# Not having children and your outlook on life **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 5, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075 "2010-10-05T01:54:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/121 "2010-10-07T03:29:25Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > What is the long term gain? I really don’t see it. > > I can describe the way I feel about it. It’s largely emotional, which is why parents and childfree people have such a hard time communicating. > > For me, the long term gain is when you see your child become a productive member of society, so you know you have done your part in the great circle of life. I might even go stronger and say that I will have done my duty in the great circle of life when that happens. > > There’s a sense of wanting to pass something on to the next generation: knowledge, family history, culture, etc., that is very strong in people who want children and very weak in childfree people. And that I think is the big difference between them. Or being too stupid to use a condom. Or thinking a baby will make your abusive boyfriend stay with you. Or a cute little baby would bring you lots of attention. Or God wants you to be a brood mare. Or it’s just what married people do. Not a comment on you, and I am not a child-free activist or anything, but what you describe is the _ideal_ for parents. And also found in child-free people (ever met any gay male artists or philanthropists without hope of adoption?). ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/122 "2010-10-07T05:29:30Z")
> [@RedBloom](#): > > \ I have no problem with people choosing to be child-free, but don’t expect people to be jumping for joy because of your noble decision to do whatever you want/whenever you want/however you want - that’s not my philosophy on life and frankly, I find it terribly boring.\ I find it very strange for you to say that, since my husband and I (both childfree by choice) and the majority if not all of the other people in our childfree by choice social group basically just want to be left alone with our personal decision not to have kids (and not have other people’s decision to have kids impact us too much). We almost universally don’t volunteer the information that we are childfree by choice; you’ll never know that we are unless you specifically ask us, because we’ve had those arguments far too many times. > [@rayxi](#): > > I find it interesting that many of the posts from the “childless” camp have referred to issues they had with their own parents. Not drawing any conclusions, just making an observation. Childless or childfree? They’re two different things. Childless people want them and can’t have them; childfree people aren’t interested in having kids. ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/123 "2010-10-07T05:42:10Z")
[QUOTE=Cat Whisperer] Childless or childfree? They’re two different things. Childless people want them and can’t have them; childfree people aren’t interested in having kids. [/QUOTE] What I meant was “choosing to not have children”. I intentionally avoided the use of “Childfree”. The term “Childfree” is used by people who consider children a burden and use it in same sense as the term Debtfree or Carefree. That couldn’t be further from the truth IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/124 "2010-10-07T05:42:21Z")
And then there are the people who like kids and feel strongly that they should be raised properly… and know in their heart of hearts that they’d be bad parents, so they choose not to have them. ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/125 "2010-10-07T05:54:28Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > And then there are the people who like kids and feel strongly that they should be raised properly… and know in their heart of hearts that they’d be bad parents, so they choose not to have them. Absolutely agree with that. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. We all hear about or know parents that should have been smart enough to make that very same assessment and decide not to have kids. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/126 "2010-10-07T07:00:53Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > My dad was a very abusive guy. He may ave wanted me to have kids as a form punishment – for me. > > Heh, I must admit, that’s not an angle that occurred to me. 😃 When her children managed to make her patience run out, my father’s mom would look up to Heaven and declaim “my grandchildren shall avenge me!” Dad said that, once he became a parent, that line started making perfect sense. Someting that amazes me about this thread is that many people think of not having children as a choice… I didn’t go and choose not to have children. If certain parts of my life had gone a different way, I would have had kids (or tried, fertility isn’t guaranteed, as many posters here have suffered in their own flesh and bones). But I wasn’t crazy enough about kids, partly from having co-parented my two brothers (I’ve done the “stepping on Legos” part, and the “explain about the birds and the bees” part, and the “help with homework” part, and the… heck, they didn’t ever go to Mom and Dad when they had nightmares, they came to me!), partly from coming from a line of bad mothers, to go and either have a kid with a completely inadequate father, a father who was a nice guy but with whom I just couldn’t communicate properly, or from a sperm bank, which basically were the options I would have had. It’s not as radical as speaking of sexual orientation as a choice, but for many of us who haven’t bred, it wasn’t much of a choice, it’s the way the dice rolled. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/127 "2010-10-07T11:11:55Z")
> [@rayxi](#): > > [QUOTE=Cat Whisperer] > Childless or childfree? They’re two different things. Childless people want them and can’t have them; childfree people aren’t interested in having kids. What I meant was “choosing to not have children”. I intentionally avoided the use of “Childfree”. The term “Childfree” is used by people who consider children a burden and use it in same sense as the term Debtfree or Carefree. That couldn’t be further from the truth IMO. [/QUOTE] Children are by definition a “burden.” You and others feel that burden is worth the ultimate results, and that’s fine. I (and others) don’t. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/128 "2010-10-07T11:20:32Z")
Having the freedom to not sweat the small stuff, which IMHO, almost all parents do at some point in their life. Who cares that the kids haven’t made their beds the “right” way? Or that a kid wants to wear two differently colored socks or paint his nails black? Or that a kid would rather take karate lessons than piano? Or that the teacher gave your second-grader a B when you think she deserve an A? Or that Sesame Street has a puppet character with AIDS, or Harry Potter is his biggest hero instead of Jesus? The things parents worry about…I’ll never understand. I’m very glad I don’t have to have such weighty things on my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/129 "2010-10-07T13:24:54Z")
> [@rayxi](#): > > I find it interesting that many of the posts from the “childless” camp have referred to issues they had with their own parents. Not drawing any conclusions, just making an observation. My parents are great. They raised me well and I still have a good relationship with them. No issues there at all. I’m childless by choice. Since my early 20s, I’ve had good jobs, good mates, everything was in place that I could have had a kid, paid for it with little hassle, and raised it well at any time. And I always expected that I would someday. The thing is… I’ve never been a kid kinda person. Never really liked babysitting, never ooohed and aaahed over babies, in general I just was never drawn to kids. I had this idea that sometime in my 20s or early 30s, something would happen to me that would make me really, really want kids. It sure seemed to happen to other women. All of a sudden friends with whom I’d spent the past few years partying and goofing off and just being silly suddenly deciding “I NEED A KID NOW!!!” So I waited. Surely at some point I’d get the bug. When I was in my early 30s, we moved across the country to be closer to my family. Perfect time to have a kid! I wasn’t working, my husband was great, my parents were salivating at the idea. But… I still didn’t have the bug. The idea of being pregnant repulsed me. Holding an infant was something other people did, not me. Staying up late, taking care of a kid? Nope, I’d rather stay up late playing video games or socializing with friends. Around age 34 or 35 hubby and I gave the whole thing some good thought, as I was getting older. Should we? He was up for it if I wanted one, but he didn’t need a kid on his own. I still couldn’t get my head around it. Somewhere between age 35 and 38 or so, I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t muster even the slightest bit of excitement over having a kid, and that was something I needed to listen to. The only real thing that scared me a little bit was the “who will take care of me when I’m old” thing. But as mentioned above, having a kid doesn’t guarantee that someone will be around when you’re old, or even that it’s a good thing. I’m currently watching my mother in her 70s ruin her own health taking care of my grandmother in her 90s. I’m next on the list - I’ll be taking care of my own parents as they age - and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. (of course I’ll do it - I love them both and would never see them suffer if I can help it - but I have no blinders on as to how much work it will be) So there we have it. This is the right decision for me, and I don’t worry about it at all anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/130 "2010-10-07T13:39:43Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Well now, that’s just kind of insulting. I spend all day at my computer programming job, which involves pretty sophisticated communication, without mentioning my son at all most days. I have coworkers with kids. I have very little idea whose kids play soccer and whose kids are graduating high school and whose kids just started to walk. I know the son of the woman two cubes down from me is going to Stanford - but it isn’t like she tends to talk about it unless you ask how he is doing there (miserably, by the way, he got a B!). In a lot of cases, I know they are parents, but couldn’t tell you gender. ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/131 "2010-10-07T15:48:57Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > Children are by definition a “burden.” You and others feel that burden is worth the ultimate results, and that’s fine. I (and others) don’t. I strongly disagree. By your logic anything that requires effort is a burden. Do you consider living as a burden? That requires considerable effort. BTW, children by definition are the offspring of parents. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/132 "2010-10-07T16:00:33Z")
> [@rayxi](#): > > I strongly disagree. By your logic anything that requires effort is a burden. Do you consider living as a burden? That requires considerable effort. > > BTW, children by definition are the offspring of parents. um…my son is not my offspring. He is my child. My daughter, on the other hand, IS my offspring. Offspring being the product of my reproductive process. On the other hand, my husband’s bio sister is his mother’s offspring, but my mother in law doesn’t think of herself as her parent, as she was adopted as an infant. ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/133 "2010-10-07T16:02:08Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > My parents are great. They raised me well and I still have a good relationship with them. No issues there at all. It’s great that you have a good relationship with your parents. Obviously you have other equally valid reasons for your choice. I certainly didn’t put forth my observation as a blanket statement that applied to everyone. > [@Athena](#): > > I still couldn’t get my head around it. Somewhere between age 35 and 38 or so, I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. > … > So there we have it. This is the right decision for me, and I don’t worry about it at all anymore. A very sensible attitude I might say. It certainly makes more sense than vilifying children and the whole idea of having a family. ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/134 "2010-10-07T16:06:35Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > um…my son is not my offspring. He is my child. My daughter, on the other hand, IS my offspring. Offspring being the product of my reproductive process. > > On the other hand, my husband’s bio sister is his mother’s offspring, but my mother in law doesn’t think of herself as her parent, as she was adopted as an infant. Ok, if you want to nit-pic. children by definition are the offspring of biological parents. Happy now? 😛 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/135 "2010-10-07T16:14:23Z")
> [@rayxi](#): > > > [@Athena](#): > > > > My parents are great. They raised me well and I still have a good relationship with them. No issues there at all. > > It’s great that you have a good relationship with your parents. Obviously you have other equally valid reasons for your choice. I certainly didn’t put forth my observation as a blanket statement that applied to everyone. > > > [@Athena](#): > > > > I still couldn’t get my head around it. Somewhere between age 35 and 38 or so, I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. > > … > > So there we have it. This is the right decision for me, and I don’t worry about it at all anymore. > > A very sensible attitude I might say. It certainly makes more sense than vilifying children and the whole idea of having a family. I don’t vilify children. I just don’t like them, and I see them as disease vectors. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![rayxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rayxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayxi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/136 "2010-10-07T16:27:02Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I see them as disease vectors. 😛 LOL. The same could be said for the human population as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/137 "2010-10-07T16:27:35Z")
I’ll ignore all the parental sanctimony and address the OP. Although I majored in having a desk job, I am abolutely miserable sitting at a desk all day, every day. Fortunately I have a job that involves a fair amount of travel. One potential opportunity that’s come up (if the customer accepts the quote) is the possibility of teaching a a couple of CAE courses in Denmark. If this goes through, I’ll be the one teaching the class, because 1) I really want to and 2) I don’t have any family obligations. My long-term goal is a job with even more travel and perhaps a year or two living overseas (fortunately my girlfriend is up for this as well). I am possitive I would not even be able to consider these aspirations if I had to worry about hauling kids around, where they were growing up, their stability etc. I’m thankful that I can pursue goals that many parents feel they can’t. And I could’ve written Athena’s post almost word for word with the genders, of course, switched. Concerning the side discussion going on in this thread, this is a good read: [Bolivia. | The Fluent Self](http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/bolivia/) ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/138 "2010-10-07T16:50:20Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > There’s a sense of wanting to pass something on to the next generation: knowledge, family history, culture, etc., that is very strong in people who want children and very weak in childfree people. > > Uh-huh. I might recommend you don’t sit there and assume you know everyone else’s motivations. It’s really arrogant. I guess I overstated it. I apologize. I’ll just speak for myself. Family is very important to me, more important than anything else. My parents are Holocaust survivors. That is fundamental to my philosophy of life. My child is proof that Hitler did not completely succeed. He can be the start of generations of such proof. That’s certainly not the only motivation for me to have a child. But it’s a reason that I feel it is my duty to have a child regardless of any inconvenience it may cause. But as it turns out, it is a lot of joy as well. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/139 "2010-10-07T17:13:21Z")
> [@rayxi](#): > > > [@jz78817](#): > > > > Children are by definition a “burden.” You and others feel that burden is worth the ultimate results, and that’s fine. I (and others) don’t. > > I strongly disagree. By your logic anything that requires effort is a burden. Do you consider living as a burden? That requires considerable effort. Burden: that which is borne with difficulty; obligation; onus: the burden of leadership. You’re applying a negative connotation to the word which it doesn’t have. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075/140 "2010-10-07T17:42:26Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > > [@rayxi](#): > > > > I strongly disagree. By your logic anything that requires effort is a burden. Do you consider living as a burden? That requires considerable effort. > > Burden: that which is borne with difficulty; obligation; onus: the burden of leadership. > > You’re applying a negative connotation to the word which it doesn’t have. Words have meaning in context. Obviously, saying “children are a burden” is intended in exactly the same sense as “my life is a burden to me” - that is, with a _negative_ connotation, in the context of this conversation about the difference between the meaning of “childless” and “childfree”. The implication is that the “childfree” are “free” of the “burden” of having children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-having-children-and-your-outlook-on-life/556075.md?page=8)