Surely having childfree people is better in the long run?
If one person multiplies, then their children multiply, then their children's children multiply,
Long term it would be more beneficial for childfree people to live long lives. Once someone has a child, they should then kill themselves, if this is the rubbish we are supposed to believe now.
(I don't btw believe any such rubbish)
Isn’t it presumptuous to give birth to someone and expect them to take are of you in your old age? They might have to give up a lot. If I had had kids I’d rather they had their freedom.
A retirement village sounds perfect and like a place where you could still have fun.
My mother also has Parkinsons. She’s at home with my dad, half the country away. They are pushing 70 soon and it’s not ideal. I have my own family and work here. I have no issue with anybody wanting or not wanting kids, just wanted to respond to a fellow poster with a parent with Parkinsons! Balls of a disease.
Parkinson’s is so tough. Old age isn’t so pretty sometimes. I know it’s not Parkinson’s but my gran had Alzheimer’s from when I was about aged 8 to when she died when I was 19. It was heartbreaking to see. But she remained such a gentle and loving lady. I fear getting a disease like that or Parkinson’s. Elderly people can’t always maintain their independence, unfortunately.
We don't have kids and both my wife and I are only kids so very small family, not sure how it will pang out but will cross that bridge when we come to it.
Yeah both are terrible. Seeing loved ones losing their memories must be awful.
Yes, both are terrible. This chat brings back both cherished and sad memories for sure. A lot of people have had elders with life limiting- if you can call them that- diseases or will experience them themselves. I suppose we could all do with being a bit kinder, myself defo included, to those around us with them.
Seems like adoption is a crapshoot, there's not a lot of data but, somewhat unsurprising, once the adoption's done the church that helped organize it, isn't interested. And the risks of a problem are high:
"More than a decade after this movement peaked, many families who went overseas are in crisis mode: respite weekends are booked through 2023, there is an annual Christian conference devoted to burned-out parents, and a new documentary has been released on desperate families who have extremely ill children. Parents now say that the churches that encouraged them to adopt in the first place aren't there for them now.
Few statistics exist on the number of adoptions gone wrong, other than a 10-year-old study by the US Department of Health and Human Services reporting "adoption disruptions" ranging from 10-25 percent. This little-known statistic points to a meltdown in the industry and a sign that adoption and foster care have become a landmine for many families who believed God had called them to help these children."
It'd be nice if people could say something instead of just pasting a link with a snappy comment.
Edited for more info. Thanks.
Thanks.
Pretty horrible stuff. Doesn't surprise me though. I think of churches in the US and that would explain much IMO.
I don't think the problem there is adoption by itself.The problem seems to these Churches pushing adoption on their members, for some reason.And then the members expecting support from the Church??The whole thing seems very strange.
Not sure what the article has to do with Childfree by choice.
Many of those kids are highly troubled right from the start, from the 9-year-old who was living with two mentally ill parents before he was adopted to the Indian boy who saw his own mother burn herself to death on purpose... That trauma is very very hard to undo and requires specific help. At least many of them tried.
Parenting is a bit of a crapshot anyway, as is life tbh.
People were coaxed into having children that were unsuitable for them. Seems pretty relevant to me.
If parenting is a bit of a crapshot, surely you should avoid it unless absolutely certain you can handle it, no?
How do you know those parents didn't have their own children? You don't. It's actually common enough for parents, especially in the States to adopt other children when they have their own biological children. I know two parents myself in Ireland like that.
As to your last question. You missed my last point.
Life is a crapshoot. There are ZERO guarantees about it. You or I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, develop a horrible life-altering disease or get separated/divorced.
It's like saying marriage is a crapshoot, so whatever you do, don't get married... EVER!
If you are someone who is nervous about 'life' in general, then perhaps it's best not to have kids.
Hardly anyone is 100% 'absolutely certain' about most things in their lives, so to say they need to be, before they do something is kind of ridiclious. Go live your life FFS.
Some people take this child-free rather too seriously. I'm telling ya, the vast majority of people don't give a crap if you don't want to have kids, certainly of my generation anyway.
So, we're onto silly strawmen.
If one gets married, that decision can be reversed albeit it at personal cost and inconvenience. It's pretty obvious that marriage and having children are very different propositions. I didn't think that this needed to be spelled out but apparently it did.
My point was about the guarantees one wants in life.
There are none. With marriage, your job, your family, your health or if one decides to have kids.
I thought that was obvious but apparently, it needed to be spelt out.
No, it was an absurd strawman. Anyway this is, as usual, pointless.
A Strawman? Says the person who harps on about a guarantee regarding kids?
It's a person, not a Toyota Corolla.
Sure enough, no evacuation by those children who'll take care of you when your old, of elderlies in the path of Hurricane Ian in advance of the hurricane, here's a recent photo
Must've been some scene in the elderly storage facility.
I thought about it sometimes, but I like to live in the moment as much as possible. Anxiety living in the past, fear living in the present and all that jazz.
My plan is to be as self sufficient as I can, eat healthily, zero alcohol and street drugs etc
I've a few good friends from my teens none of us married kid's grown up and we've always been supportive both men and women, we're slightly bohemian and we have helped each other through rough times. All different personalities, grumpy, funny, awkward, oppositional to world views, but supportive. A good mix.
We are like a group of misfits who go our own ways but we'd be there in a jiffy. Like a movie.
Jamieson and xanax.
How do you know you would find your own children incredibly annoying and that your life would be better without them?
With regards to climate change (how this thread ended up here is beyond me btw!)
It seems more logical that the average person would have fewer children rather than some people have none and some have many. If no one has kids then there isn't much point in trying to save the planet...who are you saving it for?
How exactly do you figure out if you can handle it in advance?
If everyone avoided it until they were sure (and the only logical way to be sure is to actually have kids) then that will be more of an issue for humans than any climate change.
How do you know they wouldn't be annoying?
As regards climate change, this one is obvious. People cause climate change. Fewer people means less climate change. Simples.
Is this a serious question? Serious introspection and analysis. Do you have a steady job? Your own property? Savings in case things go south? That sort of thing.
I didn't say that I knew they wouldn't be, merely that you cant state that you would find your own children annoying, you don't have any.
I didnt know that my own wouldn't be annoying, but I took the big brave step of assuming that since the vast, vast majority of people have children and have done so literally since time began, it was probably going to work out ok for us.
Your "simples" explanation is too simplistic I'm afraid. Fewer people doesn't necessarily mean less climate change, unless you take the incredibly simplistic and naïve approach that everyone equally produces climate change?
You cant accurately analyze something that you have no experience of. If you are going to say that you have family members with kids or friends with kids then I'm going to inform you that someone else's kids are nothing like your own kids. The reasons you mention for potentially not having kids seem little to do with "handling" them and more to do with being able to afford them.
I've no idea why people have to make up silly nonsense because some people choose not to have children. Plenty of people have made this choice and have gone on to lead rich and fulfilling lives.
So today I found out that asking yourself if you are emotionally and financially capable of having children is actually eugenics! I shall shun such thinking in the future lest I wish to be accused of wanting to sterilise the homeless!
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