I am one of the weird humans that are happy to not be grandparents.

I turned 60 this year.

Only one of my three wants kids. I’m fine with it.

Two of my kids now have 2 kids each. Nothing in my life prepared me for or anticipated the joy of watching my own kids as parents.

Jf

It's easy to not be concerned about having children until you are in a good position to do so. I don't know a single person who regrets having children, and quite a few who regret remaining childless.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
It's easy to not be concerned about having children until you are in a good position to do so. I don't know a single person who regrets having children, and quite a few who regret remaining childless.

Quite a few of my friends have confided to me that they bitterly regret having children. There is such a taboo against admitting this, very few people ever will.

I badly wanted children of my own when I was younger. The feeling eventually passed (with the hormones, no doubt). I am now very glad I did not have any, and plenty of my child-free friends feel the same.

We've all had plenty of great experiences co-parenting other people's children. That was enough. No more.

If you really think about it, it's a biological urge, and doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever to procreate in today's world. The human population is doomed to crash. It would torment me no end to think of my children and grandchildren suffering through that.

I can see some of what that article describes playing out in my own family.

I'm 76. I have five children. I have two grandchildren. My youngest son and the father of my one granddaughter might possibly have another child, but I don't really anticipate any other grandchildren as two of my children are unmarried and one who is married has not expressed any wish to have a child.

I am sometimes envious of people who have more grandchildren.

Big Al

It's such a personal choice. I was a bit on the fence about having kids initially, decided to do it, and have never once regretted it. My kids are the highlight of my life. But I also know folks who are very happily childless, or regret having had children.

I think it's great that there seems to be a societal swing that is more accepting of childless by choice. But it does make me sad that many people feel their choice is limited because of an overall feeling of helplessness about the future.

For my kids, I think one will most likely have kids, the other is less sure, and part of their indecision has to do with concerns about the planet's survivability during their hypothetical kids' lifetime.

I’m an only and my kid is an only. Right now, he has no plans to have kids and I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of never being a grandparent. However, I always said I didn’t want kids and was eventually convinced. I didn’t grow up with the idea of “when I’m a mom”. Maybe I’d feel differently if I grew up in a large family.

I never thought I'd want to have kids. Then I had kids, and I couldn't imagine my life without them.

What I want for them ... is whatever they want. If they want to have kids, and that will make them happy, great. If they don't want to have kids, and that will make them happy, great.

Strangers would tell my wife and I that they wished they had never had kids.
We were a gay alcoholic and a manic-depressive alcoholic. Not having kids was the smartest thing we did.

I went to a graduation party in July. My brother’s kids - 5 years of high school and they each (they’re twins) graduated with 2 AA degrees.

I got to talk with some of their friends, most of whom were already in college. STEM majors, working on all kinds of important stuff and they’re absolutely passionate about all of it.

The kids are all right. The future will be too.

I always knew I wanted kids, and they have been the highlight of my life that I'd hoped they'd be. Muffin's Brother and Sister have two children each, and Muffin's Sister is acquiring a third by marriage, and I love seeing them parent my grandchildren.

Honestly, though, one reason I enjoy that so much is that I love seeing my children move about in the world as competent adults (or at least as competent as any of us are), so I would have been fine if they'd decided not to have children. It's not my choice. I think Muffin will make the same decision, but I'm happy either way.

If you think much about the state of the world, it has always been a terrible place to bring children. At least we have penicillin now. But there are environmental and societal considerations around population growth these days, and perhaps I was selfish to ignore those.

My excuse is that I was young and stupid.

On the plus side, Muffin's Sister is making sure kids get fed, Muffin is helping kids learn, and Muffin's Brother is helping design power generation turbines that presumably produce energy with less environmental impact than in days of yore.

Came across news article citing the Brooking Institute’s new estimate for the cost of raising a child: $311 per child from birth to age 17, assuming the child was born in 2015 to a two-parent, two-children household. Call it $18k-ish per child per year.

That was essentially based on the USDA’s 2015 number of $234k per child. Brookings added inflation adjustments.

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/...ts-inflation-parents

What does $311k mean for the average American household? Somewhere between 4 to 5 years of median household income, perhaps the cost of a single family house all paid in cash (no mortgage), or two four-year private/out-of-state college degrees?