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 expect it’s an awful lot lonelier for people who have kids but they just don’t want to visit their parents.

It's not great for the adult children (usually women) who get stuck looking after their aged parents, either. The people who trot out the "who will wipe your arse when you get old" line to the childfree seem to despise their children as much as those who don't reproduce, and have a very low, nasty idea of why one might want to have children. It's the same centuries-old line of thinking that the youngest daughter was expected to stay home, unmarried, to look after the parents - breeding a servant who couldn't escape, essentially. I've just finished seven years as my mother's carer. It's not a way of life I'd inflict on anyone, and her case was far from the worst as these things go.

As far as I’m concerned, nothing compares to the joy of seeing a foster kitten who arrived in my flat petrified & spent two days hiding behind the sofa finally poking her nose out, then coming to sniff me & today, playing with toys & picking a comfy chair to snore on.

But Nappy and I are different people and different things give us joy.

I love this. Thank you for giving that kitten a caring home.

Aye OP, come back and stir. Not got an agenda at all.

Wow, so you think the only point to being alive is to procreate? Even if you don't want children?

I've never wanted children. I've never earned a shedload of money, I don't go overseas - or anywhere really - and I don't spend a huge amount of money. And yet I'm not bored, I don't get bored. I'm perfectly content with my life as it is. What I would have found boring was raising children for years and years.

You are entitled to your opinion, but there is no need to try and ram it down other people's throats and tell them that they are wrong and that your way is the only way.

Yes!!! ❤️❤️❤️

"nappyvalley2024 · Yesterday 12:36

If you don't have kids then what is the point, what is it all for? You can earn all the money in the world but surely all the holidays and spending gets boring once you've seen it all and done it all.

Having children is just one of the most amazing things. It's hard work and they do cost a lot, but so worth it."

Are you able to understand that what's the most amazing and worthwhile thing for you, for some other women - like me - would be our worst nightmare? I honestly cannot imagine a more horrifying future than spending my life raising another human being from newborn to adult. Let alone more than one. In fact the only times I dreamed I was pregnant or had children they were nightmares, and I woke up with a massive sense of relief that I had been dreaming.

Some people work their whole life to be able to climb Everest. Others spend years studying to become lawyers. Others work for decades in orphanages. All of them would describe this as the most amazing and worthwhile thing they could imagine themselves doing. Myself, I'm not interested on either of those three things either. I may be missing out on a wonderful experience... but it's a wonderful experiencee I never wanted or desired, so I am actually not "missing out" on anything.

Same with having children.

I am now 47, never had an ounce of maternal instinct in me, never regretted getting sterlised at 32 and I'm one of the happiest persons I know. I know it will be impossible to believe for some women here, but hey, I also find it hard to believe anyone enjoys caring for a baby 24/7 and everyday I meet women who do. And I have a brain who is able to empathise and put myself in other people's shoes, even when my dreams and hopes are completely different from theirs.

Other people have such restricted minds that they are unable to contemplate that others may not enjoy things that they themselves find fulfilling and worthwhile.

Maybe take a quick look at all the topics which are being discussed on MN at any given time. If you think every single thread relates to children you are sadly mistaken. It may surprise you to know that if you were into fashion there is a Style, Beauty & Fashion section here.

You sound rather ignorant tbh.

And a lot of the ones that do relate to children (either having them or being them) points towards quite a lot of people who are parents being lonely when they’re old for various reasons. Just look in active threads and read the ones by parents about adult children or the ones by adult children about their parents or parents in law and you can see how many issues there can be which lead to low contact or no contact.

I’ve noticed a lot more adverts recently across social media to recruit befrienders for children and older people so maybe one day there will be no lonely people no matter whether they have children or not, or how many people are in their lives or not.

People are being more active on this area I think. Not too long ago there was a ‘recruitment drive’ for people to drop books and puzzles off for an older lady and maybe stop for a chat and to ask for groups or befriended for her because she was so lonely, she had four adult children and one of them was her next door neighbour but she was very lonely and there was a huge response to that. I think after lockdown where a lot of people, whether alone, with a huge family, or somewhere in the middle, felt lonely people realise how much it can affect people are are more sympathetic towards it.

I have also seen social media videos by married women who discuss how lonely they feel in their marriage for various reasons and again, I think that’s opened peoples minds that alone doesn’t mean lonely and not alone doesn’t mean not lonely.

@aurynne well said. The idea of having children is the stuff of nightmares for me, too. Mercifully I'm past the age of having randoms say to my face when I say I'm single "But don't you want baybeeeees?" and having to have a stock of answers sufficiently out of left field to shut them up.

I have also seen social media videos by married women who discuss how lonely they feel in their marriage for various reasons and again, I think that’s opened peoples minds that alone doesn’t mean lonely and not alone doesn’t mean not lonely.

Also the threads by women asking how they can make friends, now their kids are older. I live on my own through choice but I have five meet-ups with various combinations of friends in the next fortnight, plus a family get-together next week. And yes, there are people I can call if I have an emergency at 2am & I know they’ll be straight over.

I don’t know how long she’ll be with me until she gets adopted, but this morning I found toys on the bathroom floor & had to stop her climbing into the dishwasher 😸

My next door neighbour is elderly. She is showing signs of dementia and clearly needs more support and company than she is getting. Her husband died many years ago and I have only seen her two adult children a handful of times in the last ten years. They live locally.

my aunt had no children - we visit every month (when she is free😂). She could ring me at 2am and I would be straight there - she knows that. she has a wide circle of friends and family; standing invites to Christmas and she hosts a huge Christmas bash every year - she is 78😊. She was in hospital a few months ago and there was a stream of visitors.

It’s silly to say it’s the childless who end up lonely and forgotten. It can happen to anyone unfortunately.

I had a foster kitten that had me damn near losing my mind due the hiding spots he could find. I couldn’t find him once and I spent hours looking around the house trying to find him, in an increasing state of panic as I was scared he’d managed to get out, as well as confusion because I couldn’t think of how the hell he’d have managed to. After said hours had passed, suddenly I heard him - he’d somehow managed to climb up onto one of the wide exposed beams we have in the kitchen, and taken a nap. The dude decided it was time to poke his over and look down at me, with a look that said ‘what the fuck is with all the noise, woman?’.

Absolute arsehole. Adorable though, and it was hard to let him go to his new home. It’s always bittersweet, I end up falling in love with every one!

Can't bring myself to read all the replies. What a horrible post. I've never heard the term 'DINK' but it's ridiculous. This is none of your business op.

You really are a piece of work OP.

Perhaps the OP regrets her own life choices. It would explain her bitterness towards childfree mumsnetters.

Adorable though, and it was hard to let him go to his new home. It’s always bittersweet, I end up falling in love with every one!

That’s always the hardest part!

when people post on here about envying someone in a better financial situation than them (and I say that because it does usually come down to finances) you’ll always get a lot of people telling them that the person they envy is secretly miserable, their life is empty, and that the OP has so much more than they ever will. OP’s posts read as an expression of that. I don’t necessarily think OP regrets her own life choices, but that she’s looking at her friends and resenting the fact they’re financially comfortable and able to do things she can’t. So she wants them to be ‘paying’ for this in some way. Because you know, it’s not fair otherwise, and life is always guaranteed to be fair after all.

That’s my read on it anyway.

‘The people who trot out the "who will wipe your arse when you get old" line’

That’s a delightful phrase, and happily not one I have ever heard IRL

‘I've never heard the term 'DINK' but it's ridiculous’

I didn’t invent it! It’s from marketing jargon I think, to define some of those likely to be interested in buying luxury goods, media and political pundits chuck it around now as a voting category… like the ‘MN vote’

I heard it in a radio discussion about the economy the day I posted this…

‘OP regrets her own life choices, but that she’s looking at her friends and resenting the fact they’re financially comfortable and able to do things she can’t. ‘

no. OP is very comfortable financially, via employment and one massive moment of luck, actually. I wouldn’t swap places with anyone else for anything. I’m very happy with my choices, have very few regrets, and generally am pretty happy with my lot.
As I said before, this was prompted by some experiences in friendship groups.
Some really interesting replies, which make me realise that a couple of friends in particular are really struggling, and that it may well have nothing to do with loneliness even if that’s how it seems on the surface.

So despite the pile on, name calling, questioning of my intelligence, motives, happiness, and occasional ‘ fuck you’ - this has been useful.
and before anyone say no-one said fuck you! There are some deleted posts…

Relax. No one expects you to admit it.

At least they were upfront with their “f.u.” not passive aggressive like your op.