“..and I’m really getting tired of the modern couple with kids and their pretentious, smug, and prejudiced attitude about other couple’s choices of not having kids.”

Amen to that! I hate people asking me when I’m going to have kids. I’m not. It’s not my dream in live to procreate. And should I ever feel the urge to have kids, there are so many children in this world who need good homes. With THAT said, I do feel bad for people who can’t have children, but to not adopt because you can’t is COMPLETELY selfish and arrogant. Your genes are not so amazing that the world will end if you don’t reproduce. Make a difference in a child’s life. Be UNselfish and open your home to someone already in need of your love.

“As for other reasons for being childless: Maybe, God forbid, they know that they are not cut out for the task, no matter how they slice it and take the responsibility of passing and being the best supporter of the extended family unit they can be. You rather have a couple who are terrible parents because it’s “required” in some way that they need to breed?”

I know that I am not cut out to be a parent…not because I’d be a bad one, but because I have seen a lot of bad things in this world, and wouldn’t want to bring a child into it. Besides, if you don’t like kids, crying, screaming, pooping, whining, vomiting…why put yourself through that? Or why put your significant other through that? It lasts forever. You con’t just give a child back if you decide it’s not for you. Unfortunately, not more people think about these things before popping out a few babies. And what about the burden it places on society if you can’t afford to pay for your little bundles of joy? Why should, one who has consciously made the decision to not have kids, pay for yours? THAT definitely causes misery.

“..they couldn’t find anyone who regretted having kids, although there was an abundance of people who regretted NOT having kids.”

I would have to think this is a little biased. I mean, did you talk to the teenagers who had babies at 15 and 16? Or the drug addicted women who got knocked up? Do we honestly think they didn’t regret their choices? C’mon. Again, should I ever feel the need to care for a child, I can adopt…even when I’m old and grey.

I am not some wacko, pretentious, selfish whatever because I don’t think everyone should have kids. I definitely don’t think it should be pressed upon me to do my “womanly duty” and have what one of you so colorfully called a f**k trophy…which sometimes it seems that is what children are to some people.

I am not ending the human race because I don’t want kids. I think those baby makers that pop out a few will cover for me.

It is difficult. It can be very unpleasant, but so are a lot of things that people find rewarding. Standing in the cold to buy concert tickets or delayed muscle soreness from exercise come to mind.

This sort of analysis applied to healthy/unhealthy lifestyles would probably rate a rich, fat opium addict with no supply problems as happier than a fit triathlete with varied interests and a challenging and stressful job. Sometimes your kid gets sick or gets lippy or even crashes the porsche. These things can be upsetting, but I don’t think they nullify the happiness. Far from it. This economist needs a new model for his assesing happiness.

A few years ago I worked for a woman who always ragged on her daughter, always exclaimed she didn’t know what she was going to do with her, had constant fights, all in later elementary school years. Of course the girl got older and the rift between them widened, but I really think part of it was that the mom just gave up and decided that it would be a rocky relationship and based everything around that. And she was miserable as a result.

By the way, I eschew parenting books and the miserable mom read every single one she got her hands on.

As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns.

Speaking as the parent of two children (whom I love dearly):…I hope researchers didn’t spend a lot of time on figuring these things out.

Really?

@8 “So, just to be clear, people without children are selfish….”

@9 “Not selfish, per say. Pretentious.”

Having kids hijacks a person’s brain. This is well known and makes sense. Priority shift. It seems to often times result in righteous indignation that others would choose otherwise. Dunno bout all that.

Oh yeah, and correlation is not causation. If it appears more dumb people are having kids and smart people are choosing not to, it maybe because not having kids leaves one more time to better oneself.

I am being restrained. I was also angry at the tone and implications of the original comment (@4).

I’m not implying that people with children will be less intelligent or well developed as a rule.

Peace out.

That said I should have thought long and hard before involving my sweet librarian wife in a breeding scheme resulting in a house jammed full of brilliant spaz kids with my very dominant ADHD gene.

Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.)

I love being a parent, but parenting sucks. I’d much rather cook, shop, exercise, nap(!) and vacuum than parent (in the sense of the word as a verb). Parenting is exhausting and it makes you do things you’d rather not. It is hard work disciplining a kid without losing your temper.

Being a parent is one of the best things in my life.

I wonder how much of the parenting misery is due to the neurotic pace, fear-mongering and resentment that comes from trying to keep up with OTHER parents’ antics. I’m already avoiding parenting sites and blogs because most of them are judgmental TOXIC whine-fests, with non-stop feuding, shrieking and one-upmanship. It seems the ‘parenting culture’ is all about tearing each other to shreds!

You’re a bad mother if you work full-time, you’re a disgusting cow if you breastfeed in public, you’re a nutcase if you stay at home, you’re a neglectful criminal if every inch of your home isn’t covered with little plastic baby-proof doodads… This is all from the mouths of parents to fellow parents! Many parents feel they have to wallow in that environment, make ‘new parent’ friends, listen to every armchair advice, read 1500 “you don’t know what you’re doing” books, keep the house Martha Stewart-clean and get your kids in advanced schools by the time they’re 3…

I’ll do like my own mother and avoid that crowd like a zombie plague. It did wonders for her (and me).

Then, there’s the no-kids people who ASSUME that your kid will, by default, be a monstrous, loud, obnoxious, stupid parasite who will ruin the Earth and trample their flower beds (I dunno, I was actually a very quiet, nice kid, never wrecked anyone’s lawn, and my carbon print is pretty darn low… Why couldn’t my offspring be also a good person?)

But I’ll say we’ve personally been luckier with that crowd. We’ve only had one set of friends who, over dinner, talked at lenght about how they’d never have kids, that they couldn’t understand why anyone would want the mess, the indignity and the noise, how awful kids generally are… We still don’t know if it was one of those “oh, but not YOUR kid” conversations or if it meant we wouldn’t be invited for BBQ again for the next 18 years :-/

Kids might suck sometimes, but adults are pretty tough competition in that area.

Although I did giggle at the fact that those people think I’m going to sneak into their bedrooms, put a gun to their heads, and make them make babies. Who do they think I am, Warren Jeffs?

Who do you think is going to be footing your social security check when you come of age? Unless we figure out a way to humanely start eating our children, the least they can do for us is start adding to the community coffers when they come of age.

And, yeah, I am a parent.of two juicy, juicy, delicious looking roast, er I mean, children.

This is a theory I’ve had for a while. When rats are kept in too small a cage, they will eat their young, rather than raise them.
It seems very likely that people raised in a high-density environment would not develop the urge to become parents, or would be born gay.

However, I’m not sure it holds up – ’cause some of the most populous areas on the planet (Mumbai & Mexico City, say), are actually not chock-full of happily child-free couples and great gay communities (AFAIK).

Either way, I know I’ve never had the urge to have children. I don’t see how it is rewarding or desirable. There are already more than enough people having children, so people who take issue with me for that are a bit baffling. If I die alone, so be it – sounds more peaceful than having a bunch of people bothering me in my extremity!

—

“Well the only thing that irritates me is the lack of compassion many childless couples have towards families with small children. Small children are incredibly annoying at times, so I can understand, but they are also an essential component of a functioning society, so sorry if my cranky kid spoiled your little date at the table next to me, but please get over it, because you won’t be complaining some day when their salary is paying your social security check, JERKS! ;)”

Sorry, but this is just obnoxious as hell. Your child does not have the right to ruin everyone else’s time – and for that matter, shouldn’t be AT a restaurant until they are old enough to behave as is considered appropriate in a restaurant.
It’s all about age-appropriateness – would I complain about a loud child at the circus? No. At the opera? Yes! At a romantic restaurant? Definitely yes!
Stuff like this is why many childfree individuals perceive parents as selfish, inconsiderate jerks. I know most aren’t. Most parents will instantly get up and take a crying child outside – and thanks to them! :-)

One more thing – I absolutely do know parents who have admitted to me, privately, that they were sorry that they chose to have children. These people were not bad or unloving parents. And it’s not a regret they would voice publicly, or let their kids know about. But it does happen.

So that’s quite a lot of assery in this thread.

Count your blessings.

I am reminded of the scene in Idiocracy where the woman of the “smart” couple says, “We couldn’t possibly have children now, not with the market the way it is.” For those who haven’t seen the movie, it is for reasons like this that “smart” dies out to be replaced by a society of idiots, logic being that the dumb produce unfathomable amounts more offspring than the smart. A classic case of smarties being too smart for their own good.

I’m all for reducing population. I think people having more than 3 kids (on purpose) is dumb, too. We don’t want to breed more than we can feed. But, too many people getting a negative view of having children will put a burden on society as well. Look at Japan. There is a serious lack of young folks, leaving old folks untaken care of.

And if you manage to wade through this whole depressing article, they do tack on at the end the fact that in one of their surveys, they couldn’t find anyone who regretted having kids, although there was an abundance of people who regretted NOT having kids.