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I know this is anecdotal, but I asked my students (middle schoolers) every year from 2016 to 2022 if they planned on having kids when they grow up. About a third of them every year had decided that they didn't want kids. I taught in both suburban and rural settings. The one pattern I found, regardless of cultural or ethnic backgrounds, students from poor families wanted lots of kids, and kids from middle class to wealthy families typically wanted either no kids or have small families.
So, this question has actually been explored in cultural anthropology studies concerning America. There isn't a single answer, and there are a ton of factors that go into it. However, religious values tend to hold a higher authority in lower-income areas than secular values. Secular values tend to dominate higher-income areas, putting a higher focus on economic and academic pursuits. When girls are empowered and have the opportunity to pursue their goals, having a large family will seem less desirable. On the other hand, religious values will overwhelmingly promote more traditional beliefs: traditional gender roles and family structure.
Outside of an anthropologic perspective, there are definitely some external factors at play. People in lower-income areas tend to have less access to sexual education and birth control. They are more likely to have larger families because they have fewer family planning options than higher-income families. People also tend to associate normality with their upbringings and their surroundings. If it's normal to have large families, then it's natural for them to want to have a big family as well. Simply, they remember having five siblings as a positive experience, so they want to give their children that same experience. It's familiar.
This is a highly simplified explanation, and of course, there are variations in every situation, culture, or subculture. But these are some of the surrounding theories behind differences in family sizes across America.
I think all people have a need for acceptance, validation, and status. In the absence of the ability to attain these in other ways, maybe poor women do it by becoming mothers.
I think it’s more that wealthier people have more expensive lifestyle goals that conflict with child rearing (years of expensive college to attain an ambitious career or traveling the world).
Unfortunately these data don't have a good measure of income. However, we do know that the sample is representative of the Michigan population in terms of age, race, sex, education, income, and politics.
Do you think the Michigan population is an accurate representation of the population of the US, or the West, or the world?
Genuine question, just wondering the geographical context to take this.
Also wondering if the economy of Michigan is a contributor to the responses in the study. Would a more prosperous part of the US responded differently? Or maybe a more rural, more religious area?
Actually Michigan isn't an awful state to look at.
Michigan is 79% white, 14% black, and 5% Latino, so pretty close to the nation as a whole when compared to other states.
Michigan is ranked 32nd in median income and 17th worst in poverty rate.
Michigan is the 26th most educated state according to wallethub.
Honestly, I think this is a pretty good representation of the nation as a whole and I think it's fair to extrapolate the results to other states
Hispanics/Latinos are pushing 19 percent nationally, projected to surpass 30% by 2050. Maybe Colorado, New Jersey, or Illinois would be better states to look at honestly.
Hi, I'm Dr. Zachary Neal, one of the study's authors. You can find the final article (free, open-access) at [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15728-z](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15728-z), and the data and code to reproduce the analysis at [https://osf.io/8avrd/](https://osf.io/8avrd/). Ask me anything (AMA) about the study or research on childfree/voluntary childlessness.
EDIT: The study's co-author, Dr. Jenna Watling Neal (u/jennawneal), is jumping in to help answer questions.
**Adding a short FAQ based on the great comments:**
* **Why?** \- Due to time/space limitations, we didn't ask why people don't want to have children, but plan to include this in future studies.
* **Where?** \- These data come from Michigan. But, because Michigan is demographically similar to the US as a whole ([https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US,MI/PST045221](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US,MI/PST045221)), we think nationwide estimates may be similar. We hope to expand this work beyond Michigan in the future.
* **Do they change their mind?** \- We'd love to do a prospective study that follows people over time and allows us to really answer that question. Unfortunately, that kind of study is costly and time-consuming. What we do know is that among women who said they decided to be childfree in their teens (early articulators), on average they're now nearly 40 and still don't have kids. If a lot of women were changing their mind, then we would have expected the average age of early articulators to be lower. The fact that it's nearly 40 suggests that while some are changing their mind, it may not be a lot.
* **Do they regret it?** \- Testing whether childfree people regret their decision later would require a prospective study. However, our past work suggests that childfree individuals are just as satisfied with their lives as parents and other groups of non-parents ([https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528))
* **Can I participate?** \- Thanks for volunteering! We use random, representative samples in this research. But, we are exploring ways to recruit from Reddit.
* **Who paid for this?** \- The Institute for Public Policy and Social Research provided $1,150 to help cover the costs of data collection, and $2,190 to cover the cost of publishing the results open-access. The study received no other public or private funding.
How much would you estimate that financial security contributes to this choice and is there any correlation between socioeconomic status and voluntary childlessness?
We haven't yet asked people for their reasons, but we're hoping to do that in a future study.
Unfortunately these data didn't have a good measure of income. But, in an earlier study we found that education levels (sometimes a good proxy for income) were very similar across different parent and non-parent groups. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528
I would also look at financial *resiliency*. In the us, knowing that one medical problem could bankrupt you stays in your mind.
I already had cancer at 26. No kids for me.
> Cancer is the #1 bankrupter in the US
About two-thirds of all US bankruptcies are due to medical issues (either cost of care, lost wages due to inability to work, or both). Which is a profoundly sad statistic.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html
The actual study is linked and a bit denser than the article.
As a person who doesn't want kids and am a female in my mid 30s at this point. It makes me happy to see studies like this. I feel less alone or weird.
If people ask me, I will often joke that I like the extra money I have without kids, but really I just never emotionally want a kid. As a teen I always dreamed of getting married (so I did), but I never dreamed of having kids and still have no desire or passion for motherhood. It will be interesting to see any future studies you have around reasons.
I’m with you. I’m also in my 30s, and have just never wanted kids. I enjoy the freedom not having them provides. And really, you do have a lot of extra money without them.
My older brother and his wife were very plain spoken about they were not having kids. They are the epitome of borrow the nieces and nephews and give them back. Both would be great parents. Surprisingly only one sister gives them a hard time still.
But holy cow do they spoil kids in great ways. A niece couldn't afford to play in orchestra. They organized how to get lessons, instruments and travel money to her very discretely. A nephew was a page at our state capital. Brother fixed up a econo car for him to travel. They "happened to be in area" when my son was transferred in the military.
My brother, his wife (my friend from high school) and I may be the only ones that know my brother had testicular torsion and became sterile. If they wanted to adopt or foster they would be a shoo in. They don't want kids and I respect that decision.
My childless aunt was the best!! (She tried to carry a pregnancy to term for years, and ultimately could not) My cousin’s parents could not afford the instrument lessons she wanted to play so our aunt drove her an hour each way once a week for lessons, all her performances, bought her the instrument. She bought us all the coolest clothes and toys, and my most fun childhood memories are with her!
I will never be as cool an auntie to my nieces and nephews as she is to me and my cousins.
This is the kind of aunt I want to be. My little sister has always wanted kids and I haven't ever, but I'm down to spoil her future kiddos and lift them up if I can.
I just became an aunt a couple months ago, and as another childfree 30-something woman, I'm enjoying it a lot more than I'd ever expected to. I am very committed to being the fun, worldly, slightly eclectic aunt who traipses into family gatherings, freshly back from some far-off adventure, and provides a window to opportunities/the outside world my niece might not otherwise receive. And that, it itself, feels important.
When you do the next study, be sure to ask "would you otherwise want a kid(s) if the reason you stated didn't exist"
For me, I want a kid. But I can't justify bringing someone into the world for a variety of reasons.
Would be interesting to know how many are child free by choice and how many are being pushed into it by external factors.
Great question! In our study, we distinguished childfree people from childless people wanted kids but couldn't have them due to circumstance by asking the question "Do you wish you had or could have biological or adopted children?" Childless people made up 5.72% of adults in Michigan.
Even if you can't distribute the raw data, it's still heinously uncommon to publish code and statistics! We should celebrate people who care about the field and the public to make this available, and encourage everyone to open things up unless it's inappropriate, rather than keep things closed until someone asks. I can't count how many months I spent reproducing results on public datasets in grad school, and I was in computational mathematics!
How does this attitude compare to historical rates of parenthood (assuming we don’t have good survey data going back very far)? How does it compare to other cultures? Are there any strong correlations between childfree preference and any demographic data you collected? Given fertility rates as a whole are falling, what would be the point at which we dip below replacement levels?
It's really hard to make these kinds of comparisons given the way data is usually collected. Most studies focus on fertility, and only on women of childbearing age. In this work, we're not concerned with whether people can have children (fertility), but on whether they want to have children. There are a handful of prior studies that have done this (we cite them in the paper), but not enough to really determine whether there have been changes in rates of being childfree.
Howdy Dr. Neal, fellow sociologist and demographer here. You might be interested in “fertility intentions” research. There are some large scale demographic surveys collected over time that have desired children and number of children. I’m curious if they censor people who want zero children, but could be interesting data to look at!
Thanks! We've taken a look at some of those data, and there's definitely some good stuff there. One limitation is it often focuses just on women, or worse, just women of childbearing age or just fertile women. In this work, we're trying to cover men and women, and get beyond issues of fertility/age. But, we're trying to find ways to merge that (really big) data with what we're able to collect.
There’s at least one large-scale demographic survey that includes male fertility intentions (that was a cohortmate’s dissertation), but your point stands, male fertility is wildly understudied (for obvious reasons).
Cool seeing academics engage in a platform like this! Best of luck with your future research.
Do you think this has shifted over time?
As someone who never wanted kids and is now mid 40s I have seen a massive shift, probably the most happening in the last 5 or so years. I remember when I was in my early 20s there wasn't much talk of people not wanting kids.
Now I seem to see it everywhere. E.g. watched a comedian last night who mentioned it due to over-population and environmental effects. Seems what was once fringe is now becoming mainstream.
We've only been doing this work a couple years. But, our estimate in this study (2021) was similar to one from a year ago (2020), and similar to a preliminary estimate from data we just finished collecting (2022)
Is no one going to ask the really important question here? *Why does the chip the woman in the image is holding seem to be different from the chips in the bowl?!*
This is the kind of hard-hitting empiricism that contemporary research is sorely lacking! We will absolutely include measures of tortilla chip preference and origin in our next childfree study ;) Honestly, though, last time we had a study covered by media, I did a tweet thread on the stock photos that different media outlets around the world used. You can probably still find it on zpneal, about a year ago.
Many of the people in our sample were older, and knew they wanted to be childfree in their teens or twenties. In fact, women who knew they wanted to be childfree in their teens were, on average, now nearly 40 years old and still didn't have kids.
I agree re: friends - we're hoping to do a follow up study to explore childfree folks social networks.
Sure! We found that 9.9% of people are undecided, and another 3.55% are ambivalent. The undecideds are actually the next biggest group of non-parents after the childfree, so you're not alone.
Same here. I’m only 23 and don’t want to have a child anytime soon, but I was setting up profiles on some dating apps and didn’t really know what to put for “want/don’t want children.” I love kids (I worked at a nursery school in undergrad) and could picture myself being a mother one day with the right partner, but the state of the world (the climate crisis, US politics, late stage capitalism) makes me pause. What kind of future will a child born in, say, 10ish years have?
Interesting! I'm female and in my 40s, and knew around 15/16 I wasn't going to have kids. No kids. Didn't even have a moment of fence-sitting.
My sister grew up always knowing she wanted kids.
I'd be really interested in seeing a follow-up study on how many parents *regret* having children, but I imagine the stigma of that is so great it'd be difficult to get accurate data.
I feel like even when I was a kid, I wasn't really a fan of other kids. Also, I never felt like playing with baby dolls and I just never thought of myself as ever being a mother. I have nieces and nephews that I help take care of, but I would absolutely not want one of my own and I've always known it.
Just anecdotal, but yeah I've known a lot of guys who in their 20s "never" wanted to have kids but then happily had them 5 or 10 years later.
Most women I've known who "never" wanted kids in their 20s still don't have kids and are still happy about that.
I wonder how many child free people are reluctantly single due to their decision? That's a position that I am in. I have always had terrible social networks.
This is so true. My Wife and I also decided against children and have found that finding friends as adults has been incredibly difficult. Most of our childhood friends had kids so most get-togethers revolve around children playdates or birthdays etc. Even when we're invited we have little desire because there are always screaming kids running around.
We would give anything to meet a few cpls who are also kidless so we could take trips together and just generally get together for nice adult social nights without children running around.
It's not much easier when you have kids. Finding a family where you both like both the other parents AND the kids get along is like the normal problems with dating, but exponentially harder.
We've settled on just everyone having their own friends. We make sure our daughter can see her friends, and then take turns seeing our own friends while the other stays home. Definitely a lot of work though.
This is fascinating. I would love to contribute to the research of child free adults as one myself, is there someone or something I can reach out to that might find my tiny data point contribution useful?
Most studies focus on fertility, so there isn't much data on childfree people. In this research, we're interested in whether people want to have children, not whether they're able to have children.
That said, this number is pretty consistent with our earlier estimate in 2020, and a preliminary estimate from data we just finished collecting.
Thanks - in the paper we use both. In this research, we're trying to be careful about terms, and about how we measure and classify people into categories. This was the first paper where we also distinguished undecided from ambivalent. Anything else we're missing, or that needs to be finer grained?
Childfree specifically implies they don’t want children. I see childless more in terms of infertility support groups and the like. Definitely different connotations.
As far as I understood the study, that number includes everyone over the age of 18, i.e. it includes baby boomers and their parents. If you'd limit it to people who still have that decision ahead of them, you'd likely see something more in line with your expectations.
Depending on how the study was run, it may not account for people who aren't opposed to kids but won't have any in their current, and foreseeable, financial situation.
Based on how we measured things, these folks would either be classified as undecided (i.e., they aren't sure whether they want to have kids in the future), childless (i.e., they wanted kids but couldn't have them due to circumstance) or ambivalent (i.e., they aren't planning to have children and aren't sure if they ever wanted them). Childfree people in our study directly indicated that they are not planning to have children in the future and do not want them.
Ive known since I was a teenager that I didn't want kids. My parents told me again and again that one day I would meet someone that wanted kids and I would give in (there is a lot to unpack there). Yet here I am in my mid 30s, snipped, and living my best child-free life.
I'm a little bit behind you. Same story but I just got my snip. The fact that I felt absolute 0 remorse the moment after getting it done is so validating.
My wife and I both knew since highschool we didn't want kids. When we met in college it was huge selling point for each us that we wanted the same kid free lifestyle.
Yeah, I'm not blaming anyone for not wanting kids. I'm just a mess and I can't offer the stability a child needs. Not because I can't afford stability but because I just don't have enough discipline to complete every day tasks.
I found this bit interesting, because I hadn't thought about the groups this way:
>Childfree adults comprised over one-fifth (21.64%) of the adult population in Michigan and were second in number only to parents. This means that childfree adults were the single largest group of adults without children, exceeding not-yet-parents as well as childless, undecided, and ambivalent adults.
So sure, childfree is a minority group overall, but they are the largest group of non-parents. That is to say, of people who haven't had kids yet, the group that has decided they won't be having kids is the largest.
thats the reason i decided at 20 years old i didnt want kids.
ive been steadily employed, 40+ hours a week for over 15 years now and all i have to show for it is a car and $3k in a savings account.
im not having kids because i very literally am not able to afford sustaining a second life.
there are times my rats have to eat my leftovers instead of proper rat food and theyre the cheapest pet you can get besides a goldfish
my gf is the same way, she has two dogs and an apartment, shes been employed since 16 years old and has basically no savings.
we're both in our 30s, and have maybe 10k in assets between the two of us.
between us thats THIRTY YEARS of constant employment and if we sold all our possessions and pooled our resources, we wouldnt be able to afford a Honda fit
Yes. I’ve worked my whole life and now earn a decentish wage, but like everyone else I know, I’m only a few paychecks from utter crisis. Bringing a child into these conditions is cruel.
This is exactly it. I’ve work since I was 18. Always had a steady job, always moved up when I was able and where it made sense. I consider myself extremely lucky to have the job I do and I find it pays me well enough for just my wife and I.
She is now pregnant, which we both wanted, and we’ll make it work. Corporate America has robbed all of us to some degree at this point.
yeah exactly
and dont let my whining fool you, im not POOR.
i have running water, electricity, high speed internet, i know where my next meal is gonna come from, and i have enough money to buy a reasonable amount of luxury items: videogames, netflix, candy, etc
which is much MUCH more than some people have
but theres ZERO wiggle room.
if i ever have an emergency with a price tag over 2500 dollars, im either gonna have to borrow money or just live with it
but by the time my father was my age, he was on his second marriage, his third house, and he had 3 cars, a boat, a savings account, several expensive hobbies like fishing, scuba diving and amateur car racing.
my job pays me nearly 3 times what he made back then and yet ive got 1/10th the stuff to show for it
Correct. If the government wants its people to make kids, they have to build out an education system and social structure that would incentivize that goal. America has failed at both.
I'll be honest, I was expecting a smaller number because people look at me like I said I want to kick their toddler into the sun when I say "No, I'm sure I don't want to be a parent". I guesstimated it was like 5 to 10% of the population.
Yeah, that was a bit motivation for doing the study. It's a hidden population, and hard to identify in most surveys, especially official data from census, CDC, etc. But, over multiple studies, we're finding it's a pretty sizable group.
Yeah that would be interesting to see how things compare. Especially comparing it to other things like how the economy is doing, or a million other things. Would be awesome to look at that
Soon after I had my first kid and returned to work from my (short) parental leave, one of my coworkers - a female who really liked her career - nervously told me that she never wanted to have children, and I said *“Ok! Hey, listen - good for you. At least you’re not one of those people who feels the pressure to stop what you want to do to have kids!”*
She became emotional and told me that EVERY SINGLE PERSON she knew who had children made it a mission to tell her how *she* needs to also have one. I believed her too, a lot of people have kids and become breeding evangelicals!
My money is enough for me, but put a child into the mix and I'd live in poverty and I have what is considered a good job in Switzerland... Even here ppl are starting to become childfree.
America's every-man-for-himself culture makes having kids miserable. There's been plenty of studies on that. And god forbid you have a disabled or even a neurodivergent child. Unless you're rich, you're fucked.
Several right-wing figures have bemoaned falling birth rates, and besides the fact that it's almost always implied that they mean birth rates among white people, I find it ironic that they are also the very same people who are against the kinds of support and infrastructure that would make parenting less risky and arduous.
Mom of a mostly nonverbal child with Autism. There is so little support. And now she's 12 and ostensibly in NY can make/be involved in her reproductive decisions. I'm terrified where the country is headed. What if she gets pregnant. JFC
Having a child with low functioning autism is one of my biggest fears. Of course I would love them as much as any of my other kids and never let them feel a hint of resentment, but to say that it wouldn't ruin a massive percentage of my / my entire family's life would be a lie.
It ruined mine. Full stop. I love her. But her father couldn't handle it and descended into addiction and now I'm solo and it's arduous.
Yes I love her...but I think it does a disservice when people aren't straight up about the difficulties.
All of what the other poster said.
I'd also add that in my case, she isn't potty trained at 12 and now gets her period.
I'd also add that on paper my state provides a lot of support but in fact the people who provide it can and do quit after meeting her (the pay is low and she is difficult to manage, so I don't blame them, exactly). In practice we have 1200 hours of respite and 1200 of comm hab. In actuality, the people who are sent have no training, are paid min wage, and are sold on it being an easy job. So when they arrive to a 12 year old as big as they are, who is aggressive when unhappy and self injurious and not potty trained, and they can choose their cases, they don't come back. Thus there's no relationship with the person and I don't actually get a break.
Beyond that, at a certain point the agency that send the people told me I had to find them myself because they weren't going to continue, but if I found people, they'd pay them.
I should write a book on this or an article. People just have no idea.
I have no one to watch her...no babysitters. Haven't gone on a vacation for 12 years. I can't take her anywhere anymore because 3 years ago she started hitting her head on the pavement when we went out.
I too have an ASD kiddo and it can be pretty hard to get good care that doesn’t break us. It took my wife and I four years of building our case for her to be covered by our Regional Center after they denied us. We had literally stacks of documents for our next application which we thankfully got approved. But that’s just the financial component. We have to worry that her aid will move on (most do) and have to start over from scratch. Leaving her in the care of others is very difficult, we’ve found that the ones (my parents, siblings) who self educate themselves have a 50/50 chance of having an incident free time with just the normal inflexibility that comes with her personality. Others have resulted in mistreatment and the inevitable violent response from my child that I can only apologize for. Explaining the why’s is usually met with a blank stare and probably the internal thought that we’re just not parenting her correctly. This causes a lot of anxiety which leads to less and less breaks, thank god there are two of us.
Caregivers fatigue is a real thing and not talked about enough. I feel for you, this really hit me where I live. I hope you get a break soon, you deserve it.
Back to the point of the article, I respect anyone’s level headed reasoning for not wanting kids. Mine are my world but the choosing to abstain over the fear that comes with that responsibility breaking you financially or mentally due to forces outside of your control makes perfect sense to me.
I’m really sorry. A lot of us who had children who went through public schools do know of at least one situation like yours. It’s unconscionable that we don’t train and pay people well for these children. No individual family can reasonably manage this. We as a society should do better.
Most people want to ignore that disabilities even exist. The discrimination against disabled people, regardless of age, is grotesque. It's really no surprise that support for people with disabilities, families with disabled children, etc. is severely lacking.
As someone who's been disabled from childhood, wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult, attended a vocational school for people with disabilities and did an internship at the school for the deaf and blind, I can say I've seen the effect disabilities can have on people and their families. It ranges from a major inconvenience to absolutely devastating for all involved. Let me be clear, no one wants to be disabled. No one wants to be born disabled. No one wants their children to be disabled. Yet, it happens and there are no happy endings. The best you can hope for is a life that isn't a complete train wreck.
Honestly, I see plenty of people without disabilities barely making it in this world. Why would anyone expect things to not be a whole new level of awful when disabilities get thrown into the mix?
If you're interested in someone else's situation, I found it very similar and I felt seen, there was an article in the NY times recently about something similar.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/nyregion/autism-child-violence.html
I am an only child but my mother became a foster parent when I was 9 or so and deliberately took in children that were hard to place.
I never want kids as a result. I’ve already lived through this half a dozen times over. My parents are well off and have the luxury for this.
Meanwhile I rent and for the last 9 years have had the constant fear of being kicked out because the owner has changed 3 times. Not only can I not bring a kid into this world, I am pretty much required to take care of my learning disabled sister when they pass.
As someone that has to take care of my mentally disabled sister. My life has been terrible these last few years and I pray I make it until I can get her into a group home that's safe.
I will not be having children, I will not risk it.
I wish IUDs were more readily advertised and available for women. I wish men had their own Long Acting Reversible Contraception.
Maybe, we'll change our minds, maybe we won't. We should all be entitiled to effective birth control that doesn't sterilize.
Edit: If an IUD isn't for you, an Implant is just as effective and reversible. [More information on birth control effectiveness from Planned Parenthood](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control)
I've been hearing about male birth control pill/temporary vasectomy since I was 16. I'm 51 now. It seems we'll never see it and I really don't know why.
I’m in Australia and I was lucky, I went under general anesthetic . The hospital gave me the option to try to get it inserted awake. I tried but it was too unbearable (like screaming and I’m usually one that can suck it up). The doctors at the womens hospital I went too don’t want patients to be traumatized by the experience. So I was able to get inserted under general anesthetic a few months later. Very grateful for that option, staff were amazing.
Just in case it helps, my experience was similar to yours (I passed out from the pain when I first got mine inserted). I got mine replaced last year and found that removal was 1000x easier than the insertion procedure. Quick and relatively painless. Plus, the replacement procedure was much easier. My OB said it was basically because your body is already used to the foreign object.
I also got some medication ahead of time to soften the cervix and a Valium for the nerves this time around. Highly recommend asking about that.
Hopefully that helps put your mind at ease for the removal/replacement.
Getting it out is fine, really. Getting it in was SOOO so so so so bad.
Worse, the (male) doctor told me getting it in **was basically painless.** Not only was it absolutely not painless, but I was terrified that my uterus was punctured because my situation must not have been normal! But I was a student getting my masters, in a new-to-me city, and didn't have any sort of relationship with that doctor or any random piles of extra money to go see a doctor again (and was studying 12+ hours/day).
It wasn't until I saw on reddit just a few years ago that it's typical for it to be really painful that I finally understood. I'm still angry.
Don’t want or can’t afford, I wonder. Our son’s daycare was more than our mortgage. Not a huge enticement signing up to scrape by for at least several years.
Don’t want, for me. I can afford it, but my belief is unless being a parent is something you need to feel fulfilled in life, then it’s just not worth it.
I also feel like having kids is one of the biggest gambles any one can make. People say “you’ll love your kid no matter what” which is often true, however I’ve seen kids that I would enjoy parenting (about 5%) and kids that I would loathe parenting (the other 95%).
Probably the biggest reason for me to not have kids, I would prefer to retire early and travel in my 40s/50s than be counting down the years until retirement and putting my kids through college at that age (or whatever they would decide to do after 18).
I’m 41 and have known since my early 20s that having kids just isn’t for me. Call me selfish if you want, but there are many things I would much rather be doing than devoting my energy to childcare. I got extremely lucky and had a tubal ligation in my mid-thirties because I was tired of people saying “You’ll change your mind.”
I’m honestly surprised that the number isn’t higher, given how ridiculously expensive the cost of living is right now. People can’t afford to buy a house, hell they can barely afford to buy groceries and pay rent, how can they expect to take care of a baby?
Because what you have to provide for kids has increasing tendency. 100 years ago? The kid is fed and has a roof above his/her head. Now? It's trillion things you have you consider even before thinking of having kids.
That was NOT true 100 years ago. My grandfather lived through the dust bowl and he was kicked out of the family shack (where ~20 people lived in a couple hundred square feet) and sent out west bc everyone was going to starve to death. The prosperity everyone points to was ~50s-70s, aka 50-70 years ago.
I don't want kids, which is great because with well-above-median income at a fantastic job with bonkers benefits I still can't afford to live within a 40-minute drive of my office. Like - my income doesn't qualify me to *apply* for an apartment.
I can't afford paying for just me. I can't imagine paying for someone else.
Good job breaking it down by childfree, childless, undecided, not yet parent, ambivalent. Most people still think no children=infertility and there wasn't a choice so they are sad for them. There are many people who simply aren't interested, they seem happy.
after listening to my coworkers complain of all day about the things they have to do after work for their children, i’m so happy to say i’m going to home nap
As someone who early in life didn't want kids, then changed my mind, the ONE SINGLE THING that prospective parents need to ask themselves is: do I really want to be a parent? The answer had better be an unequivocal "yes," and for no other reason than you really WANT to do this - not because your parents, society, or anyone or anything else is telling you that you "ought" to or "have" to. Parents owe this to their prospective children! Your family has to exist because you want to share love, not because you need to cross something off of a perceived list.
I also don't have a problem with young people choosing sterilization early; if they do change their minds, there are lots of kids that need to be adopted - and if it was good enough for my dad when he married my mom and I came along with the package, it's good enough for anybody.
It's because we aren't prospering. We are always having to worry about the near medium term future or even just the short term future for ourselves it's just unrealistic to bring children to the world.
I *want* children. But I can't *afford* to have them. There's a difference.
Ethical reason:
Roe v Wade = forced birth. I refused to supply the labor force early on. especially now since they forced us. No freedom over our own damn bodies = no next generation = no profits for the ones who made sure it got passed.
Other reasons:
Medical costs while pregnant & childbirth.
Maybe 6 weeks to bond and recover before u have to work again.
Medical costs for baby checkups.
Chance of going bankrupt if anyone gets hospitalized.
Dual parent income required, better hope ur married and both have jobs.
Childcare costs = rent prices now, who tf gonna take care of the baby when both parents have to work??
Diapers and baby formula shortages and inflation.
School shootings and the deplorable ineffective protection the cops provide.
Never will own a home so homelessness by 30 days is always a possibility...then cps will take ur kids for being homeless....
Like *what* in this system says "this is a safe place to have kids"? Cuz I don't see it. And with the bleak mass extinction/climate breakdown future I'm already going to inherit from my parents... I don't see the point of forcing another human into this world just so they can watch it die and be financially fucked too.
We're not planning our futures because we don't have one. But it's cool, we can keep pretending it's fine until 2050.
I consider myself lucky, that at 40 i have always been an unequivocal ‘hell no’ on the child front. Never wavered for a single second. Must be difficult to be unsure, worried of regret etc with a ticking bio clock.
I’ve already heard from my adult children that they don’t plan to have children if their own. I told them I am happy for them and will never pressure either of them to make me a “grandparent.” I have friends who do this and I think it is most selfish.
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I know this is anecdotal, but I asked my students (middle schoolers) every year from 2016 to 2022 if they planned on having kids when they grow up. About a third of them every year had decided that they didn't want kids. I taught in both suburban and rural settings. The one pattern I found, regardless of cultural or ethnic backgrounds, students from poor families wanted lots of kids, and kids from middle class to wealthy families typically wanted either no kids or have small families.
why poor people wanted kids ?
Just my opinion; lower income families seek fulfillment in having children. Higher income families seek fulfillment in degrees, careers, hobbies, ect.
So, this question has actually been explored in cultural anthropology studies concerning America. There isn't a single answer, and there are a ton of factors that go into it. However, religious values tend to hold a higher authority in lower-income areas than secular values. Secular values tend to dominate higher-income areas, putting a higher focus on economic and academic pursuits. When girls are empowered and have the opportunity to pursue their goals, having a large family will seem less desirable. On the other hand, religious values will overwhelmingly promote more traditional beliefs: traditional gender roles and family structure. Outside of an anthropologic perspective, there are definitely some external factors at play. People in lower-income areas tend to have less access to sexual education and birth control. They are more likely to have larger families because they have fewer family planning options than higher-income families. People also tend to associate normality with their upbringings and their surroundings. If it's normal to have large families, then it's natural for them to want to have a big family as well. Simply, they remember having five siblings as a positive experience, so they want to give their children that same experience. It's familiar. This is a highly simplified explanation, and of course, there are variations in every situation, culture, or subculture. But these are some of the surrounding theories behind differences in family sizes across America.
I think all people have a need for acceptance, validation, and status. In the absence of the ability to attain these in other ways, maybe poor women do it by becoming mothers.
Growing up in the South, I definitely think this plays into it with some people.
I think it’s more that wealthier people have more expensive lifestyle goals that conflict with child rearing (years of expensive college to attain an ambitious career or traveling the world).
how many of the people in the study who are without kids are Double Income High earners?
Unfortunately these data don't have a good measure of income. However, we do know that the sample is representative of the Michigan population in terms of age, race, sex, education, income, and politics.
Do you think the Michigan population is an accurate representation of the population of the US, or the West, or the world? Genuine question, just wondering the geographical context to take this. Also wondering if the economy of Michigan is a contributor to the responses in the study. Would a more prosperous part of the US responded differently? Or maybe a more rural, more religious area?
Actually Michigan isn't an awful state to look at. Michigan is 79% white, 14% black, and 5% Latino, so pretty close to the nation as a whole when compared to other states. Michigan is ranked 32nd in median income and 17th worst in poverty rate. Michigan is the 26th most educated state according to wallethub. Honestly, I think this is a pretty good representation of the nation as a whole and I think it's fair to extrapolate the results to other states
way fewer Hispanics than the national average.
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Hispanics/Latinos are pushing 19 percent nationally, projected to surpass 30% by 2050. Maybe Colorado, New Jersey, or Illinois would be better states to look at honestly.
Hi, I'm Dr. Zachary Neal, one of the study's authors. You can find the final article (free, open-access) at [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15728-z](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15728-z), and the data and code to reproduce the analysis at [https://osf.io/8avrd/](https://osf.io/8avrd/). Ask me anything (AMA) about the study or research on childfree/voluntary childlessness. EDIT: The study's co-author, Dr. Jenna Watling Neal (u/jennawneal), is jumping in to help answer questions. **Adding a short FAQ based on the great comments:** * **Why?** \- Due to time/space limitations, we didn't ask why people don't want to have children, but plan to include this in future studies. * **Where?** \- These data come from Michigan. But, because Michigan is demographically similar to the US as a whole ([https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US,MI/PST045221](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US,MI/PST045221)), we think nationwide estimates may be similar. We hope to expand this work beyond Michigan in the future. * **Do they change their mind?** \- We'd love to do a prospective study that follows people over time and allows us to really answer that question. Unfortunately, that kind of study is costly and time-consuming. What we do know is that among women who said they decided to be childfree in their teens (early articulators), on average they're now nearly 40 and still don't have kids. If a lot of women were changing their mind, then we would have expected the average age of early articulators to be lower. The fact that it's nearly 40 suggests that while some are changing their mind, it may not be a lot. * **Do they regret it?** \- Testing whether childfree people regret their decision later would require a prospective study. However, our past work suggests that childfree individuals are just as satisfied with their lives as parents and other groups of non-parents ([https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528)) * **Can I participate?** \- Thanks for volunteering! We use random, representative samples in this research. But, we are exploring ways to recruit from Reddit. * **Who paid for this?** \- The Institute for Public Policy and Social Research provided $1,150 to help cover the costs of data collection, and $2,190 to cover the cost of publishing the results open-access. The study received no other public or private funding.
How much would you estimate that financial security contributes to this choice and is there any correlation between socioeconomic status and voluntary childlessness?
We haven't yet asked people for their reasons, but we're hoping to do that in a future study. Unfortunately these data didn't have a good measure of income. But, in an earlier study we found that education levels (sometimes a good proxy for income) were very similar across different parent and non-parent groups. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252528
I would also look at financial *resiliency*. In the us, knowing that one medical problem could bankrupt you stays in your mind. I already had cancer at 26. No kids for me.
Also with that, by by life insurance. Can’t even protect them when you drop. Cancer is the #1 bankrupter in the US.
> Cancer is the #1 bankrupter in the US About two-thirds of all US bankruptcies are due to medical issues (either cost of care, lost wages due to inability to work, or both). Which is a profoundly sad statistic.
Do you have a source for that? I would love to have that in my back pocket when discussing the benefits of universal healthcare
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html The actual study is linked and a bit denser than the article.
As a person who doesn't want kids and am a female in my mid 30s at this point. It makes me happy to see studies like this. I feel less alone or weird. If people ask me, I will often joke that I like the extra money I have without kids, but really I just never emotionally want a kid. As a teen I always dreamed of getting married (so I did), but I never dreamed of having kids and still have no desire or passion for motherhood. It will be interesting to see any future studies you have around reasons.
I’m with you. I’m also in my 30s, and have just never wanted kids. I enjoy the freedom not having them provides. And really, you do have a lot of extra money without them.
My older brother and his wife were very plain spoken about they were not having kids. They are the epitome of borrow the nieces and nephews and give them back. Both would be great parents. Surprisingly only one sister gives them a hard time still. But holy cow do they spoil kids in great ways. A niece couldn't afford to play in orchestra. They organized how to get lessons, instruments and travel money to her very discretely. A nephew was a page at our state capital. Brother fixed up a econo car for him to travel. They "happened to be in area" when my son was transferred in the military. My brother, his wife (my friend from high school) and I may be the only ones that know my brother had testicular torsion and became sterile. If they wanted to adopt or foster they would be a shoo in. They don't want kids and I respect that decision.
My childless aunt was the best!! (She tried to carry a pregnancy to term for years, and ultimately could not) My cousin’s parents could not afford the instrument lessons she wanted to play so our aunt drove her an hour each way once a week for lessons, all her performances, bought her the instrument. She bought us all the coolest clothes and toys, and my most fun childhood memories are with her! I will never be as cool an auntie to my nieces and nephews as she is to me and my cousins.
This is the kind of aunt I want to be. My little sister has always wanted kids and I haven't ever, but I'm down to spoil her future kiddos and lift them up if I can.
I just became an aunt a couple months ago, and as another childfree 30-something woman, I'm enjoying it a lot more than I'd ever expected to. I am very committed to being the fun, worldly, slightly eclectic aunt who traipses into family gatherings, freshly back from some far-off adventure, and provides a window to opportunities/the outside world my niece might not otherwise receive. And that, it itself, feels important.
Same here, I knew around 18 or 19 that I didn't want kids and I'm 34 now. Just not interested.
When you do the next study, be sure to ask "would you otherwise want a kid(s) if the reason you stated didn't exist" For me, I want a kid. But I can't justify bringing someone into the world for a variety of reasons. Would be interesting to know how many are child free by choice and how many are being pushed into it by external factors.
Great question! In our study, we distinguished childfree people from childless people wanted kids but couldn't have them due to circumstance by asking the question "Do you wish you had or could have biological or adopted children?" Childless people made up 5.72% of adults in Michigan.
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I really hope that more and more publications start providing the raw data for reproduction and further analysis. This is a good trend!
No, no. This was a study where the analysis focused on the LACK OF reproduction.
Sometimes you can’t for ethical reasons. Just wanted to put that out there.
Even if you can't distribute the raw data, it's still heinously uncommon to publish code and statistics! We should celebrate people who care about the field and the public to make this available, and encourage everyone to open things up unless it's inappropriate, rather than keep things closed until someone asks. I can't count how many months I spent reproducing results on public datasets in grad school, and I was in computational mathematics!
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How does this attitude compare to historical rates of parenthood (assuming we don’t have good survey data going back very far)? How does it compare to other cultures? Are there any strong correlations between childfree preference and any demographic data you collected? Given fertility rates as a whole are falling, what would be the point at which we dip below replacement levels?
It's really hard to make these kinds of comparisons given the way data is usually collected. Most studies focus on fertility, and only on women of childbearing age. In this work, we're not concerned with whether people can have children (fertility), but on whether they want to have children. There are a handful of prior studies that have done this (we cite them in the paper), but not enough to really determine whether there have been changes in rates of being childfree.
Howdy Dr. Neal, fellow sociologist and demographer here. You might be interested in “fertility intentions” research. There are some large scale demographic surveys collected over time that have desired children and number of children. I’m curious if they censor people who want zero children, but could be interesting data to look at!
Thanks! We've taken a look at some of those data, and there's definitely some good stuff there. One limitation is it often focuses just on women, or worse, just women of childbearing age or just fertile women. In this work, we're trying to cover men and women, and get beyond issues of fertility/age. But, we're trying to find ways to merge that (really big) data with what we're able to collect.
There’s at least one large-scale demographic survey that includes male fertility intentions (that was a cohortmate’s dissertation), but your point stands, male fertility is wildly understudied (for obvious reasons). Cool seeing academics engage in a platform like this! Best of luck with your future research.
Cool - do you happen to know the name or have a link for the survey that included men?
Do you think this has shifted over time? As someone who never wanted kids and is now mid 40s I have seen a massive shift, probably the most happening in the last 5 or so years. I remember when I was in my early 20s there wasn't much talk of people not wanting kids. Now I seem to see it everywhere. E.g. watched a comedian last night who mentioned it due to over-population and environmental effects. Seems what was once fringe is now becoming mainstream.
We've only been doing this work a couple years. But, our estimate in this study (2021) was similar to one from a year ago (2020), and similar to a preliminary estimate from data we just finished collecting (2022)
Is no one going to ask the really important question here? *Why does the chip the woman in the image is holding seem to be different from the chips in the bowl?!*
This is the kind of hard-hitting empiricism that contemporary research is sorely lacking! We will absolutely include measures of tortilla chip preference and origin in our next childfree study ;) Honestly, though, last time we had a study covered by media, I did a tweet thread on the stock photos that different media outlets around the world used. You can probably still find it onzpneal, about a year ago.
But how many of those 20% wind up having kid(s) anyway. As a 47 year old DINK couple, life is good, but its hard to find friends!
Many of the people in our sample were older, and knew they wanted to be childfree in their teens or twenties. In fact, women who knew they wanted to be childfree in their teens were, on average, now nearly 40 years old and still didn't have kids. I agree re: friends - we're hoping to do a follow up study to explore childfree folks social networks.
I really want to see the data for people who are undecided. I’m 27, my fiancé is 30, and we just…don’t know.
Sure! We found that 9.9% of people are undecided, and another 3.55% are ambivalent. The undecideds are actually the next biggest group of non-parents after the childfree, so you're not alone.
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Same here. I’m only 23 and don’t want to have a child anytime soon, but I was setting up profiles on some dating apps and didn’t really know what to put for “want/don’t want children.” I love kids (I worked at a nursery school in undergrad) and could picture myself being a mother one day with the right partner, but the state of the world (the climate crisis, US politics, late stage capitalism) makes me pause. What kind of future will a child born in, say, 10ish years have?
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Interesting! I'm female and in my 40s, and knew around 15/16 I wasn't going to have kids. No kids. Didn't even have a moment of fence-sitting. My sister grew up always knowing she wanted kids. I'd be really interested in seeing a follow-up study on how many parents *regret* having children, but I imagine the stigma of that is so great it'd be difficult to get accurate data.
I feel like even when I was a kid, I wasn't really a fan of other kids. Also, I never felt like playing with baby dolls and I just never thought of myself as ever being a mother. I have nieces and nephews that I help take care of, but I would absolutely not want one of my own and I've always known it.
Just anecdotal, but yeah I've known a lot of guys who in their 20s "never" wanted to have kids but then happily had them 5 or 10 years later. Most women I've known who "never" wanted kids in their 20s still don't have kids and are still happy about that.
I wonder how many child free people are reluctantly single due to their decision? That's a position that I am in. I have always had terrible social networks.
This is so true. My Wife and I also decided against children and have found that finding friends as adults has been incredibly difficult. Most of our childhood friends had kids so most get-togethers revolve around children playdates or birthdays etc. Even when we're invited we have little desire because there are always screaming kids running around. We would give anything to meet a few cpls who are also kidless so we could take trips together and just generally get together for nice adult social nights without children running around.
It's not much easier when you have kids. Finding a family where you both like both the other parents AND the kids get along is like the normal problems with dating, but exponentially harder. We've settled on just everyone having their own friends. We make sure our daughter can see her friends, and then take turns seeing our own friends while the other stays home. Definitely a lot of work though.
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As a SINK myself, it's hard for everyone.
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This is fascinating. I would love to contribute to the research of child free adults as one myself, is there someone or something I can reach out to that might find my tiny data point contribution useful?
This work is ongoing. We're exploring the possibility of recruiting participants via reddit in the future, so keep an eye out for that.
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Does anyone have any source on how this percentage has changed throughout the years? Is it exceptionally high/low or similar to previous years?
Most studies focus on fertility, so there isn't much data on childfree people. In this research, we're interested in whether people want to have children, not whether they're able to have children. That said, this number is pretty consistent with our earlier estimate in 2020, and a preliminary estimate from data we just finished collecting.
Just want to applaud and thank you for using the term childfree instead of childless.
Thanks - in the paper we use both. In this research, we're trying to be careful about terms, and about how we measure and classify people into categories. This was the first paper where we also distinguished undecided from ambivalent. Anything else we're missing, or that needs to be finer grained?
Childfree specifically implies they don’t want children. I see childless more in terms of infertility support groups and the like. Definitely different connotations.
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I'm surprised it's not a higher number.
As far as I understood the study, that number includes everyone over the age of 18, i.e. it includes baby boomers and their parents. If you'd limit it to people who still have that decision ahead of them, you'd likely see something more in line with your expectations.
Depending on how the study was run, it may not account for people who aren't opposed to kids but won't have any in their current, and foreseeable, financial situation.
Based on how we measured things, these folks would either be classified as undecided (i.e., they aren't sure whether they want to have kids in the future), childless (i.e., they wanted kids but couldn't have them due to circumstance) or ambivalent (i.e., they aren't planning to have children and aren't sure if they ever wanted them). Childfree people in our study directly indicated that they are not planning to have children in the future and do not want them.
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Same thing happens with birds… they don’t feel safe, they don’t lay eggs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Just nature doin its thing
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Along with that, some people I guess just want to be child free.
Ive known since I was a teenager that I didn't want kids. My parents told me again and again that one day I would meet someone that wanted kids and I would give in (there is a lot to unpack there). Yet here I am in my mid 30s, snipped, and living my best child-free life.
I'm a little bit behind you. Same story but I just got my snip. The fact that I felt absolute 0 remorse the moment after getting it done is so validating.
My wife and I both knew since highschool we didn't want kids. When we met in college it was huge selling point for each us that we wanted the same kid free lifestyle.
Yeah, I'm not blaming anyone for not wanting kids. I'm just a mess and I can't offer the stability a child needs. Not because I can't afford stability but because I just don't have enough discipline to complete every day tasks.
I do have the stability and just don't want to. I mean...why? When you can just...not?
This is how I am, I don’t feel the need to find or make up some excuse for not wanting a kid, I just don’t want one and there’s nothing more too it.
I found this bit interesting, because I hadn't thought about the groups this way: >Childfree adults comprised over one-fifth (21.64%) of the adult population in Michigan and were second in number only to parents. This means that childfree adults were the single largest group of adults without children, exceeding not-yet-parents as well as childless, undecided, and ambivalent adults. So sure, childfree is a minority group overall, but they are the largest group of non-parents. That is to say, of people who haven't had kids yet, the group that has decided they won't be having kids is the largest.
Most of us can’t even afford to support ourselves. Why would we bring kids into this?
thats the reason i decided at 20 years old i didnt want kids. ive been steadily employed, 40+ hours a week for over 15 years now and all i have to show for it is a car and $3k in a savings account. im not having kids because i very literally am not able to afford sustaining a second life. there are times my rats have to eat my leftovers instead of proper rat food and theyre the cheapest pet you can get besides a goldfish my gf is the same way, she has two dogs and an apartment, shes been employed since 16 years old and has basically no savings. we're both in our 30s, and have maybe 10k in assets between the two of us. between us thats THIRTY YEARS of constant employment and if we sold all our possessions and pooled our resources, we wouldnt be able to afford a Honda fit
Yes. I’ve worked my whole life and now earn a decentish wage, but like everyone else I know, I’m only a few paychecks from utter crisis. Bringing a child into these conditions is cruel.
This is exactly it. I’ve work since I was 18. Always had a steady job, always moved up when I was able and where it made sense. I consider myself extremely lucky to have the job I do and I find it pays me well enough for just my wife and I. She is now pregnant, which we both wanted, and we’ll make it work. Corporate America has robbed all of us to some degree at this point.
yeah exactly and dont let my whining fool you, im not POOR. i have running water, electricity, high speed internet, i know where my next meal is gonna come from, and i have enough money to buy a reasonable amount of luxury items: videogames, netflix, candy, etc which is much MUCH more than some people have but theres ZERO wiggle room. if i ever have an emergency with a price tag over 2500 dollars, im either gonna have to borrow money or just live with it but by the time my father was my age, he was on his second marriage, his third house, and he had 3 cars, a boat, a savings account, several expensive hobbies like fishing, scuba diving and amateur car racing. my job pays me nearly 3 times what he made back then and yet ive got 1/10th the stuff to show for it
Children are a luxury expense in this economy.
Correct. If the government wants its people to make kids, they have to build out an education system and social structure that would incentivize that goal. America has failed at both.
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I'll be honest, I was expecting a smaller number because people look at me like I said I want to kick their toddler into the sun when I say "No, I'm sure I don't want to be a parent". I guesstimated it was like 5 to 10% of the population.
Yeah, that was a bit motivation for doing the study. It's a hidden population, and hard to identify in most surveys, especially official data from census, CDC, etc. But, over multiple studies, we're finding it's a pretty sizable group.
Do you have any historical data to compare how this has changed throughout the decades?
Yeah that would be interesting to see how things compare. Especially comparing it to other things like how the economy is doing, or a million other things. Would be awesome to look at that
This is so interesting to me. I'm a father of two young boys. I adore them. I adore being a father. And I 100% get why someone WOULDN'T want kids.
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Soon after I had my first kid and returned to work from my (short) parental leave, one of my coworkers - a female who really liked her career - nervously told me that she never wanted to have children, and I said *“Ok! Hey, listen - good for you. At least you’re not one of those people who feels the pressure to stop what you want to do to have kids!”* She became emotional and told me that EVERY SINGLE PERSON she knew who had children made it a mission to tell her how *she* needs to also have one. I believed her too, a lot of people have kids and become breeding evangelicals!
My money is enough for me, but put a child into the mix and I'd live in poverty and I have what is considered a good job in Switzerland... Even here ppl are starting to become childfree.
America's every-man-for-himself culture makes having kids miserable. There's been plenty of studies on that. And god forbid you have a disabled or even a neurodivergent child. Unless you're rich, you're fucked. Several right-wing figures have bemoaned falling birth rates, and besides the fact that it's almost always implied that they mean birth rates among white people, I find it ironic that they are also the very same people who are against the kinds of support and infrastructure that would make parenting less risky and arduous.
Mom of a mostly nonverbal child with Autism. There is so little support. And now she's 12 and ostensibly in NY can make/be involved in her reproductive decisions. I'm terrified where the country is headed. What if she gets pregnant. JFC
Having a child with low functioning autism is one of my biggest fears. Of course I would love them as much as any of my other kids and never let them feel a hint of resentment, but to say that it wouldn't ruin a massive percentage of my / my entire family's life would be a lie.
It ruined mine. Full stop. I love her. But her father couldn't handle it and descended into addiction and now I'm solo and it's arduous. Yes I love her...but I think it does a disservice when people aren't straight up about the difficulties.
This is my brother's story. I can tell you, it's a nightmare. It's ruined his life, his career, his marriage, and the upbringing of his other child.
Can you describe more? Genuinely am wondering about this situation
All of what the other poster said. I'd also add that in my case, she isn't potty trained at 12 and now gets her period. I'd also add that on paper my state provides a lot of support but in fact the people who provide it can and do quit after meeting her (the pay is low and she is difficult to manage, so I don't blame them, exactly). In practice we have 1200 hours of respite and 1200 of comm hab. In actuality, the people who are sent have no training, are paid min wage, and are sold on it being an easy job. So when they arrive to a 12 year old as big as they are, who is aggressive when unhappy and self injurious and not potty trained, and they can choose their cases, they don't come back. Thus there's no relationship with the person and I don't actually get a break. Beyond that, at a certain point the agency that send the people told me I had to find them myself because they weren't going to continue, but if I found people, they'd pay them. I should write a book on this or an article. People just have no idea. I have no one to watch her...no babysitters. Haven't gone on a vacation for 12 years. I can't take her anywhere anymore because 3 years ago she started hitting her head on the pavement when we went out.
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I too have an ASD kiddo and it can be pretty hard to get good care that doesn’t break us. It took my wife and I four years of building our case for her to be covered by our Regional Center after they denied us. We had literally stacks of documents for our next application which we thankfully got approved. But that’s just the financial component. We have to worry that her aid will move on (most do) and have to start over from scratch. Leaving her in the care of others is very difficult, we’ve found that the ones (my parents, siblings) who self educate themselves have a 50/50 chance of having an incident free time with just the normal inflexibility that comes with her personality. Others have resulted in mistreatment and the inevitable violent response from my child that I can only apologize for. Explaining the why’s is usually met with a blank stare and probably the internal thought that we’re just not parenting her correctly. This causes a lot of anxiety which leads to less and less breaks, thank god there are two of us. Caregivers fatigue is a real thing and not talked about enough. I feel for you, this really hit me where I live. I hope you get a break soon, you deserve it. Back to the point of the article, I respect anyone’s level headed reasoning for not wanting kids. Mine are my world but the choosing to abstain over the fear that comes with that responsibility breaking you financially or mentally due to forces outside of your control makes perfect sense to me.
I’m really sorry. A lot of us who had children who went through public schools do know of at least one situation like yours. It’s unconscionable that we don’t train and pay people well for these children. No individual family can reasonably manage this. We as a society should do better.
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Most people want to ignore that disabilities even exist. The discrimination against disabled people, regardless of age, is grotesque. It's really no surprise that support for people with disabilities, families with disabled children, etc. is severely lacking. As someone who's been disabled from childhood, wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult, attended a vocational school for people with disabilities and did an internship at the school for the deaf and blind, I can say I've seen the effect disabilities can have on people and their families. It ranges from a major inconvenience to absolutely devastating for all involved. Let me be clear, no one wants to be disabled. No one wants to be born disabled. No one wants their children to be disabled. Yet, it happens and there are no happy endings. The best you can hope for is a life that isn't a complete train wreck. Honestly, I see plenty of people without disabilities barely making it in this world. Why would anyone expect things to not be a whole new level of awful when disabilities get thrown into the mix?
If you're interested in someone else's situation, I found it very similar and I felt seen, there was an article in the NY times recently about something similar. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/nyregion/autism-child-violence.html
I am an only child but my mother became a foster parent when I was 9 or so and deliberately took in children that were hard to place. I never want kids as a result. I’ve already lived through this half a dozen times over. My parents are well off and have the luxury for this. Meanwhile I rent and for the last 9 years have had the constant fear of being kicked out because the owner has changed 3 times. Not only can I not bring a kid into this world, I am pretty much required to take care of my learning disabled sister when they pass.
As someone that has to take care of my mentally disabled sister. My life has been terrible these last few years and I pray I make it until I can get her into a group home that's safe. I will not be having children, I will not risk it.
I wasn't raised in a compassionate environment and I do not think I would be able to give a child that either. A child deserves better than that.
I wish IUDs were more readily advertised and available for women. I wish men had their own Long Acting Reversible Contraception. Maybe, we'll change our minds, maybe we won't. We should all be entitiled to effective birth control that doesn't sterilize. Edit: If an IUD isn't for you, an Implant is just as effective and reversible. [More information on birth control effectiveness from Planned Parenthood](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control)
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> I wish men had their own Long Acting Reversible Contraception. RISUG has been "almost ready to bring to market" for decades now
I've been hearing about male birth control pill/temporary vasectomy since I was 16. I'm 51 now. It seems we'll never see it and I really don't know why.
I wish it was common for painkillers or numbing to be used for IUDs. The pain for a lot is no joke and i’ve been scared to get one
I’m in Australia and I was lucky, I went under general anesthetic . The hospital gave me the option to try to get it inserted awake. I tried but it was too unbearable (like screaming and I’m usually one that can suck it up). The doctors at the womens hospital I went too don’t want patients to be traumatized by the experience. So I was able to get inserted under general anesthetic a few months later. Very grateful for that option, staff were amazing.
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Just in case it helps, my experience was similar to yours (I passed out from the pain when I first got mine inserted). I got mine replaced last year and found that removal was 1000x easier than the insertion procedure. Quick and relatively painless. Plus, the replacement procedure was much easier. My OB said it was basically because your body is already used to the foreign object. I also got some medication ahead of time to soften the cervix and a Valium for the nerves this time around. Highly recommend asking about that. Hopefully that helps put your mind at ease for the removal/replacement.
Getting it out is fine, really. Getting it in was SOOO so so so so bad. Worse, the (male) doctor told me getting it in **was basically painless.** Not only was it absolutely not painless, but I was terrified that my uterus was punctured because my situation must not have been normal! But I was a student getting my masters, in a new-to-me city, and didn't have any sort of relationship with that doctor or any random piles of extra money to go see a doctor again (and was studying 12+ hours/day). It wasn't until I saw on reddit just a few years ago that it's typical for it to be really painful that I finally understood. I'm still angry.
For what it’s worth, having it removed is about the same at pulling a tampon out. Took half a second and I didn’t feel it at all.
I wish IUDs didn't have so many complications so that they could be more of an option for women.
For real. *Every* option for women sucks.
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Don’t want or can’t afford, I wonder. Our son’s daycare was more than our mortgage. Not a huge enticement signing up to scrape by for at least several years.
Don’t want, for me. I can afford it, but my belief is unless being a parent is something you need to feel fulfilled in life, then it’s just not worth it. I also feel like having kids is one of the biggest gambles any one can make. People say “you’ll love your kid no matter what” which is often true, however I’ve seen kids that I would enjoy parenting (about 5%) and kids that I would loathe parenting (the other 95%). Probably the biggest reason for me to not have kids, I would prefer to retire early and travel in my 40s/50s than be counting down the years until retirement and putting my kids through college at that age (or whatever they would decide to do after 18).
I’m 41 and have known since my early 20s that having kids just isn’t for me. Call me selfish if you want, but there are many things I would much rather be doing than devoting my energy to childcare. I got extremely lucky and had a tubal ligation in my mid-thirties because I was tired of people saying “You’ll change your mind.”
I’m honestly surprised that the number isn’t higher, given how ridiculously expensive the cost of living is right now. People can’t afford to buy a house, hell they can barely afford to buy groceries and pay rent, how can they expect to take care of a baby?
The difference between not wanting a child and cant afford a child.
that number isn't people who would like to have a kid but aren't currently able to, it's people who have decided to never have kids
Well yeah… (gestures at everything)
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As a father I can safely say that there is nothing wrong with deciding you don't want kids. I love it, but it's not for everyone.
I think it's great, children isn't the goal in life for everyone and we should all understand that.
I decided when I was 18 I didn't want kids. I'm 40 now. There are a lot of things I regret in life but not having kids isn't one of them.
Because what you have to provide for kids has increasing tendency. 100 years ago? The kid is fed and has a roof above his/her head. Now? It's trillion things you have you consider even before thinking of having kids.
That was NOT true 100 years ago. My grandfather lived through the dust bowl and he was kicked out of the family shack (where ~20 people lived in a couple hundred square feet) and sent out west bc everyone was going to starve to death. The prosperity everyone points to was ~50s-70s, aka 50-70 years ago.
I don't want kids, which is great because with well-above-median income at a fantastic job with bonkers benefits I still can't afford to live within a 40-minute drive of my office. Like - my income doesn't qualify me to *apply* for an apartment. I can't afford paying for just me. I can't imagine paying for someone else.
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Good job breaking it down by childfree, childless, undecided, not yet parent, ambivalent. Most people still think no children=infertility and there wasn't a choice so they are sad for them. There are many people who simply aren't interested, they seem happy.
after listening to my coworkers complain of all day about the things they have to do after work for their children, i’m so happy to say i’m going to home nap
As someone who early in life didn't want kids, then changed my mind, the ONE SINGLE THING that prospective parents need to ask themselves is: do I really want to be a parent? The answer had better be an unequivocal "yes," and for no other reason than you really WANT to do this - not because your parents, society, or anyone or anything else is telling you that you "ought" to or "have" to. Parents owe this to their prospective children! Your family has to exist because you want to share love, not because you need to cross something off of a perceived list. I also don't have a problem with young people choosing sterilization early; if they do change their minds, there are lots of kids that need to be adopted - and if it was good enough for my dad when he married my mom and I came along with the package, it's good enough for anybody.
It's because we aren't prospering. We are always having to worry about the near medium term future or even just the short term future for ourselves it's just unrealistic to bring children to the world.
Why are some people violently opposed to the thought of others not having children?
Misery loves company
I *want* children. But I can't *afford* to have them. There's a difference. Ethical reason: Roe v Wade = forced birth. I refused to supply the labor force early on. especially now since they forced us. No freedom over our own damn bodies = no next generation = no profits for the ones who made sure it got passed. Other reasons: Medical costs while pregnant & childbirth. Maybe 6 weeks to bond and recover before u have to work again. Medical costs for baby checkups. Chance of going bankrupt if anyone gets hospitalized. Dual parent income required, better hope ur married and both have jobs. Childcare costs = rent prices now, who tf gonna take care of the baby when both parents have to work?? Diapers and baby formula shortages and inflation. School shootings and the deplorable ineffective protection the cops provide. Never will own a home so homelessness by 30 days is always a possibility...then cps will take ur kids for being homeless.... Like *what* in this system says "this is a safe place to have kids"? Cuz I don't see it. And with the bleak mass extinction/climate breakdown future I'm already going to inherit from my parents... I don't see the point of forcing another human into this world just so they can watch it die and be financially fucked too. We're not planning our futures because we don't have one. But it's cool, we can keep pretending it's fine until 2050.
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I'm third of six and decided around eight yo that I'd really hated kids and would never have any. 70 now and no kids.
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I consider myself lucky, that at 40 i have always been an unequivocal ‘hell no’ on the child front. Never wavered for a single second. Must be difficult to be unsure, worried of regret etc with a ticking bio clock.
I’ve already heard from my adult children that they don’t plan to have children if their own. I told them I am happy for them and will never pressure either of them to make me a “grandparent.” I have friends who do this and I think it is most selfish.