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.

Patronising nonsense. You're talking as if childfree posters can't even conceptualise love, as if love of one's own children is the only sort there is - you, who derides and cannot apparently understand humans (let's face it, women - men don't get this disapproval) who love other animals.

Having children and/or siblings is no guarantee that that won't happen.

ETA: My drunken arsehole brother disappeared from our lives forty years ago. My sister lives in Queensland. I've recently had to put my mother into care because she had higher needs than any level of home care could manage (and certainly not on my pension).

The only thing that bothers me about living alone (I am in a retirement village) is arranging care for my cats should I have to go into hospital. Other than that, I have friends, and a support network run by the village - rather more reliable than adult children, going by what I hear. Not least since being expected to be an unpaid support worker isn't right either way.

I'm so sorry for your situation. I am also childless, mid-30s and although I have siblings, a niece and nephew, I really don't think that guarantees that I won't be incredibly lonely in the future.

Some people also just don't like them and like having the freedom and money that you lose when you have kids. For us it has nothing to do with being unfashionable, we just couldn't be bothered and I have a load of friends who feel the same way, all of whom are very financially stable (like us).

Yes, I second this. If your life before having kids was so bad that's kind of on you but that's certainly not the case for the rest of us who are blissfully child free. Claiming that people without kids don't have the capacity to feel or experience the world is simply stupid and untrue and seems more like a pathetic justification for your own life choices.

Well, I have a family regardless of not having children, but you’re right that I’m not going to make compromises to accommodate something I don’t want, that I don’t have to have. I’ve got the life I want, why would I deliberately make it a shitshow for myself?

Compared to countries where children are being born to women that, if given a free choice, wouldn’t choose to have them/that amount of children?

Lol, as if consumerism is being presented as the negative in this situation.

@InterIgnis It can be rough for people who don’t have a family though, I think that’s all the poster was saying, that she doesn’t have any family now.

I had a great childhood too. I noticed a lot of people have kids as some sort of "do over" when they had bad childhoods. Obviously not all, some are put off having kids exactly for that reason. But I come across it quite a bit-not necessarily on this thread, but on reddit and places. Some people seem to have a need to "give my kid the childhood I never had" instead of getting therapy. They seem to think raising a kid is a piece of piss (despite the fact their own parents failed so badly at it) and I'm just like that's such a bad reason to have a child to try and work out your own issues through! I mean if that worked we wouldn't have generational trauma would we?

But with me I have no need to do that anyway, I had an idyllic childhood (except for my siblings!) lovely parents and grandparents, and I'm happy with that. And seeing what my parents had to go through thanks to my siblings put me off years ago. They were both pretty lucky to make it out of their teen years due to reckless behaviour and accidents. I genuinely don't know how my parents coped-or my grandparents who were super close to us and worried about us a lot. I don't think you can put a price on never having to worry about getting that phone call. Things calmed down whilst I was growing up as they were much older, but they still continued to cause trouble (still do) so it never really ends.

Agree with this. I find it disturbing how many people seem to have quite severe mental health issues, anxiety, depression or ADHD, autism etc then think nothing about having children and subjecting them to this, and worse usually passing it on. Feel so sorry for the kids!

Do you treat the teenagers who tell you they definitely want to have children one day with the same condescension?

I think being childfree has ALWAYS been cool, it is just now that some people are finding out 😎

As opposed to those glorious countries where women have no choice and no alternative? OK then…

I think you've made an interesting point here.

Although changing slowly, right from maternity leave, women generally do more of the child and house wrangling and yet mostly still need to work. I think this awareness may be affecting some women's choices too.

Until men are required to participate in paternity leave for a sustained period (e.g. some Nordic countries use it or lose it approach) thus hopefully establishing a more gender balanced approach to children and the home, I don't think this will change.

Op, unfashionable is an odd turn of phrase. Children are not commodities, we are talking about human beings, not hand bags. Very capitalist outlook.

With some of the child free content I see online, it can come across as very defensive and at times, attacking. I don't know why some of those people have to denigrate others, ie. People with kids, if they are so content with their own lives. People are diverse and will choose different paths through life, I think this a positive thing. We don't need to tear others down to validate our own choices.

I take it you've never heard of a country called South Korea? You should check its birth rates. They're among the lowest in the world.

Then there are countries like Japan?l, Bhutan and UAE which all have birth rates lower than the UK's. It's not like this data is secret. You could have looked it up before posting what you posted.

'With some of the child free content I see online, it can come across as very defensive and at times, attacking.'

Women who are child free by choice have had to put up with some pretty searing opinions and comments throughout history. Even now, some seem to think it's unnatural, unfeminine, selfish for a woman to admit she doesn't want children.

To see how child-free women are still viewed look no further than Trump running mate JD Vance's recent comments.

It gets wearing. No wonder some people slap back.

I think online communities do have a real tendency to get defensive and turn into a competition of who can outdo each other. You get it with all sorts of communities.

With some of the child free content I see online, it can come across as very defensive and at times, attacking. I don't know why some of those people have to denigrate others, ie. People with kids, if they are so content with their own lives.

Have you read the thread?

It's full of parents saying that people who have chosen to be childfree are selfish, or incapable of love, or don't understand empathy or emotion. We're told there must be something wrong with us, that we had traumatic childhoods or that we just haven't thought it through properly because parenting is so wonderful.

I would personally have no need to defend myself if people didn't consistently post offensive shite about my choices 🤷‍♀️ I'm very happy to be child free but when you constantly read things about how much of an awful person you are, it's no wonder people clap back 👍

@sunsetsandboardwalks and we're being told on this thread there's no other sort of love, that only the love of one's own children has Real Meaning and Opens The World, while at the same time, by the same poster, being sneered at for loving other species.

Make it make sense ...

Well yes, when you're childfree and are told you're selfish, lacking emotion or empathy, are incapable of true love etc. it does get a bit wearing and it's no wonder people get defensive.

I answered upthread about why I personally didn't want children and was very patronisingly asked whether I'd thought about the positives - like I was some kind of idiot who was incapable of making a decision!

Exactly.

I've also noticed that the parents have insulted the actual personality or the childfree, but it's not happened the other way around.

Yet they're the ones saying we don't understand love or empathy 🙄

And also your love for your partner is nothing special, it’s conditional and partners can always be replaced…..

ODFOD.

And yes, I have children. Not experiencing having children is the same as not experiencing other things, like going to Australia or breaking a leg. People who haven't done those things will never fully understand what it's like. But please don't insinuate that you're somehow a better human being because you have procreated.

Nailed it.

On a personal level it doesn’t really matter if people have children or not and I doubt that many people give much thought/care about whether someone has kids or not, but at a societal level a falling birth rate is a real problem.