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

Any older person I know who is a nice is close to their kids and grandkids.

Several of the older people I know are still getting so much stress from their now-middle-aged children. The worry, the need to help with time and money, that just never seems to end.

That aside - my parents were lovely but I only saw them once a year as I immigrated.

Yes that's an interesting idea. You could be right

I will say that parenting seems to carry on longer than ever before, thanks to the CoL and several other factors. Dh left home at 18, I left home at 21, but no hope of that for my DC, thanks to rents.

I have advised my own DC not to have DC, not because I hated having them, but because things have dramatically changed in the last decade in terms of climate change, CoL, property prices, AI etc. Course, they may not listen.

@Lentilweaver honestly in this case it's early 50s and late 70s! Don't want to go into too much detail in case it's outing but poor buggers.

The theme - particularly pushed by @JennyWren87 is it is the childless people who are cared for by Jenny express their deep regrets.

i grew up in Ireland - lots of people went away to university and never came back. I was in a small rural school - out of my primary school class of six, one now lives in the states, one in Australia and one in London. Many women (and men) haven’t seen their children in years. Jenny musnt meet those unhappy parents!

Yes I know many people in their forties now who still rely heavily on their parents. With everything from finances, house repairs etc. Its bizarre...like they aren't proper grown ups despite having jobs and homes. They still expect their parents to help them with all manner of things.

@KimberleyClark I think any attempt to put an alternative point of view to that poster is going to fall on stony ground.

People on here are usually desperate to see their parents less. Most of the elderly I've worked with have children that visit very rarely. I have a friend who has 2 children and she feels like the loneliest person in the world. There are many reasons why someone might feel lonely.

Are you ok? What belief system. I am talking about my experience. Which is obviously anecdotal

Yes I am okay😊. You?

I just think it’s odd that all these elderly childless women are confiding their regrets in you when that goes against all research into this area. Childless women will be vastly in the minority of people you care for yet you are experiencing this to the extent you have reported. It seems odd.

I assume your belief system is people should marry and have children to avoid being lonely. I assume you have children from your posts. People often project emotions onto other to validate their life choices. Maybe you didn’t lean into a career in favour of children (absolutely valid life life choice) and are validating that by saying all childless women regret it!

@JennyWren87 do they volunteer their feelings on not having children or do you ask them?

I think it depends on your lifestyle more than whether you have children.
MIL was a miserable woman who had no friends and no hobbies and no interests. She was bored out of her mind so the only thing she had was her children coming to entertain her.

I do know someone who wobbled about having children and never had them. She worked part time and her husband worked abroad quite often. She has struggled with friendships and finding things to do/hobby’s.She became totally obsessed with her nieces which live hundreds of miles away and hardly sees, but she even moved house to accommodate them on extremely rare visits (they’re adults now). In her mid 50s she’s become super super religious out of nowhere from what I can see. I can imagine it broadens her social circle though.

I’ve shared this article a lot but point 3 is particularly relevant to this discussion

3. In later life, regret about not having children is something some women mention, but only when they are specifically asked about it. Psychologists interested in the experience of regret among women who never had children can ask those women if they regret not having kids. Or they can just ask them about their regrets and see what they say.

In her review of the research, Chrastil found that the women who describe themselves as involuntarily childless were more likely to express regret than those who said that they had chosen not to have kids. But that only happened when they were asked specifically about their regrets about not having kids.

Honestly I think being lonely in the hospital/care home is a risk I am willing to take if it spares me the years of sleepless nights, school runs and other general drudgery of parenthood. Many people love that life, but it doesn't appeal to me. It takes all sorts. I adore my nephew and have been heavily involved in his life since he was born. I love spending time with him, but I also love handing him back and not having to plan my whole life around him.

They volunteer. Women talk about all kinds of regrets/trauma/life experience on a night shift. I have had some great conversations before and after having children. These are very elderly ladies I look after and I assume some of it is generational.

I seem to have really upset you. I feel like you can't get past the fact that I am talking about personal experience. I don't have an agenda.

I have children after many years of trying. All my social circle and siblings are childfree by choice /infertility/undecided about wether to have kids or stick with dogs.

Promise I'm not a tradwife troll 😄

I just think it's a point in life where you get reflective, you know you likely have less (active at least) time left than you've had, and so you wonder how things would be different if you'd done things differently. It doesn't surprise me people might start to waiver on decisions they've made earlier in life; but I don't think that would be exclusively for DINKS. Probably not helped by peer pressure and media constantly alluding to there being something inherently wrong with choosing to be a DINK, that's enough to make anyone question themselves!

Yes. I have worked in elderly care for ten years and have never met anyone who didn't regret not having kids / upset about not being able to have them. But this is 80/90 year olds I'm talking about.

Almost as if they grew up in a time where it was incredibly socially taboo to do anything other than have kids, and now live in a time where still some people think it's weird to not want them. Some will genuinely be remorseful I'm sure, but others are probably just telling you what you need to hear, sorry. Done it myself.

I think some level of regret is normal for everyone. childfree or chilldless. Because humans overthink, and sadly, we only have one life.

Ugh, I meant childfree or a parent.

We talk about resilience in relation to youngsters all the time but never in relation to older generations. Dealing with loneliness takes resilience. Feeling lonely at times is part of being human. There is a part of every single human being that is unknown to others and I suppose loneliness resides in that place. If you are constantly distracting yourself with other people then you are arguably not facing or understanding your self. We all need to be alone at times (different to loneliness I know).

It is interesting that we haven’t really defined what loneliness is on this thread or even why it is so awful. Is it awful because society says it is or can we find creative ways of dealing with it when it arises? I mean, can we use it in a more positive way?

It's also easier to regret something that would be in the "nice" stage now when all the drudgery would be over, I don't think that means they made the wrong decision, it's like rose coloured glasses, easier to romanticise something that isn't realistic to you now, if they were really transported back to 30 with the realisation of what was ahead of them, they will remember why that decision was made.

I’m not upset at all. I do wonder if you are projecting or leading conversations with your patients - and now you are projecting emotions onto me that I am not experiencing😂. These women regret having childre - I am ‘really upset’ yet all you see is some words typed on a thread.

I am simply curious as to why you are having this experience and I do wonder if you are framing conversations in a way to get this reaction from these patients., or exaggerating their responsess. That all. Maybe not - maybe you have an unusual group of patients.

This is so thought provoking it needs a new thread. For many reasons, I have often been lonely in my life ( won't go into my circumstances; let's just say my life has been different from many on here). I fight very hard to deal with that, with varying degrees of success. I do distract myself with other people when I can.

Meanwhile, DH is completely different. He loves his own company, has very few friends, happy to be entirely alone ( also has a very stressy peoply job, which I don't).

My mum lives alone in another country , is widowed and is an absolute queen at dealing with loneliness. She has a million hobbies- gardening, travelling, music- tons of friends of varying ages, a cat, and some family she continues to visit. I am sure she does feel lonely though. I visit as often as I can, but essentially she is alone.

The women @JennyWren87 is talking about are 80 plus. When they were in their child bearing years having children was much more the expected norm. I imagine many of the women who didn't have children then couldn't have them rather than chose not to have them. I suppose they were of the generation (just) that might have lost partners in the war or couldn't find partners because so many men were killed during the war.

These women are more likely to regret not having children than those who are childfree by choice.