Kids aren’t for everyone. Some people simply have different priorities and goals that do not align with raising children. To be specific, a 2022 Michigan State University study found that 21.64% of American adults are choosing to be childfree.
Instead of condemning them, like many like to do, and saying that they will regret this after some time, let’s try to understand this group instead. For that, the subreddit ‘Childfree‘ is the perfect resource.
Created back in 2009, it now unites 1.5 million members whose posts provide a better understanding of what happens after you make this life decision.
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But do people later regret not having children? They might not.
“[We] found no evidence that older childfree adults experience any more life regret than older parents,” Jennifer Watling Neal, the co-author of the aformentioned Michigan State University study, said.
“In fact, older parents were slightly more likely to want to change something about their life.”
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Sometimes the other party might doubt their course, too. YouGov data from 2021 found that1 in 12British parents (8%) currently regret having kids.
Younger parents aged 25 to 34 (one imagines the most sleep-deprived group) were the most likely to feel his way, while those aged 55 and over were the least regretful.
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Similarly, a 2013 Gallup survey found that around 7% of American parents older than 45 wouldn’t have any kids if they “had to do it over again.”
Parents in Germany seem exceptionally unhappy: astudydiscovered that 19% of German mothers and 20% of fathers say that if they could decide again, they would not want to have any more children.
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The ultimate takeaway from all this could be that having kids isn’t good or bad per se. It’s that there is more than one way to live a happy and fulfilling life.
Parenthood should be a choice. Not an inevitable duty. As my colleague Jonas wrote in our earlier publication on the subreddit ‘Childfree’, the grown-up thing to do is to respect each other, even if we might do things differently.
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