Anonymous wrote:I definitely understand not wanting kids. However, "it's hard" is not a good reason for not doing it, IMO (the one many commenters cite). The most meaningful experiences in life come from attempting and achieving hard things. I don't think having a frictionless and uncomplicated life actually makes people happy.

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I rented a remote cabin in the mountains this past weekend and spent the entire time discussing our hopes, dreams, goals, etc. By the end of the weekend, we concluded that we don’t want to have children. Now we just need to figure out how to tell them.

Anonymous wrote:The other thread got me thinking. I have a couple friend who are successful, financially stable, and in a good healthy marriage. They don’t want kids. The rest of our group does, and we always assumed they would have kids, but they are happy without them. When asked, they always list reasons why they don’t want kids or simply they just didn’t want them. They can easily afford kids and childcare. It seems very unnatural to me as a woman to not want kids. I went back and forth for a little bit and it felt weird picturing my life without kids. I wonder if she is truly happy. I worry they will get bored and have no one else to love. Anyone else have childless friends like this?

Anonymous wrote:I definitely understand not wanting kids. However, "it's hard" is not a good reason for not doing it, IMO (the one many commenters cite). The most meaningful experiences in life come from attempting and achieving hard things. I don't think having a frictionless and uncomplicated life actually makes people happy.

Anonymous wrote:I definitely understand not wanting kids. However, "it's hard" is not a good reason for not doing it, IMO (the one many commenters cite). The most meaningful experiences in life come from attempting and achieving hard things. I don't think having a frictionless and uncomplicated life actually makes people happy.

Anonymous wrote:The other thread got me thinking. I have a couple friend who are successful, financially stable, and in a good healthy marriage. They don’t want kids. The rest of our group does, and we always assumed they would have kids, but they are happy without them. When asked, they always list reasons why they don’t want kids or simply they just didn’t want them. They can easily afford kids and childcare. It seems very unnatural to me as a woman to not want kids. I went back and forth for a little bit and it felt weird picturing my life without kids. I wonder if she is truly happy. I worry they will get bored and have no one else to love. Anyone else have childless friends like this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly having kids should be exclusively for people who WANT to have them. On the rough days with my kids I always know how much I wanted them and that I choose to have them and I’m at peace with how hard it can be. No one should ever be put into 18 years of parenting without choosing it. If your friend knows herself well enough to think that wouldn’t work for her, I applaud her understanding of herself. I think the choice to not have kids is a harder one in many respects and people who go against the majority have probably thought about it more than people who always just wanted children.

Yeah! On the other hand we're facing a population crisis - not enough kids being born. I think it's worth asking what is going on with our society that is making so many of us not want kids. In my case it was partly just, I didn;t want them - but if I didn't have 20 years worth of student loans to pay off, and life were cheaper and easier, I could have leaned the other way. I'm not saying it's all money money money, but we make it really hard for people to have kids in this country - some support could make it a more appealing prospect for those who are on the fence.

In short - I agree with you, and also I do worry what's going to happen when there is a teeny tiny younger generation and we, like, don't have enough food to eat because there's no one left to grow it. So I think maybe we could try to encourage more people to want to have kids, and that wouldn't be a bad thing.