Why not having children is best thing ever

[D.T.]

You know what always amazes me with the people I know who have no kids? They all lead incredibly conventional lives. They have a home and a car and a conventional job. They have lives into which children could slot really easily.
I reckon somebody without kids has no excuse to not lead an extraordinary life. And that doesn't mean a bit of travel and a sports car and sleeping in.

It has nothing to do with the life i lead and what they might plus/minus to it.

I just really can't stand children. It makes me cringe every time i hear one in public cry with sadness or squeal with happiness. I'd vote that there be separate sections for them in public just as there is for the cigarette smoking members of the population.

 

[TMNT]

It's hilarious how some people think having a kid ensures a babysitter for later in life.

Exactly, and its these same people who think that they are doing the world a favour by having kids

Btw how many lonely pensioners do you see at those homes waiting for their relatives to visit them but rarely come.. Chances are out wasthe kids that actually put you there on the first place

For the record, three kids here,and if I could do it again, I wouldn't havr any! Or maybe one at the most

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

Yeah, but that's just like going on an adventure holiday. Loads of people do that sort of thing. Still pretty conventional.
If you were to shut your business, sell everything you have, buy a boat and take-off to find shipwrecks, that would be more like it.

You're welcome to come along if you want, we always need deck hands. Give it about 2 years of training and we might even let you in the water.

 

[beachgurl]

While my husband loves our kids I think if he knew back then what he knows now, he would've said no to kids. Some people just don't dig parenting and unfortunately I think he's one of them.

 

[depreciator]

You're welcome to come along if you want, we always need deck hands. Give it about 2 years of training and we might even let you in the water.

When I go on holidays that involve boats, I like to fish from them.
Having said that, I have only just started thinking that I would like to do a dive course just so I could do some dives in the harbour and see what's down there. I won't make it an ongoing thing, I would just like to do it a couple of times. I might have to start a thread on it and seek some guidance.

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

Whilst we do some elite level diving, most of our expeditions end in a bunch of blokes drinking beer in a boat. Kind of the same thing as fishing.

 

[MaggieMcT]

Adore my kids, but yes there are things I miss about pre-kids lifestyle. More money, sleeping in, more time for exercise, so easy to focus on work with no distractions, peaceful home, easy to travel (admire the parents who posted here who travel with their kids and I look forward to this, but mine are a bit small for this at the moment), not exhausted all the time, beautifully tidy home etc etc

Do I regret our decision to have kids. No way. I love them so much and get so much love back - having that in your life is so enriching.

As they get bigger it will get easier (oh for a solid 7 hours sleep!) but I will still have the love and the fun that comes with kids. I have no expectation that they will look after us when we are old, but I expect that they will always be present in some way.

Having said all that kids are def not for everyone, and I don't see anything wrong with people making that decision and choosing other ways to live a complete and fulfilled life. Each to their own!

 

[DontSailBackwds]

...most of our expeditions end in a bunch of blokes drinking beer in a boat. Kind of the same thing as fishing.

...and offshore yacht-racing, something I used to do a lot before I had a kid. Regrets? No, I like being a parent and it suits this time of my life (mid 40's), it really wouldn't have suited me in my earlier years. I'll be ~65 when my youngest finishes high school whence I plan on kicking us all out of home.

My kid was always a pretty good sleeper (I hope #2 is too, due in a few weeks) but be warned of the thing that nobody warns you about - TOILET TRAINING

Each to their own, I say.

 

[Mr. Fabulous]

Don't know whats more hilarious having a kid so you don't die lonely death or devel......

Homer: If you don't start making more sense, we're going to have to put you in a home.
Grampa: You already put me in a home!
Homer: Then we'll put you in the crooked home we saw on Sixty Minutes!
Grampa: [meekly] I'll be good.

 

[Fifth]

You know what always amazes me with the people I know who have no kids? They all lead incredibly conventional lives. They have a home and a car and a conventional job. They have lives into which children could slot really easily.
I reckon somebody without kids has no excuse to not lead an extraordinary life. And that doesn't mean a bit of travel and a sports car and sleeping in.

So people without kids should live 'extraordinary' lives even if they have no desire to just to impress others? That seems the epitome of ordinary.

 

[depreciator]

So people without kids should live 'extraordinary' lives even if they have no desire to just to impress others? That seems the epitome of ordinary.

I said nothing about trying to impress other people.

 

[BayView]

A mate of mine who tells it how it is says he wants kids for when he's 50 years old. That's when you can go to the footy and have a beer with your child. When they start having children of their own. When you can have proper adult conversations with them.

I think the older you get the more important family becomes and while it can be difficult living with a newborn I couldn't imagine growing old without children around. A couple of years of no sleep is not so bad when you (hopefully) get 50+ years of enjoyment out of them.

The normal images of footy with the kids, a bit of harmless sleep deprivation you reckon is ok, helping them with the homework, etc - all are a bit "rose-coloured glasses".

In actual fact; kids are immensely rewarding in many ways, but are also a huge demand on you, and severe sleep deprivation is standard..

I have a 12, a 5, and a 2 year old, and just yesterday the 2 year woke me up with a yell at 3.15am - no reason; just a pain or a dream...4 mins to make sure she was ok and settled, but that was it for my sleep that night.

That will happen several nights a week.

I'm sure there are plenty of parents here in the same boat.

There is no real hard and fast pattern or routine; those who think they will have one are deluding themselves.

Not all families end up together, and even talking to each other as adults.

The really hard work to keep your family together needs to be done from day ONE, and worked on every-single-day until they are grown up and moved out of home...end then it still does not end.

But, I wouldn't go back.

 

[jackbak]

I actually did the last thing on the list on Saturday - lay in bed, watching episodes of Dexter. Nice and toasty under the doona, complete silence, no hassles. Perfect.

I did this for 30 years and to be honest for the last 2-3 years I was really bored with it and wondered what else there was to life. Especially when most of my mates started having children of their own. I've now got a 4 week old and if I had to pick one side of the list you posted, I'd pick the chaos of the life with kids compared to the life without which sounds pretty boring nowadays...

I've still got a few single mates and although they all say they couldn't stand having kids it's funny how that always changes when they find a partner.

 

[Fifth]

I said nothing about trying to impress other people.

Yes, you did. The 'no excuse not to lead an extraordinary life' part implied that it had nothing to do with the person's individual desires and everything to do with societal expectations.

 

[depreciator]

I'm afraid we'll have to disagree on that, Fifth. But that's okay.

 

[cimbom]

I find this debate all a bit pointless. People who don't have kids are constantly expected to defend and justify their choice and going by this thread, a basic reason doesn't even cut it. It needs to be a really extraordinary reason.

Yet people who do have kids are never asked for a reason - a real reason - as to why they're bringing another life into this world. It's just the done thing. Part of the checklist of life. Everyone else is doing it. Maybe if there was more of an emphasis on this aspect, we'd have a lot less problems in the world.

 

[Mr. Fabulous]

I did this for 30 years

I did it for one day, not 30 years. Today I went out for a nice bike ride, did some work on my business, updated my website and LinkedIn/Google+ profiles, read a book for a while, caught up on some finance articles, went for a walk to get some groceries, published a new blog post and sussed Somersoft for a bit.

 

[Tony3008]

No kids here - 60 and single,so not likely to have any either. But just after I moved here from UK a friend got divorced and I suddenly had a new possibility before me. My initial reaction was 'no way' - I'd spent ten years dreaming of the day when I could exchange London suburbia for a city high-rise, free to do what I wanted when I wanted and going back to a suburban family house was the last thing I wanted to do.

But then as we spent some really happy times doing things as a temporary family - meals around the table, going to the playground school fete or Scienceworks, helping the kids build some IKEA bookcases etc etc - I grew to realise that although there would be a huge cost in giving up what I had to spend most of the rest of my active life helping give those children a happy and stable upbringing, in my last years I might look back on those years as the greatest achievement of my life, rather than anything I've done so far. But, for better or worse, it was not to be.

Back before I emigrated I ran a Beaver [Joey] Scout group for 12 years. It always amazed me how many times I would phone a parent: dad would answer and say "you'll need to talk to my wife; children are her department". This might have been the norm in 1905, but 2005?

 

[jackbak]

I did it for one day, not 30 years. Today I went out for a nice bike ride, did some work on my business, updated my website and LinkedIn/Google+ profiles, read a book for a while, caught up on some finance articles, went for a walk to get some groceries, published a new blog post and sussed Somersoft for a bit.

You can still do all of that with kids. The first couple of years it's more difficult but the older you get the more freedom you have to "read a book".

 

[jackbak]

I find this debate all a bit pointless. People who don't have kids are constantly expected to defend and justify their choice and going by this thread, a basic reason doesn't even cut it. It needs to be a really extraordinary reason.

Good point. But interestingly it was someone without kids who started the conversation.