To think all of these people can afford children they just don't want them

[Surgicalprecison]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7x5kl5l8o

These articles on the BBC lately show me people's priorities in life have shifted, they don't want children enough to compromise on their current lifestyles.

not everyone wants them. and that's perfectly okay. it's fine if their reason is that they don't want to shoulder the cost of them. it's fine if they just don't enjoy being around them. it's fine if they prefer pets. it's fine if they don't have the time or the energy they want to have to spare.
it's not an obligation to have children. it's fine not to want to, for whatever reason that is.

that's no more true than the other way around.
lots of people don't want kids. it's not unusual. you can be with your perfect partner, and have a good, steady income and still not want any.

Alot are waking up to this and will not come here with this attitude. And after a period of time they would be entitled to these things.

Yes, I'm still amazed that the media keeps trying to make out it's because of money reasons.

I'm childfree, as are my close friends, and money isn't the reason.

As I've said before, money will stop people having MORE children (ie they will have 2 instead of 3), it doesn't stop them having ANY.

I just don’t get what your question is here, if it’s that people should be having children if they can afford them, then, yes, you’re being totally unreasonable. It’s everyone’s choice and people shouldn’t feel pressured into having children to provide care home staff or anything else! Personal choice!!

how are people NOT contributing by not wanting children. I'm an unpaid carer. I save the country a fortune. others are teachers, helping make sure the next generation are equipped to make things better for society in the future. some volunteer at food banks, to help make it so that children and adults don't go hungry. or working in a high paying job, and paying more in taxes. enot having children doesn't mean you don't contribute to society. that's a horrible way to see other people. we all have different things to offer to society.

Not having children is the best contribution to reducing the effects of climate change due to overpopulation.

Totally unselfish of people to do that. It's far better than throwing a few cardboard boxes in a green bin anyway.

As for care in old age. Don't make me laugh, that is not happening now and we are importing the majority of carers and medics from overseas as we speak. So we are reducing overpopulation in other countries. Win win.

And it is an individual choice. I reckon people want to actually live, not exist these days, and if that means remaining child free, well who can blame them. Procreation is a very expensive business, and unless and until Government policy makes it economically viable, the choice will often be not to do it.

Despite many people on this thread referencing money directly or indirectly (paying for stuff) and (weirdly) on 'Mumsnet' posting this very thing quite regularly.

I suppose for many of us with children we do think we are 'living' as opposed to 'existing' just like those who don't want children feel that supports their idea of 'living' a fulfilling life.

We’re about to have our first and earn exactly this, not far at all from there and know it well / live in an equivalent area in West Yorkshire. I would not call it plenty. We are comfortable ish but live in a modest lifestyle, 2 cars, semi detached home & can realistically probably only afford one unless things change massively. I disagree that house prices are cheap and it’s not about the value of the house itself, more the interest rate. On a 200k property you’re looking at repayments that are in excess of £1000 a month, then all your bills and whatever else.

But migrants are paying in when they’re taking out. Children draw down but don’t pay in for nearly two decades. We don’t have that dead time with migrants.

Yes because that's why people have children!!

People who have multiple rounds of ivf and finally have a baby still consider themselves to have been successful with ivf. So those statistics don't reflect what people mean when they refer to ivf success - they mean 'ultimately had a baby', not 'had a baby after the first embryo transfer'.

This line of response was to a PP who said the country needed children for the economy with some degree of moral superiority. I was just pointing out that she isn’t doing anyone a favour by having children. We can import labour more cheaply than we can produce it.

67% are for people my age (32). For 37 year old it's 50% and a coin flip really (after 3 rounds of ivf). It would never be 0% probability of not having kids with ivf, there was a study which has said that among couples who originally failed to have a baby with fertility treatment, 24 percent went on to have one from a spontaneous pregnancy.

So yes increased probability but no guarantees. People can pay for whatever they want but for any other punt , it would be seen as relatively slim odds. I am going through my fertility journey expecting that there is a good chance there is no baby at all (and I already have a partner!)

Not necessarily. People who have 1 cycle of ivf and then stop cos it's too much/nhs doesn't fund anymore would still consider themselves to have failed at ivf. Ditto for 2

The success is thus calculated per cycle (and cumulatively) as not fair to compare someone who had 1 cycle vs someone who had 3 cycles or someone who had a cycle at 37 vs someone who had a cycle at 30.

Cumulatively if a 31 year old had 3 cycles it is 67%.

You can believe some. I have 3 adult sons. 2 of them don’t want children. The third has one and wants no more. The eldest dumps any girlfriend who tries to change his mind about marriage and children..he’s upfront from the get go. He’s not going to change his mind now, The second married, reluctantly, a woman who already had 2 daughters, one a toddler. He does not want his own. She’s sterilised. The last has one going into secondary school. As the song goes, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Better for the planet if some don’t want children. The population overall needs to drop to match available resources.

The clinics I went to, all private but all showing regulatory body audited results (UK and US), had much better statistics for the older age groups than that but they used genetic testing of embryos to help with the process which the NHS often doesn’t consider to be cost effective. Even with the NHS stats though I struggle to understand the negativity - this is something that gives people the opportunity to have kids who couldn’t otherwise. For what it’s worth Opalfleur2026 I would suggest having a bit more optimism - I know fertility treatment is hard but I personally would have found it much harder if I’d not focused on the positive. Also - most the people I know who have used IVF successfully have been over 40 when you seem to consider it to be basically pointless.

Completely agree.

I think the reverse; it's better if I can see both paths as viable. If I conceive great. If I can't at least I know I tried to do something and as this thread shows, lots of people are happy living childfree lives.

But re the egg freezing woman she isn't like me. I haven't used artificial contraception since I was 22 (actually first had sex when I was 21 and used condoms then)and though I wasn't actively trying to conceive for 8 of them but using withdrawal (22% failure rate), i have had nearly 10 years of peeing on sticks thinking I was probably pregnant. She probably expects she will be pregnant despite the odds while I know that despite the fact I was very irresponsible with contraception throughout my 20s and started ttc as a 30 year old, I am the 10% who had problems. My dh has above average sperm too.

@extendedfamily we live in wakey and earn around that. Our mortgage payments are around £1k per month. We have a 2 and a 7 year old. It’s do-able but for full disclosure we have lots of savings and deliberately staggered the age gap as couldn’t afford 2 in nursery at the same time 🤪. Down south where my DH is from 2 wouldn’t have been affordable.

The migrants you talk of (skilled net contributors) are increasingly seeing the downsides of the UK and looking further afield to the States/Canada where there is better pay.

I'd say if society wants children then they need to provide child care at no cost to parents.

Great. Let's put everyone's taxes up to pay for it then. I assume you're happy to have your tax raised so that the people on here complaining about only earning over 80k can afford to have a child?

So that means men just go with what the woman wants? I suppose maybe... my husband says he always assumed he would have kids because that is just what everyone does but he never actually thought about if he wanted them or not. I've always known I didn't and told him that pretty early on in the relationship and he didn't care too much one way or the other. Now he constantly says how happy he is that we didn't have kids bc the whole experience looks horrible and def not for him. Maybe it would have been diff if he was with someone else but he seems genuine and we have a very good relationship, so no real reason to lie.