It’s becoming unfashionable to have kids

Statistics tell us this cannot be true - otherwise there would be no badly-treated children in the world.

@Housebuyingfamily imagine if I said I pity you for having kids! Jesus Christ, imagine how offensive that is to people that want children and are unable to have them.

I hope you aren't teaching your children to be so narrow minded and ignorant. I might not have kids but I know to be kind and considerate to others.

I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up

ODFOD. I find people with children brag about how their capacity for love opened up when they have children. In fact, it is often extreme selfishness, just extended to another being who is connected to you by virtue of being your child. I tell you who has whole hearts - those single childfree people who spend a lot of their time and energy doing work for other people and communities to make everyones lives better. The people who pay taxes gladly so that people like you will have parks and playgrounds for your children. People who are concerned about educational policy even though they have no direct skin in the game.

Your experience may be you had half a heart before your children. That speaks more to your limitations than anything else.

This is one of the most patronising posts I have ever come across on MN (and that is saying something!)

What you are telling everyone on this thread that until you had your child you lacked the capacity to feel and experience the world. That's it.

You are actually telling on yourself. You needed a child to have your "capacity to feel and experience to world" opened up.

Guess what? Many child-free people don't need that to be able to feel or experience the world.

It's great that you love being a parent-but have you ever tried considering that not everyone wants what you have? People who are child-free are not envying you your life.

We don't want kids. That's it. We don't give two flying fucks if you love having kids. Good for you-we know that we would not share that sentiment.

I keep being told that parents have more empathy, compassion and understanding than those without children and the more posts from people like you, OP, that I read, the more certain I become that this is just not the case at all.

half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up

You can only speak for yourself. You have no way of knowing how “opened up” anyone but yourself is.

We’re back to subjective vs objective again.

Anyway, if my friends pitied me for not having kids I’d probably not want them as friends.

Why is it 'appalling' and 'awful' to own a pet and care for it? I'm baffled.

I don't think it is unfashionable as such more that people have more options now and it isn't considered as strange not to have kids although I think most people still have them. There is also the cost of living these days, owning a home is out of reach for many people and the cost of childcare and providing a good childhood which sets your child up for a successful life can also feel really expensive.

I know a few people who feel like they and their partners can have a decent lifestyle but as soon as they add a child or two into the mix that decent life slips out of reach and they feel like they would be two people working fulltime plus all the work involved in looking after the home and children with not much quality time for the kids with them or for each other or themselves. In light of that they decided to be childfree.

I think people have moved from a this is just the "standard life script" to being quite thoughtful about what they actually want from life because we have more control over our fertility and life than in the past. I think we also see this in the relationships people have romantic and platonic, we want a bit more than the basic. Now however realistic or reasonable this is it doesn't change the fact that people probably look for more personal fulfilment and development and while having a family can provide that for some it isn't true for everyone.

Overall I think it isn't a bad thing is people have less kids but there is a difficult transition in regards to care and support for the elderly and then on a personal level having children increases the probability someone will take an active interest in your welfare if you become unable to look after yourself.

Haha, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that

The same poster also advocated for a bloody 16 year old having a baby. Utter madness.

The ‘sad and baffled’ poster escaped the thread when challenged about why she feels so sad.

It is such a patronising attitude.

Imagine caring this much about something that doesn't impact you at all.

How utterly pathetic.

I can't imagine not having my children, but if I launched right now into a diatribe about how awful life must be for childfree people and listing all the reasons I think it would be terrible, you and I both know it would cause upset.

You’ve misunderstood me. If you went into a diatribe about how awful life would be for you if you were childfree, I don’t think there’d be upset - because that’s subjective. What you’ve described is an objective belief (how awful life must be for other childfree people). That’s where people get upset, because you’re dictating what their own lives are like.

I don’t hold an objective belief that life must be awful for parents - I think that life would be awful for me.

The PP is trying to get the childfree to acknowledge objective positive factors in having children and getting frustrated when they insist that subjectively (ie. to them) there aren’t any.

You saying you see no positives in a childfree life for you is fine by me. I’m glad you have had kids!

In my opinion the defensiveness comes from people who have kids because "it's what you do".

Whereas anyone who has considered being child free, or gone through fertility treatment, or decided on having children later when they reach a certain lifestyle has had to actively think about it and often have a clearer view of the pros and cons.

It is socially acceptable in the context of an internet thread where someone has essentially asked “why don’t people want kids”. I agree that if I randomly went up to you and said “your life seems awful to me” that would be very rude and unacceptable.

Yes, exactly.

There's a difference between expressing an opinion on a thread about why people don't want children, and actually approaching a parent in real life and telling them you think they've made a huge mistake and that their life looks awful. I don't think anyone would do the latter, surely?

But this entire thread is about why people don't have kids, so of course it's going to be mostly filled with negatives.

I don't think you're being honest with yourself.

I can't imagine not having my children, but if I launched right now into a diatribe about how awful life must be for childfree people and listing all the reasons I think it would be terrible, you and I both know it would cause upset.

It's fine with me for people to have or not have children and I have never once got involved in anyone else's choices, but it's not socially acceptable to take a life choice that someone else has made and start crowing about how you can't imagine anything worse and all the reasons you'd hate to have their life, even if you do add the caveat "for ME". It's just rude.

I think it's rude that people have posted that they feel "sad" that people can't find a reason to want a child! How patronising.

They keep trying to find a reason why we don't want one "is it because you haven't had much experience with children" or "can't you see any positives" we repeatedly clarify our choices but it's not good enough, they won't accept that we just don't want them. What can we do other than list all the reasons why we don't want them?

If it's our truth then why is it rude or why would a parent be offended by it? If they are happy with their life choices then it shouldn't bother them that someone lists reasons they don't want kids. If you listed all the reasons you think it'd be shit not having kids I wouldn't care because I'm happy with my choice. The only thing I object to is being called selfish for choosing not to have one (because I prefer extra money or extra sleep) when really it'd be selfish to have a kid I didn't want and potentially give it a poor life.

edit to hold quote

It is socially acceptable in the context of an internet thread where someone has essentially asked “why don’t people want kids”. I agree that if I randomly went up to you and said “your life seems awful to me” that would be very rude and unacceptable.

I would never comment on anyone’s looks to them, and think everyone’s body is everyone’s to do what they want with, but if someone posted on here saying “why don’t you want size GG boobs like Katie Price’s” I would answer “because I think they look awful and I don’t want that”.

I think one reason that people never seem to acknowledge is that all species top out eventually, why can’t we just accept its nature at work? More and more women don’t have the instinct or drive to have kids anymore. I posted above my reasons, but I maybe missed the biggest one actually, which is I’ve never had the desire for kids, that hormone or whatever it is just didn’t kick in.

It's fine with me for people to have or not have children and I have never once got involved in anyone else's choices, but it's not socially acceptable to take a life choice that someone else has made and start crowing about how you can't imagine anything worse and all the reasons you'd hate to have their life, even if you do add the caveat "for ME". It's just rude.

But this isn't a thread about how wonderful parenting is, it's a thread about why less people are choosing to have children. For many people, one of those reasons is because it sounds awful to be a parent.

I don't know why so many parents on here see that as a personal insult

But the AIBU is about birth rates dropping through the floor and why that might be. People are answering with reasons why that might be. One of those reasons for some is the negatives of child raising.
You'd have a point if this was a post about someone's joy in parenting, but it isn't. It's, in effect, asking the question, 'why aren't people having children' just worded somewhat differently. People are answering the question from their perspective. It's also pretty rude to be told your reasoning and perspective about a choice you made that you shared on a post about why people make that choice is 'sad' and 'baffling'. Don't you think?

I don't think you're being honest with yourself.

I can't imagine not having my children, but if I launched right now into a diatribe about how awful life must be for childfree people and listing all the reasons I think it would be terrible, you and I both know it would cause upset.

It's fine with me for people to have or not have children and I have never once got involved in anyone else's choices, but it's not socially acceptable to take a life choice that someone else has made and start crowing about how you can't imagine anything worse and all the reasons you'd hate to have their life, even if you do add the caveat "for ME". It's just rude.

Fair point, well made.

The thing is @WanOvaryKenobi (great name) I wouldn't actually say anyone else's life is shit for them. It just might be shit for me. My life probably looks shit to someone else. Can't have kids, no stellar career, no huge pots of money. MY life isn't awful for me. But someone else, who wouldn't want it for themselves is going to list the negatives from their perspective, if that's not what they want to do.

It's an extremely defensive crabs in a bucket mentality shared by a few in this thread. Often people who have literally not achieved anything else in life other than their children so cannot fathom wanting anything else. And a defensiveness of "well I raised a family on nothing and scrimped and saved and I'm proud of that" who don't seem to understand that their lives look a bit shit to anyone that knows better.

You're missing the point. For some people, it would be 'awful'. It isn't awful for you. Why are you struggling to accept that for some it would be awful?
Is there something you really don't like doing but someone else does? Maybe you've never done it, but you know you don't want to. Is your list of reasons really going to be, 'well, this is great and that would be great but despite all that, I just don't want to.'? No. You are going to say, for eg, 'I don't want to go skydiving because I don't want to plummet to the ground from a great height at speed with only a bit of cloth to save me.'. You are NOT going to say, 'well, the feeling of freedom, the wind through my hair etc sounds great but it isn't for me,' are you?
This thread posits a reason why people don't want children. Fashion. So, people have come here to give other reasons why they don't want children.
I think people are struggling to understand what is 'sad' and 'baffling' about giving the logical reasons why they don't want to do something. Of course it's going to be negative, because they don't want to do it. I think skydiving would be awful. Because I don't see the positives. If I did, I would have different reasons for not doing it and would say so.
We don't do this about anything else, do we? (Although dog ownership is getting close these days). Having children would be awful to someone who doesn't like them and doesn't want them. Nothing 'baffling' about it.