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.

I also keep saying things like “not choosing” to have kids, I would and have chosen not to have them because it’s not compatible but it’s more than that because I still have no feeling of “need” or “desire” to have kids if that makes sense? I don’t feel like it’s 100% my choice if I don’t feel anything?

Perhaps if I felt the “NEED” to have them I might have had them? Who knows? All I know is they aren’t compatible with how I like to live and at the same time I don’t have a biological urge either so it feels like the decision has been made for me.

Added this to the bottom of previous post

I just don't see why a blood relative would be more likely to step up and support me than someone I've chosen to have in my life.

I barely speak to any of my relatives except my parents and a couple of aunts - not because we've fallen out or because we hate each other, but because we have nothing in common except blood. They're not bad people but they're just not people I would choose to spend time with.

My friends are far, far more likely to step up for me than anyone else. And that means more to me because they've chosen to support me, they don't feel obligated to because of "blood".

I think even if you have good friends, most of them will prioritise and spend time with immediate family over friends.

I haven't used the term 'bizarre' or insisted anybody is 'wrong'. I have simply expressed the view that the same argument is seldom applied to very young girls who express a desire to have children. I have, in fact, never heard the equivalent said of a teenager expressing a strong desire to have children. Cautions to wait a while before actually having them, yes, but never a suggestion that at such a young age they can't possibly know that this is something they definitely want.
I'm 50, with plenty of life experience of my own and not completely child free by choice, and I still stand by the fact that it is just as possible to know you don't want children before the age of 25 as it is to know you want them. I don't deny that people change their minds about not wanting kids. I just want to hear some acknowledgement that the same is true the other way about. The fact that you haven't come back to me with, 'I'd say the same thing if she'd expressed a strong insistence on wanting to be a mother' implies that you, like many others, only consider not wanting kids as a juvenile idea that might change, not the other way about.

Yes this is true

Humans are very adaptable. With an increasing number of people choosing not to have children, there will be more people in the same situation that will focus on building communities and support networks not based on shared blood. The internet also opens up the works considerably in this respect.

The risk of being lonely when older isn’t personally enough for me to spend years of my life doing something I have zero interest in, that I would resent. I doubt that would result in me having much in the way of company in my dotage anyway.

I suspect many people form friendships with people who are similar to them, though.

My family all live overseas and I could walk past most of them in the street and not even notice, and a lot of my close friends are similar in that they live away from family (or just aren't close to them) and therefore don't really prioritise that relationship.

If I had children and lots of siblings (and friends) with children who all lived nearby, I suspect my experience would be very different.

Exactly this. My close group of friends are child free and not hugely family orientated. We are each others family.

Maybe not if they too do not have family. I have a friend who, like me, is an only child and doesn't have children. We are very important to one another. I am trying to find more friends in the same position too. It's a bit like trying to find the siblings and wider family you never had.

Yep, I'm exactly the same with me. Some do have grown up children but they're not in that young, intense phase of small children anymore so have a lot more choice and freedom etc.

Very true about the internet. Through a friendship app, I have managed to make a good friend who also has no family. We are now very important to one another.

I do wonder where people meet others like this. Trying to arrange a group meet up with my friends is virtually impossible... person A has their cousins hen do on the weekend, person B has their parents anniversary dinner, person C is babysitting their niece etc etc

It's a very lovely stroke of fortune - we've all been friends for 20 odd years, and a large amount of us didn't have children by choice. I have wonderful friends from this group who also have children, so I think we were just all very lucky to find each other!

It takes time and some luck no doubt. But it can be done. Friendship apps have been working well for me.

Not really. I know lots of women having their fourth child 🤣

I’m regularly suggesting to my kids that they don’t have kids themselves. I think I’m not the only parent to think similarly. It’s so bloody hard and the world is such a hopeless mess. I think they’d be happier just living hedonistic, selfish lives and not worrying about offspring.

I do think some people actively want the childfree to be lonely, as a deserved punishment for daring not to do the same as them (and also so they can use it as a warning to anyone else that may consider it). I also think there’s a resentment, again by some not all, of those that are seen to have ‘cheated’ at life by avoiding the hardships of parenting, and/or by living exactly as they have wanted to.

What do you think though, is it just a myth that birth rates are dropping?

I get that impression too. There are certain posters who come to every single thread about children / only children / family sizes etc to tell us that:

We will be lonely
We will feel cast adrift
Friends cannot be family

I don't know what they want us to do. End our lives now to avoid all loneliness and misery which is coming down the line for us.

I agree. Some people are just desperate to say "I told you so!"

If people aren’t having kids to fit in with a perceived fashion- they aren’t the sort of people who should be having them anyway!!

They want us to have children and the same experiences as them. To validate that they’re right and have chosen the correct way to live.

It does read like ‘how dare you be happy? There’s a finite amount of happiness in the world, and I’m the one that’s sacrificed! I’m the one that deserves it!’.

Personally, I don’t understand worrying about what other people are doing with their own lives if I’m happy in mine.

I actually met most of my friends through our dogs.

We live in an area with 4-5 popular dog walking spots and most people tend to walk their dogs at the same everyday, in the same general area. So we get talking via the dogs, and then if they get on, we arrange to meet up at other times so the dogs can play and socialise.

That then evolves to going out for coffee etc. after a walk and then the friendship develops from there. I tend to walk my dog during the school run time as that fits with my day, so it just so happens that the people I meet are also child free and also not doing the school run.

We now meet up independently of the dogs and go for breakfast, or dinner, or on a day out, or we meet up with the dogs for a day at the beach etc.

I totally agree.

I also think a lot of people (whether they admit it or not) become parents because it's normal, iyswim. So many people follow the path of "go to university, get a job, buy a house, settle down and have a family" without really thinking about whether they actually want those things.

I fell into the trap of "A-levels, university" and in hindsight it really wasn't the right path for me, but it's what my parents did and what all my friends did so I did it too.

I often think the child free but way more thought into their choice.

And heaven knows there are plenty of parents who really shouldn't have had children.