Anyone over 30 with no kids and not married

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  • angelakern10
    angelakern10 Posts: 2
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    I'm 32, engaged with no kids and happy this way. Neither of us want children. We dote on our dog, though. He's like our little baby. Having kids has never been important to me. My mom says I'll change my mind but she never pressures me or anything. Honestly, I don't think I'd be a very good mother... I love my nieces and nephews (I have about twelve, total) but I also love giving them back at the end of the day!

    that's me, the spoil 'em and send 'em back type. I love kids, just don't have the patience for them 24/7. I hear screaming kids and I swear my ovaries shrink and just die lol
  • SteampunkSongbird
    SteampunkSongbird Posts: 826 Member
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    I'm almost 29, engaged, looking forward to getting married when money allows but it's not something my partner and I desperately need to be happy, just something we both want. I'd like to be a wife rather than a girlfriend someday, after a nice quiet little ceremony during which we get to share our love with our nearest and dearest.

    As for kids, no, nope, no way. Not interested now, never have been and I'm confident never will be. I don't believe I'm capable of the biggest responsibility in the world, which I view having a child is. I always get hate for it but I just don't like kids, I don't 'get' them either, I don't get along well with them or know how to talk to them, their illogical little kiddie minds that spout the random strangeness most people call 'cute' just confounds me.
    I like the freedom to curl up together to watch a movie without worrying the baby monitor will interrupt. I like knowing if we decide to go stay at my mum's overnight, we can without having to plan around a child's needs, and we don't have to spend the school holidays going broke trying to entertain a child who is bored. I like being able to spend a little extra money on something for us, like upgrading our PCs, which we love as much as we love each other, lol. I'm also an insomniac so getting sleep whenever I can is really important to me! I could rant on all day about the benefits of being childless, haha. I have my pet rats, and they're my babies who love me (and don't talk back.)

    I have absolutely no distaste for people who do want/have kids, I know lots of people who are parents, and I respect their decision, I know I was a kid once and they are a necessity. Reproduction is just absolutely not for me.
  • FluffyFontaine
    FluffyFontaine Posts: 27 Member
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    I'm 41, have never been married and have never wanted kids. I'm looking at getting my tubes tied so that I don't have to worry about hormonal birth control anymore. No regrets here at all. Don't let anyone talk you into something you're unsure of or not ready for. You've got heaps of time and lots to experience before you start a family. Be your own person and stay true to you.
  • kelly_e_montana
    kelly_e_montana Posts: 1,999 Member
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    I am 41, never married, no kids. Now I don't know if I could ever want to get married. I'm ambivalent about the not having kids thing. It wasn't really a full-on choice, but I was never actively seeking to have them either. Now that I am older, I feel a bit of loss about it. I read a quote once that was like this, although not exact and I'm not sure of the author. "There are many doors in the room called 'childlessness', not just the ones marked 'didn't want' or 'couldn't have.'"

    I've found it tremendously socially awkward not to have kids. I live in a rural area with few single professionals. It's very family-oriented and if you don't have a family, you seem a bit suspect. Not to mention, I didn't have one single friend who wasn't married or didn't have kids. Now I have *two* out of all of them, a casual one, and they are much younger than me. I felt like I had zero peers. I was in a year-long leadership training group of young professionals in my 30s and I was the only woman who was not married.
  • shaka625
    shaka625 Posts: 3
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    No it is not socially awkward to not have kids. I am 53 and have no children. I have been active in lives of friend's children. I have gone through my 30s without kids. It is perfectly okay!!!
  • Makhai_
    Makhai_ Posts: 146 Member
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    Well over 30, no kids, and not married. It was just not in the cards for us.
  • philodox
    philodox Posts: 3 Member
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    About to turn 41, never married, no kids. Sometimes I second guess myself -- so many of my friends are married (or divorced but back in a serious relationship) with children. I've been single for -- holy ****, 8 years, and I really have trouble imagining my life any other way. I know that probably sounds weird, or like sour grapes (fat girl with low self-esteem can't get a date) but I promise you, insofar as I have any insight into myself, that's not the case. I really like the little niche I've carved out for myself and I'd go NUTS having someone all up in my grill all the time. I like my space, I like to do my own thing, I have a LOT of good friends whom I adore and the world's sweetest dog whom I spoil and dote upon.

    The question, "But... don't you want a family?" really makes me twitch. Somehow, not having children and a husband means I have no family? I have a mother, a father, grandmother, aunts, uncles, countless cousins, sisters, nieces and nephews out the ying-yang -- I love them all and am loved in return. I never lack for an opportunity to go somewhere or do something with someone I love. I'm overwhelmingly blessed.

    When I think about the men I could have married -- save one, there's always that one, right? -- I count it as having dodged a bullet. It wouldn't have lasted, and the poor children that might have been born into those unhappy relationships. The one that "got away" didn't want to have kids, ever, and ironically that's what broke the relationship (since I thought at the time I did, and could not envision a future in which I did not.) So there you are.

    It has its ups and downs, for sure, but I love my little life. I can fit what I own in a nutshell, and it's a lovely, cozy little nutshell, and I can venture outside it, into a wide and wonderful world, at will.
  • ljmorgi
    ljmorgi Posts: 264 Member
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    37, in a long-term relationship (coming up on 18 years), three cats but no kids, and definitely no regrets.
  • shankasaurus
    shankasaurus Posts: 116 Member
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    Yea. It all depends on your perspective. I'm 31, single, no kids. But I want a partner and I want kids. Unfortunately you can't force those things, they either find you or they don't. There's no use feeling awkward or sad or regretful. We have much less control over our lives than we tend to think. I focus on being happy, and let the chips fall where they may.
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
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    I'm 65, no kids. (Happily married for 43 years, though). The first few years people kept asking me when Bear and I were going to "start a family", and I'd say, "We are a family. Don't need no stinking rugrats". Close friends already knew he'd had a vasectomy the week after we were married; if he hadn't, I would have had a tubal ligation. My mom was the most disappointed, as I was an only child and I was "cheating her out of being a grandmother and cheating him out of being a father", like he had no say in the matter. Eventually people quit commenting.
  • BV1980
    BV1980 Posts: 272 Member
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    I am 34 and am not married, have no kids, and have never actually had a girlfriend/relationship.

    Not having kids does not bother me. After a decade of helping out with my sister's 4 kids, I think I have learned that I don't want kids of my own. Having nieces and nephews is enough for me in that regard.

    Not being married bothers me a bit, just because I had this hopeless romantic idea about it when I was younger and really looked forward to it. I am not married not by my own choice, but because I have never had the option since I have never been in a relationship. That part bothers me a lot. I want a relationship, but I have just always been rejected because of my weight. I love having freedom to do what I want, but not ever knowing what having a girlfriend is like or never experiencing intimacy really sucks. There are basic human desires not met and I do not think that is healthy at all (aka I am a 34 year old virgin loser who is frustrated).
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
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    I'm 41, have never been married and have never wanted kids. I'm looking at getting my tubes tied so that I don't have to worry about hormonal birth control anymore. No regrets here at all. Don't let anyone talk you into something you're unsure of or not ready for. You've got heaps of time and lots to experience before you start a family. Be your own person and stay true to you.




    Good for you! The worst possible reason to breed is because someone else, usually your mom, wants you to have kids. If my husband hadn't had a vasectomy right after we were married, I would have had a tubal myself. Not everyone wants to be a mother! And far too many are that should never have had kids.
  • emdeesea
    emdeesea Posts: 1,823 Member
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    I'm 42, not married (I'm partnered), no kids.

    Never wanted kids. To be honest, I like SOME kids, but in general, I'd just rather not be around them, and I felt that way when I was one of them. And I don't care that people might not like that. Tough crap.

    The whole pregnancy thing just sort of freaks me out too. Something growing inside me?? Like a parasite?? Ew. No. Just no.
  • FitFitzy331
    FitFitzy331 Posts: 308 Member
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    I love this post. I'm 28, never married, no kids and not sure I actually want them in the long run. I used to work in NYC but now I'm in a small town in upstate New York and everyone up here who is my age, is married/divorced and or having at least their second child. I just moved in with my boyfriend (already a faux pas up here) and all comments I get on that are "well hopefully it'll work out and he'll marry you" or "well now that you're living together when are you going to have kids?" Lucky for me, my boyfriend and I are on the same page with this, possible marriage one day down the line when we're more financially secure THEN we'll discuss children. Neither of us are excited for the idea of caring for another human, we LOVE our cats and look forward to getting a place big enough for a puppy or two, but for now at least, our fur babies are more than enough for us.
  • WickedPineapple
    WickedPineapple Posts: 701 Member
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    I'll be 30 here in a couple months, married, no kids. I always knew I wanted a person and no real preference on children, except that the idea of being pregnant repels me a bit. However, not being married and/or not having kids is not awkward. Half my friends are married with children, the other half are single (one engaged). It's no issue. My mom never pressures me about kids because she firmly believes if you don't want kids, you shouldn't have them. I agree, and I also believe some people are happier single. I think/hope people are realizing more and more that marriage and kids don't necessarily equate a blissful existence.
  • philodox
    philodox Posts: 3 Member
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    Double post. Sorry. Trying to figure out how to edit and delete still. <.<
  • philodox
    philodox Posts: 3 Member
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    Not being married bothers me a bit, just because I had this hopeless romantic idea about it when I was younger and really looked forward to it. I am not married not by my own choice, but because I have never had the option since I have never been in a relationship. That part bothers me a lot. I want a relationship, but I have just always been rejected because of my weight. I love having freedom to do what I want, but not ever knowing what having a girlfriend is like or never experiencing intimacy really sucks. There are basic human desires not met and I do not think that is healthy at all (aka I am a 34 year old virgin loser who is frustrated).

    BV180, I hope this doesn't seem callous, because it's truly meant to help you achieve what seems to be your dream: Let it go, and you have a better chance of getting it. Women can smell desperation from a hundred miles away, and if I'm reading your subtext right, it sounds like there's always been a quality of wanting it "too much" that's driven girls away. Not your weight, not your overall appearance, not anything about you -- just that overwhelming need. I wish I had an easy answer about how to shift that focus, but I really think it's necessary for you to get what you want. Best of luck to you.
  • shankasaurus
    shankasaurus Posts: 116 Member
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    Not being married bothers me a bit, just because I had this hopeless romantic idea about it when I was younger and really looked forward to it.

    Preach it. I think we all have this hopeless romantic idea of what relationships are. And then I got in one and all I could do was complain about it. haha.
  • El_Cunado
    El_Cunado Posts: 359 Member
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    So is it socially akward to be a certain age and not have children?

    No

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