To wonder if DINKs will be more lonely when older?

[Aintbaint]

Ok, so hear me out. This isn’t an US v Them thread …
I have a lot of Double Income No Kids friends - for various reasons, mostly choice.
So for most career has been their main focus, followed by their partner… Most have been very financially comfortable, travelled a lot, able to afford holiday homes, successful work wise etc basically all the benefits of no kids!

But now we’re all in our late 40s and 50s and slowed down a bit, retired early, separated or divorced, Quite a few just seem to to have lost focus, seem a bit depressed or unhappy, and don’t have the same focal point that having kids can bring.
I stupidly thought that kids would get older and we’d have our independence back but obvs kids are always there in someways - you never stop worrying or thinking about them or doing stuff with them. So still that focal point in many ways and Indaynthat as someone who does have a FT job they like and hobbies…

YABU - of course DINKs are just as happy and not lonely etc

YANBU - it’s harder as you get older when it’s just you or you+partner and work isn’t as important or you retire

I'm not childfree and I love DS but god some of the things posted here sound awful. Running around after MIL, cooking Sunday dinner for "everyone" bugger that.

Same here.

Me too. Isn’t it funny how we can understand that there are people whose lives revolve purely around their families & who seem to be perfectly happy with that, but they can’t reciprocate?

I definitely don't want to cook dinner for my extended family. Cooking dinner for my own family is tedious enough. Thank god these days Dc mostly cook for themselves. This is my time now, not serve the family time!

Me neither! I have a full time job and a child. On a Sunday I want to be bloody relaxing, reading, watching TV, maybe going out for a walk or a coffee or a gym class. Not slaving in the kitchen.

I think this sounds like my idea of hell and completely exhausting! I would feel suffocated spending so much time with family! The majority of this is focused on doing things for others. Cooking a Sunday dinner for everyone, can't imagine anything worse! This shows that the gruelling work continues even when you are a grandparent. But of course everybody is different and these things may bring you joy 😊.

Lots of ways to be lonely. Most lonely old people have kids so it's not a protection really. I worry about being lonely a lot but the only way to try to avoid it is to have strong connections with the world (whether or not you have kids).

I’ve worked with dying people for years.

You’d be amazed how many people with multiple children have zero contact with some
or all of them. Amazed.

there are no guarantees.

I have posted too much on this thread, but I worry about being lonely too. My family is scattered. At least one of my DC may well emigrate. Another one should really leave the home at least before she gets too comfortable!
I keep trying to build new connections in every decade. That's the only way really, but a lot of work.

You can live with a bunch of people and still feel lonely or live on your own and never feel it.

I still don't think you're really getting what some of us are saying. Some people will have great friends who act as a sort of proxy family, but for the rest of us it's just about not needing or valuing a lot of time with the family we do have, and not needing our friends to fill a hole. I understand that you do need/value time with family, but you seem unable to understand that I don't? I have good friends, but I don't use them to 'make up' for a lack of family (tbf I do have family, I just don't see them much. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had no family - again, I'm open to considering a different POV in a way you aren't).

Forgot about Mothers' Day... hope this doesn't interfere with my plans to do nothing.

ETA - when I say family I mean extended family, I do value my time with DH. But again we have a lot of time apart.

Interesting how mothers are surprised non-mothers are on this site, is it really that hard to comprehend, on a site that covers all manner of topics?

Talk about being devisive. So much for sisterhood hey.

Mother's are meant to be nurturing, yet some of the language used here is anything but.

Just goes to show, having children doesn't automatically make you a better person.

But -- isn't that more to do with the type of friends you have chosen? You seem like someone quite traditionally-minded who is unusually preoccupied with your household and your children, so you would presumably be less likely to have close friends who are less embedded in their families.

Just thinking of my closest female friends, regardless of whether they have children or partners, and what they are doing this weekend if I know -- one will be retreating solo to her little house by the sea for the weekend, one is coming with me to a concert on Sunday afternoon, another is joining us for a drink afterwards. I don't know what, if anything, the latter two are doing that is mothers' day related, but, whatever it is, it's not preventing them from engaging with friends outside the context of their family on mother's day.

I mean, I'm fond of, and close to, my family (and I have a husband and a young son) but they certainly don't automatically always take priority in how I spend leisure time.

Another 'me too' to this.

The only part I don't like about my circumstances is that it's very, very expensive so I don't get to enjoy the riches that would otherwise be my due as a childless person 😂.

My friends are wonderful and like a 'found family' but I also find myself very contented living and being by myself, and doing things alone. My worst nightmare is the idea of sharing a house with a man and some children and I'm so thankful that I live in 2024 and can choose not to.

There are two threads about elderly parents running at the moment which really illustrate the point that having children does not preclude loneliness in old age.

Ouch.
I joined MN when I was pregnant. Went onto MC and not conceive again for a decade. Was I supposed to leave and not come back until I was a parent?
This response of yours says more about your question than anything else. You look down on people who choose to not have kids

I find MN does feminism like my workplace women's network does feminism - really interested in issues affecting mums, not remotely interested in issues affecting women who aren't mums. I've read some absolutely vile comments about childless women on here, particularly in relation to how they're treated in the workplace.

Even as a mum, I find the world- not just MN- often struggles to understand mums who live lives outside their families. I go on solo holidays and weekends away often, and always have, even when DC were small ( DH looked after them). This really shocks some people. I also go to gigs, concerts, plays solo often. Because sometimes I really like my own space and not having to trade schedules with family or friends. DH does the same.

Really, in the end all you have is yourself.

I find MN does feminism like my workplace women's network does feminism - really interested in issues affecting mums, not remotely interested in issues affecting women who aren't mums. I've read some absolutely vile comments about childless women on here, particularly in relation to how they're treated in the workplace.

Tbf the actual feminism topic is really good - some brilliantly intelligent women and I don't find it like that at all.

Dinks lol never heard that one

Agreed. I don't think the feminist boards have any particular focus on motherhood. I have a child, but my feminism predates parenthood.

And to me, that sounds excruciatingly dull and boring.

Almost as if it takes all sorts isn't it.

They might be. They might not be.

The social fabric has definitely changed though. Less children, less siblings and therefore less aunts, uncles, cousins.

I think any choice is fine as long as you own it and mitigate against the possible downsides, ie choosing to stay childfree but making a concerted effort to develop hobbies and keep friends so you don’t end up complaining of boredom and isolation.

Equally I find it 🤨 when people have only children by choice and complain the child doesn’t have any wider family to fill the gap. Er, by having an only you’re perpetuating this smaller family model and can’t complain that other people haven’t had more kids to mitigate that.

Same again for people with more kids than they can cope with, or a new baby with every boyfriend. If you make your family messy and unmanageable then don’t complain when it’s messy and unmanageable.

Anyway I’ve gone off on a tangent but basically it’s not what you choose it’s how you then go about it.

Well, my DD lives in Australia, and my DS is probably moving there with work. So, me and DH are 54 & 51 and our children are on the other side of the world. Obviously, we will visit, probably once a year (and we are lucky we can afford that), but for the rest of the year our social lives cannot rotate around the children, as they are so far away. I'm sure this happens a lot.

It depends on the person. In general people with children are probably less lonely in old age, but

1. Shit happens. The 83-year-old lady who lives opposite me lost her 57-year-old son to cancer during the pandemic, and my dad is buried next to a boy who killed himself at 18. Then of course there are random accidents and chronic physical or mental illnesses that can wreck a child's life. People assume that a child will be a comfort to them in old age, but sometimes it's the ageing parent who is burdened.

2. You never know what you're going to get. Many people have horrible, selfish kids who bugger off to Australia or Canada and barely keep in touch. Others have kids who go completely off the rails and get into drink or drugs. Then there are your kid's partners. I've seen two young men cut contact with their parents because their partner doesn't like them and doesn't want the hassle of caring for them in old age. When the men protested, the partner used their kids as blackmail.

3. It depends on the personality of those involved. I knew an academic who didn't have kids and lived alone all her life. But her house was filled with books and paintings. She lived in a world of ideas and spent pretty much all day every day reading. Some people have incredibly rich inner lives and don't really need much social contact.

4. People who don't have children have more money, which means they can prepare a more comfortable old age. They also have more time to invest in friends, partners, hobbies, careers, personal/spiritual growth, etc.