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

This is so offensive, some DINKS didn't have a choice

Loneliness is not the domain of the childfree/childless.

Children are not the antidote to loneliness.

A person with children can be just as susceptible to loneliness as a person without.

Fear of loneliness or of potential future regret isn't a reason to have children.

Placing the burden on your children of them being your company as you get older is selfish and unfair.

Loneliness also isn't some incurable disease that cannot be treated and eased. If a person, with or without children, finds themselves feeling lonely, there are things that they can do to ease it.

YABU to post this. Why is it any of your business. Every person / couple will have their own experience, depending on their personality, if it was a choice not to have kids, etc. stop being smug you do, that’s your choice, not everyone’s.

@Comedycook Maybe spend a bit of time worrying about yourself, and less worrying about other people who don't want or appreciate your "worry?"

“You never stop worrying or thinking about them” is exactly why I’m going to enjoy my child free choice all the way to old age

I'm not actively worrying about anyone. The entire thread is about people in that situation and something I've pondered on.

Children give you a family though and family is very often the antidote to loneliness

It's hard with the topic of parenting because unless you have DC you can't understand what it feels like and means to be a parent - and I genuinely don't mean that in a smug way because I mean the good and bad. I have one DC and I adore her she is my main priority - but parenting brings its share of worry and difficulty and I don't think that ever leaves you for the rest of your life. Before I had her I thought things would be very different - I'm an anxious person and becoming a parent has really ramped up my anxiety and I've changed massively as a person. I'm not carefree anymore.

I think the key to happiness is to try and be happy with your lot in life whatever that is and don't think the grass is always greener because it probably isn't.

These threads always puzzle me because they seem to suppose some 1950s time where everyone's kids lives down the road from them. None of my friends live near their parents. Regardless of how close or not they are to them. If you're expecting your kids to be entertaining you and providing your "life focus" forever more than a) you're probably in for a disappointment and b) that's quite odd, broaden your horizons. You only have to read the 15000 threads on here about parents and in-laws who clearly have nothing going on other than meddling in their children's lives to know that's a bad idea.

Did the OP just start this thread and run in order to harvest quotes for a Daily Mail article.

"This isn’t an US v Them thread …"

Of course this is an us vs them thread. Your post is full of how meaningful and focused your life is compared to your meaningless and unfocused childless friends. Stop being goady and judgemental. Meaning and focus can come from all sorts of sources, it doesn't need to be children. Just as loneliness can strike in all sorts of lives, you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely. If you think your friends are lonely, try to find a way to help them.

You do realise there are other forms of family other than children, right?

Except that we have not turned on each other. I would say people have turned on op (and even that in a kindly gently mocking way) - so if that was the intention it has backfired.

Friends that you have chosen and are only tied to by love and a lifetime of happy memories rather than familial obligation can be an equal if not better antidote to loneliness.

I've known some lovely people who have felt very lonely within their own family. All that 'blood's thicker than water' stuff can often be used to tie people to toxic family members.

Nobody should have children as the antidote to loneliness.

Having children is no guarantee against loneliness.

I think OP has failed. People seem in the main to be saying each time their own

Each to their own

....and thus implying a single income to be the norm. Welcome to the 50s.

OP is BVVVU to drag up this ridiculous moniker, garnish it with a dose of prejudice and put it up to vote. Must be desperate to find a group of people to feel superior to.

Of course it’s not @LifeExperience and anyway, parents are supposed to prepare their children to go out into the world and live their own lives.

My DD is at uni over a thousand miles away, I’m delighted for her, she’s having a great time. She’s not here to keep me company!

By contrast, one of the common factors within the childfree side of my friendship circle is having experienced abusive parenting and not wanting to perpetuate the cycle. The majority of women I’m close to don’t consider their own parents to be “good family” and put much more value in their friendships.

I’m in my 30s and estranged from my abusive parents. I can’t have children but my estrangement didn’t suddenly make me want to have them more. Having children to stop yourself being lonely or to be the substitute “mum” or fulfil the ideal “mother/daughter” relationship in some way - that’s really selfish.

I think I just resent the notion that women without kids don’t know or understand ourselves and just need a mother to come along and steer us in the right direction of childbearing.

Misogynistic shite

YABU. I’m 50, have close family & friends & an active social life & have never regretted being child free. To have put myself through parenthood knowing I’d probably hate it, on the off chance that I might need my future adult offspring to save me from loneliness in old age would have been incredibly stupid.

I notice nobody’s come up with ‘Why are non-parents on MN?’ yet.

No they will be having flings with guys in their 30s as their bodies will not be child-ravaged

See I don't like things like that. I haven't had children but none of us are immune to the passage of time, and so what?

Why should spending time with ‘the next generation’ be more fun than spending time with friends my own age?