How common is it for people to never find an other half or have kids?

I have lived a very hedonistic self-indulgent life before my own kids were born. Sure in your 20's and 30's kids are the last thing on your mind, but all the travelling, sex, drink, drugs, the partying wears thin after a while. You begin to realise is that it? Is this me for the next 50 years until I **** myself in a old folks home and die?

I suppose one becomes ready to move on from the self-indulgent lifestyle and start something else, something harder but ultimately much much more rewarding than a night on the beer, or a line of coke.

Seeing your own child for the first time after it being born is something indescribable, that cannot be put into words. You realise that you are part of something much bigger than yourself and that in an age of the self, having kids is one of the last vestiges of true sacrifice.

Wibbs wrote: »

And fair enough.

What's the saying?

"Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing."

If one boils down life to mere atoms and chemical reactions in the brain, it says more about that person's own nihilistic outlook than anyone else.

Again, as I said, people sure get insecure about this topic.

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Nobody is going to admit they regret having kids, even if you did, you would be treated as a monster.

There are loads of people miserable because of their kids or having to stay in awful relationships, the idea that only childless people have regret about their choices is very naive.

This. Exactly this. The ones who have admitted to me they regret having kids would never even contemplate saying that to another parent. As my friend put it, there's an expectation out there from other parents that your life is wonderful and full of joy, even after all the negatives that come with it. He said he did admit it once to another parent, who then went on to give him the big speech that children are everything (similar to the people commenting on this that this is what we are all alive for, our 'purpose').

As Wibbs said, there's also a lot of resentment which parents don't admit. My mate loves when I attend gatherings, as I'm the one who straight out says I don't like them, and that's when parents start to get 'truthful' about their experiences. Most will still be happy with having kids, but start to see why some people may have regrets/resentment. You'd be surprised how many people at least think this way but haven't completely got to the believing it stage.

Edit: I should add, it's ok to feel resentment and regret about having kids, but it's your actions after this which count.

Wibbs wrote: »

I have met a few M. Not hate, too strong a word, but some with resentment alright. More women in that group, probably because they had to give up more. While others all men, because it's easier for them to do so, who left early on. A few have zero contact with their kids and apparently don't care, others are part time parents, play with the kid for a few hours and hand them back type of thing. Others who are workaholics and barely see their kids at the weekend(with a couple who wouldn't be pushed if that contact was even shorter) While sometimes it's the women who leave, it's rarer, but there are enough kids out there who've grown up without fathers because they sodded off soon after they popped out.

Men who leave relationships early on are an embarrassment in my opinion and I say this as someone whose father left his family up **** creek. I wont go into details

These are the exact same men who would have gotten someone up the duff in 1930s Ireland and ****ed off to England on the boat while the woman was incarcerated for 'her sins' instead of actually being responsible for his actions.
Whatever about the rest of the topic, these 'men' should be rightly called out.
There are plenty of assholes out there in the world.

markodaly wrote: »

If one boils down life to mere atoms and chemical reactions in the brain, it says more about that person's own nihilistic outlook than anyone else.

It's not really that nihilistic. The brain uses different ratios of chemicals when performing different types of thoughts. Just like how the muscles use different ratios of chemicals when performing different activities.

Yeah somebody might go overboard and think it means "love" etc don't exist. Which is about as sensible as saying that "running" doesn't exist because your body burns more glucagon to perform it.

However if you're being sensible it's just a statement about how the brain works. Even being coldly rational involves a flood of different chemicals, so it's not like it picks out anything in particular.

markodaly wrote: »

My answer to that would be that its a reflection of the people themselves, not the fact they had kids.
Sure, people with kids can have issues. Having children is not a silver bullet to all life's ills but the people I know with kids who are miserable have much more deep-seated issues themselves which they cover up with substance abuse, normally drink.

I'm not sure that's right.

I have a friend, two young teenage kids, who was insecure about her looks when younger and I guess hankered after the "normal life" of a husband, family, house, car etc. She married earlyish to a guy that she wasn't suited to and had twins about a year. Now, as an older, wiser and more confident person she is in the process of extracting herself from her marriage. She has said to me on more than one occasion that while she loves her children, and obviously wouldn't wish them away now, if she had her life over again she'd prefer to choose not to have them - I guess she missed out on a lot in life up to now and there's a sense of her own mortality and how much she hasn't experienced.

She's not a bad person. She's a good mother but is afraid that the fact that regrets having children shows though in her interactions with them. She said that she's been pretending for so long that she's happy with her lot that it's second nature to her and they probably don't notice anything.

Its sad really. So many go down the marriage + kids + house route because they are insecure and its what society deems as the norm, or even preferable, when it wasn't the right route for them at all. And this rhetoric of "I've never met someone who regrets having children" is very unhelpful, because there is clearly - outside of outright abusive parents - some good people who are fairly rubbish parents. It's terrible advice for people to go off and have a child because they believe it will deliver some meaning or purpose in their life, or fill some kind of hole, when it absolutely won't.

JDD wrote: »

I'm not sure that's right.

I have a friend, two young teenage kids, who was insecure about her looks when younger and I guess hankered after the "normal life" of a husband, family, house, car etc. She married earlyish to a guy that she wasn't suited to and had twins about a year. Now, as an older, wiser and more confident person she is in the process of extracting herself from her marriage. She has said to me on more than one occasion that while she loves her children, and obviously wouldn't wish them away now, if she had her life over again she'd prefer to choose not to have them - I guess she missed out on a lot in life up to now and there's a sense of her own mortality and how much she hasn't experienced.

It kinda proves my point in a way.
She loves her kids and gets self-worth from them.

Its sad really. So many go down the marriage + kids + house route because they are insecure and its what society deems as the norm, or even preferable, when it wasn't the right route for them at all. And this rhetoric of "I've never met someone who regrets having children" is very unhelpful, because there is clearly - outside of outright abusive parents - some good people who are fairly rubbish parents. It's terrible advice for people to go off and have a child because they believe it will deliver some meaning or purpose in their life, or fill some kind of hole, when it absolutely won't.

Abusive parents are one thing but again, people like that have issues themselves, to begin with. People are conflating the two issues.

Society deems it the norm because it is the norm. We are programmed biologically that way and we have about 4 million years of evolution to back it up. Science proves that childless people die younger for example.
Our entire human society is based around the family. People cannot see the wood from the trees on this issue and conflate various and different issues.

Maybe people just get uneasy that after all their yoga, pilates and drinking soya lates they are merely biological beings programmed to act a certain way. It makes them uneasy that they are not the free-thinking, free-spirited individual they think they are under the veneer.

markodaly wrote: »

I am not trying to put down anyone else tbh.

See, you say this, and then refer to people who choose not to have children in the most patronizing way possible.

Blaizes wrote: »

To be fair not having kids is probably a fairly new idea to Ireland. We haven’t actually had contraception that long ( 30 or 40 years maybe) so we were a country of big families. Now times have changed though and people have more choice.

We’ve probably gone in reverse mode though as having children now is so expensive that people just cant afford it even if they want to have children. And that isn’t right either.

People could never afford them they just had them anyway and kids shared rooms and didn’t go on holidays and ate simple food etc.

Blaizes wrote: »

All true, couldn’t disagree with one word you’ve said, but something has changed from then till now.

Expectations

markodaly wrote: »

I have lived a very hedonistic self-indulgent life before my own kids were born. Sure in your 20's and 30's kids are the last thing on your mind, but all the travelling, sex, drink, drugs, the partying wears thin after a while. You begin to realise is that it? Is this me for the next 50 years until I **** myself in a old folks home and die?

I suppose one becomes ready to move on from the self-indulgent lifestyle and start something else, something harder but ultimately much much more rewarding than a night on the beer, or a line of coke.

Seeing your own child for the first time after it being born is something indescribable, that cannot be put into words. You realise that you are part of something much bigger than yourself and that in an age of the self, having kids is one of the last vestiges of true sacrifice.

Having children was something that was at the forefront of my mind from a very early age, not something that just happened as though I’d an epiphany in my 30’s, and at the same time I enjoyed plenty of self-indulgence, still do, because having children for me was only one aspect of what I wanted from life. It wasn’t this higher purpose or realising I’m part of something much bigger than myself (I realised that long before I hit my 20’s even, in school, when I learned about history, geography and science).

That is perhaps why seeing my own child for the first time after it being born is something that contrary to your opinion, is easily described, for me at least. They looked like the offspring of a cross between a character from the Simpsons, and a Klingon - with a deeply furrowed brow and yellow skin. When the nurse in the delivery room asked me did I want to hold him, and presented me with a baby who was still covered in blood, I thought she must be kidding, I’m wearing a white shirt!

Put simply, there was no big epiphany, no realising I’d just contributed to climate change, no thinking that I had now made some “true sacrifice” or any of the rest of what I would consider to be self-indulgent navel-gazing nonsense on your part. My thinking on having children has always been based upon more practical concerns and pragmatism than some philosophical ideas about my own significance in the universe and evolution and all the rest of it.

If the pinnacle of your life’s achievements is something that humans have been doing for millions of years already, I would question how you evaluate the idea of life achievement and fulfilment.

markodaly wrote: »

Perhaps, but for many, it rings true. Sure, there are people out there who devote their lives to a cause or a vocation bigger than themselves but they are rare.
Many childless couples I know just want to live a good life, with cruises, nights out, and pay for expensive experiences. Whatever floats their boat but is that all is there to life? A front row seat to see the Rolling Stones? I doubt it.

I know many older people who didn't have kids and have rich fulfilled lives.
I also know more older people who didn't have kids, who end up really lonely and depressed.

It's a mixed bag really. I do not know one single person who hates or regrets having kids, even though it may have been a slow burn for them.

Again, whatever floats one's boat, but people sure get defensive about the issue, to the point they come across as insecure.

I would question how secure you are in your own life choices that you don’t appear to be able to appreciate the concept that other people evaluate the sum of their life’s achievements and what they want from their lives differently from how you evaluate the sum of one’s life achievements and fulfilment. It’s not being defensive to point out that they don’t evaluate their lives in the same way you think they should evaluate their lives. Put simply - they just don’t share your perspective, they have their own perspective on what they consider an achievement of what fulfils them.

I still have plenty of nights out, nice things, and I place more value in working to be able to provide those things for my child too. I would have liked to have more children, but it just didn’t happen, and that’s ok. It’s not like I ever considered the sole purpose of my existence was to reproduce anyway, so it’s not something I dwell on. I have plenty more in my life to fulfil me than just thinking having reproduced means “my work here is done”. There’s far more to life than just having children or raising children. That’s something humans have been doing for millions of years already. I would evaluate achievement as something that hasn’t been done by humans before, or something that’s actually difficult to do, that requires decades of dedication, education and discipline to be regarded as an elite in their chosen field of sports, or an authority in their chosen field of education or employment.

Whether they have children or not isn’t something I consider worthy of evaluation in terms of what a person has actually achieved in their lifetime or their contribution to society. If ever proof positive was needed that having and raising children is something any idiot can do, well... you’re welcome :pac: