Add the word “necessarily” between “doesn’t” and “prevent” and I’ll agree with you.
But don’t you think it might have a little to do with the sorts of things the parent(s) in question found exciting and rewarding in life prior to having kids?
Yep, I agree in all respects.
Um, one would think that becoming a parent to a severely disabled child might put a damper on that whole exciting travel stuff.
Sure it would. That’s why people generally don’t plan on having severely disabled children. And certainly severe disability is a rare enough outcome that it doesn’t really make a suitable ‘gotchya, why didn’t you think of that, huh?’ to toss at people who are simply saying that parenting doesn’t necessarily mean buying a minivan and resigning the remaining weekends of your life to pee wee soccer.
Do you honestly think that that’s the only reason that parents pester other people about having kids? I don’t. Not for a second.
It doesn’t have to, but it sure seems like it does. 
Now, be fair: some weekends are occupied with play-dates and birthday parties.
It wasn’t till I was 19 or so that I started listening to my parents’ stories of what they did before us. They had ridiculously cool lives! Granted, they were engaged for 5 years and my dad was making good money at the time, so they traveled all over and ate out constantly and had a memorable time doing it. My youngest brother is in high school and they’re finally becoming “people” again, but for 20 years they essentially worked and spent time with us and spent time taking care of us. That’s a huge sacrifice.
So, what IS the reason that people with kids pester other people about having children? They want to see them suffer?
As a parent, I am extremely careful not to urge others to follow my choices. Actually, I try to follow that rule with respect to everything: I don’t tell people they should get married, move abroad, take up music lessons, etc. etc.
I will admit, though, that this takes a little bit of effort on my part - especially because I was so horrified by the thought of becoming a parent for many years, and then when I finally did I saw how fantastic and rewarding it is - nothing at all like the horror I imagined.
Under the circumstances, it does take some self-control not to encourage everyone to become a parent, but my motivation is pure: I really DO think it adds a fantastic dimension to life, and I would love to see other people experience the happiness that I have had.
We all know that urging others to have children, however well-intentioned, is just plain wrong. I didn’t appreciate it when I was childless and others did it to me, and I absolutely do not do it to anyone else now.
But I can’t imagine any other reason for urging people to have kids than wanting to share joy. (I’m leaving out immediate family members - they could have all sorts of twisted motivations.) What ARE these evil forces that you are darkly hinting at?
Cairo, you seem like a genuinely nice person, and I don’t doubt that your motivations would be pure, but there are many people in the world who regret having kids and regret the changes that have been forced on them and are bitter and angry, and some of those people also pester other people to have kids to share the misery, rather than the joy. I couldn’t even speculate on the percentages of good versus bad motivations, but to state that all people who bother other people about having kids are doing it out of good intentions seems unrealistic to me.
Same here; among my friends, having kids is very unusual. Yes, I’m a lesbian, but my lesbian acquaintances are more likely to have kids than the straight ones. My daughter’s 12 and none of my close friends have kids anywhere near her age - most of them don’t have kids at all. (Childless and childfree seem to me to be equally value-ridden).
I thought the OP was more about significant changes in outlook, like, can you have a long-term view just as well via nieces and nephews or unrelated children as you can via your own children? Do children factor into this long-term view at all?
One poster earlier did address this point, but that was only one person and it was very general.
That’s a much more interesting point than the endless rehash of ‘is it better to have children or not?’ The OP didn’t ask that.
Instead, everyone chose to respond to one comment (Leaffan’s, if you hadn’t guessed), which was still being quoted verbatim 178 posts later after a clarification and about 80 responses.
There has certainly been a mix of responses to my question and the general debate about ‘kids or no kids’ which I probably should have expected.
You’ve pretty much got my intention down there, I realize that my life has been structured with the understanding that I will not be having children. I figured other people probably approached their life differently either because they plan to have children or because they know it’s a possibility.
So the reason I should have kids is so someone can keep my useless crap when I’m dead?
Life is only as meaningless, pointless, lonely, directionless, and empty as you make it. I know plenty of childless people who have fulfilling and interesting careers, lots of friends and tons of activities and interests. In many ways, their lives seem a lot more fullfilling than many married and child-full people who seem to have no life outside of raising their children. Unless you are independently wealthy, raising kids is a time consuming and expensive process.
Heh, it is certainly true that you can find a social circle which consists only of people more or less like you - if you have that freedom. No doubt, if I disliked (say) women, I could find a social circle that consisted solely of men.
But there will be some cases, such as one’s own family, where such self-selection will not be possible - you don’t get a choice as to whether or not you have (say) a sister, of you dislike women, or if your sister chooses to have a child, if you dislike children.
The point here is that such a dislike imposes constraints. If you are lucky, and careful, there is nothing stopping you from living within those constraints - but in this very thread was someone lamenting that they were bound to lose touch with their sister because of this very issue. It is unrealistic to expect that everyone has the ability to “live within an arts community” consisting solely of non-parents.
You aren’t reading what I’m writing. I expressly haven’t “judged” anyone who dislikes kids. In fact, I think “judging” people who dislike some subgroup of humanity is a totally futile exercise. If someone dislikes women, of Blacks, or children - in no case should they be judged for it, for the simple reason that one has no concious choice about what one likes and dislikes. I reserve “judgment” for things people do - not “I dislike children”, but “every time I see a child, I kick him or her”. 
My sole point is that having such a dislike is limiting, for the very simple reason that children, and parents, are a common part of our society. You can certainly arrange your affairs so that you never have to know any parents or children - except in public - but doing so is, effectively, limiting your choices.
Everything we choose in life narrows our choices going forward. Choosing not to socialize with children limits one’s social life considerably less than having small children does, after all. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the really good parties are for the grownups.
I still stand by my original statement that for most people life is pointless without kids. On the other hand, I dont mean to imply that most people “*should *” have kids. Lots, if not most, parents are so poor or so incompetent or so dishonest or so selfish or so lazy or so dumb that I dont think they should have had kids.
In other words, its “ok” for your life to be pointless and meaningless, esp if you dont know what you are doing.
I think you missed that she was going to lose touch with her sister, because her sister would soon find HER unimportant, rather than any desire of hers to avoid her sister OR her sister’s children.
The percentage of people who actively “dislike” children is a very very small fraction of people without children. So I guess you could be correct that it is “limiting” for those people; since I don’t know any, I wouldn’t know. Most people who not-like children are just indifferent to them, and many people without children like children a lot.
And there are people who don’t like children, who actually have children whom they clearly loathe, which is sad. And there are parents who only “liked” their children when they were a particular age (usually babies that can’t have their own opinion), and treat them with casual cruelty after that.
It takes all sorts of crappy people to make up this world.
God you must know a tremendous number of entirely pathetic people. Even the Uber-parents I know who are SUPER into kid raising, homeschooling, organic-gardening-for-baby-food-making etc. would not say such an absurd thing.
To be fair, some people’s lives are pointless even with kids. Some people are like, batshit crazy Birthers* and stuff. Some people.
*By which I mean crazy ‘where’s the birth certificate people’, not crazy ‘quiverfull’ people. Although I’m sure there’s some overlap.
Of course. But “dislike” carries with it no benefits, unlike some choices (such as having children). Also, it is often not a “choice” in the sense that one cannot help feeling dislike for some group. To my mind, it is more of an ‘affliction’ to dislike some group or category of person.
Actually, these days I find I enjoy both parties for grownups and parties for the kids. Some events, like birthdays and Christmas, are much more special for the kids, and their enthusiasm is (I find) infectious.