To think this country's future looks bleak due to the attitude towards having children

Most personal and private choices also have implications for wider society. Your diet, fitness levels, whether you choose to own a car or not, the size of house you live in, how much you give to charity, where you shop. All affect the global climate, your burden on the NHS, land usage, town planning, the impact on other humans living elsewhere in the world. They’re all still lifestyle choices, just as choosing whether to have children or not have children or how many children to have are lifestyle choices.

Most people, parents or not, make a variety of different contributions to society.

It’s hard work bringing up children, it’s worth doing well, then they go on and support society and become balanced compasionate contributing adults.

the attitude it’s a choice implies perhaps we could all choose not to have children, stop complaining and taking up the summer holidays, and then we will all be happy and pay the same amount of tax.

clearly that’s not true, and there will be no one to look after us when we are old. Even if I didn’t have children, I need someone else’s children to look after me (dr, nurse builder, plumber, electrician, gardener, butcher, baker etc etc)

it is a choice, but in my opinion its also a choice that recognises that if you don’t have your own children, as a society you are duty bound to bring up all of the children well.

I think you are massively over-thinking one poster's comment, honestly. You've done the same thing with the overreaction to "things".

I don't think that poster was talking about the whole life of a mother. It's perfectly valid to observe that life with children can look like hard, dull work. That may not be the truth for all mums, and it may not be what in fact the speaker's life would be like if they had children, but it's not remotely uncommon for parents of particularly young children to describe the early years as drudgery.

The fact that childfree people pick up on that and use that to inform their decision not to have children isn't some kind of hostile insult to mums. It's just a reflection of the lived experience of parents as some of them describe it, and a degree of imagination as to what life with children might be like for us.

It's quite clear that you're unprepared to tolerate anyone without kids speaking about parenting, or mums, or children, in anything other than a positive, reverential manner. I don't think MN is the place to be for that kind of environment (if indeed it ever was).

I disagree with you and it's not an argument in semantics, it is fundamentally incorrect, there is no misinterpretation of meaning. 'Lifestyle' suggests that they are personal and private choices that only impact your way of living, whereas actually having children has implications for society and parents are making a contribution to society bringing those 'lifestyle' choices up!

Sorry, I really don't understand your first paragraph and abbreviations.

Where did I say that some posters don't refer to drudgery? That is not the same at all as asserting a life of a Mother is drudgery as you would need to have lived a life that you can reflect upon, from the birth of your children to adulthood and declare your 'whole' life to be one of drudgery due to being a Mother. Equally, how do you know your life would be all drudgery as a Mother, what are you basing that on?

I think you’re bogging yourself down unnecessarily in semantics. “Lifestyle choice” isn’t a phrase with negative connotations. Choosing to have no children is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to have and stop at one child only is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to have six children is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to send your children to boarding school is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to home educate then all whilst living in a yurt is a lifestyle choice. They are all choices which affect our respective lifestyles, therefore they are lifestyle choices. All of the people who made each of those choices will have different views about why their choice is the best one, and likely different views about why any of the other choices are sensible or madness or absolutely beyond comprehension. Sometimes they’ll voice them. If you’re happy with and confident in the lifestyle choice you made, it’s by the by.

Well, putting aside the minor point that I didn’t in fact call kids ‘things’, - animal, vegetable or mineral: unappealing is unappealing. You can take issue with the terminology as much as you like, that’s a you problem.

and of course it’s a lifestyle choice. Calling something that isn’t commentary on the importance, of lack thereof, of making any one choice, it’s recognising that it is indeed a choice. That you think the term fails to endow the action with the gravitas and reverence you think it should be considered with is once again a you problem.

Picking up on "thing" in that post is ridiculous. It's very clear poster wasn't calling kifs a thing 🙄 Even as ESL I get that because there was simply no calling kids "things" so that interpretation wasn't possible.

Many, many parents here use the term "drudgery" for their day to day lives.

More like you will leave it as you don't have the economic insight to argue your point.

What statistics are you referring to when you state a family of is likely to take more out than the contribute, what stats demonstrate this. You are being completely illogical a family of four 'will' contribute more in total than one person. Equally, are these figures set in stone with changes in economic and political policies will these statistics not alter. Read around the subject of wealth distribution over the last 40 years and you may understand more why we are in this position and that these statistics are changeable, depending on how the country is run.

For a start a child is not a 'thing' they are human beings with thoughts, feelings and rights, just like you. Having children is not a hobbie, this is the issue I have with the wording and terminology as this isn't just a general discussion forum, it is particularly insensitive to comment on children and a life with them as 'drudgery' or whatever other terms with negative connotations on a forum for parents! Lifestyle choice terminology dehumanises children.

I have never seen a post from a Mother that declares their 'whole' life to have been a life of drudgery so to be clear this would have to be an older Mother with adult children that has stated their whole lived life as a Mother has been one of drudgery. Suggesting your life as it is presently, with little DC, is one of drudgery is not the same as someone without children asserting that the whole life of a Mother is one of drudgery. Equally, it is more insulting as you are declaring this as a truth but actually it's based upon zero experience of such a life!

YANBU. Just look at the vitriolic threads on here about pregnant women or women with buggies who have the nerve to invade public spaces.

To me, parenthood is entirely unappealing. So are many other things that others enjoy and find meaningful. Equally there’s plenty of things that I like that others will balk at. Someone not seeing the appeal of something doesn’t denigrate those that do.

What if a mum refers to her life as one of drudgery? It's hardly uncommon on MN to see posts like that. Is she belittling mothers?

What on earth are you talking about.

If a family of 4 each contribute less than they take out over their life time - and statistics say that they probably will - then whether there's 1, 4 or 12 of them they are taking money out, or putting it in.

I will leave this now as I'm not going to be dragged and further down an illogical, mathematically unsound, rabbit hole of an argument.

Saying you don't want a life of drudgery is very different to their are parts I find are just drudgery as a Mum.

I don't think anyone should be made to feel they should have to have kids.

However as there are implications to falling birth rate and aging population - politically it is probably worth looking at financial blocks to those who want kids and feel economically can't have them currently and in immediate future. Though TBH there would likely still be a drop just may be more of a slump than a cliff.

Some of the implications of aging population like later and later retirement aren't great - it was 71 was being put of there for state retirement ages recently- or immigration to bolster worker numbers pro and cons there- higher taxes and lower state services. Personally I expect all of the above will be used.

Being honest about your reasons or offering up explanations for not having children are in lots of cases really just ways to belittle Mothers.

So are parents who complain about the drudgery of parenting belittling mothers as well, or...?

So you've derived from my post that I'm referring to you. Being honest about your reasons or offering up explanations for not having children are in lots of cases really just ways to belittle Mothers. Stop being disingenuous, I didn't choose a life of drudgery because my tiny little uneducated brain did not have any capacity to predict the impact on me as a woman.

Someone giving their personal reasons for not having children, when asked, so not out of nowhere, is not scornful nor is it hostile to parents.

It's hard to deny with housing costs and childcare cost that our society and in fact many western societies have made having children financially harder and harder which is likely contributing to falling birth rates.

However lack of support I think is wider - and is present with elder case and young kids or any vulnerable time.

It's very easy to get isolated in our society - especially if family isn't close physically or emotionally or you just run out of family members- illness and bereavement do that very quickly and I think there is a tone of judgment on MN when you don't have people to help with childcare or do hospital visits take on health and financial responsibilities in old age.

Will also say children are no guarantee against this isolation - one of the women on my course has two grown sons in 20s they ring but she lonely as her DP died few years ago she stopped work due to ill health -she very dependent on her sister for company and is doing things like the course and volunteering to fill time - she late 40s. Few years as DC leave for uni and start their lives anything happens to DH or me that could easily be one of us - miles from family we have due to work.

People talk of going into care homes or going to digitalis - and then when they get there find they feel very differently or talk as if healthy lifestyles guarantee to protect you from all illness/disabilities - it helps but often happens at later ages. I'd love to think I'd make rational long sighted decisions like move into sheltered accommodation or do clear outs before hand - but watching family it's not as easy as you'd think denial and hope are powerful blockers.

What's wrong, worried the outlet for the eternally miserable and bitter is being challenged.

I’d love to find a council that would pay £2000 a week for residential care. More like £800. That’s not to say I don’t think childcare provision should be better funded, more flexible and easier to access for some women.

"Hostile attitude", lol, so dramatic.

…What’s wrong with having an easy life, exactly? Is it somehow more virtuous to struggle through doing something you don’t want to do, something you hate doing then? I find the notion that only hard things qualify as worthwhile to be deeply weird tbh. Am I supposed to get to the end of my life and go ‘Well! That’s done! Fucking hated pretty much every minute of it, now give me the back pats’? And that’s preferable, a life well lived?

Am I selfish in that I choose to live in a way I actually enjoy, that makes me happy? Yes! Is that a bad thing? Not to me it isn’t. If someone else wants to have a problem with that then 1, that’s entirely a ‘them’ thing problem, and 2, they need a hobby - read a book, learn a language or whatever, it’s a better use of time.