What do couples do once they decide not to have kids

My wife and I look around seeing other people with kids and just look at each other and nod like "yep...we made the right call".

On an equally serious note, aside from not having to juggle various sports teams practices and matches/games, PTA meet ups, bake sales, dirty diapers, teenagers grazing through an entire month of grocery budget in a week, wondering if you taught a teenager to make good decisions when they go out to a party with raging hormones, etc. it's actually pretty much the same.

They take care of their elderly parents because the rest of their siblings with kids are too lazy to help out.

Any other questions?

Its the opposite you idiot. Its "what do couples do when they decide TO have kids."

the baseline is not having kids. everyone knows this. The CHOICE is to HAVE KIDS. you are the loser if you CHOOSE TO HAVE KIDS. for everyone else its the standard to be single..........meh

All my family members with kids hate their lives. Its a new world. Its not 1990 or 1890 - in the near future having kids will be looked back on as the destroyer of a great life.....just have ai and robots raise your "kids".

Anyone who thinks being a "parent" is a valued signifier is an idiot. Parents in the future will be pitied greatly. They will think the idea so odd haha

Once ai can figure out to rid of us being parents - then we will be in paradise. I'm guessing by 2035 we will be good to go!

Wait 18-25 years till their parent friends free up some time on their social calendar.

It’s a real choice. My late wife and I never had kids. We just had a blast for 11 years and 11 months before her glioblastoma diagnosis.

I was talking to her sister a couple of weeks ago and I said “ I never had a bad day with her. We even went to bed together every night until she got sick” “ not one argument “ “ not one cross word”

Her sister said “ yes, but you never had any kids. Your relationship would have been a whole lot different, had you had kids”

I thought that was profound and probably exactly right.

Ask most gay couples who have been doing it for a century now. Their lives always seemed more fun then mine...

It’s the equivalent of doing intervals 2 x week with a long run but never racing. In summation they are missing the point and might as well go out in a blaze of glory at age 29

They don't decide anything. They already have a life and they just keep living it. Having kids just isn't a priority for a lot of couples and there's typically no need to decide otherwise.

On a related note, kids are seen as giving a couple's life meaning in large part because most working adults don't have any major purpose to their lives outside of work and paying the bills. Eventually, the nights out and occasional vacations get old, and they peter principle head-first into the ceiling of their careers. Suddenly, having a kid gives you a permanent commitment and a new purpose. If your life prior wasn't anything to write home about, then raising a child quickly becomes your most meaningful commitment.

56 no kids and living the exact life describe by most. I retired early, my wife retired early, we take very nice vacations, we are both very active, it's pretty dang great.

My only "beef" with the No Kids v Have Kids thing is that the No Kids folks don't seem to care much about the Have Kids side. We just dgaf that you made the decision, but man does the Have Kids side have a lot to say about how we live.

Living a life with no children to care for would be boring. I enjoy the kids, the birthdays, Christmas, their accomplishments, No grand kids?

i can't see anything being better by not raising children. What do you gain with just the two of you?

Statistically they're much more likely to split up than couples with kids are unless they find some other significant project to bond over. We've had a childless couple next door for close to thirty years. When they moved in he ran a company that puts on bike tours and she has some sort of job which she quit fairly soon to work in their company.

That took up a lot of time. They seem to travel a good bit or did until they got old. I think they filled out evenings and weekends watching TV or having other childless friends visit.

They want to relive their 20s. They don't want responsibility or anything to hold them down.

I’m happy in life. Not sure you feel the same. You do you.

I’m 70. Never had kids. It just wasn’t right for me. I will say, if you are a fan of Darwin as I am, perpetuating the species is a primary thing.

If you don’t, as you get older, certain eccentricities begin to present themselves…

Living alone at an older age is very odd. The older you get the more “ crazy as a loon” you get.

its unavoidable. This is like mileage talk. You say you are 70 and doing 40 mile weeks, there’s someone immediately comes on line and says they are 70 and running 41.

same thing here. If you are older and living alone, you get crazy eccentricities because it doesn’t comply with the perpetuation of the species

Now someone will come on and say “ I’m just as normal as ever”

Quite the opposite experience. The no kid people only talk about all the challenges of having kids as the reason the made the right choice. They seem to struggle on specifics of what they have gained.

Everything

Maybe they’re telling you exactly what they gained (ex. not having to deal with the challenges of raising kids) but you’re just not listening?

They enjoy life and have money.