Not having children is a mindset that is foreign to most people, I think, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they might be intrigued by it. I wouldn't take the question about why not as an implied insult, as it is just as likely that they simply want to know why you wouldn't want to have children because that is not something that would seem intuitive in their experience.
It never crossed my mind not to have children and I thank my lucky stars for mine but if I had a do over in life...I might have chosen a different path...maybe without children. There are so many different reasons some people don't have kids that when I see someone who doesn't...I don't think of why they don't. Usually they couldn't or they didn't want any. I didn't really even have time to think about it really....I was a virgin when I met my husband and very naive and a month after we were married I was pregnant with my daughter.
That's so true...my daughter gets the same responses from people. She's never had any interest in children... they're just not for her, and so many millennial are the same these days..who can blame them in this uncertain world.. but for my daughter, her career and hher animals are much more important to her. People always presume that if you have no children you must either be too ugly to attract a man, be too selfish..or end up being an embittered old spinster, especially if you say you prefer animals to children... visions of an old embittered spinster cat lady seems to be the norm... nothing could be further from the truth ... My daughter is beautiful, she's always been in long term relationships...and she works very long hours 7 days a week taking the greatest..and I mean the very best care of Dogs and cats that belong to other people, as well as dogs of her own... she's just not interested in ever having children..and far from being selfish, I think it's simply the most unselfish act, to not conform to what society expects of you as a women if that's not your choice... My daughter...... 42 this year..
That is what many call the Old War War 2...mentality. Women for so long grew up thinking their only purpose in life was to marry stay barefoot and pg. That era has been gone actually for a longtime. Much more rewarding to march to your own drum
@Holly Saunders Beautiful girl, Holly, and certainly a daughter to be proud of. Thank you for sharing. Frank
We have one son, But, I don’t think anyone should ever ever feel pressured into having a child, It is a huge decision,not to be taken lightly. No one was put on this earth,just to have children. If a person or a couple choose not to have children,that is their own decision,they are not being selfish, other people are being selfish,expecting them to do things they really don’t want to, it is their life,their decision,other people should accept and respect their decision. People can have a wonderful happy life with or without children. We have friends and family without children,they are all very happy.
I am the exception on this forum, I guess. We had six children, but only 4 pregnancies. We started out with two sets of identical twins 19 months apart--one set of girls followed by 2 boys and two individual sons later. We planned to have 2 but were blessed with six.
Yep, we were truly blessed, but there was a time when we wondered.... For two years after the second set of twins, my wife has no recollection of life as she was exhausted all the time. I was working 16-hour shifts to put food on the table, and neither of us had any relatives in the area in which we lived at the time. We had 4 in diapers for quite a while, so we couldn't afford disposable diapers (nappies). We often went through 60 diapers a day with breast-feeding and all, so we used a 30-gallon container as a diaper pail and it was my duty to wash the diapers daily since my wife at 100 pounds was unable to move or lift the pail. I worked evenings and nights, so I would do the wash before work and hang them on the clothes line to dry, as drying cloth diapers in a dryer was just too expensive. We have had a wonderful, adventurous life, but...I am glad I am now retired!
@Don Alaska , oh yes I don't doubt for a second that the children were the hardest work ever, absolutely.. and probably right into their teens, but are they close to each other and to you and mum now?...are they a blessing to each other?
I was the opposite really Von, it never occurred to me to HAVE children.. although I did have one ( my precious daughter) , and lost a second 8 years later ... but in actual fact while my sisters were thinking of names for their kids while they were growing up..it just never occurred to me I'd have any. In many ways it was like they were talking about having a dog or a car ...it didn't resonate with me in any way
@Holly Saunders the twins are still close. The girls both married mechanical engineers and who work for Boeing, and they live in mirror-image homes a couple blocks from each other. The twin boys are still hunting and fishing buddies, and both married somewhat dysfunctional women. Our two single sons are independent--one lives near here, but we seldom see him as he works long hours and the other lives in Omaha, Nebraska...we seldom see him at all, but he is getting married in December and we are going there in a couple weeks and again for the wedding before Christmas. The sons in Alaska are always ready to help us old folks out if we ask, but we seldom ask.