What is it like not having children?

[Jesrob]

I had my DS fairly young and I don’t have any regrets. I like my life but sometimes I look at my friends in their 20’s child free and see them being a career woman who hits the gym each night, goes for cocktails with the girls on a weekend and multiple trips away with the fiancée. Can’t imagine how it feels just to go and do what you want without arranging childcare or having so much headspace taken up by kids schedules and needs. What’s it like?

I think if you're curious about parenthood or have any concerns about regret down the line, you should just have one (as long as your circumstances are suitable for it)

I also think what's terrible advice. Before 'just having one':
Consider whether the child may be disabled or have SEN and how you'd cope with that:
Whether you could manage as a single parent if your relationship broke down or you had a feckless partner;
The emotional and mental and financial toll it would take on you;
A child is for life, not just for Christmas.

Life just takes on a different shape. Time fills up with other pastimes and priorities.

I enjoyed my childfree 20s and early 30s for all the reasons pps give. I had 2 DC in late 30s and they are now early 20s and uni age. I’m late 50s. I also really enjoyed having kids and my age / the time felt right when I had them. Looking back, if I’d had a crystal ball, I would have had kids when a few years younger than I did. I’ve had a difficult few years health wise and teenagers take a lot of energy and time, well mine did anyway! My energy levels are not what they were and it has been difficult the last few years managing the kids, my job (I work 4 days a week) and everything else, my parents and the house mainly. However, both kids have now left home apart from holidays so I do have a lot more time and less responsibilities, which is helping. And overall I’m happy with the choices I made and how life has turned out so far though I genuinely think for me having my DCs at around age 30 would have been optimal.

I have to say most of the responses from parents have been quite interesting and respectful. Normally it's bingo of 'who is going to look after you when you're old' and 'you're selfish'.

You must have missed that I'm 40 and childfree by choice.

I stand by what I've said. The overwhelming majority of people, with a partner, a home and a job/reasonable degree of financial stability, will find a way to make it work if they choose to have a child.

Too many childfree people feel they need to convince others not to have kids too. That's never been me.

The ones who write that sort of thing now hang out on the Mumsnetters Without Children board.

Only to say that life with a child and life without a child, in my experience, are not usually so diametrically opposed.

Of course it is @AFairDistance - you have a child! Whether your day-to-day life looks the same on the surface or not is irrelevant, a child is a massive change and something a lot of people think sounds like a total nightmare.

I too was taken aback by that statement.

A child as a whole other person and can in no way be compared to a dog or a cat!

My cat sometimes annoys me when she wakes me in the early hours of the morning for feeding. Safe to say a child and me wouldn't be compatible 😂

@Summertime2012 what is wrong with parents giving their opinion? This is Mumsnet afterall - a platform that attracts a lot of parents.

As someone who has had children, and a fulfilling life - I have asked myself OPs question too - I have alot of childfree friends . But I’m finding it useful reading responses from people that have had “childfree” periods in their lives. Whether that be nesting because the children are grown and barely around or early 20s/30s for those that had their children later and experienced a childfree period.

I however do find the tone a little odd when people come on to constantly justify why they didn’t have kids - that’s not the question either - it’s what is your life like.

Plus, correct me if I’m wrong OP, but it also sounds like you are at the hight of parenting whereby free time feels like it’s miles away! So actually, a few parents sparkling hope and reminding OP that you can have a life with children - it’s just they go through phases and it happens later - is a nice touch. Well for me it is at least.

@theprincessthepea maybe you are referring to another poster. I didn't question why parents responded to the OP. I am a parent myself and felt that lots of things that are mentioned here and elsewhere on Mumsnet present a view of parents not enjoying life just because they have kids.

I however do find the tone a little odd when people come on to constantly justify why they didn’t have kids - that’s not the question either - it’s what is your life like.

I think a lot of that was in response to the poster who asked why childfree women were citing hard work & stress as reasons not to have kids.

I don’t disagree with you. But I would just add that life as a child free person in middle-age is probably, for most people, quite different from life as a child free person in their 20s and 30s. I’m 49 and my lifestyle at 49 with no kids isn’t the same as my lifestyle at 25 with no kids. And yet a lot of people who had their kids from their mid-30s onwards do for some reason seem to have the impression that I’m living the same life now, while child free at 49, that they lived in their 20s/30s.

This simply isn’t a universal truth. People say ‘I don’t want the stress or hard work’ about all sorts of things. Not everyone lives their life on LinkedIn, you know. People decide every day not to apply for a new job, or not to buy a house that needs renovating, or not to train for a Marathon, because they don’t want the stress or hard work.

The point is that things that are worth the effort are things we actually want and enjoy. My degree was worth the stress and hard work for me. Losing five stone was worth the stress and hard work for me. Having a child would not be worth the stress and hard work, though, because I don’t want one.

I know this thread is a few weeks old but having read some of the responses I feel like adding my own. I dont know how I would feel if I was child free as I always had that maternal instinct & being around other people's children always delighted me, at least when they were well behaved 😂

The other reason being child free would never have been my chosen option is simply to do with an instinctive desire to procreate with my DH. To have something & someone so special in our lives that we created together and was part of us both felt beautiful & natural.

I understand the benefits of being child free given the total freedom to do what you want when you want. That day returns to parents in a flash then there is the possibility of Grandchildren you hand back. Now that's a gift 😂

All this if you actually enjoy being around children. Understandably not everyone does or if they do they may not have the desire to have their own. This makes being child free the correct decision.

I have DC and I imagine that not having them is bliss. The sleep, the freedom, the lack of burden. I love my DC dearly, but in my next life I’m not having any. I’m having a husband either next time.

I had mine young and now in my late 40's I'm free again. I have friends with toddlers having to go part time, apply for jobs several rungs down the ladder, up to their eyes in child care costs etc. I've been there and done that and it's flipping amazing to be free.

I'm a step Granny and love tearing around the park and whizzing up the climbing frames etc as I'm still young enough to do all the fun stuff.

Don't mourn your 20's as your time will come 😀.

Gosh in my 20s I was shuffling from one thing to the next but the overriding thing was never having much money! There was a lot of beer and going to clubs. Some of that was linked to part time jobs in pubs and bars and some of that was just asking a friend 'do you fancy going to 'xxx artist' on the 25th'. There were also quite a lot of music festivals which could easily eat up a weeks wages. Then I also worked abroad. Then I moved into a house share in my mid 20s and we were known as the party house as it was an end of terrace. I realised around then that I needed to get away from the party scene.

I had quite a rough time in childhood so it was getting all that out my system I think.

It's horses for courses, I don't think there is really any mileage in saying I wish I had done this or that. I wish I'd invested £100 a month in stocks and shares from the age of 18 but I didn't...what is the point of looking back? Just look forward.

I had my children in my mid 20s & I'm now a 'youngish' Grandmother given my first attended uni & was late 20s with the first. One of my friends has a children still at school.
There are a lot of benefits to not leaving it too late but that's not for everyone😁

I'm in my 40s, no kids by choice, no regrets at all. It's great being able to go out whenever, spend my money as I like, never took maternity leave so I'm at the top of the pay spine for my roles. I have a dog, so i do have since responsibility, but dogs can stay at home on their own for a few hours, kids can't!

Your sentiments are relevant although to be fair I can't think of anything more tying than a dog. This doesn't include the inevitability of heartache given their comparatively short lifespan if both a child & dog remain healthy. It's a no thanks from me.

Im in my early 80s and childfree by choice. I had a very brief marriage which ended in an amicalble divorce back in the late 60s. I realised that I could not and did nto want to live intimately with anyone full time. Ive had several professional careers, changed mid life and returned to education. Travelled extensively and solo around the middle and far east. Enjoy my own company and peace and solitude to do as I wish. After a lifetime working with customer and client groups I now run a couple of internet businesses on a fairly low key level. Working for myself I have the best boss ever. People ask who is going to look after me when I can no longer manage for myself. My answer is that I no longer wish to be alive when I reach that point.