Missing out

My daughter hipped me to this Buzzfeed article .

In a recent Reddit thread, user u/ADreamyNightOwl asked people over 50 who chose to be childfree if they regretted their decision. Here’s what they had to say…

1. “I explain it to people like this: You know that feeling you get where you just can’t wait to teach your kid how to play baseball — or whatever it is you want to share with them? I don’t have that. It’s basically a lack of parental instinct. Having children was never something I aspired to.”
“My SO is the same way. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against children — and I get really angry at people who harm them or mistreat them. I just never wanted my own.”

—u/IBeTrippin

2. “I have mixed feelings. I don’t care much for children and I think it would have been disastrous for us to have them. I was also able to retire at 52 — pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened with kids. So yeah, absolutely the right decision…But I love my family and wonder what it would be like to have my own, to teach my child the things I know…”
—u/ProfessorOzone

3. “My wife and I chose long ago not to have children, but always left it open for renegotiation. We feel absolutely no regrets about not having children. Hopefully, we’ll still feel that way long into the future. Lots of folks ask us questions like, ‘Who will take care of you when you’re old?’ or ‘What if something happens to your spouse?’ No judgment, but, to us those have always felt like pretty selfish reasons to have children.”
—u/lyingliar

4. “I don’t necessarily regret not having them, but I regret the fact that I wasn’t in a healthy enough relationship where I felt I COULD have children. I regret not being stronger to leave the abuse earlier. If I had been stronger, I think maybe I could have had the choice at least.”
—u/MerakiStudioMe

5. “My wife worked at a nursing home for years. She said 95% of old people never have family who visits…until they die when people want a piece of the pie. This is when I learned that the whole, ‘Well who is gonna visit you or take care of you when you’re older?’ line is complete bullshit. We decided to not have kids ever after that. Made great friends and saw the world. No regrets.”
—u/joevilla1369

6. “No regrets. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to marry my husband. He had two sons from his first marriage and a vasectomy. He was worried because I was so young (comparatively, he’s 10 years older). I did think it over seriously. It worked out for us, we’ve been together for 26 years. As a bonus, I have nine grandchildren. All the fun without the work of the raising!”
—u/ZubLor

7. “57 years old and childless. I don’t regret it at all. I sincerely believe that I would have been a piss-poor mother. I’m an extreme introvert, and seeing my sister with her sprogs clinging to her all the time, wanting something or other — food, attention, a toy, whatever — and calling, ‘mommy mommy mommy,’ convinced me of the wisdom of my decision.”
“My sister’s kids have grown into wonderful young adults, and I love them to death, but I need lots of alone time to remain sane, and you don’t get that with kids.”

—u/booboocita

8. “I’m glad I never had kids and I found a partner who feels the same. We are the cool aunt and uncle

What’s worse are the comments. Nearly all of which show people who have reduced childrearing to an economic decision that must be weighed against saving, travel, buying a new car, etc. The others claim they didn’t have kids because they knew they’d be bad parents.  They are probably right.

I’m not interested in refuting any of this. I say GOOD. Drop out of the gene pool. Be gone. Enjoy having the Squatemalan steal from you and abuse you while you are being kept on life support and farmed for Medicare money by CareMart.

This is a high stakes game, life. I mean the ongoing existence of the most precious thing of all, human life. We are descended from people who showed up, procreated, lived, loved, passed it on, then passed on themselves. This is a game that can only be won by people who participate.  So, good riddance to all of these who are too spergy, too materialistic, too broken, too emotionally barren, and honestly TOO AFRAID to reproduce.

Good riddance.

You are a dead end and my posterity thanks you for that.

This goes for you MGTOWS as well.   PLEASE GO YOUR OWN WAY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.   PLEASE.

6 thoughts on “Missing out”

  1. Hey Scott….new OGB member here. This post really resonated with me. Even though I am an atheist, I’ve always felt that having kids is fundamental to the human experience and that anyone who shuns it will ultimately deform their character somehow. The only comment that made sense to me was joevilla1369 with the sad account of elderly people in nursing homes with no visitors. However, I don’t think the solution to that problem is to not have kids but to commit to taking care of your freaking parents and passing that value on to the kids!

    Just wanted you to know that your thoughts on marriage and family have had an impact on me, even though I know our attitudes towards religion are quite different.

    1. Thanks for reading and taking the time to drop a line.

      The “have kids to take care of me when I’m old” argument is terrible I think. You’re right. Take care of your parents, be worthy of respect and it’ll be fine for you in old age.

      Here’s something interesting though. You mention atheism and differences of religion. Why? Who cares?

      Seems like you think there’s a “best.” That’s good enough for me for now.

      1. I bring up religion because I’ve yet to meet a committed religious believer who doesn’t want children. Literally to a person, every one I know who has chosen to remain childless is a highly educated secular urban person (like myself). Without some deeper philosophy of life, all they can imagine the good life as consisting of are foreign vacations, going to concerts, watching Netflix shows, or trying out the new trendy restaurant.

        Even many of the parents I know exhibit bizarre behaviors that suggest our values regarding children are out of whack. My favorite example is the huge proportion of my female acquaintances who request a night out alone at a hotel as their Mother’s Day present. No shit….they are literally asking to be away from their kids as a present.

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