what is the point of a life without children?

[Mud]

having a morbid moement and wondere how i would feel if I didn't have my 3 for some reason as am too old to have any more

from this perspective fo having kids i really dont see what point there would be in going on if i no longer had them and had no chance of having others

which makes me wonder what is the point of life withoug kids?

My childless to date friends are ace, thoughtful, intelligent, kind, loving, fun etc etc etc etc their lives bring just me a huge amoung of joy and happiness as I'm sure it does lots of other people. They don't need to have children to do that!

its the difference between hedonism and fulfillmet then?

Well apart from what Sophable just posted!

Not at all. Are you not fulfilled by learning, but increasing your knowledge? are you not fulfilled by creating jobs? are you not fulfilled by kindness extended to loved ones and strangers and having the energy to do that? are you not fulfilled by the natural world in all it's fiersome splendour, and the energy and headspace to take a breath and enjoy it?

What about fulfillment through your spiritual life whatever form that takes?

What about fulfillment through reaching your full potential, being as beautiful and lovely inside and out as you can be? And having the energy to do that?

Motherhood is archetypal, ferocious, primal, wonderful, awful, inspiring, soul destroying, it is your heart cracking open in one of the way that we humans are privileged with. It is most certainly not the point of living..not for me.

sorry for appalling typos and grammar and such...

what is the point of life though, that does my brain in

"Motherhood is archetypal, ferocious, primal, wonderful, awful, inspiring, soul destroying, it is your heart cracking open in one of the way that we humans are privileged with. It is most certainly not the point of living..not for me."

but for a lot of women, becoming a mother makes them feel they have fulfilled their potential. for them that is why they are on this earth. no more, no less.

biological imperative to perpetuate the species

All studies show that people without children are - gasp - as happy or - double gasp - happier - than people with them.
Wouldn't be without mine (except for the odd luxury holiday...sigh) and yes, it is amazing and extraordinary to experience the kind of love you feel for your child which would mean you would scramble and fight to the front of the queue to be killed if it meant your child would be saved, but it just isn't true that childless people are miserable and insecure etc.
I have less confidence since having children, I think. and I certainly don't like my body better!

psueds corner - pmsl

Floatinginspace my only difficulty with your point of feeling more alive etc and that you wouldn't have got to the place of learning to be more stable less bored, you or I for that matter simply don't know how we would have been because it didn't happen, I know it might be a lame example but you often hear peole saying, oh I couldn't coe if such a situation happened to me and yet they do and can, we simply don't know what could have been or what will be until it is.

And yes, for ME, having children feels exactly that this is why I am here, the meaning of life. But I was reading about Oprah setting up a school for poor girls in South Africa and sat there with tears streaming down my face at how wonderful it was. I just raise my two. It seems small in comparison

all studies? - oh good lets reference our posts

research shows tht those with children live logner. research also shows that those without children hav hiher rates of depression and stupid hair mistakes

I interviewed someone - a famous wealthy childless woman in her sixties - who was unable to have children. She had a fabulous life but she said that she regretted that she hadn't been able to have a child, but the bonus was that she had the most amazing, passionate, intimate and loving relationship with her husband for about 40 years. She said, 'I would take a bullet for him, and I know with absolute certainty he would do it for me. I am not sure you feel like that so often if you have children' and I thought she was probably right.

I have had the chidren, depression and more dodgy barnets than you could shake a stick at........ where does that leave me?

Like this stuff:
None of us knows, says Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert. People expect that events will have a larger and more enduring impact on them - for good or ill - than they really do, Gilbert's studies find.

"If you knew exactly what the future held, you still wouldn't know how much you would like it when you got there," Gilbert says. In pursuing happiness, he suggests "we should have more trust in our own resilience and less confidence in our predictions about how we'll feel. We should be a bit more humble and a bit more brave."

Kinda what I pointed to at in my ost of 18.59 Aloha although I'm just a lowly trainee psychotherapist and not a distingusihed Harvard psychologist!

It is generally friendships not children that makes old age happier and longer study here

I know some childless people who are insufferably vile, but I think they'd be like that if they did have children and I just thank heaven that they aren't in sole charge of a little person or three.

I also know some people with children who are pretty ropey.

I don't think you have to have children for your life to have a point. It takes away from all the massive achievements of people who are childless - did Florence Nightingale have childminders to worry about in the Crimea, for instance?

I often hear people say something along the line of 'well, I have to do what is best for my family' when it is suggested to them that perhaps a particular action may not be for the greater good.

I can think of many a childless (childfree?) person who has been of enormous benefit to society. How ridiculous to suggest there is no point to life without raising children. How unimaginative.

I like to think that if my children hadn't come along then I could have managed to justify my existence. Can people genuinely not see how they might usefully contribute to society in any other way?