Childless. I work with kids all day. I like them. I just don’t want any of my own.
I teach sculpture at an art camp, and with luck (interview tomorrow) I may be teaching full time at middle school come fall. I think that there are plenty of people out there who find their lives as fulfilling as yours without children. It’s the best of both worlds for me. I get to have an impact on the development of LOTS of young minds, and they get the absolute BEST of me during out time together. They get a quality relationship with an adult who is interested in what they have to say and do without all the family drama, rushing, and squabbling. When I go home at the end of the day, I get to switch out of kid mode and go back to being my full uncensored self, without the obligations and financial sacrifices. I get plenty of hugs and "I love you Mr. Lamp!"s during the day as well!
Your friends sound like my friends before they had kids. One friend in particular complained endlessly about having no time. She didn’t volunteer anywhere, her work was of a nature where she could go home right at 5pm, she lived alone in a small apartment, her version of cooking was microwaving LeanCuisines. I used to look at her and mentally shake my head-me with 2 toddlers, part time job, chronically ill sisters, inlaw issues etc.
I think whatever principle is correct: work (and expectations) expand to fill the time given them (paraphrased). She was ignorant of how much time she really had–which she found out as soon as she had her first child.
I’m not saying you have to reproduce to discover this, just that is what happened to her.
I can tell you my single friends seem, at least to me, to be uncomfortable around children, especially the ones who have determined never to have children. He might feel the same way.
Why not just schedule a Dad’s Day out (w/o the kids)? One day to hang with the old friend isn’t such a bad thing. You may have moved on from your racing days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spare some time to watch him race.
My uncle had just bought this thoroughbreed and was gushing about him and how much he’d cost and blahblah. At one point, as uncle stopped talking just long enough to take a sip of his brandy, one of my youngest cousins (4yo at the time) piped up with “well, my Momma has four kids, you only gots one hoss.”
The silence was solid enough to cut it with a saw, but my mother couldn’t stop grinning all the drive back home.
No, he came here to make himself feel better by flinging crap at other people. There’s nothing wrong with that impulse; I do it in my mind from time to time. But if one does it out loud here, Dopers are going to fling crap right back.
I just want to suggest that it may not be helpful to think of having kids as a “phase” in the sense of something that childless people just haven’t done YET. Some people may opt never to have kids. Some people can’t.
Nah, that doesn’t hold water. Some people never opt to be Religious either. Some folks never go through a nesting-in-a-new-house phase. Just because folks may not encounter it, doesn’t mean it’s not a period of time someone might go through. What I failed to consider was that what I’m feeling is part of a period of time.
And my goal wasn’t to feel better by flinging crap at folks, it was to say ‘hey, has anybody else ever felt like this?’ I fully expected to be called to task for the statements. They’re self centered and not very nice. But it’s in that task calling that you get to see other peoples feelings and other sides to the situation.
Believe me, I have MUCH better targets in my life to go after if I just want to whine an bitch about folks.
As someone who doesn’t have kids and isn’t sure whether we’re going to have them, I still take issue with this line of reasoning. Hobbies are not as meaningful as childrearing, in my opinion, because if everyone on earth decided to give up a specific hobby, society would continue. Not so if everyone decides not to have children. Some of the children of today will be working in nursing homes taking care of you and me in 60 years, so I tend to cut parents a little more slack. It’s not something everyone can opt-out of if we want our society’s infrastructure to continue, so I’m inclined to sympathize with the people raising the next generation. The better a job they do and the more support they recieve, the better everyone’s life is going to be when those kids are running things.
I don’t see my kidless friends’ lives as shallow or meaningless. More unencumbered than mine? Eh, sometimes, but people have spouses or SOs or just really good friends and close family, volunteer organizations that they work for like you do, and probably (hopefully) fulfilling careers where they’re trying to get ahead. If someone were developing their career instead of having kids, kudos to them for not having kids at the same time, 'cause having them (especially for women) frequently dampens that or takes time away from the new rugrats.
I can see being resentful over a godfather’s inattention, but saying that kidless people seem shallow is an overstatement.
With respect to the biological clock, I totally get that - we had our son and I no longer wanted anyone to touch me, less assist in the reproduction process. Ahem. Not so bad now, but urgh. That took a while.
You should be glad that your selfish, busy friend doesn’t have kids of his own. Selfish, busy parents make for bratty children and the world doesn’t need more of those!
I have a godmother and I consider her family, but she was busy during the first half of my life being an alcoholic and then living in Alaska. And she has kids of her own. Now she’s one of the few people who send me birthday cards and I really enjoy that. I don’t feel like she failed me at all.
Have you ever had your boys send your friend notes or pictures? Maybe if he knew more about the boys’ lives he’d be more inclined to want to hang out with them…but that can be better achieved by cute little boys than boring old you.
A couple of points I’d like to address in this thread; in the Cult of the Child world we live in, people have gotten a skewed idea. When you have kids, you don’t become more special to the rest of the world; the only people you are more special to are YOUR OWN KIDS.
As others have touched on, your childfree friends might not be as enamoured of babies and small children as you are. You love them to death; your friends might be tolerating them. When people have kids, they might not realize they are doing this, but their conversations revolve almost exclusively around their kids, and some people are un-detachable from their children - you invite them, you always get them plus their kids. Some childfree people don’t enjoy this as much as you think they should.
Vihaga, I don’t put people who have children up on a pedestal. Having children is almost exclusively a selfish decision; people who have children have them because they want them. I haven’t yet met someone who had kids because they were concerned about the survival of the species.
From my own personal perspective, I get tired of my sister who has two badly-behaved children saying things like, “Gee, I sure wish I had lots of time to do whatever I wanted, too.” “Gee, it sure must be nice to sleep in once in a while.” Yeah, it is. I feel no guilt whatsoever for having a childfree lifestyle. To each their own. My choice to not have kids has benefits and downsides, just like the decision to have kids does.
That’s if you are concerned about the future of the human race.
Besides, I firmly believe every generation has need of childless and childfree couples. It takes a village, you know. Both myself and my SO had single, childless aunts, that did nothing but give us love, and now that we’re adults, we look upon them almost like our mothers. I want to be that aunt. I have never wanted kids and made the choice very early not to have them.
Oh, I agree. Having children is one of those things that not everyone should do, but someone must, if we are to continue and have someone around to take care of us when we’re old. Whether it’s a selfish decision or not, it’s a necessary one for some people to make. No one should feel guilty for not having kids, but I think people who act as though they’re a plague on civilized society are being short-sighted and callous. People can have meaningful lives in many ways, and I certainly think raising children to be contributing and healthy members of society is one of those. I don’t think it makes you some kind of martyr, but I also think it’s a bit more important than a random hobby.
The problem I have comes down to the specifics. In the general sense, sure, most people* out there think the human race ought to continue. So, yes, that is important. It’s when the individual clashes happen - your right to doing X for your kids supercedes my right to do X for myself- that i get annoyed.
Work is an obvious scenario. But I know too many people that are all, “We have kids, and that’s our life now,” and that’s not my life. So I don’t ask them to change, but they expect me to change. So, I withdraw from their sphere somewhat. And then they get mad at me for it. I have no interest in your little people! They are cute but I like adult company!
Well, to keep this from spinning out of control. It’s more important to ‘involve you kids in your life’ rather than ‘make your life your kids’, and there’s no shortage of rabid examples of poor parenting.
I’ve been searching for examples that may not be obvious…parenthood can test you in ways you NEVER thought possible. The biggest problem and fear is that: You’re the parent. Sometimes stuff HAS to happen, and if you don’t do it, nobody else will. There are one or two specific examples that have been indelibly etched in my mind.
One child is in intensive care being treated for the stomach flu and acute dehydration. The other has caught the same bug that has him filling a diaper every 20 minutes, and throwing up if he gets too much liquid. It’s 6 am. I’ve been up with him since 11:45 pm, feeding him a tablespoon of water every 5 minutes. He’s sobbing he’s so thirsty, and I cannot give him anything more than a tablespoon every 5 minutes. And I have to go BACK to the Hospital to see how the first kid is doing.
Do I look down on someone that hasn’t experienced that? Heck no, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Do I wonder when someone bitches about their <insert example that’s really not all that bad here>? Yeah. It happens.
