It’s becoming unfashionable to have kids

[Housebuyingfamily]

Birth rates are on the floor which people frame as, people would have more kids were it not for the cost of them or climate change, etc etc. But I feel like it’s now more than this. As if we have a global child-free culture that’s growing every day and it’s becoming increasingly “unfashionable” to have kids, even looked down upon.

Haha, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that

I don't think it is unfashionable as such more that people have more options now and it isn't considered as strange not to have kids although I think most people still have them. There is also the cost of living these days, owning a home is out of reach for many people and the cost of childcare and providing a good childhood which sets your child up for a successful life can also feel really expensive.

I know a few people who feel like they and their partners can have a decent lifestyle but as soon as they add a child or two into the mix that decent life slips out of reach and they feel like they would be two people working fulltime plus all the work involved in looking after the home and children with not much quality time for the kids with them or for each other or themselves. In light of that they decided to be childfree.

I think people have moved from a this is just the "standard life script" to being quite thoughtful about what they actually want from life because we have more control over our fertility and life than in the past. I think we also see this in the relationships people have romantic and platonic, we want a bit more than the basic. Now however realistic or reasonable this is it doesn't change the fact that people probably look for more personal fulfilment and development and while having a family can provide that for some it isn't true for everyone.

Overall I think it isn't a bad thing is people have less kids but there is a difficult transition in regards to care and support for the elderly and then on a personal level having children increases the probability someone will take an active interest in your welfare if you become unable to look after yourself.

Why is it 'appalling' and 'awful' to own a pet and care for it? I'm baffled.

"I don’t think I ever wanted to be the man who loves children. But from the moment they’re born, that baby comes out and you act proud and excited, hand out cigars. But you don’t feel anything. Especially if you had a difficult childhood. You want to love them but you don’t. And the fact that you’re faking that feeling makes you wonder if your own father had the same problem. Then one day they get older, and you see them do something and you feel that feeling that you were pretending to have, and it feels like your heart is going to explode.”

• Don Draper, Mad Men Season 6

It’s impossible to communicate to the child free in the same way I can’t tell you what seeing the colour red is like.

All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience. I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up.

half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up

You can only speak for yourself. You have no way of knowing how “opened up” anyone but yourself is.

We’re back to subjective vs objective again.

Anyway, if my friends pitied me for not having kids I’d probably not want them as friends.

This is one of the most patronising posts I have ever come across on MN (and that is saying something!)

What you are telling everyone on this thread that until you had your child you lacked the capacity to feel and experience the world. That's it.

You are actually telling on yourself. You needed a child to have your "capacity to feel and experience to world" opened up.

Guess what? Many child-free people don't need that to be able to feel or experience the world.

It's great that you love being a parent-but have you ever tried considering that not everyone wants what you have? People who are child-free are not envying you your life.

We don't want kids. That's it. We don't give two flying fucks if you love having kids. Good for you-we know that we would not share that sentiment.

I keep being told that parents have more empathy, compassion and understanding than those without children and the more posts from people like you, OP, that I read, the more certain I become that this is just not the case at all.

I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up

ODFOD. I find people with children brag about how their capacity for love opened up when they have children. In fact, it is often extreme selfishness, just extended to another being who is connected to you by virtue of being your child. I tell you who has whole hearts - those single childfree people who spend a lot of their time and energy doing work for other people and communities to make everyones lives better. The people who pay taxes gladly so that people like you will have parks and playgrounds for your children. People who are concerned about educational policy even though they have no direct skin in the game.

Your experience may be you had half a heart before your children. That speaks more to your limitations than anything else.

@Housebuyingfamily imagine if I said I pity you for having kids! Jesus Christ, imagine how offensive that is to people that want children and are unable to have them.

I hope you aren't teaching your children to be so narrow minded and ignorant. I might not have kids but I know to be kind and considerate to others.

Statistics tell us this cannot be true - otherwise there would be no badly-treated children in the world.

Why pity someone for not having what they don’t want? What you see value in, not everyone will. Certainly, that isn’t everyone’s experience of having a child, is it? It may be yours, but it isn’t universal and you’re being disingenuous to suggest that it is.

Similarly, you have no idea what anyone else feels or experiences, or whether their wealth of either is greater or lesser than yours regardless of whether they have children or not.

That does remind me though, of this study I read about a while ago:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107205

All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience. I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up.

Seriously?? People like you give us parents a bad name? You only know how you feel. Having kids made me feel pretty much like I guessed it would. I knew I would love them immensely. And I did. (I didn’t predict how much I would worry though). There was no earth-shattering realisation.

This comment is so patronising and sweeping. Many childfree people are just fine. They don’t need any more of the world ‘opening up’ and they are experiencing a different world you may never do. Many people have intense spiritual experiences that are not related to child-rearing. People can be fulfilled in many different ways.

And so what if someone doesn’t experience the exact set of emotions that you did when you had kids? Who cares?

They sure as hell don’t need your pity.

I am quite pleased to say that I was emotionally mature, capable of all kinds of feelings including love, and empathic and open-minded way before my children came along. Perhaps I should pity those who needed to have kids to mature emotionally.

This is total bollocks, and I say that as someone with a kid. I don’t actually believe you’ve posted it seriously; it’s got to be a wind up.

This doesn’t have to be us v them. Breaking news - everyone is different, and wants different, entirely legitimate, things.

You almost sound like you’re trying to convince yourself having kids was the right choice.

Chill out and live your life.

All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience. I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up.

Has it not occurred to you that maybe it is you who lacked the capacity to feel and experience the world fully before you had children? I had been living and loving life fully before my children came along. Having children wasn't some mind-bending awakening for me. All that changed was I now knew what it was like to love a child. Had I never had them, I wouldn't have missed that feeling because how could I?

It sounds like as your world has opened your mind has got narrower.

Oh here we go, the usual patronising crap about how we don’t know how to feel properly. Get over yourself! Why do you care so much how other people live their lives? If you are so happy, why are you spending your time on a forum asking why everyone has not picked the same choice as you?

All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience. I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up.

Oh, bore off.

Because she’s not happy. If she was, she wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to justify / convince herself that she’s made the right life choices. She’d just be getting on with it.

Maybe you lived a shrivelled, closed, loveless existence before you had a child, but, as someone who was contentedly childfree till 40, and then had a child, I can assure you that I didn’t suddenly start seeing in Technicolour after 40 monochrome years. Life continued pretty much as it always had, with a delightful addition in the shape of DS.

And I’m going to assume you have a pronounced sense of irony in quoting a famously fucked-up fictional character brought up by prostitutes and an alcoholic, and who steals he identity of a dead body in the Korean War and embarks on a career of serial infidelity, as some kind of authority on parenthood?

So you're sad for us CF people because we'll never know true love? We've been hearing that one for a long, long time and it's not made us change our minds. I hear how much people love their DGC too and that's lovely for them- for me, I'm very happy that when I retire soon I won't be someone's De facto childcare. No amount of hearts and flowers would have changed my mind, I didn't want children at 20 and I still don't want them now. We're animals, and just like other animals we're supposed to breed, it's basic biology, but unlike other animals we have logic and reason and my hormones never got their own way and I'm so glad

The number of general threads on this forum alone, which is only a portion of society as a whole, talking about fathers who disappear, never to be seen again, showing no interest, or children of parents who clearly never showed, not felt that, rather belies the notion that this is universally true of all who have children.
How much of this heartbreak could have been prevented by an acknowledgement in advance that this feeling just isn't present in some individuals?
As somebody else said, yours is a subjective view. Historically, we haven't heard much from those who have children but genuinely never feel as you have described, because who would admit it? With the anonymity of the internet, we are hearing more from these people. People with grown up children who admit they never wanted them, were pressured into having them, and honestly aren't interested in keeping in touch.
Because, despite evidence to the contrary, this narrative is still pushed (understandably, at base level it's about survival of the species), we will continue to see children in care, or worse.
We now have the best ability we have ever had prevent the arrival of children we do not want.
We no longer have to gamble with lives for the chance that we might magically change our minds once baby is born, or, as your quote indicates, somewhere further down the line.

All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience.

Emotion and experience, but no insight or awareness, huh.

OP are you a man? I have read some of your previous posts and suspect you might be. I wonder if that could explain why you only felt able to show your emotional side to society once you had kids?

'All I can try and say is having kids opens up an entire extra half of emotion and experience. I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up.'

What I really want to say to this would probably get me banned so I'll just say what a crock of utter shite.

What will you do if your children decide they don't want to procreate? Tell them you pity them and their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up?

@WanOvaryKenobi

It's an extremely defensive crabs in a bucket mentality shared by a few in this thread. Often people who have literally not achieved anything else in life other than their children so cannot fathom wanting anything else. And a defensiveness of "well I raised a family on nothing and scrimped and saved and I'm proud of that" who don't seem to understand that their lives look a bit shit to anyone that knows better

Completely agree.

This argument about money not being essential gets a lot of misuse. It’s true technically you don’t need a lot of money to raise children. And some people raise happy families on an absolute shoestring. So people take this to the conclusion of saying oh it’s fine, you don’t need money.

But from the outside it looks like a miserable and thankless grind.

I don’t think money automatically makes for better parenting or happier kids. But it sure as shit makes parenting easier. Why would anyone aspire to parenthood in the hardest possible circumstances?

‘I look at my child free friends yes with envy on their freedoms but also pity because half of their heart, their human capacity to feel and experience the world will never be opened up’

i have posted here trying to be positive, trying to be as non-judgemental as I can be because I don’t think it helps answer your actual questions - why don’t people want kids. And then I see something like this and I just get angry and sad because you’re always going to view my life as a half life.

I don’t need to see the colour red, plenty of people have described it to me - including my own mum, who has essentially said look the colour red is great, but if you don’t see it - honestly you have so many other colours to enjoy, it’s just one part of the rainbow.

You can’t see our side either - but I don’t pity you. Please don’t pity me and others who find plenty of fulfilment with what we have.

this is why I bail on MN. Even the CF forum didn’t work - we aren’t allowed any space here