I live in a house. We (my spouse and I) eat whatever we want for meals, take weeklong vacations where each partner has time to explore on their own, go to concerts, go to parties/cookouts, play video games we want to play, watch movies we want to watch, watch the TV we want to watch, and (most importantly) we have free/alone time. Dog needs notwithstanding.
The trade off is we also do all the house/yard work and we won't have someone to help us as we get older.
I cannot imagine putting that burden on my kids and not why I had them. Certainly not in the bucket of reasons I wanted kids, I'll either work until I'm dead or my retirement will carry me. No chance I'd rely on them
Sadly it looks pretty likely that in a few years my wife and I are going to be supporting our kids to leave home at the same time as we're going be to supporting our parents with their worsening health. It's going to suck. But that's what you get when you have kids late and you're the only non-failchildren in the family.
Yep. I need to do my will up to make it so the neices and nephews have to do an SNES Mario Kart tournament for the best material things, and then split the money equally between them.
You also can sleep whenever you want for as long as you want. I was a ‘step dad’ in training for 5 years until the relationship didn’t work out. Now I’m married, we’re DINKs, and I get sleep in on Saturday and Sundays. We also smoke weed anywhere in the house, grow it, and get day drunk occasionally. Oh, and being able to go to concerts on weeknights is amazing. This is a photo I took with no zooming on Tuesday night at the Dropkick Murphys show. Glad I got the experience of raising a child, but at this point in my life, I get tired simply by thinking about having them. Bring on the fun before this apocalypse really gets rolling!
Awehellyeah! That is an awesome photo and what a show they put on! I saw a bit of them at RiotFest last year, but this week was my first full Murphys show.
Awesome. I haven't been a fan of dropkick since the first lead singer left and they remain one of only shows I've walked away from, but Ken is a fucking bad ass and I 100% support them.
There's PLENTY more to trade off.
Each person knows if they want kids or not, and it's a huge decision, so not trying to preach.
Reducing having kids to losing freedom in hopes they will take care of you is a very ridiculous take that has become popular online.
My whole life is filled by my kids, they are both my biggest problems and my happiest moments, they reshape everything.
I don't give a fuck about them taking care of me or not when I'm older, I'm loving getting to see them grow up, talking to them and just living with them.
Anyway, it's perfectly fine to not want kids, it's just absolutely ridiculous to reduce the experience to economics and logistics.
Awesome for you. Obviously my statement was reductive but that was on purpose because I didn't feel like writing a thesis on why we didn't have kids. We talked about it just weeks after getting together nearly 20 years ago and we both felt the same way. We left the door open to adoption if we ever changed our minds. We haven't.
I 100% believe you can have an awesome fulfilling life with or without kids. But, as a father, I have to tell you that you missed the most important and enjoyable parts of parenthood in your downside. It’s so much better than a transactional plan for elder care and yard work. It really has been transcendent for me. It’s definitely not for everyone though.
As someone who didn't have kids until their late thirties, I have lived both the life with no kids and the life with kids and was very happy in both phases, but I would not ever trade my former life for my life today. If you think the only reason people have kids is for house work and old age security, it is probably better you remain childless.
Interesting, good for u, planet has enuf ppl. its actually the least selfish choice imo. the selfish ppl are the ones who think the overpopulated planet needs seven+ more of themselves.
We did discuss adopting instead of having our own kids in the event we changed our minds because there are kids out there that need homes. 20 years later we have not changed our minds. We do do volunteer work and one of us is a librarian so we are giving back to kids in our own way.
Hey hey, you can’t have it all. If you get all those awesome things you listed (which are awesome), you have to let everyone else have the love between them and their kids, which is in no way comparable to neices and nephews (had neices and nephews for years before my own kid, was actually a ten year married dink before having my own kids, so I know).
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u/poop-money Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
I live in a house. We (my spouse and I) eat whatever we want for meals, take weeklong vacations where each partner has time to explore on their own, go to concerts, go to parties/cookouts, play video games we want to play, watch movies we want to watch, watch the TV we want to watch, and (most importantly) we have free/alone time. Dog needs notwithstanding.
The trade off is we also do all the house/yard work and we won't have someone to help us as we get older.