I feel like this is so true. You can't just not want kids, people expect that you're going to have some great reason or an amazing career or something. Honestly I just can't be arsed - I make enough money to get on with, I don't work too many hours, I like my life and it's nothing fancy but I also don't really want anything more! I LIKE doing nothing and just relaxing. We don't all need to be out bettering ourselves or changing the world all the time. I have to wonder if some people have kids out of some obligation that they aren't changing the world or having an earth shatteringly important career, so they need to "do something".
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I suppose that’s the whole point - raising children is difficult but having family would be the payoff for making sacrifices. I thought I wanted to adopt children (not babies) because of the way my senior colleagues seem but now I’m doubting myself and feel open to the idea that I’m observing a certain set of people and they don’t represent the reality of most peopleI know quite a few couples in their 50/60s who are child free. They all enjoy their hobbies and spent time going on weekends away etc. I guess they live similarly to parents of the same age as the kids have moved out but they don’t have the grandkids to look after.
For me I’d love the kids in later life, but I don’t want one before it’s like 22
Seeing how my husband and his family are, there is no payoff for his parents. They are no better off in their 50s than they were in their 20s. My husband won’t have anything to do with them and they are both alone.
I personally don’t have a career drive per day. I don’t have any big aims but I also don’t have an aim to have a family.
Today I left for work at 7:20, went to the gym and got home at 8:30. Had dinner and have sat down for an hour. How on earth would I fit a kid in?! I just don’t know how I could afford it.
I struggle with this. My mum is so supportive of me not wanting children but I can tell she would love grandchildren, she never says it as she is too kind and wants me to do what I want, I can just tell the way she is with babies and her friends' grandkids. She can be granny to a dog one day
I'm an only child. I get that some people have siblings who might have kids but think the issue is more around feeling the pressure to give your parents a grandkid.
Me and my husband is, his father has gone on to have more kids but he’s his mums only child.
This is me too.
I actually had some counselling for this and it has helped. I do have some guilt still but I worry less now than I did.
My mother and grandmother are very much part of the reason why I don’t want any, and although I would never tell her I’m sure she wonders. My grandmother was evil so no guilt there!
Same, I explored this in CBT because it was tied into my environmental guilt and my therapist really reassured me about the whole 'but they are desperate for grandchildren' situation.
As an only child, and an only child that is a 'miracle', I did feel enormous pressure. My husband's brother has had two children so he is off the hook.
My Mum's best friend who lives abroad became a grandma a few years ago and she added me on FB. In between her general posts and shares she would post lots of videos and photos about how great it was to be a grandma and my heart broke for my Mum because I knew she would see the same photos and videos.
However, this friend's family really struggled during the Canadian heatwave this year (that wasn't put on FB) and I think this friend did express to my Mum her fear for her grandchildren's future. I think as well as being a caring Mum and wanting me to be happy (see previous posts) I think seeing her friend experience such acute worry about her grandchildren brought it into focus for my Mum.
my Mum has friends who do similar too. Shes the only one who isn’t a grandma and I know this is hard for her.
I have a sister but she doesn’t want children. My Husband is an only child.
Thankfully my parents know I'm not interested in having children, and I have siblings. Though they've never really expressed any interest in being grandparents, they've finally got their empty nest and are off on holiday all the time and having a great time being "childfree" now
My mum is the only one out of her friends who isn't a grandma but thats partly her own fault as she had me and my sister in her 40s.
So all her friends kids are now in their 50s because my mums friends had them when they were in their 20s. Whereas me and my sister are only just 30s
Oh my God I need somewhere to vent. There is an Irish blogger living in NYC who has just bought a white couch. Her thread now has comments like "Jesus I hope she isn't going to have kids any time soon", "oh hope she's going to pop out a 10 Yr old to live with all the white".... Like what the actual duck? The girl is 28 or 29 living in NYC with her boyfriend. Never has she once mentioned that she might possibly be having a baby any time in the near future and people are having a heart attack coz she bought a white couch which isn't suitable for kids!!??!!?? Give me strength!!!!!
ETA now somebody has commented what colour she would paint her non existant nursery! I'm not able! Such weird comments because a female of a certain age about a white couch!!!!!
ETA now somebody has commented what colour she would paint her non existant nursery! I'm not able! Such weird comments because a female of a certain age about a white couch!!!!!
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I know what thread you are talking about because I thought the exact same thing when I saw those comments yesterday! I've heard them made to loooads of women and its always by other women. My cousin decorated her house in a lot of neutrals and whites and every time it gets mentioned my mum literally says she'll never keep it clean "once she has children". Like, my cousin is currently planning her wedding so unlikely to get pregnant anytime soon and has said multiple times before how unfussed she is by kids?!
Yeah I thought the exact same thing when I saw the child comment on the thread. Why would she care about an hypothetical child when this couch fits her needs right and now.
Some women are really backwards
Yeah I hate it when people say ‘oh when they have children…’.
This is me. No shame
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