To me, there is more to having children than breeding. Having children is something that, generally, ages well. You see your children grow, become adults, start their careers, start their own families, etc. You find new satisfaction and joy as your children age and progress in life.
Compare this to a child-free lifestyle. I know many child-free people. Fundamentally, their lives at 50 are not so different than their lives at 30. The main differences are they have more money, but they’re also fatter, uglier, have less energy, and are more jaded. The law of marginal utility dictates that, while they are still happy, they enjoy their life less over time.
My decision to have children was less about breeding and more about not living an ever-shittier version of my late 20s life.
I can’t help but feel that your reductive description of child-free people says more about how you see your own choices than it does about theirs. Surely a sufficiently-motivated child-free person can use their advantages wrt time and money to not be fat, ugly, and jaded. More time for exercise, more money for travel, etc. And there are plenty of people with kids who are fat, ugly, low-energy, and jaded – I’d argue that number taken proportionally is probably even higher than it is for people who chose not to have kids, provided they made that choice consciously and they take initiative in life to make meaning out of it.
Whether or not someone can use their time to not be fat, not be ugly, etc. is irrelevant. The could have done those same things in their early 20s and been less fat and less ugly. My point is that as you age, without kids, most peoples’ options for spending time is the same subset of things they could do in their late twenties and early thirties, except they will do those things worse as they age.
Is travel at 50 really fundamentally different than travel at 30? Other than having a bit more money, my opinion is not really. In many ways, travel at 30 is better, even with less money.
> My point is that as you age, without kids, most peoples’ options for spending time is the same subset of things they could do in their late twenties and early thirties, except they will do those things worse as they age.
They wouldn't be limited to options that don't build. You can have children and build a family, but you can also choose to dedicate your resources to building a business, or a skill, or knowledge, or whatever. Doesn't matter that you lose energy as you age and make lesser contributions, because you're kind of transforming it into something more persistent that you value. That could be a family, but it doesn't have to be.
> Is travel at 50 really fundamentally different than travel at 30? Other than having a bit more money, my opinion is not really. In many ways, travel at 30 is better, even with less money.
Even with relation to travel, maybe you dream of having a deeper understanding of one or more cultures or pieces of history and each travel contributes a bit to that.
It seems like you think the point of traveling is just to enjoy the travel itself, a momentary pleasure, but I don't see the point of travel if you return in the same state as when you left. It's only when something changes, when a contribution to something was made, that a travel was worthwhile. I don't think that ability to contribute to something (interpersonal relations, business, knowledge, etc.) is all that much affected between being 30 and 50.
> I don't see the point of travel if you return in the same state as when you left. It's only when something changes, when a contribution to something was made, that a travel was worthwhile.
I don't think the vast majority of people achieve this with the vast majority of their travels. Kind of curious what are some examples of that in your own life, especially the 'when a contribution to something was made' bit.
As someone kind of in a similar situation at the moment, I do think you're kind of right about this (not for everyone, of course).
I have felt several times that "Is this just it now? We're not going to do anything terribly different, just work/eat/hobbies/occasional trip, pretty much on a loop, while our health just keeps getting worse?" I do feel having children would change that, but for various reasons (not all of them great reasons, imo) we still haven't had them yet.
> To me, there is more to having children than breeding. Having children is something that, generally, ages well. You see your children grow, become adults, start their careers, start their own families, etc. You find new satisfaction and joy as your children age and progress in life.
I hate to point out that it doesn't always- your children may hate you (difference in politics or lifestyle) or abandon you. Or they may be simply too resource constrained to do anything other than visit you on holidays. I guess the lifestyle in most Western cultures has normalized elder neglect and loneliness anyways. Though I recognize there are many examples to the contrary. On average most families relegate care of the elderly to homes or caretakers if independence is no longer an option. I guess I don't see the point of children if they don't actively care for you till death. Do I expect too much, or just reject the Western norm?
Are parents skinnier, more beautiful, more energetic, and less jaded at 50? I think that's just aging in general, and would apply to both parents and not. Anyway, that line aside, I think people are just pretty different and find different paths to fulfillment through life, even if it's not always obvious from the outside.
Personal anecdote only: My life at nearly 40 is a tremendously better version of anything before it, even my 20s. No drama, way more peace of mind, little to no job stress, some disposal income, many hobbies both old and new, and most importantly... time. I'm not constantly focusing on the needs of kids, just what my partner and I feel like doing (both in the instant and in life in general).
I lost my job recently and feel great. Time to breathe and regather, without having to worry about making kids homeless or moving them outside of their school system. Don't wake up to crying babies and come home to shouting matches and needing to cook for 4. No homework help, just learning whatever we want to. Or taking the night to just relax and watch TV, try a new board game, go out somewhere new, take a new class, spend time in nature. It's pretty great. Every time we see or hear about someone else's kids, we feel absolutely sure in our choice -- not that we ever doubted it to begin with.
Far from feeling meaningless, I get to pursue work and hobbies that bring fulfillment, because they're well considered and taken for want, not need, and not dependent on the financial or time constraints of someone else.
It's only shittier if your stop growing. At this age I'm still contemplating a new degree, making new friends, evaluating new careers and cities (and frankly lifestyles), all with the financial resources and mental and emotional maturity I never had in my 20s. It's pretty great, and it was the exact outcome I hoped for. I knew I didn't want kids as early as my early teens, and got a vasectomy in by mid 20s. Both turned out to be terrific decisions.
Probably this sounds selfish. In truth I've always really valued community, and spend most of my adult life working in nonprofits and mission driven orgs, along with making a ton of friends all over the world. I love people, just prefer adults with their own interests rather than kids that I have to groom into something. The idea of living vicariously through them has no appeal to me (as someone subjected to the same from my own parents, in a nearly joyless childhood).
Another big reason I didn't want to create children (as opposed to adopting) is that there are way more than enough Americans already, each of whom consumes dramatically more resources than a child raided elsewhere. From a social and global standpoint it's not really sustainable, and probably quite likely apocalyptic, to keep having kids without really having a plan for their future in regards to climate and democracy, both of which are in rapid decline. That seems more selfish to me than not having them at all. Adoption seemed like an accept middle ground, but my partner didn't want kids (adopted or not) so I didn't pursue it.
Are there people who just settle into a routine after 30, never really changing much again? Sure, but that could happen with or without kids. That's up to you to prevent, as a parent or not. But I know more happy childfree couples than I do parents. Maybe it's a self selecting crowd. The happy couples probably don't want to spend time with kids, so we find each other. Likewise, the happy parents tend to fade from my life and have their own play dates and whatnot. To each their own...
I totally agree that there are too many people, Americans or otherwise. Even though I've decided to have children, I'm keeping the child count below the replacement rate, and I believe doing otherwise is immoral.
That being said, I'm not saying that it's impossible for you to have a fulfilling life at 40 years old. My point is that, in my experience, 70 year olds with kids seem more fulfilled than 70 year olds without. Perhaps that's just a reflection of me and my role models.
I actually do know a few older childfree folks who are quite happy with their hobbies and have no regrets, but the sample size there is so small as to be worthless. And there's probably a sizable generation gap there too, since it wasn't always this socially acceptable to not have kids (especially women). We probably won't see the societal impacts for another few decades.
But statistics aside, I think there is also a deliberate tradeoff there in terms of optimizing for the present vs the future. Some folks think of children as an investment for their future, someone to take care of them and provide companionship when they're older... but often at the cost of surrendering several decades of their mid-life for child rearing.
Conversely, for those who don't want kids, some of us choose to frontload our life's pursuits towards the prime middle years instead, traveling and doing stuff and meeting new people etc. while we're still physically healthy mentally sharp. Some chronic illness is always around the corner, and being stuck with disabilities in a nursing home, with or without kids, doesn't really excite.
Not having kids means planning for the future is a bit different, not just in finances but also risks and costs. We can choose to make a planned exit at some point without that decision being blocked by next of kin, opting for some happy accident doing something fun (space travel? free solo climbing? or just medication). I'd much rather shave off a decade or two of my life if that means a higher quality of life for the preceding decades... quality, not quantity :) Even without something that drastic, planning for retirement looks very different when you have no college funds or weddings to save for. Even homeownership (which is largely out of reach for my generation anyway) ceases to be as important a consideration. You can live more fully in the present time, instead of forever optimizing for some future state that may or may not ever come.
And that's to say nothing of where society will be in 40-50 years... probably not gonna be pretty, lol, and not something I'd want to subject kids (or myself) to unless we make drastic improvements.
In the meantime, though, what we have is the here and now. Might as well live it now instead of worrying about living it someday later.
Compare this to a child-free lifestyle. I know many child-free people. Fundamentally, their lives at 50 are not so different than their lives at 30. The main differences are they have more money, but they’re also fatter, uglier, have less energy, and are more jaded. The law of marginal utility dictates that, while they are still happy, they enjoy their life less over time.
My decision to have children was less about breeding and more about not living an ever-shittier version of my late 20s life.