People born in the 60's boo hooing that they are childless

New movement being formed by people born in the 60's who are grieving that they are involuntarily childless.
Because life doesn't throw enough curve balls without people actively looking for new stuff to grieve about.

I can't fathom anyone who is fertile not having the opportunity to have kids before their child-bearing years end. I can count the child free men I've known on 1 hand. I've literally met hundreds to thousands of men who either have or want kids.

Even for people who are infertile at some point grieving has to end and time to move on and enjoy life and appreciate the positive aspects of their lives.
Perhaps it is good health. Or not spending their retirement years paying for college. Or not being stuck in a bad relationship because of kids.

Or just blubber and look for a support group to stay miserable and yammer about how unfair it is not having kids. And we all know if they had kids most of them would just find something else to be miserable about anyways.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/02/the-desire-to-have-a-child-never-goes-away-how-the-involuntarily-childless-are-forming-a-new-movement

I am so sick of people who throw around the term involuntary as if they had nothing to do with it. Unless you could not reproduce and were denied for adoption, you are not involuntarily childless (it's even in the article: 90% of people who didn't have children don't see themselves as childfree, and only 9% of those people had medical reasons for not reproducing - and that's without considering adoption). There's one common factor in the failures, and that is the person who is whining. But people would much rather blame society, nature, or really anything other than themselves. And underlying it all is this concept of how things are "supposed" to be, and how reality fails to meet their expectations. You'd expect people in their 40s and 50s to have grown up a little more than that!

And then she's got to project her experience onto everyone else:

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Day’s first blogpost – two years into her four-year hell – concerned what she called the Tunnel, “the experience I had at the end of my time to become a mother. It’s a non-specific time, every woman knows what I’m talking about, and it’s kind of when your life is narrowing down and down and down, and you feel as if you’re stuck in this tunnel.”

No, not every woman knows what you're talking about, only those who developed this odd fixation with reproduction after having left it to to late to do it! I felt nothing remotely like that when I got sterilized, which effectively ended my ability to reproduce. And if I feel anything with menopause, it's going to be the encroachment of aging, not the end of fertility that I mourn.

Oh, the comments! These people need to stop saying they want to be parents, because it’s far more specific than that. They want to be the parents of non-defective biological offspring - 1 boy, 1 girl - while living in a house with a white picket fence with a perfect partner that they enjoy a perfect relationship with.

Since so few of them are childless for medical reasons, I suspect it’s their babyish inability to compromise on anything that has gotten them in this situation.

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happyhiker
Since so few of them are childless for medical reasons, I suspect it’s their babyish inability to compromise on anything that has gotten them in this situation.

Exactly! I suspect a good many of them expected to "have it all," and were disappointed to discover that they might have to give up some things to get other things (like giving up having free time and money, in order to become a single mother). The others probably whittled away their lives waiting for other people to fulfill their dreams (like hoping that feckless boyfriend is going to suddenly have a change of heart). They never learned that if something is important enough to you, you figure out how to do it (barring fundamental incapability). If it isn't important enough, you get over it!

Quote: "Nothing prepares you for the feeling you have at the age of about 43 or 44, when you realise that nature, essentially, has no more use for you. She's done with you. Panic, grief, anger, jealousy, bitterness - these things can find a home in you. For many, it brings the possibility of suicide nearer."

This person wants to equate suicidal tendencies with being childless and 43. This includes people who have kids because nature no longer has any use for them either and also anyone who is past reproduction age. So, basically anyone who lives a long life will experience this supposed feeling that nothing can prepare them for. If this was true why aren't there any mass suicides in the 43-84 age group?

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happyhiker
Oh, the comments! These people need to stop saying they want to be parents, because it’s far more specific than that. They want to be the parents of non-defective biological offspring - 1 boy, 1 girl - while living in a house with a white picket fence with a perfect partner that they enjoy a perfect relationship with.

Since so few of them are childless for medical reasons, I suspect it’s their babyish inability to compromise on anything that has gotten them in this situation.

Exactly. They've convinced themselves their partners will come around to their way of thinking and instead of listening when their partner says "no" to marriage or "no" to kids with them they put their heads in the sand and think one day their partner will relent and give them everything they want. I've known so many couples that are diametrically opposed on key factors and they still stay the course, never been able to figure out why they don't cut their losses and move on.
It is scary to start anew but if you're disagreeing on marriage, religion, addiction, etc. then better to find someone who is compatible than to be in an unhealthy relationship.

Not one of the commenters is saying they want to be parents living out of their car or work two jobs to support children. One has been disabled for years and is upset he isn't a parent. Does he really think he'd make a good parent when healthy people in their 20's and 30's barely have the vigor to handle their kids? What would happen if he became a single parent to kids in his 40's and is physically unable to take care of the kids? Or he finds a partner and has kids but his partner/wife gets overwhelmed of being burdened with all the care taking and vanishes? Or he dies early as a result of health issues and the kids are orphaned?

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freya
This person wants to equate suicidal tendencies with being childless and 43. This includes people who have kids because nature no longer has any use for them either and also anyone who is past reproduction age. So, basically anyone who lives a long life will experience this supposed feeling that nothing can prepare them for. If this was true why aren't there any mass suicides in the 43-84 age group?

Suicide is instead more common among younger people. I think it is because many people lack a sense of proportion when they are younger, and are more dramatic about disappointment like breakups. Obviously there are also people with serious problems and depression. But thinking of the people I have known who killed themselves or attempted suicide, the reasons behind the teenage ones always seemed to be mundane events like breakups. I guess some people never acquire a sense of proportion and the capacity to deal with disappointment.

I am not sure what "lack a sense of proportion" means but one reason I think suicides happen in younger people is that many of them are in college, not only are they at high risk of depression at that time but universities handle mental health treatment very badly.

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mr. neptune
I am not sure what "lack a sense of proportion" means but one reason I think suicides happen in younger people is that many of them are in college, not only are they at high risk of depression at that time but universities handle mental health treatment very badly.

I am thinking of my classmates who killed themselves (or tried to) when I was in secondary school, following breakups. In the case of the one person I took to the hospital, she admitted it was an attempt to get her ex's attention. I think by the time you're older, one relationship of 3-24 month's duration doesn't loom as large in your life. Not having reproduced as a reason for killing yourself seems to equally lack an ability to see the big picture.

I'm differentiating that from the depression that many students face in university due to the strain of living without their parents for the first time, or for finding that their perfectionism isn't suited to a more competitive environment.

I have a 62 year old aunt who is childless. She had a boyfriend for about 30 years who was a "confirmed bachelor". When she met him everyone warned her that he was never going to commit, she apparently ignored them. She said she wanted to get married and have kids, but she stayed with this guy until she was past menopause.On her 40th birthday she was whining she wanted to have a baby. By her 43rd she had accepted it was not going to happen, but she was still unhappy about it.

My mom thinks she really didn't want to marry and breed but she could not admit this even to herself, so the guy was a convenient excuse to avoid it. This is certainly possible. She has never had pets because they would limit her ability to spontaneously travel on weekends or holidays. But she once said she thought traveling with kids would be easy, so maybe she is just a delusional person.

I dont have time to read the article right now, but let me guess, not one of them volunteers at the boys/girls clubs etc., to at least keep themselves busy and their minds off their CL probs, and at least be a part of these kids lives?

Many times people are not that complicated. They just dont like anything telling them they can't do something and that includes biology. They just can't believe others have what they dont. They look at parents they know and probably block out the 500 complaints that we hear all day. I just heard a dude on the radio say when he comes home from business flights, he actually stays at the airport an extra hour or so, to avoid his kids. People want to believe he's one in a million, and he's a jerk of some sort, but we CF know this is much more common than anyone will admit.

Everyone has heartbreaks in life, and for some reason these CL wanna-bes just can't over come. Gosh, so far, I can't think anything I want to wallow about like that in life, even things that matter to me. I can't live like that.

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cfuter

Many times people are not that complicated. They just dont like anything telling them they can't do something and that includes biology. They just can't believe others have what they dont. They look at parents they know and probably block out the 500 complaints that we hear all day.

Sounds like the average 13 year old to me. Arrested development, no doubt.

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cfuter
I just heard a dude on the radio say when he comes home from business flights, he actually stays at the airport an extra hour or so, to avoid his kids. People want to believe he's one in a million, and he's a jerk of some sort, but we CF know this is much more common than anyone will admit.

I've heard more than one man say being at work is the perfect place to avoid his kids and wife. I really hope that people are smarter than to think business guy is one in a million but arrested development of most states otherwise. They want the fairy tale after all, it is never too late.

I was born in the 60's and I never wanted kids. I am so glad I figured it out early on and am not shackled to my stupid ass first husband. We weren't together long enough to even think of having brats, but I would have shut that down any way.

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Shrieking babbies are the most effective birth control on earth.

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Dingo8YourBaby
I was born in the 60's and I never wanted kids. I am so glad I figured it out early on and am not shackled to my stupid ass first husband. We weren't together long enough to even think of having brats, but I would have shut that down any way.

Instead of seeing him (first husband mistake) for 18 years and potentially raising not just kids but grand kids, you've had ther freedom to create the life you want.

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Dingo8YourBaby
I was born in the 60's and I never wanted kids. I am so glad I figured it out early on...

Same here. Just never saw myself as a parent. Add to that what I've seen childed friends go through with their kids, from babies to the boomerang adult variety, convinced me that I am a happy and fulfilled person without children, and I truly do not care what other people think about my choice.

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Same here. Just never saw myself as a parent. Add to that what I've seen childed friends go through with their kids, from babies to the boomerang adult variety, convinced me that I am a happy and fulfilled person without children, and I truly do not care what other people think about my choice.

I didn't always make the best decisions. (What young person does?) But if I could go back and thank my younger self, I would. I'm so glad I didn't give in to pressure to breed. I knew it would have made me miserable and I stuck to my convictions.

It's the gift that keeps on giving in midlife.

I was born in the 1960s (1963). Deciding to be CF in 1983 was, by far, the best and most important decision I made in my whole life. It put into place all of the big things I would be able to achieve later on, mainly the ability o retire 10 years ago at age 45.

I though people born in the 60s were concerned about the environment. If so, why not be glad that you didn't create all those poopy Pampers that will be around 500 years from now? Or that you didn't create all that Playskool crap in the middle of the ocean?

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cfuter
Everyone has heartbreaks in life, and for some reason these CL wanna-bes just can't over come.

Yes! And this is the problem with defining yourself by the things you don't have, instead of wanting and being thankful for what you do.

I was also born in the 60s, and always knew I didn't want kids. Obviously no regrets.

I agree that this "involuntary" bullshit has gotten old. ("Incels," anyone?) There's no excuse for not having kids if you want them. You just have to look around at the people who have kids and shouldn't to see how easy it is. Birth, adoption, IVF, fostering, fertility treatments-- society bends over backwards to make sure breeders can breed. Ugh.

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Tiquer

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cfuter
Everyone has heartbreaks in life, and for some reason these CL wanna-bes just can't over come.

Yes! And this is the problem with defining yourself by the things you don't have, instead of wanting and being thankful for what you do.

Gosh, how many times I said something like this to my unmarried friends, and no matter the age, they never listen. Hence, why my older single friend ran off to California to live w/ a man she sorta kinda doesnt really know and wasn't even dating. Becuz she might not be long in this world and this is it for her. I'm like this is it for you the recipe for disaster (I didn't actually say that). I am waiting to see a 20/20 type show where they show her scammed outta of all her money and her quoted"he was the man of my dreams, so charming".

I thank God every day for my blessings, and one of the biggest blessings that He ever gave me was a strong mind and a desire for something more than just being a breeder. I was born in the late 60s, and I am SO glad now that I never reproduced. I get to enjoy my later years as I see fit, without having to be a slave to adult loaves or grandloaves.

If I want to do something special, I don't have to worry about it. I remember what my sister went through with her kids, and she is still struggling with one adult son who is a serious drug addict. He's in his thirties and never left home. I don't see her as enjoying her Golden Years, because of the constant worry and stress of what she's going through with him.

I just don't GET why people have to cry about something that is so stupid! I know that society has a way of making older people feel as if they need grandkids, but if the truth be told, nobody does. They are nothing but an additional burden to them, and it something us older folks can live without.