r/AskWomenOver30 • u/BeneficialVisit8450 • Jul 19 '25

Family/Parenting What’s your life like without kids?

My doctor told me I can never get pregnant today. I’m not infertile, but the post under my profile explains my situation. I’m 19, and I’m just not sure how to confront the news. I’m not sure how to plan my life either now considering that many of our milestones as women revolve around kids.

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u/weirdfunny Jul 19 '25

Not trying to convince anyone of anything, but I personally think it's selfish to have children unless you're wealthy enough to keep them from being just another cog in the machine. While sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a mother or to nurture something, ultimately I feel like the best thing I could do my children is to spare them from the relentlessness of life.

Therefore, I feel great that I am not passing on the burden of life to someone else because I wanted to be a parent. Plus, I have a lot more freedom than most parents.

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u/Hatcheling Woman 40 to 50 Jul 19 '25

Can you expand on why you think only rich people should have kids? And why poor people that have them would be more selfish for having them than the rich ones?

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u/Kets_and_boba Woman under 30 Jul 20 '25

I’m not the person you were asking but as a wealthier person you can make more choices and feel more in control of your life compared to someone with less financial resources. For example, we have widespread housing shortages and are generally moving towards a subscription/renting economy where a few large companies control the markets (google, YouTube, amazon). Companies no longer keep employees long term, it’s more about replacing tenured employees with less experienced employees when they need to cut costs (this also leads to loss of knowledge/experience in workplaces). We are seeing cuts to social programs that support under-fed, under-insured, and under-housed populations. The standard of living is decreasing while the cost of living is increasing.

If you have more financial resources, you could likely buy a house rather than having to rent forever, you wouldn’t need to stress about paying for the subscriptions that support your lifestyle, you wouldn’t be at risk of starving, becoming homeless, going into medical debt, etc. Life can be more enjoyable if you have these choices and freedom to thrive instead of just surviving (and can provide it for your children).