Joe Rogan: The Sad Reality of Aging Without Family: An Adrift Generation.

I've seen many people happy and content having a family and seen many who shouldn't or did have a family due to oopsie, family/societal pressure etc and aren't so happy even if they put on a good face. I'm in my 50's, no family or owning a home and I'm content, you make your own happiness.

It irritates me to no end hearing people talk endlessly about “people aren’t having kids so they’re going to die alone blah blah blah.” Do they not realize that many of us would like kids, but the current circumstances of our culture and society (so much of which OUR generation did not create) makes the prospect of having kids seem downright terrifying? I don’t want to being kids into a world where cost of living, healthcare, and higher education has become impossibly costly, social media, the internet, and all of its toxic effects are everywhere, where once they’re elderly themselves they may well have no social safety net in terms of social security because been burned up, and where I’d worry to death they’re going to get shot just going to school. I’d love to have a family, and I know the worlds not perfect, and I’d help them as much as I could, but there’s only so much I could do and it just seems that the odds have become so stacked against raising kids successfully and ensuring that they too can have a good life. Maybe it’s a strange way to look at it but for lack of a better word, to me it almost feels like it’s just so “unfair” to them.

Wow, some very thoughtful discussion,

I had a child and never thought I would, but spouse and I decided to at a late age. I wouldn't have, but the spouse, who changed their mind, decided we should give it a try. And this is a shared decision.

What I want to say is I believe vehemently that it is fine not to have kids, and this doesn't even need to be argued.

But I will also tell you from personal experience that having kids can bring out the best in you. It can and often does. Why? Because children are a raging ball of love. It's amazing, and it's hard not to see it. So, bringing them up usually raises the parents to a new level of trying and consideration and selflessness. Yes, it's a challenge, and things can go wrong, but for God's sake, have some confidence in yourself and in the world and make a vote for affirming the good in yourself and the world. It just takes a little faith, and I don't mean that in the religious sense, though that might help, too. And it can change you to be a more responsible person, and often does.

Being a parent can be a wonderful experience. It can be among the very best in life. And there's no reason it couldn't be. So please don't think that you don't want to pass along your bad character or the world is too uncertain, etc. You make the leap because you believe you can navigate it together.

Again, I believe it's perfectly okay to decide this isn't a direction for you. But I want to say to not make that decision out of fear. Parenting may help you rise above all that and in so doing, elevate the world in which you reside.

Oh please…. Generations past had it much tougher. Wars and diseases killed 10s of millions in America and Europe. Widespread famine was a real threat. Women frequently died during childbirth. 25% of children died in their first year of life and half of people born never made it to adulthood. And only the rich went to college.

it is easier now, than it has ever been, to raise a family.

I bet that most people who have made a conscious choice not to have children would not regret their decision later in life.

Those who wanted to have children but never did probably feel differently. If you belong to this group, you should adjust your expectations for life at some point in life.

ur post is too long to read for the challenged.

anyways, u sound like the joker in batman; "mentaly ill but high value man"....

What kind of injury?

Most if not all injuries heal.

U will be back chasing girlz in no time

Life has always been this way. I'm not sure if you're a troll or not but the good things you bring up have been around for a century or less. The premise of most major religions is that life is suffering - what do we do about it?

In history, the suffering was starvation, infection, war, rape. Now it's a different beast: social isolation, depression, lack of community, etc. There is no way of quantifying if one sort of suffering is worse than another. The fact is, it's part of life.

If you don't want kids, don't have them. But I don't think the suffering of the world is any greater than it's been throughout human existence. So I don't understand this argument against having children.

This is a great post. It's intereting that you obscured your sex. Are you a man or a woman?

I'm a middle aged childless woman. My reasons are multifaceted, althogh I always figured I'd have them. (1) I waited until my career was stable and had a divorce at 35, and (2) it's very hard to find a man who wants to have kids who is also willing to date a woman who is 35+

Kids make people happy - and as you said - they make people better people. 100%

Ok, I kind of wanted to post anonymously in that I discuss people and choices beyond strictly my own, but re-reading, not too much of a personal disclosure here, so I feel okay saying it is me.

I am male.

Thank you. Glad some may find something redeeming in these exchanges of ideas, and I know I have in some of the posts above.

Looking over your post a bit more closely, we didn't decide to have a child until many years after your age, which frankly, still sounds plenty young to me, at least. And it simply the truth nowadays that many individuals and couples are delaying parenting. They are doing so exactly for the reasons you note.

Lastly, I had a good friend who was having a lot of challenges finding a GF. He was mid-thirties. This went on for years and it was eating him up. I saw it all the time.

Well, he did eventually meet a woman and my God, I couldn't open up facebook without hearing what a wonderful, beautiful person he had the luck to find. They moved out of state, had kids, and he showers his loving wife and kids with so much adoration, you cannot help but appreciate that he values them so much in part because he knows not to take this part of life for granted. In short, often what comes hardest if valued the most.

So, there are those out there, apparently, and they seem to be worth the wait.

All the best to you.

I suspect there are a lot of men who are not in the upper 20% when it comes to looks and make barely enough money to pay for their bare necessities

Women do not find them attractive, to the point they'd rather all be fking the same couple of guys because they are either over 6' tall and/or are winning the money game

So it's not that many men don't want a family, they simply can't afford it and because of that are essentially invisible to the opposite sex

Single, childless middle-aged woman here, hoping to retire by 62 and am very aware that I am probably “going it alone” in old age, although I have a younger sister who I get along with as well as god friends in the same boat, either always single or divorced — and we’ve talked about what that looks like together.

My dad died in 2019, was significantly older than my mom, and she’s retired and not loving it, although I visit her when I can and travel together when she feels comfortable doing so. I wish she would visit her grandkids in another state more often, but she doesn’t like traveling alone. My sis and her kids can’t visit her for a variety of reasons, including her husband thinks they’ll all die in a plane crash. I won’t get into how awful that relationship is …

My point is — we all can plan but rarely does anything work out the way you expect, kids or no kids. So just try to prepare and then live in the moment.

It is more common than you think nowadays. Don't feel alone.

It's an important discussion, but Rogan is taking it too narrowly. At 60, men entering retirement reflect on their work-life-family balance, and that can include not having a family, or not having spent enough time with them (or some born earlier or later).

Of course it is a time to reflect on their work and whether that was what they really wanted to do, and if they took opportunities offered (a common life regret), and made sensible financial and health decisions. Top issues are health, retirement funds and family (not necessarily in that order depending lifestyle, fortunes, divorces and remarriage).

Retirement now lasts a lot longer than it did for past generations, and especially in early retirement, when morbidity spikes, it's important to have a range of contributions and commitments to attend.

Research is still developing on the 'young old', who do see an upswing in life satisfaction compared with the mid life (45-55) nadir. Commitments can include time in-person with family, but offspring move for work and retirees move for retirement too, sometimes internationally.

Rogan's audience and revenue via ads is mainly younger men, but his perspective as put forward on a mass broadcast can be quite different to candid conversations with and amongst men at retirement or a bit before (in the 45-55 mid-life squeeze), especially those who do not come from an entertainment industry career (less kindly a career in the chattering classes), and have not taken the course of forming public opinions through a public life in that direction.

Those conversations with men (often from predominately male-dominated industries or positions), tend to be frank and realistic about what success and life satisfaction and time well spent entails, and can involve harsher takes than would be put in public by most (including on podcasts like Rogan's). Their focus can often be on contribution to real living standards, and the long-term decline of industry and infrastructure and the rise of basic living costs is more prominent than some of the stuff that serves hot takes for podcasts.

SMH and here you call other people groomers all of the time, you creepo