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

strange, every time there's a hospice or end of life carer on here they are always saying it's incredibly common for people to be hanging on for ages while family are sitting with them then pass on the moment they leave the room to use the loo or whatever - as if at the end of life people prefer to be alone to actually die. Nurses etc I know in RL have said the same.

I refuse to believe that ONLY childless people died alone - in all your years of working there you didn't have ONE patient whose children lived abroad/were NC with them/just didn't get there in time/couldn't face being with them when they died/were ill themselves/died during the 5 minutes their child went out of the room for a break.

I don't want to live my entire life planning for the last few seconds of it! Apart from anything else, having a child just so someone will be with you when you die is incredibly selfish.

Your experience is also a very specific type of death. Millions of people who die in war/car crashes/accidents/heart attacks etc die "alone", not surrounded by their family. You could have ten kids but have a heart attack driving home from work and die alone.

Op is there a cultural issue to your postings? Do you come from a religion/culture where women are expected to marry and procreate are and are shunned or ostracised for taking a different path? Do women work? Are they allowed to pursue a career?

You picked out that quote out of a whole thread to let the poor childless and child free people know you feel sad for them. My extensive work experience spans hundreds of people and my experience doesn’t match that poster’s experience. Empathy just flows from you, doesn’t it?! Bear in mind some people reading this cannot have children and it’s a source of great pain for them. Hope that made you feel really good on Mother’s Day. I have children so no axe to grind. Just think you’re actively choosing to be unpleasant and not sure why people without children bother you so much. I’m happy with my lot in life so I don’t need to sneer on others who have made different life choices I.e. be child free. Nor do I think it’s ok to start a spiteful thread knowing some people who are childless not by choice will read it.

‘I would certainly prefer dying alone over with a hospice nurse like you for sure’

well that’s bizarre, I don’t work in a hospice or in medical profession.
Although I have had the misfortune/privilege to care for both a parent and a partner at home at the end of their lives. Neither wanted to die in a hospice and we were lucky enough to have enough family support to allow them to pass in their own homes surrounded by loved ones.

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

Thanks for saying that when I'd already shared that my own mother died alone 🙄

Happy bloody mother's day.

@Bellyblueboy no.

@SomeCatFromJapan I didn’t read your post where that was mentioned
It hard losing a mother, desperately hard. You have my sympathies. Mothers Day is hard for many if us, for many reasons.

Thanks. I'm not fussed about dying alone myself, in fairness, I just don't know what she would have preferred.

OP you sound like a desperately unhappy or unpleasant person. Maybe you just lack emotional intelligence because you can’t seem to understand that people might feel and live differently to you.

i won’t suggest to travel, or read, or connect with different people brigade I don’t think you are capable of expanding your mindset.

I just really hope your children either grow up to think exactly like you or have the sense to run far far away: I can’t imagine having you as a mother as a childfree career mother! It would be like living in a really bed comedy.

I’d have thought most people do die alone? My husband died at home, but he was still alone as I was downstairs making myself a coffee! By the time I went back upstairs he was dead.

Both my grandmothers died at home in the house, alone as their husbands had already died. One grandfather died alone, in the garden, while my grandmother was in the house. My other grandfather was the only one of that cohort not to die alone, as he was in hospital so had some nurses around. But at the time he died my grandmother wasn’t present - she was at home in bed.

@Tryingtokeepgoing I actually wonder if a lot of people wait to be alone.
My mum was in a shared room, got moved to a private room and promptly died the next morning.

They might not be lonely. Lots of people enjoy solitude. Lots don’t. They might struggle to cope on their own and need to move into assisted living earlier.
I help look after a neighbour in her 80s who had no children. I do her shopping and garden, take her bins out, make the the odd cup of tea and take her out occasionally. She has other friends from church and the WI who do other little things for her. A couple of times I have had a call in the early hours that she can’t get out of bed or is unwell and I have gone round to help her. I work full time and have 3 kids so it’s quite a commitment.
She is desperate to stay in her own home but relies on the kindness of friends and neighbours, not many elderly people without children would have this level of support and have to leave their home before they are ready and that’s sad.

I think that’s probably got some truth about it!

‘I’d have thought most people do die alone?’

And I would have thought the opposite. I suppose if you’re alone and have a massive heartattack or similar and drop dead on the spot maybe. But I can’t think of a single family member or anyone I know dying alone.
Most have been ill first and either at home, in a hospital, one was in a hospice, even a relative who died in a car accident on the scene had paramedics and passers-by there

I have DC. I'd rather they didn't witness my last dying breath as their final memory of me.

We have a big family. Our intention is that we support each other through life and the siblings support each other when we're pushing up daisies.

However, I don't speak to my (bio) dad, my mum can't stand her sister, my half brother and I rarely see each other, DH is estranged from both parents. No one could have predicted all that.

You don't know what kind of family relationships you will have as an adult. With our best intentions that our DC will always have each other, they might not even like each other and be entirely no contact. I certainly didn't have them so I wouldn't be lonely in old age. That's an odd reason to have such a life long commitment as a child. Hopefully, we will remain close knit, and I do like the idea of growing old, watching them navigate life. I do think it's on balance probably a less lonely life, if everyone always likes each other. You have no guarantee of this.

I think we're getting a bit sidetracked here. Some people are extroverts, some are introverts. Possibly this applies even at death.

But as I said previously it's not exactly a worthwhile trade off spending decades doing something you really don't want to do, just for the sake of maybe having a handhold in your final few minutes, assuming they actually like you, haven't immigrated, get there on time and you actually want them there in the first place.

Interesting…genetics obviously play a part here, but very few members of my family actually end up in hospital. They just die at home from old age - always well into their 80s, often into their 90s and a few make it over 100. But I guess socioeconomic factors also play part; the more educated / affluent / comfortable life you had the more likely you are to be healthy, and less likely to do manual work that wears you out. But those in physical jobs that smoke, drink, eat rubbish are likely to end up in hospital.

The facts are that less than 5% of people die in a hospice, and around 40% die in hospital. Only a minority will have family actually present at the time. Of remaining 55%, just under 30% die at home (probably alone at the moment of death), and 20% in a care home (40% of whom were only temporary residents). The last couple of % died somewhere else, so accidents and outside.

So, sad though you find it, most people do die alone. And, I suspect, most want it that way :)

When my children gave me a Mother’s Day card, I said ”thank you, darlings. But it’s far more important you visit me in old age so I don’t die alone. Please remember this and do NOT move to Australia!!”

‘They just die at home from old age - always well into their 80s, often into their 90s and a few make it over 100.’

Absolutely and completely alone? Not with a family member, not visited regularly, just die in their sleep or similar, and then what? Someone randomly finds them a few days later??

Genuinely interested, as I can’t think of any of our family members who lived entirely alone, unvisited, without support at an advanced age then just dropped dead alone.

‘I have DC. I'd rather they didn't witness my last dying breath as their final memory of me.’

To me that’s a very English response. Hide it away.
But that can often be worse for those left behind, there’s a lot to be said for wakes. shiva and the like.
A lot to be said for offering comfort to those dying, taking comfort from being there too.

Many elderly people with children also don’t have this level of support though. You assume adult children live within a short distance to be able to take bins out and be available at short notice in the early hours of they morning.

what about the elderly lady in Glasgow whose son lives in London? Or the lady in the wildes of Ireland whose children live in Canada and Australia? Or the man in his early 90s whose daughter died last year? Or the lady in her eighties who refuses to talk to her daughters? Or my neighbour whose son lives locally but has severe addiction and mental health issues?

some families are physically and emotionally close - but some aren’t

Why the intense focus on childless people? What about elderly parents who never or rarely see their children? Is that not lonely??

I have children, the reason was certainly not so that someone could be with me at the end of my life. Have children, don’t have children, neither will guarantee you happiness and neither is an achievement.

God this thread got morbid! I'm early 30s, I'll be amazed if I even make it to old age. I honestly do not give 'dying alone' a second thought, and it's certainly not top 20 in my list of reasons for or against having children.

Incidentally, now I've thought about it, nobody in my immediate family has died 'surrounded by loved ones'. One suddenly in their bed alone (with wife in the house), one overnight in a care home, one in hospital unexpectedly. I don't imagine it's that unusual.

@Aintbaint

so what are you saying OP?

that people should have kids (whether or not they want them) so that they don’t die alone ( even though having kids is no guarantee of this) even if dying alone doesn’t phase them?

It really got depressing, this thread. But I was really struck by a poster upthread who said she's never lonely. I aspire to be her.