The Childfree Movement

[RMNIXON]

We're close to or below the replacement rate already. Seculars way below, religious above.

Also advanced educated societies falling below, third world well above. That does not bode well in the long term.

[blackjack21]

After that, how could I say no?

Well, if she impregnates herself or someone else with it, outside the context of a sperm bank/fertililty clinic, you just signed up for child support.

[zelmo1234]

I chose to not reproduce back in my late 20’s, and got myself fixed. Many times since then people with kids have said to me, “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

I have always held back saying, “You don’t know what you’re missing, either!” But I could see more than a shadow of regret and envy cross their faces as they tamped down imagining what their life would be like if they didn’t have children. I held my tongue out of consideration for their dilemma.

This thread caused another realization to pop into my head - why would I miss something that I never had, or wanted? If that’s the game, there are endless things I could have had over the decades but didn’t, what use is it to worry over any of them?

The great lesson to be learned in life is to not identify with everything that happens - it’s the singular purpose and use for free will. None of the identifications will mean cat turds the day you die.

“If you would make a man happy, add not to his possessions, but take from his desires.”

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for your decision!

[zelmo1234]

My mother is in a nursing home and I visit her often. A good number of the residents don't get any visitors according to the nurses. But, many have children. And, grandchildren.

I certainly hope you didn't have children just so you could have someone support you in your old age. That can backfire big time. Go visit a nursing home and see for yourself.

I don't think I will have to worry, they don't leave us alone now. And we have already been through some very tuff situations.

I do feel sorry for those, many times it is just that they don't live were their family lives but it is sad, When my parents were in Alabama, I talked to them everyday. I think it is how you were brought up.

[carolina73]

I can understand this.

If you grow up being taught that the world is going to be in meltdown, then why have kids?

If you grow up being told that we are going to be wards of the state, then why have kids?

Democrats are creating a negative society that tells people they need to be taken care of and that they are all victims.

I would be interested to see what the political split is on people making this choice.

[Standing Wolf]

Now here is somethingI can support if a women wants to have herself fixed so she can't have children that is being in charge of her own body and nobody should have a say but her

And if she is happy great and when she is old and has out lived her spouse a d nobody on earth gives a $#@! about her

Well that was her choice as well

I know many older woman and men who have outlived their spouse - or in some cases, never had one - and LOTS of people "give a $#@!" about them.

Seriously, z, what is wrong with you?

[countryboy]

Over the course of last year, a pregnant woman named Yuni, who became a new mother that year, compiled an often snarky-sounding list of pros and cons to having a child and posted regular updates on them to TikTok. The cons quickly came to outnumber the pros by a wide margin until, in its final iteration, The List, which you can see here, included 350 cons and 35 pros, which would be a ration of 10 to 1. The List, as it came to simply be known, went viral, with her original video amassing 11.5 million likes (that again is just the likes, not the total views!) as of the start of the year. Consider that a microcosm.

In the lead-up to the now-infamous Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, demand for voluntarily sterilization procedures increased substantially among younger women -- a group that traditionally has rarely been interested -- in a trend that has continued since. Doctors are often reluctant to provide women in their 20s with such procedures because, though they are safe and don't change one's periods or anything, they're not easily reversed and the regret rate among that age cohort in successive decades of their lives has proven much higher (around 20%) than among other age cohorts. However, many of the young women today seeking voluntary sterilization are recent additions to a surging scene known as the childfree movement, which seeks to de-stigmatize childlessness. Some adherents are anti-natalist though many others are not. The Childfree subreddit now counts 1.5 million members, making it one of the largest communities on the platform. A formal advocacy group called We Are Childfree can be found here. Proponents of the childfree lifestyle point out studies indicating that permanently single and childless women rank among the happiest Americans as a group and out-earn all other groups of Americans in aggregate. Anyway, getting back to the topic of increases in demand for voluntary sterilization among younger women in post-Roe America, the nuance to those regret statistics is that just 6% of childless women who opt for sterilization in their 20s wind up regretting it, in contrast to their counterparts. In other words, childfree women are very unlikely to regret such a decision.

Many have wondered how women of childbearing age might respond to suddenly finding themselves in a post-Roe America. This is part of the answer.

(Full disclosure: As a particular kind of 4B participant myself, I am de-facto part of the childfree movement.)

Why does everything on the left have to become a "movement"? If you don't want to have kids, don't have kids. Nobody gives a $#@!.

[countryboy]

.....I chose to not reproduce back in my late 20’s, and got myself fixed.....

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

[donttread]

Over the course of last year, a pregnant woman named Yuni, who became a new mother that year, compiled an often snarky-sounding list of pros and cons to having a child and posted regular updates on them to TikTok. The cons quickly came to outnumber the pros by a wide margin until, in its final iteration, The List, which you can see here, included 350 cons and 35 pros, which would be a ration of 10 to 1. The List, as it came to simply be known, went viral, with her original video amassing 11.5 million likes (that again is just the likes, not the total views!) as of the start of the year. Consider that a microcosm.

In the lead-up to the now-infamous Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, demand for voluntarily sterilization procedures increased substantially among younger women -- a group that traditionally has rarely been interested -- in a trend that has continued since. Doctors are often reluctant to provide women in their 20s with such procedures because, though they are safe and don't change one's periods or anything, they're not easily reversed and the regret rate among that age cohort in successive decades of their lives has proven much higher (around 20%) than among other age cohorts. However, many of the young women today seeking voluntary sterilization are recent additions to a surging scene known as the childfree movement, which seeks to de-stigmatize childlessness. Some adherents are anti-natalist though many others are not. The Childfree subreddit now counts 1.5 million members, making it one of the largest communities on the platform. A formal advocacy group called We Are Childfree can be found here. Proponents of the childfree lifestyle point out studies indicating that permanently single and childless women rank among the happiest Americans as a group and out-earn all other groups of Americans in aggregate. Anyway, getting back to the topic of increases in demand for voluntary sterilization among younger women in post-Roe America, the nuance to those regret statistics is that just 6% of childless women who opt for sterilization in their 20s wind up regretting it, in contrast to their counterparts. In other words, childfree women are very unlikely to regret such a decision.

Many have wondered how women of childbearing age might respond to suddenly finding themselves in a post-Roe America. This is part of the answer.

(Full disclosure: As a particular kind of 4B participant myself, I am de-facto part of the childfree movement.)

Absolutely their choice. But as you say , hard to reverse. I would guess however that this is not simply a reaction to the SC returning abortion to the states, but a variety of issues. To include the state of the world. I don't consider childnessless to be stigmatized.
As an aside, the IN is forever, so Yuni's child may one day see that list.

[Cletus]

As an aside, the 4B movement is fascinating.

We're seeing a large trend where women are leaving males out. Entirely.

And, they're not all lesbians. They're just tired of living in a male-dominated society.

Follow Polly's link at the bottom of the OP and see what's going on.

Until they start building the houses they live in, raise and butcher the meat they eat, build the roads they drive on, mine the coal or build and maintain the nuke plants that give them electricity, and stand on the walls to keep the wolves at bay, it is just a stupid, self indulgent display that means absolutely nothing.