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<h2>The choice to have children is a complicated one.</h2><p>Some people know immediately when it is the right time for them to start a family while others go back and forth wondering if kids are worth giving up the freedom to stay out until 3 AM singing karaoke on a Tuesday.</p><p>Having children completely changes your life, your routine, your home, your freedom, and your finances. They&#39;re a lifelong responsibility and that responsibility shifts and grows from changing diapers to walking them down the aisle to helping them with their own children.</p><p>Many people advise that if you&#39;re not sure about kids, you probably shouldn&#39;t have them. However, because there&#39;s such a limited window on the time when we can have children, some people worry that if they don&#39;t have them, the regret will haunt them. Life isn&#39;t fair!</p><p>So, when a recent <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ckcnsa/older_couples_that_decided_to_not_have_children/">Reddit </a>user asked, &quot;Older couples that decided to not have children... how do you feel about your decision now that years have passed?&quot; the answers were definitely interesting. While you usually hear parents say things like &quot;I can&#39;t imagine my life without my kids,&quot; or &quot;I&#39;ve never loved anything more than my kids,&quot; it&#39;s not as often you get to hear couples who chose not to have children confidently say they have no regrets...</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>1. This is wise, &quot;Oenonaut.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>For my spouse, I can only say that they have physical and psychological issues that they&#39;ve mentioned that they&#39;d rather not pass on to a child.</p> <p>For myself, I&#39;ve always said that while I&#39;m occasionally afraid that someday I might regret not having children, <em>that&#39;s not the same as wanting children,</em> and that&#39;s an important difference to me. I have my own reasons to believe I&#39;d probably not be a good parent.</p> <p>Yeah, we both get concerned sometimes whether <em>anyone</em> will be arsed to care about the sole survivor once the other&#39;s gone or incapacitated. But this thought is the <em>result </em>of our decisions, not a basis for changing our minds about having kids, which we will not. Having kids or not is no guarantee that you&rsquo;ll end up cared for or not anyway, though it does probably move the needle on your odds.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>2. Being a good parent is key, &quot;Metatron_Fallen.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I&#39;m not a couple, just a person. I&#39;ve been in lots of relationships and was married twice. I would not have made a good parent. Regret sometimes I wasn&#39;t born into a different life, but given the cards I was dealt... I think I made the right choice in that department and have no regrets.</p> </blockquote><h2>3. Zero regrets! &quot;MoiraCousland.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>My husband &amp; I are in our 50s &amp; have been married 19 years. We both grew up with abusive dads, were the &ldquo;smart kid&rdquo; in the family, got the hell out ASAP, worked our way through college &amp; made something of ourselves before meeting &amp; getting married. A lot of common ground &amp; we&rsquo;ve built a strong, rock-solid marriage.</p> <p>We considered having kids, but after working so hard on healing from the childhood abuse &amp; escaping the cycle of poverty we grew up in, we decided long ago that just the two of us was enough. We still consider ourselves a family and we&rsquo;ve been really happy with our life together. Our home is peaceful &amp; that&rsquo;s the thing we care about the most.</p> <p>If I had to choose now, knowing what I do, between becoming a mother &amp; having the marriage &amp; home life I now enjoy, it&rsquo;s absolutely no contest. Zero regrets.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>4. It IS normal to not want kids, &quot;piskie.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>We&#39;ve been married twenty years. We are both 50. Neither of us wanted to bring children into our family.</p> <p>I spent a WONDERFUL afternoon with my 16 year old niece yesterday. We talked about her boyfriend, picked blackberries and discovered a woodland clam [fingernail mussel] living in a mud puddle [vernal pool] in the woods, which we named Fred. It was magical. I just adore her.</p> <p>Not having kids is just as normal as wanting kids, I&#39;ve always felt.</p> </blockquote><h2>5. Adventures are key! &quot;grahag.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Been married for 21 years and initially we tried to have kids but found out that it was going to be hard to do. Wife was heartbroken at first, but I was somewhat relieved. It&#39;s a lot of responsibility and your life changes to accommodate a child.</p> <p>Over the years, wife has actually said a few times that she was glad we didn&#39;t have kids because we couldn&#39;t have had the adventures we did. I feel like it was the right choice and we&#39;re better off due to not having kids. We love our life and are continuing our adventures now in our 50&#39;s and we&#39;re starting to make plans for retirement.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>6. Relying on the robots is a great plan, &quot;Doctorjimmy.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I go back and forth. My SO has some significant mental health issues and I know that I would be alone doing much of the emotional labor of raising a child, and I know I&#39;m not really capable of doing it alone. Sometimes I worry very much about what I will do when I am old. I&#39;m an introvert and dont have many friends and am not overly likable, so I assume I will be alone. I just hope that there are some kind robots to take care of me, and that I&#39;ll die before the robots turn on us.</p> <p> </p> </blockquote><h2>7. Yup! &quot;pterelas.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>No regrets. Not everyone wants them, and if you&#39;re not sure, it&#39;s best to hold off. Having ambivalent (or worse) parents does a real number on a kids self esteem.</p> </blockquote><h2>8. This is adorable, &quot;dailydonuts16.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I have a professor at my university who has been married to his wife for 50 years, and they have no children. He calls us his children and always talks about how he and his wife are inseparable. He&#39;s a really eccentric and energetic guy, even in his 70&#39;s. He gives out candy to the entire class before every lecture he gives.</p> <p>He seems like he truly loves life and has no regrets about not having any children.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>9. Finding the right person is so important, &quot;shapeofthings.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I wanted them but never met the right person. I&#39;m REALLY glad I didnt have any of my previous partners- they would either have made terrible mothers or we just did not make for a healthy couple.<br /> I have the perfect partner now, and she did fall pregnant, but we lost the baby to Dandy Walker syndrome. Getting a bit too old to try again now. I am very upset that I will not have children, but I don&#39;t regret not having children with anyone but my current partner.</p> </blockquote><h2>10. You have to know your limits! &quot;RaspyToZen.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I&rsquo;m 60 now, been married for 29 years. God did not provide me with the proper temperament to raise children. Have never regretted our decision to be child free. We&rsquo;re good 👍🏻.</p> </blockquote><h2>11. A+, &quot;Intersectaquirer.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>My wife and I have been married for 12 years - I am 36 and she is 40, so, yeah, likely not in the cards. It is a reality that, while tough, I am slowly learning to accept.</p> <p>I realized that as a guy, I always look at having kids with rose-colored glasses - ball games, working on my classic car with them, dad jokes, the fun stuff. That&#39;s easy for me as it&#39;s not my body and sacrifice. My wife is not on board and it&#39;s her body and I love and respect her too much to force her hand. If either one of us are not 100% ok with a major decision, we don&#39;t do it, end of discussion.</p> <p>I look forward to spoiling my nieces and nephews and spending more time with my wife and continuing to make our world about us, forever.</p> <p> </p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>12. Gotta have that mommy gene, &quot;MoonieNine.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I&#39;m a 49 year old female and have never regretted my decision to not have kids. I think I&#39;ve always been missing the mommy gene. I like not having the responsibilities and obligations (and expenses!) that go along with having kids.</p> </blockquote><h2>13. F*cking up another human accidentally is a definite fear, &quot;modernchic1977.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>My husband and I have been together for 27 years, and we originally said we didn&#39;t want kids. Then we thought we should have some, and tried for a decade with no luck. So we had a serious talk, and decided we didn&#39;t really want them after all, and stopped trying. Now that the pressure is off and we both feel nothing but relief, we are enjoying life so much. It&#39;s wonderful to just be selfish without having to make excuses or feel resentful and be able to travel on our own schedule and make decisions that just impact us. If we could have had kids naturally, no harm, no foul, and we would have loved and accepted them, but it didn&#39;t happen, so no worries. And we also don&#39;t have to worry about f*cking up another human accidentally. Life is good, and we have the finances and resources to take care of ourselves. The only negative is that we are both the end of the line for our genetic ancestors. But that doesn&#39;t seem like a good enough reason to try the crazy fertility treatments beyond what we already did.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>14. EXACTLY, &quot;toppup.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Every kid I don&#39;t have is like $186,000 I don&#39;t need to make.</p> </blockquote><h2>15. Do what feels right! &quot;jjz.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>I always thought I&#39;d wake up one day and be clucky and ready to start a family. That day never came and I&#39;m pushing 50 now so I&#39;ve missed my chance.</p> <p>I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not having kids but its not something i really regret.</p> <p>On the plus side, I am looking at retiring with a 6 figure income at 52, regularly donate and do charity work. In-fact I am looking at starting my own charity at the end of the year to dedicate more time to when I retire.</p> <p>In some ways not having children has/will allow me to help more people than just my immediate family.</p> <p>My suggestion is do what feels right, either way its a big decision that only you and your partner should make.</p> <p> </p> </blockquote><h2>16. Well done, &quot;dalek_999.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Mid-40s, married for 22 years. No regrets. We&rsquo;re both extremely happy - we have a great marriage, fulfilling jobs, money (and time) for all the fun things we want to do, and as much travel as we want (currently on week 6 of a 7 week road trip). I have never felt a lack in my life for not having children, and have always felt that having children would be detrimental to my happiness. I&rsquo;m sure it&rsquo;s great for those that actually <em>want</em> kids, but I&rsquo;ve never been one of those people.</p> <p>I also have around 16 nieces and nephews, so we get to sort of experience that whole &quot;having a kid&quot; thing for a week or two at a time...and then send them home, which works out perfectly.</p> <p>Our two cats and one dog are as close to having kids that we will ever have, and trust me - that&rsquo;s about as much responsibility for someone else&rsquo;s life as we should be given. I love our pets, but having a dog has very firmly shown me that it&rsquo;s a good thing we never had kids.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

16 older people who chose not to have kids share why they don't regret their decision.

The choice to have children is a complicated one.Some people know immediately when it is the right time for them to start a family while others go back and forth wondering if kids are worth giving up the freedom to stay out until 3 AM singing karaoke on a Tuesday.Having children completely changes your life, your routine, your home, your freedom, and your finances. They&#39;re a lifelong responsibility and that responsibility shifts and grows from changing diapers to walking them down the aisle to helping them with their own children.Many people advise that if you&#39;re not sure about kids, you probably shouldn&#39;t have them. However, because there&#39;s such a limited window on the time when we can have children, some people worry that if they don&#39;t have them, the regret will haunt them. Life isn&#39;t fair!So, when a recent Reddit user asked, &quot;Older couples that decided to not have children... how do you feel about your decision now that years have passed?&quot; the answers were definitely interesting. While you usually hear parents say things like &quot;I can&#39;t imagine my life without my kids,&quot; or &quot;I&#39;ve never loved anything more than my kids,&quot; it&#39;s not as often you get to hear couples who chose not to have children confidently say they have no regrets...1. This is wise, &quot;Oenonaut.&quot; For my spouse, I can only say that they have physical and psychological issues that they&#39;ve mentioned that they&#39;d rather not pass on to a child. For myself, I&#39;ve always said that while I&#39;m occasionally afraid that someday I might regret not having children, that&#39;s not the same as wanting children, and that&#39;s an important difference to me. I have my own reasons to believe I&#39;d probably not be a good parent. Yeah, we both get concerned sometimes whether anyone will be arsed to care about the sole survivor once the other&#39;s gone or incapacitated. But this thought is the result of our decisions, not a basis for changing our minds about having kids, which we will not. Having kids or not is no guarantee that you&rsquo;ll end up cared for or not anyway, though it does probably move the needle on your odds. 2. Being a good parent is key, &quot;Metatron_Fallen.&quot; I&#39;m not a couple, just a person. I&#39;ve been in lots of relationships and was married twice. I would not have made a good parent. Regret sometimes I wasn&#39;t born into a different life, but given the cards I was dealt... I think I made the right choice in that department and have no regrets. 3. Zero regrets! &quot;MoiraCousland.&quot; My husband &amp; I are in our 50s &amp; have been married 19 years. We both grew up with abusive dads, were the &ldquo;smart kid&rdquo; in the family, got the hell out ASAP, worked our way through college &amp; made something of ourselves before meeting &amp; getting married. A lot of common ground &amp; we&rsquo;ve built a strong, rock-solid marriage. We considered having kids, but after working so hard on healing from the childhood abuse &amp; escaping the cycle of poverty we grew up in, we decided long ago that just the two of us was enough. We still consider ourselves a family and we&rsquo;ve been really happy with our life together. Our home is peaceful &amp; that&rsquo;s the thing we care about the most. If I had to choose now, knowing what I do, between becoming a mother &amp; having the marriage &amp; home life I now enjoy, it&rsquo;s absolutely no contest. Zero regrets. 4. It IS normal to not want kids, &quot;piskie.&quot; We&#39;ve been married twenty years. We are both 50. Neither of us wanted to bring children into our family. I spent a WONDERFUL afternoon with my 16 year old niece yesterday. We talked about her boyfriend, picked blackberries and discovered a woodland clam [fingernail mussel] living in a mud puddle [vernal pool] in the woods, which we named Fred. It was magical. I just adore her. Not having kids is just as normal as wanting kids, I&#39;ve always felt. 5. Adventures are key! &quot;grahag.&quot; Been married for 21 years and initially we tried to have kids but found out that it was going to be hard to do. Wife was heartbroken at first, but I was somewhat relieved. It&#39;s a lot of responsibility and your life changes to accommodate a child. Over the years, wife has actually said a few times that she was glad we didn&#39;t have kids because we couldn&#39;t have had the adventures we did. I feel like it was the right choice and we&#39;re better off due to not having kids. We love our life and are continuing our adventures now in our 50&#39;s and we&#39;re starting to make plans for retirement. 6. Relying on the robots is a great plan, &quot;Doctorjimmy.&quot; I go back and forth. My SO has some significant mental health issues and I know that I would be alone doing much of the emotional labor of raising a child, and I know I&#39;m not really capable of doing it alone. Sometimes I worry very much about what I will do when I am old. I&#39;m an introvert and dont have many friends and am not overly likable, so I assume I will be alone. I just hope that there are some kind robots to take care of me, and that I&#39;ll die before the robots turn on us.   7. Yup! &quot;pterelas.&quot; No regrets. Not everyone wants them, and if you&#39;re not sure, it&#39;s best to hold off. Having ambivalent (or worse) parents does a real number on a kids self esteem. 8. This is adorable, &quot;dailydonuts16.&quot; I have a professor at my university who has been married to his wife for 50 years, and they have no children. He calls us his children and always talks about how he and his wife are inseparable. He&#39;s a really eccentric and energetic guy, even in his 70&#39;s. He gives out candy to the entire class before every lecture he gives. He seems like he truly loves life and has no regrets about not having any children. 9. Finding the right person is so important, &quot;shapeofthings.&quot; I wanted them but never met the right person. I&#39;m REALLY glad I didnt have any of my previous partners- they would either have made terrible mothers or we just did not make for a healthy couple. I have the perfect partner now, and she did fall pregnant, but we lost the baby to Dandy Walker syndrome. Getting a bit too old to try again now. I am very upset that I will not have children, but I don&#39;t regret not having children with anyone but my current partner. 10. You have to know your limits! &quot;RaspyToZen.&quot; I&rsquo;m 60 now, been married for 29 years. God did not provide me with the proper temperament to raise children. Have never regretted our decision to be child free. We&rsquo;re good 👍🏻. 11. A+, &quot;Intersectaquirer.&quot; My wife and I have been married for 12 years - I am 36 and she is 40, so, yeah, likely not in the cards. It is a reality that, while tough, I am slowly learning to accept. I realized that as a guy, I always look at having kids with rose-colored glasses - ball games, working on my classic car with them, dad jokes, the fun stuff. That&#39;s easy for me as it&#39;s not my body and sacrifice. My wife is not on board and it&#39;s her body and I love and respect her too much to force her hand. If either one of us are not 100% ok with a major decision, we don&#39;t do it, end of discussion. I look forward to spoiling my nieces and nephews and spending more time with my wife and continuing to make our world about us, forever.   12. Gotta have that mommy gene, &quot;MoonieNine.&quot; I&#39;m a 49 year old female and have never regretted my decision to not have kids. I think I&#39;ve always been missing the mommy gene. I like not having the responsibilities and obligations (and expenses!) that go along with having kids. 13. F*cking up another human accidentally is a definite fear, &quot;modernchic1977.&quot; My husband and I have been together for 27 years, and we originally said we didn&#39;t want kids. Then we thought we should have some, and tried for a decade with no luck. So we had a serious talk, and decided we didn&#39;t really want them after all, and stopped trying. Now that the pressure is off and we both feel nothing but relief, we are enjoying life so much. It&#39;s wonderful to just be selfish without having to make excuses or feel resentful and be able to travel on our own schedule and make decisions that just impact us. If we could have had kids naturally, no harm, no foul, and we would have loved and accepted them, but it didn&#39;t happen, so no worries. And we also don&#39;t have to worry about f*cking up another human accidentally. Life is good, and we have the finances and resources to take care of ourselves. The only negative is that we are both the end of the line for our genetic ancestors. But that doesn&#39;t seem like a good enough reason to try the crazy fertility treatments beyond what we already did. 14. EXACTLY, &quot;toppup.&quot; Every kid I don&#39;t have is like $186,000 I don&#39;t need to make. 15. Do what feels right! &quot;jjz.&quot; I always thought I&#39;d wake up one day and be clucky and ready to start a family. That day never came and I&#39;m pushing 50 now so I&#39;ve missed my chance. I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not having kids but its not something i really regret. On the plus side, I am looking at retiring with a 6 figure income at 52, regularly donate and do charity work. In-fact I am looking at starting my own charity at the end of the year to dedicate more time to when I retire. In some ways not having children has/will allow me to help more people than just my immediate family. My suggestion is do what feels right, either way its a big decision that only you and your partner should make.   16. Well done, &quot;dalek_999.&quot; Mid-40s, married for 22 years. No regrets. We&rsquo;re both extremely happy - we have a great marriage, fulfilling jobs, money (and time) for all the fun things we want to do, and as much travel as we want (currently on week 6 of a 7 week road trip). I have never felt a lack in my life for not having children, and have always felt that having children would be detrimental to my happiness. I&rsquo;m sure it&rsquo;s great for those that actually want kids, but I&rsquo;ve never been one of those people. I also have around 16 nieces and nephews, so we get to sort of experience that whole &quot;having a kid&quot; thing for a week or two at a time...and then send them home, which works out perfectly. Our two cats and one dog are as close to having kids that we will ever have, and trust me - that&rsquo;s about as much responsibility for someone else&rsquo;s life as we should be given. I love our pets, but having a dog has very firmly shown me that it&rsquo;s a good thing we never had kids. 

The choice to have children is a complicated one.  Some people know immediately when it is the right time for them to start a family while others go back and forth wondering if kids are worth giving up the freedom to stay out until 3 AM...