommy and daddy money and no set backs ever, ain't it.

I will forever fail to understand why people think this is some sort of insult or "gotcha!"

Because it is a lot easier to have kids when you have all the mommy and daddy money to pay for all of your college and a downpayment on a first home. You've never been bogged down by 15+ years of student loan payments, job loss, and trying to scrape together what you can for years for a downpayment on a home only to see the system double the price of homes and corporations buy whatever is left of affordable housing stock.


Congrats, your the poster child for our of touch DCUM posters rampant on this site.

K then just say you aren’t having kids because of finances and the economy (a reasonable perspective) instead of some nutty rant about how you might raise a drug addict.

PP seems nuts.

Life isn't against you. Grow up or keep playing video games and sleeping in until 10am. At some point you'll wake up and realize you are on an island.

This area is expensive and hard, go move to the midwest or south and start a family if you can't cut it here. Stop blaming the world though.

I’ll take the island please. 😴😴😴😴

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Says the person who probably grew up with Mommy and daddy money paying for college and a down payment for their first home. And from someone who probably never had significant job loss after 2008 or during COVID.


Life is easy when you have mommy and daddy money and no set backs ever, ain't it.

I will forever fail to understand why people think this is some sort of insult or "gotcha!"

Because it is a lot easier to have kids when you have all the mommy and daddy money to pay for all of your college and a downpayment on a first home. You've never been bogged down by 15+ years of student loan payments, job loss, and trying to scrape together what you can for years for a downpayment on a home only to see the system double the price of homes and corporations buy whatever is left of affordable housing stock.


Congrats, your the poster child for our of touch DCUM posters rampant on this site.

DP. We share some background (parents didn’t pay for college, took on student loan debt and worked multiple jobs to put myself through state school, couldn’t afford a down payment (again no gift) until our 30s, and have experienced multiple job losses). But I see why the PP thought your story was sad. It makes me sad that you feel so downtrodden by “the system” and resent paying for college and resent the idea of paying for kids. You have a wonderful life, great. We had kids and it’s great too, but a different great. We can’t afford to max retirement and will be working until we pay off our mortgage (not early), and we don’t take snazzy vacations - but raising kids is a rewarding experience that makes up for that. You and I can both be happy with what we each chose to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Geez...I have no problem with your decision, but who do you hang out with that you know all these derelict kids? Where are you from/do you live?

Very good people. The one kid who was a F up was the son of a VP of a local company. Literally low IQ and poor decision making. I was friends of the other son though - college buddy. The son who was messed up did a stupid stunt in a pool and ended up fracturing his vertebrae. Then it required use of opioids, which is TERRIBLE with someone with an addictive personality. He got addicted to opioids and spiraled out of control. The parents spent in ordinate sums of money on multiple rehab treatments, interventions, and therapists. Didn't matter. He still spiraled, and is still addicted to drugs and booze. They disowned him from the family. The other son I was friends with is perfectly fine and does well with his career.


Another guy I know was the brother of the woman my friend married. Very good home. The parents lived in a 6000 sqft house. The son ended up just getting in with the wrong crowd and got caught selling drugs. The parents spent boat loads keeping him out of jail, but he's still a loser.


And finally my female cousin is a screw up. Again, a good home. Mom is a nurse and dad an electrician. All the opportunities in the world to go to college, etc. She ended up choosing the wrong crowd and got addicted to opioids somehow (Kids these days are popping oxy like candy if you didn't know - just look at MoCo high schools). Opoid addiction spiraled into heroin addiction. She needed up getting pregnant by like 20 looked very rough. Her mom ended up having to take care of the baby while her addiction spiraled out of control. She ended up getting cozy with very bad hombres to feed her addiction and ended up trying to rob a bank to feed her addiction. She was caught and spent about 8 years in prison while missing out on her daughter growing up.


Again, just because you have kids and raise them right is no guarantee of success. There are so many bad people and influences out there that can completely undermine the best parenting efforts in no time. Have fun blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal bills and taking care of your daughter's out of wed lock baby.

No thanks. I'll enjoy my 10 AM else times and multiple international trips.. plus no more college bills!

You don't understand what good parenting is. You think "dad is a VP, sibling is successful -- must have had good parenting." Or "mom's a nurse, must have been a good parent." That's not how it works.

Also, while anyone can develop an addiction or fall in with the wrong crowd, good parents will respond to these issues in ways that keep it from getting worse. Good parenting can't prevent someone from every experiencing a negative event in their lives, but it can help keep people from spiraling out of control. Someone who is prone to sever risk taking, gets horribly injured, and then develops an addiction to pain medication, was not well parented. It's not something that "just happens" despite everyone's best efforts.

NP. I agree that simply having white collar or professional parents does not make one well-parented, but I would disagree with the bolded. Most people who become addicted to any sort of substance have a genetic predisposition. This cannot be parented away, unfortunately!

I know a lot of addicts. I have family members who have developed opioid dependencies. But PP is saying that this perfectly great parents wound up with dud kids through no fault of their own. I know from direct experience that the difference between someone with a good, supportive family, and one without, is huge when it comes to something like addiction. A kid who got injured in the way he described and then developed an opioid dependency experienced a parenting failure along the way, sorry. It was not inevitable that this kid would become a drug addict in and out of addiction facilities as an adult. Something went wrong.

I know people don't like hearing this, but it is true. And I say that as someone with two siblings with addiction issues who have been in treatment, and one parent who has had an opioid addiction. This stuff does NOT "just happen." Mistakes were made. And sometimes compounding mistakes are made that can really make things worse.

The PP's belief that if you have children, you just roll the dice randomly and it might come up "effed up drug addict" just doesn't know very much about family dynamics or what good parenting looks like. People who talk like that are often uneducated and just don't realize that they are making huge mistakes as parents that will make something like that much more likely. There is a reason that rates of drug addiction and other deviant behaviors are much more common in some populations than others. It's not all "genetic disposition."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Not my problem. Boomers shouldn’t have made college cost $200k+ and housing cost 7-8x a typical household income.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/


We are just living in the world boomers and older generations made. Saddling people with decades of student loan debt and insurmountable housing costs.


And now they have the gall to complain that millennials don’t have kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have f’d up the country for generations after you for starters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Not my problem. Boomers shouldn’t have made college cost $200k+ and housing cost 7-8x a typical household income.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/


We are just living in the world boomers and older generations made. Saddling people with decades of student loan debt and insurmountable housing costs.


And now they have the gall to complain that millennials don’t have kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have f’d up the country for generations after you for starters.

speak for yourself. My life is great as a millennial parent.

there are plenty of millennials with a nice home, maxing retirement + more, multiple kids, daycare, etc.

There are plenty of paths to financial security - kids or not. Choose wisely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Not my problem. Boomers shouldn’t have made college cost $200k+ and housing cost 7-8x a typical household income.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/


We are just living in the world boomers and older generations made. Saddling people with decades of student loan debt and insurmountable housing costs.


And now they have the gall to complain that millennials don’t have kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have f’d up the country for generations after you for starters.

speak for yourself. My life is great as a millennial parent.

there are plenty of millennials with a nice home, maxing retirement + more, multiple kids, daycare, etc.

There are plenty of paths to financial security - kids or not. Choose wisely.

I can guarantee you the vast, vaaaaaaast majority of millennials cannot max out their retirement accounts with kids.


You live in a delusional DCUM bubble. Probably a beneficiary of mommy and daddy money too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Not my problem. Boomers shouldn’t have made college cost $200k+ and housing cost 7-8x a typical household income.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/


We are just living in the world boomers and older generations made. Saddling people with decades of student loan debt and insurmountable housing costs.


And now they have the gall to complain that millennials don’t have kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have f’d up the country for generations after you for starters.

speak for yourself. My life is great as a millennial parent.

there are plenty of millennials with a nice home, maxing retirement + more, multiple kids, daycare, etc.

There are plenty of paths to financial security - kids or not. Choose wisely.

I love my millennial kids and they have had a more privileged upbringing than DH and I by far. They will continue to thrive with our support and their efforts throughout their lives. We are on track to leave them millions when we pass. Whether they choose to have kids is their choice. We wanted the experience of having children so we had them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nah, I think childfree people tend to be vocal about it but in reality they are the minority. I'm 33 and most of my friends have or want kids.

I’m 35 and a third of my friend group has kids, a third are on the fence, and a third definitely don’t want kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I support anyone's choice not to have kids, for any reason, but the bolded is just something bad parents say to feel less guilty about how poorly they parented their kids. I know people who point at their kids and say "gosh we did everything right and no one could have predicted they would turn out so poorly," and, uh, they did not do everything right and many people could have predicted what might happen with their kids.

Which is actually why I firmly support anyone's choice not to have kids. Having kids is hard! I love it, but it would not be worth the sacrifice if I didn't. You have to be ready to make your kids your life's work, not just something you did to fit in or because people told you it was time or you worried you might regret it if you didn't.

Thank you, PP. Late 40's DINK (by choice) here. Parenting is HARD. DH and I knew would have been those poor parents, so no kids for us. The financial security and ability to sleep to 10 am is a bonus and was not at all our motivation for becoming DINKS. I have a mix of DINK friends and parent friends and many of the DINKs (myself included) wholeheartedly cheer on and support our parent friends - we love their kids! But I am constantly astounded in these interactions by how little societal support there is for parents in this country.

I think PP hit it on the head that there should be fewer boundaries to immigration and that would go a long way to benefiting everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I support anyone's choice not to have kids, for any reason, but the bolded is just something bad parents say to feel less guilty about how poorly they parented their kids. I know people who point at their kids and say "gosh we did everything right and no one could have predicted they would turn out so poorly," and, uh, they did not do everything right and many people could have predicted what might happen with their kids.

Which is actually why I firmly support anyone's choice not to have kids. Having kids is hard! I love it, but it would not be worth the sacrifice if I didn't. You have to be ready to make your kids your life's work, not just something you did to fit in or because people told you it was time or you worried you might regret it if you didn't.

Thank you, PP. Late 40's DINK (by choice) here. Parenting is HARD. DH and I knew would have been those poor parents, so no kids for us. The financial security and ability to sleep to 10 am is a bonus and was not at all our motivation for becoming DINKS. I have a mix of DINK friends and parent friends and many of the DINKs (myself included) wholeheartedly cheer on and support our parent friends - we love their kids! But I am constantly astounded in these interactions by how little societal support there is for parents in this country.

I think PP hit it on the head that there should be fewer boundaries to immigration and that would go a long way to benefiting everyone.

+1 to these two posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Geez...I have no problem with your decision, but who do you hang out with that you know all these derelict kids? Where are you from/do you live?

Very good people. The one kid who was a F up was the son of a VP of a local company. Literally low IQ and poor decision making. I was friends of the other son though - college buddy. The son who was messed up did a stupid stunt in a pool and ended up fracturing his vertebrae. Then it required use of opioids, which is TERRIBLE with someone with an addictive personality. He got addicted to opioids and spiraled out of control. The parents spent in ordinate sums of money on multiple rehab treatments, interventions, and therapists. Didn't matter. He still spiraled, and is still addicted to drugs and booze. They disowned him from the family. The other son I was friends with is perfectly fine and does well with his career.


Another guy I know was the brother of the woman my friend married. Very good home. The parents lived in a 6000 sqft house. The son ended up just getting in with the wrong crowd and got caught selling drugs. The parents spent boat loads keeping him out of jail, but he's still a loser.


And finally my female cousin is a screw up. Again, a good home. Mom is a nurse and dad an electrician. All the opportunities in the world to go to college, etc. She ended up choosing the wrong crowd and got addicted to opioids somehow (Kids these days are popping oxy like candy if you didn't know - just look at MoCo high schools). Opoid addiction spiraled into heroin addiction. She needed up getting pregnant by like 20 looked very rough. Her mom ended up having to take care of the baby while her addiction spiraled out of control. She ended up getting cozy with very bad hombres to feed her addiction and ended up trying to rob a bank to feed her addiction. She was caught and spent about 8 years in prison while missing out on her daughter growing up.


Again, just because you have kids and raise them right is no guarantee of success. There are so many bad people and influences out there that can completely undermine the best parenting efforts in no time. Have fun blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal bills and taking care of your daughter's out of wed lock baby.

No thanks. I'll enjoy my 10 AM else times and multiple international trips.. plus no more college bills!

You don't understand what good parenting is. You think "dad is a VP, sibling is successful -- must have had good parenting." Or "mom's a nurse, must have been a good parent." That's not how it works.

Also, while anyone can develop an addiction or fall in with the wrong crowd, good parents will respond to these issues in ways that keep it from getting worse. Good parenting can't prevent someone from every experiencing a negative event in their lives, but it can help keep people from spiraling out of control. Someone who is prone to sever risk taking, gets horribly injured, and then develops an addiction to pain medication, was not well parented. It's not something that "just happens" despite everyone's best efforts.

NP. I agree that simply having white collar or professional parents does not make one well-parented, but I would disagree with the bolded. Most people who become addicted to any sort of substance have a genetic predisposition. This cannot be parented away, unfortunately!

I know a lot of addicts. I have family members who have developed opioid dependencies. But PP is saying that this perfectly great parents wound up with dud kids through no fault of their own. I know from direct experience that the difference between someone with a good, supportive family, and one without, is huge when it comes to something like addiction. A kid who got injured in the way he described and then developed an opioid dependency experienced a parenting failure along the way, sorry. It was not inevitable that this kid would become a drug addict in and out of addiction facilities as an adult. Something went wrong.

I know people don't like hearing this, but it is true. And I say that as someone with two siblings with addiction issues who have been in treatment, and one parent who has had an opioid addiction. This stuff does NOT "just happen." Mistakes were made. And sometimes compounding mistakes are made that can really make things worse.

The PP's belief that if you have children, you just roll the dice randomly and it might come up "effed up drug addict" just doesn't know very much about family dynamics or what good parenting looks like. People who talk like that are often uneducated and just don't realize that they are making huge mistakes as parents that will make something like that much more likely. There is a reason that rates of drug addiction and other deviant behaviors are much more common in some populations than others. It's not all "genetic disposition."

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Perspectives like this are the problem. This is just sad.

Not my problem. Boomers shouldn’t have made college cost $200k+ and housing cost 7-8x a typical household income.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/


We are just living in the world boomers and older generations made. Saddling people with decades of student loan debt and insurmountable housing costs.


And now they have the gall to complain that millennials don’t have kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have f’d up the country for generations after you for starters.

The generations before Boomers worked in factories or farms and very few could even consider going to college. Boomers were a unique generation that had extreme advantages, but not even all of them had those advantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI, DINK = Dual-income, no kids.

With the cost of everything skyrocketing, do you see this as the future for Gen Z? Or maybe even SINKs (single-income…)?

I think SINKs will be very common.

[Anonymous]

I think one reason there appears to be this trend in DINKs and SINKs is the general lack of personal responsibility newer generations have.

There is this weird idea that expensive student loans and expensive mortgages “happened” to them. Those people couldn’t possibly handle the responsibility of raising another human being.

Now this isn’t all DINKs, but as a society, this is definitely a trend I’ve noticed. It could also explain why many choose to have all those services/comforts vs take responsibility for the actual work. That also makes life expensive. Many would never do their own work on their cars to save money. Or do their own lawn care. They need time for other things like video games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are millennial DINKs. Couldn't be happier. Own a home. Max out retirement accounts. Take multiple trips per year. Have very little debt except a mortgage. Sleep until 10 AM on the weekends.

Kids ruin everything. I paid $85k off in student loans. I will absolutely NEVER pay another college bill again in my life. F that. Then they gouge the crap outta you for $3000-4000 per mo for childcare. Ridiculous. There's also no guarantee your kid won't turn out to be a F up even if you raise them right. I know so many kids raised in good homes who ended up becoming opioid addicts, so one robbed a bank, and others popping out kids out of wedlock by the time they're 21. The worst ones are kids who get into serious trouble and the parents blow their entire life's savings on legal fees or rehab to save their precious little Hunter or Emily.

Nope, nope, nope. Finally getting ahead in life because of no kids.

Geez...I have no problem with your decision, but who do you hang out with that you know all these derelict kids? Where are you from/do you live?

Very good people. The one kid who was a F up was the son of a VP of a local company. Literally low IQ and poor decision making. I was friends of the other son though - college buddy. The son who was messed up did a stupid stunt in a pool and ended up fracturing his vertebrae. Then it required use of opioids, which is TERRIBLE with someone with an addictive personality. He got addicted to opioids and spiraled out of control. The parents spent in ordinate sums of money on multiple rehab treatments, interventions, and therapists. Didn't matter. He still spiraled, and is still addicted to drugs and booze. They disowned him from the family. The other son I was friends with is perfectly fine and does well with his career.


Another guy I know was the brother of the woman my friend married. Very good home. The parents lived in a 6000 sqft house. The son ended up just getting in with the wrong crowd and got caught selling drugs. The parents spent boat loads keeping him out of jail, but he's still a loser.


And finally my female cousin is a screw up. Again, a good home. Mom is a nurse and dad an electrician. All the opportunities in the world to go to college, etc. She ended up choosing the wrong crowd and got addicted to opioids somehow (Kids these days are popping oxy like candy if you didn't know - just look at MoCo high schools). Opoid addiction spiraled into heroin addiction. She needed up getting pregnant by like 20 looked very rough. Her mom ended up having to take care of the baby while her addiction spiraled out of control. She ended up getting cozy with very bad hombres to feed her addiction and ended up trying to rob a bank to feed her addiction. She was caught and spent about 8 years in prison while missing out on her daughter growing up.


Again, just because you have kids and raise them right is no guarantee of success. There are so many bad people and influences out there that can completely undermine the best parenting efforts in no time. Have fun blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal bills and taking care of your daughter's out of wed lock baby.

No thanks. I'll enjoy my 10 AM else times and multiple international trips.. plus no more college bills!

You don't understand what good parenting is. You think "dad is a VP, sibling is successful -- must have had good parenting." Or "mom's a nurse, must have been a good parent." That's not how it works.

Also, while anyone can develop an addiction or fall in with the wrong crowd, good parents will respond to these issues in ways that keep it from getting worse. Good parenting can't prevent someone from every experiencing a negative event in their lives, but it can help keep people from spiraling out of control. Someone who is prone to sever risk taking, gets horribly injured, and then develops an addiction to pain medication, was not well parented. It's not something that "just happens" despite everyone's best efforts.

NP. I agree that simply having white collar or professional parents does not make one well-parented, but I would disagree with the bolded. Most people who become addicted to any sort of substance have a genetic predisposition. This cannot be parented away, unfortunately!

I know a lot of addicts. I have family members who have developed opioid dependencies. But PP is saying that this perfectly great parents wound up with dud kids through no fault of their own. I know from direct experience that the difference between someone with a good, supportive family, and one without, is huge when it comes to something like addiction. A kid who got injured in the way he described and then developed an opioid dependency experienced a parenting failure along the way, sorry. It was not inevitable that this kid would become a drug addict in and out of addiction facilities as an adult. Something went wrong.

I know people don't like hearing this, but it is true. And I say that as someone with two siblings with addiction issues who have been in treatment, and one parent who has had an opioid addiction. This stuff does NOT "just happen." Mistakes were made. And sometimes compounding mistakes are made that can really make things worse.

The PP's belief that if you have children, you just roll the dice randomly and it might come up "effed up drug addict" just doesn't know very much about family dynamics or what good parenting looks like. People who talk like that are often uneducated and just don't realize that they are making huge mistakes as parents that will make something like that much more likely. There is a reason that rates of drug addiction and other deviant behaviors are much more common in some populations than others. It's not all "genetic disposition."

In which part of that scenario could the parents have intervened? Watch their kid at all times even when they are a teen or young adult to prevent them doing something stupid? Tell the doctor not to prescribe painkillers? (there was a time when people didn’t know how addictive they are).