Good morning Dinks. So many times here on Dinks we have talked about how people with no kids work harder at the office because we don’t have the time commitment to rush home to and how childless couples are seen as being selfish in the eyes of society. But maybe this isn’t so true anymore.
Dinks may be the norm, worldwide
According to a recent survey released by Quick Quid there are more and more homes in the UK choosing not to have kids. In 1961 the average household had 3.1 people and in 2011 that number decreased to 2.4 people. This trend may be due to the fact that couples (and singles) are choosing to remain childless to focus on their careers and their lifestyle. In 2011 57% of UK households were made up of childless singles and couples without kids.
So why are couples choosing to remain childless?
Some people feel that the choice not to have children is completely selfish, but I disagree. The decision to remain childless is a personal choice and some couples –myself included – just aren’t ready to have kids. However, even if the decision not to have kids was selfish, aren’t all personal decisions just a little bit selfish?
When you don’t have kids your life is more flexible. You can travel more often, you can eat out with friends and you don’t have to stick to a fixed schedule – if you don’t want to. But then again, the same thing can be said about having a pet. Having kids is definitely a restriction on your life, but at the same time it can also bring a lot of joy – so I’ve heard.
Why should you have kids?
One of my closest friends just gave birth to her first child last week, a little baby boy. Actually I shouldn’t say that because he was not very little, her son came two weeks late and he weighed 10 lbs. 7 ounces. That’s a really big baby.
My friend is 35 years old, she just had her first baby a week ago and she already wants more kids. My friend never wanted kids; they just weren’t in her plans. But then she fell in love, got married and now she has her first –of many to come – baby.
Maybe in five, ten or fifteen years I will regret not having kids, but for right now I’m ok.
Why you should remain childless.
I could list a whole bunch of reasons why I choose to remain childless such as the flexibility in my lifestyle and the lack of financial commitment. According to a recent article released by Go Banking Rates it costs approximately $250,000 to raise a child in the United States. That’s a lot of money. I am sure that we can all think about a dozen other things that we would rather do with a quarter of a million dollars. I know that I could.
Now let’s hear from you. Do you have kids? If so what is the best thing about having kids? If you are like me and you choose to remain childless why did you make that choice?
Photo by Gareth1953
Kristina Tahnyak
Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.
I’m 35 in a month and 4 months pregnant. We didn’t want a kid until now. It allowed us to consolidate our relationship, travel and get our business off the ground. We do plan on traveling with the kid and not go too far from our normal lives, so I don’t see a big change in our lives. It’s something we NOW want and we were lucky enough to get pregnant as soon as we set our minds to it.
There’s nothing wrong with having kids or choosing not to. As long as you, as a couple, are OK with it, that’s everything that matters ;)
My wife and I are both 28 and we have a 10 month old and we’re trying for #2…we’d hope to have 4 or 5 but we’ll do one at a time. We both agreed when we were dating that we wanted a large family because we came from large families and had positive experiences. I know that works the other way too as some people i know from large families are completely turned off on the idea too.
While it may take $250k to raise a kid (maybe even more if you count opportunity cost if one parent doesn’t work), I don’t think you should look at it as a “cost” or burden. Some might say it’s an investment…because they do offer returns. Also, I think that total pricetag dramatically goes down as you have more kids. Unless of course you’re buying a new house every time you have another kid to add another room. Some might consider bunk beds another alternative. Maybe I’m crazy…but I think the main point of the study is to scare poor people away from having kids but instead it scares middle income couples away.
Either way, you do have to make sacrifices…we already don’t travel as much and hardly ever go out to eat…and very rarely go out to “drink with friends.” But at the same time, I don’t think we would trade that to miss out on the opportunity of having grandchildren to spoil some day… we also would probably be financially independent 15 years earlier if we have 2 incomes instead of the one.
We are DINKs, but we do want kids eventually. We are thinking in a couple of years.
My wife and I don’t have kids yet, but we’re still pretty young (25 years old). We plan on having kids in the next few years because I want to be young enough to do everything with my kids as they grow up. I have young parents and I always enjoyed that. That being said, I totally understand why a lot of couples choose not to have kids. They’re expensive and take up a lot of time.
We have two children. LOVE it!
Would never choose having more money over having children – and I do like money!
We are DINK’s, actually both now jobless and living off our savings for the past 5 months. We like other people’s kids. I have never desired kids, and even now at age 49 still do not desire it. We love traveling . We are currently in Europe and will stay here for the next year or 2. We thought about it, saved like mad, rented our house, sold a couple of investment properties and here we are. We have 2 pooches, but we can hire house sitters when we go away or put them in a kennel. Hard to do that with kids. It’s a good thing that not everyone wants kids, if we ever change our minds, we would adopt.
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