this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
268 points (96.5% liked)

News

23287 readers
3436 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/anyBg

Like Ms. McKay, a growing number of U.S. adults say they are unlikely to raise children, according to a study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center. When the survey was conducted in 2023, 47 percent of those younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018.

When asked why kids were not in their future, 57 percent said they simply didn’t want to have them. Women were more likely to respond this way than men (64 percent vs. 50 percent). Further reasons included the desire to focus on other things, like their career or interests; concerns about the state of the world; worries about the costs involved in raising a child; concerns about the environment, including climate change; and not having found the right partner.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I'm not unaccomplished, by any means, but I genuinely felt like I wasted my life before having a kid. We had our first at 36 and we're about to start trying for a 2nd at 38.

Which is to say, while it's hard, it's one of the only things worth doing in life. IMO, obviously.

(For the record, in our 20s we were the "no thanks" crowd, I changed in my 30s and my wife took an extra 6 years to come around)

Edit: lol love the downvotes for this benign comment. Lemmy is a dumpsterfire.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm gay and married. No kids, don't want them. I have nieces and nephews I can borrow for the day and then give them back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

that in itself is a service to your family.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Cool man. Not even close to the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

That’s what he’s saying.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I decided at 30 to have kids. I wouldn't say I wasted my life before kids, I just wasn't ready yet. I still feel under prepared. I say that children is the hardest thing you will ever do, and I think that's the source of downvotes I'm getting. I'm not saying that there are not other things in life that are hard. If you choose not to have kids, you can still have hard things in your life.

However, if you do choose to have kids, that will be the hardest thing you do. Emotionally and physically hard. You lose any sort of regenerative sleep for 5 years. Fitness routine? Bye bye. Energy? Out the window. Oh, you enjoyed the relationship with your spouse? HAH! And then you take the emotional stuff into it, like mourning the loss of the human baby you grew to love and falling in love with the toddler the baby became. And then the cycle repeats again and again until one day they don't come back. It's a 20 year relationship that ends with a partial breakup.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You lose any sort of regenerative sleep for 5 years. Fitness routine? Bye bye. Energy? Out the window.

Oh shit, do I have kids?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

You might want to ask your doctor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

My kids are similar ages and I think non-parents assume we are insulting them we we state how difficult parenting is. It's an objective fact that having kids is hard, they make every activity at least twice as difficult.

For example. I had to travel for work recently. 12 hours of travelling total, including 4 hours in traffic. Because the kids weren't there, it was really easy.

Another example. My MS in engineering feels like it was nothing compared to the work I've put in for the almost 8 years our first has been alive.

Which seems like I'm making fun of people without kids for thinking normal life is easy. Nope, my perception is warped and everyone has their own perception of life's difficulties.