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

Or that so many parents also think it's a silly, patronising question?

That too.

It won't be what people want to hear, but I worked in end of life (hospice) care for years and it's wasn't nice to see people dying alone. And the only people I ever saw doing that were childless people. You get to know patients and their circumstances.
I know everyone will say that you can have children and they won't visit, but I never ever saw that, ever. Family - children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces were the ones who visited, organised care, dealt with the admin after death.
Friends are ok for help and company when everyone is in great health but they get old and ill too.

It won't be what people want to hear, but I worked in end of life (hospice) care for years and it's wasn't nice to see people dying alone. And the only people I ever saw doing that were childless people. You get to know patients and their circumstances.

My mother slipped away, alone, before my brother could get to her bedside. I coudn't be there because I was on another continent, my earnings paying for her care.
I'd be very surprised if that was unusual.

Anyway, so what? You spend decades living a life you don't want so you're not alone in the final few hours?

Your experience is very unusual though. Most people who work in end of life care, elderly care or the medical profession say differently, as does research and the stats. It’s actually only something I’ve ever seen on threads about childless/childfree people, never in real life or on threads about people discussing care for their parents etc.

It’s also a terrible reason to have children and a burden on those children to exist to provide their parents with end of life company and can be traumatic.

I didn't have kids to have them look after me. I don't expect it at all. They can go off and do what they like. I'm loving my time with them while they're young and I know they won't be around for ever.
Just making the point that it's a cliché that wasn't true in my experience, and I actually worked in that field.

I am not sure if my experience is unusual - everyone always says 'your kids won't visit you in a care home' but I wonder if that is actually based on hard experience as opposed to assumptions.

I’m not saying you had kids to look after you when you’re old. I’m saying people who don’t want children are told that’s why they should have them which is a terrible reason and it’s horrible when it’s used to scare childless people as it isn’t true. There are lonely parents and lonely childfree people and lonely childless people and the majority of people die alone anyway, which doesn’t mean they died lonely either.

Or that parents would come to their defence.
This has been a very refreshing post for the way that parents and child free have been united.

So a person who does not want kids and would not enjoy parenting should have them anyway, and ruin their own life as well as that of the unwanted child(ren), just so they don’t die alone? That is a terrible and selfish reason to have kids. Right up there with ‘You've never experienced love until you have children’ and you’ll never know real happiness until you’ve had children’.

I know quite a few people who are estranged from their children, people who only hear from their children when the (middle-aged adult) children want something, people whose children have moved to other continents and countries, people whose children died before them.

This ‘everyone who has kids will grow old happily, be cared for, and die surrounded by their loving offspring’ fairy-tale needs to stop, along with all of the other motherhood lies that are constantly perpetuated.

I'm also quite surprised to hear about only the childless dying alone, given how many people weren't able to have family by their side during the lockdowns.

Even the Queen didn’t have all of her children with her when she died. If even the Queen can’t manage to have all the her loved ones around her (naturally, due to distance, dying unexpectedly etc), how is any ordinary person going to guarantee it? Life isn’t a movie, we’re not guaranteed the final deathbed scene.

Personally I hate anyone being around me when I’m ill, I don’t like the added burden of worrying them. So in death (the ultimate illness), I think maybe I’ll want to be alone then too.

So a person who does not want kids and would not enjoy parenting should have them anyway, and ruin their own life as well as that of the unwanted child(ren), just so they don’t die alone?

Well yes, exactly. It’s a terrible idea.

My siblings and I were with our parents in hospital when they both died.
Neither parent knew we were even there.
Better to live a full life following your own heart than lead your life in preparation for an event that the chances are you will be unconscious of.

Family - children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces were the ones who visited. You don't have to have had children to have nephews and nieces (or siblings, cousins, great nephews and nieces.

My darling great aunt had no children. There were a crowd of family at her bedside when she died in her 80s. Again.....she had been unconscious for days and had no idea we were there.

First - that sounds a very unusual experience. Everyone you cared for had at least one child living close enough to be there when they were dying? No one was estranged from their children? No feckless, abusive dads, no cruel heartless mothers? No only children who live I Australia? No heartless single children career women who are married to their career and headed for a lovely death themselves😂 No parents who outlived their children?

and why do you think it’s not what childless people want to hear? I have no desire to have someone holding my hand when I die. I hate people being around me when I am sick.

I have been in probably a hundred care homes seeing countless more people. As part of my job, I review their care plans and daily notes which include visitors. Many, many people get a half hour visit at Christmas and Easter and maybe their birthday from their children and families. Some people get even less.
Your experience does not speak to mine.

If my children want visit me when I’m old and infirm and if they want to visit me in the care home, then I would love to see them. I want them to want to do it and I don’t want them to be there out of begrudging duty or guilt. There is no obligation for them to sacrifice for me.

I visited my elderly grandmother today with my family on Mother’s Day not because I felt obliged that she has cancer and it may be her last but because I wanted to eat cake with her and be with her. I have other relatives who, when alive, I wouldn’t choose to do that.

I hope you and your grandmother had a lovely time together today @Tahinii

For three years I lived on a bungalow filled estate in a small seaside town. Almost every house was lived in by elderly people. Many of my neighbours never got a visit from family, some rarely had adult children visit for a day or two at Christmas and Easter. Even people whose children I knew lived locally were alone for a great part of their days.

I want to die alone. I absolutely hate the thought of people sitting around watching me as I die, it fills me with dread.

I had a relative who really wanted to die alone. Sadly she was terminally ill and only had days to live so we all visited often, she had quite a lot of children and some had moved away but they came back to stay locally. But she said she’d like to be alone when she died which we obviously couldn’t know when it would be exactly but she died during a time she was alone so we were pleased she got her wish. Everyone will have their own wishes, and as sad as death is, it’s nice when their peoples last wishes do happen.

Also - how in earth did no paren in your care doe alone during Covid?

what on earth was going on in this highly unusual care facility? Was it maybe for a specific religious community? Where people have multiple wives and dozens of children who never move or fall out or die themselves? And the childless are shunned?

My great-aunt doesn’t have kids, and had a career as a reporter. She’s in her late 90s & lives in a care home about 50 miles from me. She had a busy life before going into the home & a lot of friends in her community.

I visit every couple of months & phone for a chat every weekend. She’s always telling me who’s visited her or who’s phoned that week. She’s never said that she wishes she’d had kids.

My mum had 3 DC....none of us were with her when she died in hospital in 2020 so her having children made no difference in her final hours did it?

‘
It won't be what people want to hear, but I worked in end of life (hospice) care for years and it's wasn't nice to see people dying alone. And the only people I ever saw doing that were childless people. You get to know patients and their circumstances.’

It’s desperately sad to think of anyone ending their life by dying alone 😕

@Aintbaint I really wouldn't want to have anyone watch me die if I can help it. I would prefer theor memories of me to exclude that.

I would certainly prefer dying alone over with a hospice nurse like you for sure! I suspect many other posters would feel the same.

‘ I really wouldn't want to have anyone watch me die if I can help it.’

in my culture we look after people at home if possible, and are very open about dying and death in general, holding wakes and the like. Funerals are a community thing, we go to the funerals of co-workers family members eg.
I find the English way of doing things very odd sometimes.
In theory I wouldn’t want to watch any loved one die, but I would rather be at their side than not when it came to it.