Enjoy being young. Get to know your partner before jumping into having kids. You may find out you love life with your partner without the dirty diapers, losing sleep and little league sports.
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I am not concerned about the declining U.S. birth rate and I do not plan to have children.
It’s never the right time: I went through seven years of school to get my bachelor’s degree and MBA, then started my career path. Then I dealt with some mental health issues from being overworked and underpaid and needing a career change. I couldn’t be stressed at work, losing sleep from that, and then losing sleep with a baby.
My husband and I did try fostering teens. But the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services was so unsupportive and the foster agency needed me to use my time like a stay-at-home mom instead of as a remote working professional. After this didn’t work out, we took a break from the subject.
We’ve considered having kids now, but we don’t want to be almost 60 when they graduate high school – we want to be looking to retire. Then we remembered how awful parents were to deal with at the school when we fostered, and the schools have such bizarre rules now to the point that kids can’t be kids anymore. Plus risks of autism and other health issues increase with a 40-year-old pregnancy.
We have been married for 16 years, and several of our friends who have kids are now divorced. The one big fight we ever had in our marriage was about whether or not to keep a foster kid. I think bringing anyone into a marriage complicates it, and we know we are happiest when it is just us.
My sibling has kids, so I am not depriving my parents of being grandparents and I love being an aunt.
It’s hard being in the Midwest because there is not a lot of support or understanding for our decision to not have kids. It’s often thrown in our faces that if we can afford something like a new car – they say it’s because we don’t have kids. Never mind that we’ve worked our tails off. We still live in the house we had that has a couple extra bedrooms because we were fostering, but we get asked a lot why we keep the house. It’s not always about kids – have people seen the interest rates? We are content with our decision and know it’s right for us, but it remains an often unacceptable decision by Midwest society standards.
Yes, I agree with millennials and Gen Z waiting longer to have children, or not having them at all. I think girls and young women should be educated to freeze their eggs at a younger age (when they are 18 to 20 years old), so they don’t have to worry as much about having infertility issues or high risks to the baby when using 35-year-old (or older) eggs.
Most people can’t afford kids or the life they want to provide for their child. Getting a decent job with benefits will help ease this expense, although it probably won’t ever be affordable for most. It takes time to get an education, go through an apprenticeship or make your way up the chain.
Enjoy being young. Take vacations and gain insight and experiences. Try living somewhere else for a year – a different state or country. Get to know your partner before jumping into having kids. You may find out you love life with your partner without the dirty diapers, losing sleep, little league baseball weekends, PTA meetings and expensive dance recitals.
— Elizabeth DeBord, 40, Adel, Iowa
This piece was submitted as part of USA TODAY’s Forum, a new space for conversation. See what we’re talking about at usatoday.com/forum and share your perspective at [email protected]
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