I can’t even begin to understand why some people call being childless “selfish.” What exactly does not having children cost other people?

$300,000 is the cost of raising a kid to the age of 18....and that's if you have a "normal" kid with no medical issues or disabilities. Also we're at over 8-billion people population-wise now and I seriously don't think we're in any danger of going extinct any time soon, so that's another factor in people skipping the kid-thing altogether.

Misery loves company. That's why others want you to have kids. They're jealous of the time and freedom childfree people have, and childfree people won't sit around b'ing and moaning about their kids with you. There are 4 of us kids in my family, the youngest now 57. Not a kid amongst us. We remember how we fought and gave our parents hard times. Why on earth would we willfully subject ourselves to what we put our parents through?

Also these older folks don't want to help with childcare at all, because they are retired and "did their time". Things are so expensive now you have to have two invoices and childcare is so expensive now it takes most of a average person's paycheck. If these people want grandchildren perhaps they need to provide or pay for childcare themselves or support government funded childcare for all.

Everything in our culture is changing very quickly and that includes the idea that everyone should have kids. Everyone should NOT have kids. If parents, family or friends cannot understand the decision not to they do well to at least respect the person's judgement. We have three sons. the oldest and his wife have one daughter. The middle one absolutely does not want kids. The youngest and his partner want to..eventually. As parents, we put our desires aside and trust our kids judgement. Makes life a lot easier too!

I have a child, it’s awesome being a Dad because I wanted and still want to be a Dad, I’m lucky! I have friends who are in happy, stable relationships who don’t want children, they go to more gigs than me (I do love a gig 😀), they have more disposable income than me, they have more free time than me, they are lucky. It’s not about right / wrong, it’s about life choices and where will YOUR path go, I chose mine and my friends chose theirs, they love my daughter, they love spending time with her, they also love not being responsible for a child 24/7. Why would I tell them they’ve got it wrong?

I'm 32 and have no interest in getting married or having kids. That lifestyle has no appeal to me at all. If I'm going to be called selfish for wanting to sleep in or do whatever I want without dealing with tantrums and shrieking, then I guess I'm selfish...and a lot less stressed.

I worked part-time when I had mine 30 years go and that was sometimes tough but now both have to work full-time to stand a chance. People complain about government handouts to families but in the end, without the contribution of children (when they're grown up), the standard of living for the next generation of retirees will not be good at all.

I'm partial to money, silence, and travelling

I’m too young to have kids but I really do want them but I don’t think I will be able to at this rate. My dream job sounds like it wouldn’t make me enough money, and in order to have kids in the first place I either have to adopt or do IVF things which is so expensive. How would I make it work in this economy and I hardly believe it could get much better.

I'm a married 51 yo female. With no kids! I never wanted them. There are a ton of reasons why. But I am very happy in my life and have absolutely no regrets. If any of you are seriously thinking about having a kid, I highly recommend that you get a dog first. Dogs are a lot of work, but kids are a lot more. If you can't handle the dog, don't have a kid.

I'll start be saying, it's every persons choice whether they have kids or not. With that out of the way, I don't understand his justification. If he's earning upper 5 figures, that would imply $80,000 maybe $90,000 annually. That's way over average wage. So unless his partner is either not working or in a really low paying job claiming it's too expensive seems like an artificial justification. Maybe because he doesn't want to tell his friend "we just don't want kids because they'll cramp our lifestyle". Which again, is a perfectly valid reason not to have them.

I wouldn't have kids even if I was super rich. Not my thing. My parents (boomers) always taught me it was bad to deliberately have kids you couldn't afford or couldn't care for in other ways. But my mom grew up in poverty so there's that. It's too bad this guy can't afford them, since he might be a decent parent. I think the "selfish" line is dumb, but it shows how people value imaginary people over anyone who already exists. You can't be selfish towards something that doesn't exist, so that argument makes no sense. You never really see anyone seriously say everyone must foster needy kids from the foster system. No, it's always about making a whole new human and f*ck them kids who are already here. As for the tax base, I suggest something that doesn't involve letting a handful of people hoard all the money and is an unsustainable pyramid scheme. Even though they are called "baby boomers", us millennials actually outnumber them because there are 8 billion people.

Hubby and I put our feet down with our families that our one child would be it. They've been respectful of that decision since, so yay for that. There is no winning when it comes to the topic of children. Besides them not believing why younger people don't want to have kids, there's no f*****g pleasing them with what younger people do end up doing about children. You're judged for not having any, but if you only have one, you must have another. But f**k you straight to hell if you have more than one child and have the audacity to complain about the difficulties of raising multiple children.

Is anyone noticing that the Gen Z'rs are almost as irritating as boomers with their "Anti Children" comments/post?? I saw a video on IG the other day where a family was showing a newly constructed bathroom with the title "do you see what's wrong?"...and many of the comments where, "yea, there's kids", "the kids will ruin your bathroom then your lives"...I get it, you don't want kids but I came to the comments because I wanted to really see what was wrong with the bathroom! I also seen a few live videos on AMA, I don't want kids... All the Anti Child pushing is starting to get as obnoxious as boomers pushing to have children...

I want to know why anyone wants to have a child at this point period, considering climate is well in it's way to extermibmnating us. Yes, one needs to believe CC is real, but for those that do I am scratching my head. I am 53, no kids in part economic stability, the atate of the world and just not being up to the task.

There are a lot of people who don't want kids for a variety of reasons, but much of the "too expensive" perspective is based on providing what they perceive as a certain quality of life, while the kids themselves couldn't care less as long as they have a loving family. I know many people who grew with little to nothing but had a very happy childhood. Kids don't need all the stuff we think they do.

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I dont agree - In a worlwide coparison the less money people have, the more children they have - think about india or nigeria for example