#child-free-life

#child-free-life

The fertility rate for 2025 was reported at 53.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, marking a one percent drop compared to the previous year.

"While putting a number to the loss, there is much about those lost conversations that these data cannot answer. Were they lost with friends, or family, or with strangers?"

As a childfree person, there's a point when you can have too much wealth. I'm not trying to build generational wealth - in fact, I'd like to die with very little money. That means my career isn't driven by financial gain. I focus on purpose, not profit.

Birthday parties are supposed to be fun, and they are, but they can also be hard work, not to mention very costly for parents.

I'm just going to say it: The whole kids versus no-kids debate isn't actually about kids. It's about resources. I feel like a considerable portion of our generation feels like we got rug-pulled by 'the system,' and understandably so. Hence, where we are today. Money, time, energy, emotions - everyone is feeling the squeeze, and that changes the mental calculus for everyone (as it should).

Try hard enough, we are often told, and eventually you'll get what you want. But sometimes the hardest - and bravest - thing to do, is to stop trying. After years of hoping to start a family, including the painful rollercoaster of fertility treatment and a devastating miscarriage on Christmas day, Caroline Stafford, found the only way to find some kind of peace again was to accept it was not going to happen and to build a different future.

Then we circled back to the question that won't leave us alone. Do we bring a second child into this world, or do we stop at one? It's the most intimate climate question I've ever faced. Not a reusable bag choice. Not a diet tweak. A lifelong decision that will shape our home, our time, and yes, our footprint. I'm not alone in wrestling with this.

My dad loved kids. Being a dad was all he ever wanted, and he excelled at it. I remember the day he sold our childhood train set - the family buying it came over, and he got so excited showing the kid how it all worked. He just loved kids.

He had just earned a master's degree in political science from the University of British Columbia and had recently sent off a raft of applications to law school. But he was between jobs. And he did live with his parents. "I figured, why not have some fun with it?" he said. "Better to be a 'stay-at-home son' than 'unemployed' or 'schmuck' or 'lazy guy.'"

Parents who shove tablets or phones in their kids' faces. Kids nowadays need to learn how to entertain themselves and regulate their emotions rather than mindlessly scroll at 2 years old. I personally think parents who do this are taking the lazy way out and are just allowing the tablet to parent for them; there is no discussion or creativity taking place. When I was a kid, I always had books, coloring books, sudoku, crosswords, and word searches with me everywhere I went as entertainment, and I think these options are a better alternative.

We Generation X people are made of stern stuff. The latchkey generation; the ones raised on convenience foods that probably bordered on the radioactive; the kids sent out at daybreak and told to return only when the street lights came on.

I'm now older than they were when they had me. I'm turning 27 and, though I don't want children, it's sometimes difficult not to measure my life against theirs. They got married at 21. When I was 21, I was finishing my bachelor's degree in the middle of a pandemic. At 25, rather than having a child, I was moving in with my girlfriend, and we became cat parents.

My wife and I have two kids, boys aged 4 and 6. I'm very happy with our family as it is. The kids are both out of diapers and in school all day. They're sleeping, we're sleeping. I feel like we've got a handle on this thing. But now my wife is saying she wants another one. She's 40, I'm 45-it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that we could have another one.

I was never grounded. I never got my phone taken away. My parents really never yelled at me, and I feel like they had a pretty controversial parenting style, but it's also the exact way that I would raise my kids if I were to have them. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to do. I was allowed to go to parties. I was allowed to drink. I told my mom before I smoked weed for the first time.