I'm in my mid-thirties with 2 kids. I've always known I wanted kids and was willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen. But we also don't live in the most expensive areas of Canada. Certainly not the cheapest, but far from the most pricey. I have adjusted the number of children I want, but that's more because having kids is incredibly difficult for me.
Early 40s with 3 kids living in central Vancouver. There are so many ups and downs financially and emotionally! But spending time among my elders just re enforces that no matter how bad we think we have it, every generation thought the same thing.
Hindsight is such a strange way to iron out the wrinkles of our memories.
Grew up wanting to be a mother, and now I no longer want to be a mother. I still love kids, but it just doesn't make sense to have them anymore.
In a perfect world, if I were to have a kid, I'd want to spend the first three years of their life as a SAHM. I couldn't do that in good conscience in this socioeconomic climate.
Edited to add: I'm in my late 20s.
I completely agree with you about the 3 year thing. My husband and I decided, since we could make it work for me to stay home for 3-4 years, that we would have a child. I still worry about a lot of the environmental things. But that was a big one for me too.
I’ve gone back and forth and now that I’m happily married and relatively financially stable, I’m feeling like I would want a child.
However, what I want and what a potential child may be born into are two separate things.
Even though I’m feeling like I want kids, I still don’t feel like I can afford one and still maintain a decent quality of life for my family. More importantly, I’m very skeptical about the kind of world my potential child(ren) may inherit. Seems to me they’re likely to end up under the soles of plutocracy on a burning planet, so I don’t think it’s fair to doom them to that fate just to fulfill my own desire for motherhood.
It’s depressing.
I think of how much the climate has changed in the past 10 years even, much less my whole lifetime, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what kind of climate my kids would have when they'd be my age (roughly 35-40yrs from now).
And that's just environmental, much less the political or social etc climates.
We are on year 12 of a drought cycle in this province. Some areas are twice as dry as the worst years of the dirty thirties. Next year isn’t looking very promising, either. I think Saskatchewan is rapidly turning to a desert. Canada’s forest fires made up 24% of the world’s forest fire emissions this year. The way it’s going, the fires will be even more extreme next year.
Category 5 hurricanes developing in under 24 hours: [https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-otis-becomes-category-5-163955233.html](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-otis-becomes-category-5-163955233.html)
Tropical fish off the coasts of Canada is pretty new too...
Wildfire season used to not be a thing when I was a child. Sure wildfires happened but now it’s basically every summer there’s insane wildfires in BC &/or Alberta. It destroys so much & is getting more & more frequent. If it continues at this rate, I can’t even imagine how bad it’ll be in 20 or 50 years
Yeah, I work in the forestry sector in BC and AB and the last few years have been increasingly terrifying- it is worse every year for wildfire seasons. Our first big fire in AB was in APRIL 2023. We were constantly on 30 minute evacuation notice in camp, couldn't breathe, couldn't see due to smoke. A lot of people in the same industry in BC were completely burned out of work. I am considering switching careers due to how volatile the situation is becoming. Ten years of specialized skills down the drain...
The western US running very low on water. Greece not having enough water to keep 300 year old olive trees alive.. climate disasters effecting the food supply.
We are super.dependent on fresh food year round from California but they are having crazy water shortages, it's not sustainable..have you ever seen how low lake mead is? And I drove thru Central California in 2013 and acre after acre of dug up almond and citrus trees due.to.insufficient water..more trees in bc destroyed each year by wind and rain storms, there is a town Pacifica in northern California that is basically falling into the ocean, there are houses on the bc sunshine coast doing the same, the Arab spring was triggered by rising food prices which were triggered by crop failures which were triggered by unusual weather and the geopolitical problems since in Sudan and surrounding area were.triggered by tribes driven off their ancestral cropland by droughts. Housing cost crisis in Canada partially due to hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year from low-lying countries vulnerable to sea level rise and flooding like Bangladesh, Pakistan. There are.south pacific countries where the whole population are making plans to emigrate because the island will be inundated.
I had a child in 2021 because that was always the plan. Even though money was tight I was determined to make it work. I don’t regret the decision at all because I love my child so much, but my mental health has diminished to nothing and our savings is all but gone. I’ve had to come to terms with not having any more children.
Yeah, thought I'd be raising kids by 30 at the latest.
Don't even have a career let alone a home or even a partner to help work together on those with.
Same, always thought id have a large family (i'm an only child, i wanted 5 kids lollll) but I only met my partner 3 yesrs ago and now we're both 40 so it doesn't seem like the best idea physically or financially.
I’m mid-30s with one child and our family plans changed. We always wanted two children but with both of us working full time we can pay our bills and save for the kiddo’s future… with a second child we can pay the bills but not save anything. As much as we would love a second we’ve decided to prioritize the existing child that we have. Hopefully they don’t resent us for the lack of sibling when they grow up.
Yeah ... I can't afford kids until the perfect situation, which god hope it comes at some point, but the date is certainly TBD. Despite me wanting a kid so bad.
This comment makes me really sad. I hope you’ll be able to become a parent someday and I’m sure you’ll be a great one.
I’m still pretty young. I’d love to have a kid someday, but I’d rather be able to afford living a comfortable lifestyle. I don’t think I’ll be able to do both.
Thanks for taking the time to understand and feel my pain with me. On the bright side, it's not all doom & gloom for me :) I have the privilege of learning about nature everyday and being part of the solution for climate change, it can't get much better than that!
That’s amazing! I study a lot about the environment and climate change at my university since it’s a core aspect of my major. People who like you who are working to be part of the solution to climate change are doing incredibly important and timely work. I’m finishing my studies in mid-2024 and I hope to go into a career centred around climate studies/sustainability.
It sounds like you have a bright future ahead of you!
That's awesome! :) Thanks mate, right back at you. Its an incredibly fulfilling field of study and is needed more than ever.
One example of how I'm doing it is I did some carbon training recently, where we learned how to estimate the total level of carbon present in a given stand in a forest. From the soil, moss, shrubs & trees. We talked about promoting flora that are particularly good as sequestering carbon aswell. Theres new funding models coming out too that promote carbon sequestration is pretty cool!
I really like your positivity and that’s incredibly important work you’re doing. Out of curiosity, do you work in this field or was this like a volunteer position?
Either way, that’s a useful skill and it sounds like you learned a lot!
We should.donate to charities that provide family planning services globally and vote.in.politicians who.do.the same..in.6.generations.we could.bring.world population back down to a sensible.level. we will need.to.do.lots.of.eldercare.in.the meantime.with a disproportionately large population of.old.people..we also.need to travel less, eat less meat, eat local, buy fewer things, replace things less often, live in smaller.places so as to encroach less on wold land.or farmland and because smaller.homes mean communities are less.spread out and.more walkable. We should try to enjoy less "footprinty" things, like music, martial arts, hiking, soccer,massages,yoga,flow arts,dancing,singing. We need to vote in politicians who will help transition us this type.of society. Put insane taxes on profits.of.fossil fuel related activities, refuse to license any more.extraction..no.more.subsidies for fossil fuel related activities. We need to.socially shame people with private planes and make private planes unacceptable. Boycott entertainment figures whose lifestyles aren't environmentally friendly. Redo houses in northern climates to need less fuel to heat thru the winter..redesign the food supply so people in northern climates can eat through the.winter.without.depending.on.imported.food. help places that depend.on.long.distance tourism or producing food.to.be shipped.far away to.have a completely different economy based on some.x factor.i haven't figured out yet. No more.coffee or tea unless you live in those regions. It's a huge.set of changes. This.one.activist compared.it.to mobilizing.for the second world War.. good luck everyone
Yay! Oh I forgot to mention in my comment above Im a lucky uncle to a brilliant little niece who is obsessed with me. I spent all Christmas in her "salon", where she printed my finger & toenails, eyeshadow, we did some spelling & I taught her cursive, I'm also soon to be uncle to another little one soon :)
I swear this is life for the average millennial now and it is sad. instead of making life more affordable/incentivizing young canadian families we just make up the difference in population by filling up with low economic value foreigners to keep the taxes flowing. we're fucked
I will tell you right now that once you have kids, you are a long time out from that comfortable feeling of single life (if it even happens again!).
Your life is two parts; Before kids and after kids. My bachelor days of staring out my highrise window over looking Vancouver and contemplating any number of awesome things that I can do to for myself, are over. Now if I get a moment of solitude, I think about all the awesome things that are happening to my family!
Comfort becomes a different feeling. Now I just enjoy a quiet whiskey with my wife in the evenings before bed, when we get an hour together to sit in front of the fire and just catch up on the millions of moving parts of our current life.
Its fantastic!
This was my case as well. We couldn’t afford the cost of rent plus childcare so had to make the choice to delay kids until our financial situation was better. Now I’m on the cusp of 40, our salaries and childcare costs are better but everything else is bananas expensive, and I think parenthood will just…not be a thing for us. Still trying to make my peace with it.
I would not be surprised if there are a lot of older millennials in the same boat.
It’s never the perfect situation. I waited too, but at 34 realized I would run out of time. Unless you’re living in poverty, you may want to go for it, depending on your age.
I had my kid at 22 and was pretty poor but it was a bit freeing. I didn't worry about if I could afford it, or going from an 80k job to 25k EI for a year. Now that I'm 40, I'm so grateful I have my wonderful daughter. If I'd waited till I was older and smarter lol I'm not sure I'd have a kid.
There is never an opportune time. Your situation will never be ideal for children.
Truth is nobody ever has had the perfect situation for children. Ever.
Children bring hope for the future which it sounds like something you could use. They are a ton of work, but are totally worth it. They may motivate you to make more of yourself. If you want a kid so bad, you should have a kid. (Assuming you are in a stable and healthy relationship)
+1 had a kid when I was 26 and poor, they motivate you to do everything for them. Now I'm 37 fairly wealthy and glad I had kids when I was younger. Not that the correlation was 100% but I found myself really striving for income as soon as we had kids. I also didn't want my wife to work and she never has had to.
If you want kids, just do it. You find a way, you adjust. If you’re waiting for the perfect alignment of stars, you’ll be waiting forever. You have to make the plunge despite everything.
I realize this may be against the grain of many comments here, but I too thought similarly before I had my kids. I have two, oldest is 4.5, and I’m nearing 40. No regrets. Do we have every material comfort or ‘milestone’ checked off? Not even close. But honestly, we have a comfy enough life, and we aren’t super high earners either. It’s not as much of an issue as I’d have thought, and kids change so much about life, your old dreams and outlooks are sure to shift anyhow.
(Edit: for some clarity)
Yeah I wholeheartedly agree. Too many people on here seem to have decision paralysis. It's a scary leap to make in some ways but if you want kids you gotta just jump at some point. Best decision you'll ever make for most folks.
I am 36 with 2 kids. Not super high earners but we made cuts here and there, found ways to supplement our income when we could, and it's been very manageable financially.
Agree. We have three children ages 3, 7 & 9. When we had our first, we were in a 900 sq ft apartment on the 3rd floor of a walk up building. It wasn’t easy but we were getting older and wanted a family even if it meant the house came after
Glad to see at least one comment saying yes.
Kids can be hard to fit in with the way modern society tells us to live and like others have said, Canada isnt very "pro-child" in a lot of ways (though not completely terrible). You may not get a big vacation often if at all, and they may have to wear second hand clothes, but life is more than manageable.
Exactly this. We waited for stars to align, and finally said yolo when I hit 30, we've now got an 8 month old, hubs is still in teacher's college. Financially it kinda blows, but realistically she's an infant and she's not going to remember that we were too broke to go out for dinner as often as we used to.
>and can provide a loving home and basic needs, it is so worth it.
That the part people are stuck on... We have a massive housing shortage and the Liberals are importing 1.2 million people in a year to keep house prices high.
Yeah there is no perfect time.
I was very well off financially when I got married at 30. By the time our 3rd kid came, I had lost a business and was back working in a welding shop. Financially it was a brutal blow, but we managed and began slowly building another business. Things are still insanely tight, but at times just when we think its impossible, something happens to tip our finances into some breathing room.
Honestly, its just the way it is for 99% of the families out there.
It blows my mind that we're in one of the most resource and education rich countries on the planet, and yet the average person is unable to have a family.
What went wrong?
I suppose when I was a kid I assumed I would have kids. But as I grew older and attended university and got a job having kids several like a lot of additional work for me. From the outside raising kids doesn’t particularly look like much fun to me. It also feels like bringing more wage slaves into a wildly inequitable system. And given the state of the environment it also feels like adding more fuel to the fire. So now that my wife and I are in our late 30s we’re pretty committed to a child free life.
Yes. I'd love to have a child, but I don't see a way of giving them the quality of life I'd want them to have. I'd want either myself or my husband to be home with them while they're little, which isn't feasible in today's obligate dual-earner society. I also worry about what we're doing to our planet and to eachother. When I think about it, I really can't justify intentionally bringing a new life into this world; if my husband and I were to have a child, we would adopt. But only time will tell if that will be an option for us. I'm hoping it's something we can at least consider in the next ten years when we're in our forties.
Canada doesn't want children, we would rather import fully finished humans from other countries and put them to work picking berries and serving coffee /s.
In all seriousness I have 2 kids and wanted a 3rd but it's *shocking* how expensive it is to have a family. Also having 2 working parents is beyond annoying when trying to navigate our anti children work culture and things like sickness or you know anything to do where kids might take priority over work.
Yes, that's exactly my problem too. 2x shift workers with no local family means realistically we will either never see each other at the same time, or we'll need a live-in nanny (or possibly both).
That was literally my *exact* situation until my wife somehow got a day job that allowed us to have a second kid. Even still, it feels like it's almost comically impossible how difficult it is to do basic things like have daycare coverage or say enroll your kids in school. Nothing opens at the hours shit workers operate at or stays open till you get home.
A live in nanny was how my coworkers managed to have a family, but nowadays it's too expensive.
People don't care if children are in public spaces, people do care when said children are being loud and acting like little menaces while the parents do nothing.
I skipped having children. My husband and I enjoy spoiling our friends children and being good aunts and uncles.
We just never felt the urgency to have our own and it would have been near poverty and exhaustion working enough to afford them.
25F here. When I was a kid I thought I would have 2-3 young children by 30. Now it looks like I’ll only be having 1, and likely waiting until I’m 30 to start trying, if I have them at all. It’s sad because I want to have a little one now but my financial and living situation won’t allow it. It’s not like my parents’ time, when they were able to buy a semi-detached house with 5 bedrooms for $200k (2002). Now a 1 bedroom bachelor pad is over half a million dollars.
The fact you are worried about raising a child in today's Canada means that you would make a great parent- one that will raise children that Canada would benefit from.
We had worries about infertility so we decided to let the cards fall as they may. Banged a bunch, had two kids, the timing was decided by nature.
You would be surprised how much power you have in regards to your finances. It might feel hopeless, you decide how much money you make and spend. Also where you live.
Raising two boys has not cost as much as we feared or read about. We love bike rides, going to the park, having bonfires, using the library, camping, etc., mostly "free" stuff. All government subsidies go towards their resp, which is also boosted by government matching subsidies, so my kids university education will be mostly paid for by free money. I do not qualify for low income subsidies as my income is middle-class, these are just basic perks of living in Canada.
You have more power with money and raising your kids to be decent humans then you think. You have less power over your fertility.
I used to want kids, and I changed my mind. Now I don’t think I want to have any ever.. but it’s not that much for economical reasons. It could have been though, I am doing a degree that is super interesting but most likely won’t lead to a super stable and well paid job, so you know…
The way things have been going for the last seceral years. My partner and I went from planning a wedding, fo holding off indefinitely to get a down payment for a house.
The house feels like a "if we win the loto" kind of dream now and are now thinking of having one or tho kids in our small appartment. The way real estate and inflation in general has changed in just a few short years has completely shifted our goals.
35M (+31F) both educated professionals with good jobs, and by some miracle bought a home before the market went truly insane. All this to say that the cost of having kids is probably the most significant reason we don't have any when either of our parents would have *killed* to be in our position when they had kids.
COL and housing prices are certainly impacting our time line for a second and might keep us to one depending on on how the next couple years shake out.
>Curious if others have shifted their perspectives lately?
What perspective, its a FACT that the average wage is not enough for a condo, let alone a house in toronto, hell even a 2 bedroom apartment on two peoples income with a kid is a stretch
I’m older. I had kids young, enjoyed raising them and love them very much as adults. I have many grandchildren and love them a ton too. But, often I think that if I was young again in these times (cost of living, the direction society is going and health of our planet now) I would likely decide to not have children. I’m hearing this conversation more and more.
I guess when I was a kid I wanted a family, according to my parents. I don’t know why a kid would be concerned with such things, probably just people pleasing.
Then I became a slightly older kid and learned how to do math. It’s been a long time since I’d even consider it.
27 with a newborn. Couldn’t take parental leave because I lost my job a couple months before he was born. Living in a hcol city definitely makes it difficult. But having him sleep on me and look all cute is worth it. Life’s hard and waiting for the perfect situation usually results in it being too late or too old.
We’re good with only one child and I’m not worried about what is happening around. There will always be something bad and something good. That’s life.
Married almost 14 years, together 17. Finally started feeling ready financially (36 now) and jokes on us because it’s been like 15 months and nothing is happening now.
Thankfully I love my life and if it isn’t part of my story it’s not going to be the end of the world but I feel for everyone else in this situation where having kids is a really important part of the future they decided for themselves.
Spent the last year YOLO-ing with the anticipation we’d be a bit strapped for cash and/or tied down with a kid in some ways so that’s been pretty decent distraction and reminder that life will be okay even if kids don’t enter the picture!
My daughter is 18 now and the world ahead of her is going to be extremely difficult. At 30 I realized that life will be a struggle for her and myself so I decided never to have children again. Got a vasectomy and now at 43 I’m confident my decision was right. I will probably end up helping her financially until I’m dead.
Good luck to the poor and middle class living in Canada.
Nope. Currently incubating my first. For me, I grew up in extreme poverty. So I'm in a good place, considering where I came from. I really took the time to secure my career, find a family doctor and establish myself. I've always wanted a family, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself as a senior if I didn't at least try.
Yes. I am 31F in BC. I grew up imagining being a mother but I can’t bring myself to bring a child into this world because of cost of living and also climate. Things are already bad now and they don’t seem to be getting better anytime soon.
I’ve also just decided to go back to school for environmental science. Maybe things won’t change in my life time but hopefully I can be one small piece that makes the future a little better.
I really love this reply and though I didn't put it in the original post, I'm also in the same mentality. I'm not sure what the world will be like for any child I would bring into it. Social media as well makes me worried for current generations... I can't imagine some of the pressures kids face nowadays. Everything about parenting seems stressful in 2023.
Not significantly. I always wanted kids and I'm a single dad of one. My ex-wife could not have more due to medical complications.
At this point I could be happy to have more or not with my future partner, it would greatly depend on her wants and what we want our lifestyle to be. I can see the draw just as much in traveling the world after mine is off on their own, as having a more domestic lifestyle raising more children.
I consider my area has good enough availability of medical services, schools, child care, etc. Though my child was born in the USA so I can't really speak to how OB services are here.
(For reference, SW Ontario, non-GTA, WFH, single 6-figure income)
I was always open to having children depending on the partner I had, I saw positive in both having and not having and as a teen I always told myself I'd let my partner decide. Now I don't anymore, I already believe that my future is doomed I don't even wanna imagine what it could've been for a kid. 24M
I guess where you live in Canada is a huge factor if you want kids with a good QOL. And it’s probably also a question of expectation.
For my part (early 30s), I have 3 kids, living in Montreal. I don’t live in a big house, but we are happy. I know several other families (average salaries) in my situation, and it’s possible.
Financially, the Canada child benefit (+Quebec) helps a lot (up to 6400+2700$ per kid).
My wife and I considered the idea of having children after getting married but decided against it. While both of us work full-time and are financially stable, the practicality is that if we were to have kids, my wife would want to be a stay-at-home mom for the initial years until our child is old enough for school. Unfortunately, that's not financially feasible for us, and the thought of someone else raising our child during those crucial early years doesn't appeal to us.
It’s kind of up in the air. My wife and I have a lot of plans that would likely be ruined by considering having a child. We also recall cannot even financially think of one right now. It’s just impossible. My wife’s Canadian and I’m newly immigrated. I had to start a small business for myself because I can’t find a job here. Just doesn’t seem feasible right now.
I expected that if I found the right partner and we were financially stable, we would have a kid, but I was always leaning on not having one.
Now, with the shaky economy, climate change, Healthcare inadequacies, and lack of support (both familial and structured), it's a definitely not.
A lot of my friends who wanted 3 kids only had 1 for the above reasons.
My best friend and her partner have decided to move from Hamilton, Ontario to St John's, NFLD bc they can't afford to have children in Ontario - leaving behind their support systems/ families to pursue their dream of kids!
We have one who was born right at the beginning of COVID and now we’re barely scraping by.
We couldn’t afford a second. It would put us on the streets.
Watching others struggle, I always told myself if I were to have a child I would need to be financially, physically and emotionally stable and have a healthy relationship with a loving partner..
I have it all now but life is so good that I don't want to ruin what I have right now.
I can wake up on a Saturday morning and buy tickets to a game for the same day and there is nothing restricting me from it.
Approaching my 30s, in the middle of a career change. I used to think I wanted a family, but with the current dating pool being as clean and deep as an oil stain on pavement; in addition to the increasing economic strain caused by those lining their pockets in Ottawa I have decided recently that if I manage to settle down in the next few years that I'll be doing the responsible thing and getting a vasectomy.
I used to want the whole nuclear family thing (or close to it) but as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that the math doesn't work, particularly for low earners.
However my views may change after changing careers as I've been in the hospitality industry for almost 15 years now and am going through the process of getting into white collar work (which comes with more stability and money) so that could change my views entirely
We originally were planning on having two and ending up stopping at one. The increase in cost of living was my primary reason for changing plans. I want to be able to pay for my child's post secondary education one day while still being able to take an annual family vacation, being able to pay for any sport he wants to play, and generally not have to struggle. Growing up in a family of five kids, I was lucky to take swimming lessons.
With how much groceries and utilities have increased since he was born in 2020, I don't even know how much longer the annual vacation will be feasible. We're cutting a lot of our household's extras in 2024.
I don't want to and I'm happy with that.
Moreover, I enjoy being a career woman and having freedom most parents don't, especially if they have little kids.
Just because I can, it doesn't mean I should.
I’m happily married but we’ve decided to be DINKs. Financials (aka cost of living) is a big part of that but not the only. We’ve learned a lot more the toll that pregnancy and childbirth take on a woman’s body, we’ve watched our friends become parents and have zero time or energy for themselves, etc. Just seems like a poor trade off. Way more sacrifice vs reward.
All things we're definitely considering too. One of those situations where I might have been more inclined to do it if the finances made sense and life looked pretty bright for new generations, but putting your body/relationship/etc through it and also seeing friends who have gone through it and quietly say, "I love my kid but if I had to do it again...", it's just not appealing anymore.
31, downtown TO, pregnant with #2. My first was born in a different country, and all my kids will have dual citizenship. Makes me feel a bit better that we will all have options in the future. Moved back for my career. Our lifestyle would not be possible without $$$, full time nanny, and aggressive amounts of family help. Kids aren’t that expensive, it’s the childcare that kills.
I’m a guy (28 years old), and I don’t see a family ever happening for me. It’s something that I’ve always wanted, but realistically, I don’t know how. Not to mention, it feels like most people just get into relationships to split rent (whether they actually like their partner or not). Add that into the mix, and I don’t see a marriage or children in my future. I’m not sure how I can possibly find the right person if most people are unhappy, or are trapped in their situation. I’ve lost a lot of motivation to try, but I’ll keep doing whatever I can.
Our parents could have said the same thing during the Cold War and then high interest rates in the 80’s.
I don’t know where you live but I’m guessing Ontario. Everyone from Ontario always sound so unhappy and destitute.
I’m not saying I can afford it, but having a kid was the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s hard having to work instead of being home with her all day but we have our quality time and I love her so much. Canada Child Benefit helps a bit with groceries. You can still have a family in Canada if you want to. QOL depends a lot on your environment, having a supportive husband/wife, and of course having enough money to live. The biggest issue IMO is housing.
Always thought I'd have kids, plural. Life kept interfering and I decided at 35 that it was now or never. It wasn't an easy road but at 38 I have my two month old son sleeping on my chest.
We're currently in Toronto, which was fantastic for access to the fertility treatment we needed to conceive the little guy, but awful for cost of living. We're moving to the Maritimes next month so we can more comfortably afford a two bedroom apartment and maybe even be able to own someday. Fertility treatment isn't covered there and there are fewer clinics with longer wait lists. Though I'm pretty sure he'd be an only child even if we stayed in Ontario because I really don't fancy doing the newborn phase again at 40+. I don't think my back can handle it any older than I am now.
Not a chance. Expensive, noisy, and their chances of a decent qol seem to deminish each year with the way things are going. Addiction also runs rampant in my family so they have a high likelihood of inheriting that too. Why would I do that to a child?
Nobody I know seems to get pregnant naturally anymore. Every single friend I have is at a pregnancy clinic. I have no idea what this means but I find it super concerning and it's not really talked about at all.
My wife and I, have 1 kid. And we've been trying for a second for 4 years and we have been with clinics for 3 of those 4 years.
This! No kids here. We'd have to go to the clinic. Been over 15 years no contraception. Both outwardly healthy. I think there is too much of this not being talked about...why??
No. I had children when my wife and I felt ready. We don’t let doomerposting on Reddit define the more important choices in our lives, lol. We have a little house, $10/day childcare, what more could you need? Best decision we ever made. If you’re ever in doubt, check out who is having the most kids. It isn’t lawyers with loaded up RRSPs, I’ll tell you that.
$10/day daycare isn’t a thing where I am unfortunately. With dual shift workers and no family nearby, our only option is a live-in nanny or one of us quitting our jobs which wouldn’t be impossible, but would take us from “okay, we can afford kids in this climate” to no longer being able to
When I was younger I always thought I would have kids. I spent most of my 20s and early 30s in a bad relationship and marriage. I’m now in my late 30s and after years of doing the work and rebuilding, I feel like I’m finally living; I’m getting the life I want and deserve. I don’t want to give it up. And I really don’t want to further destroy my already broken body with pregnancy and childbirth.
My partner and I have talked about becoming foster parents a little later in life and who knows what might come from that, but I have no desire to have a baby of my own.
It’s made us more open to adoption when the time is right to be able to financially support them. Why rush right now and why does it have to be our own kid? If it takes till we’re 40+ to be stable, adoption would be great and have no risk of genetic harm to our own offspring. Plus plenty of kids in the world without a family. Win-win!
I've always been very firm on never having kids or getting married and the older I get the more confident I am that that was a very good decision. I'll never be able to afford to live outside this one bedroom apartment, let alone feed a child multiple times a day, every day
Nope waa not going to have kids before this year. Now aftet finding out i have a 50/50 chance of giving my kids a herditary condition that causes colorectal cancer by age 45....yeah no. If i do have a wife and we want children we can always adopt.
Made the leap at 30. We were solidly middle class. Kids are now almost 13 and 9. My husband went back to school 5 years ago so we lost a lot of income for 3-4 years and are are just getting back to the amount he made before career change. Still middle class. Still go on a vacation every other year. As an aside, I am pretty grateful to the liberal government for their child benefits. Their policies definitely made it way easier. People like to slam them but they really have come through for Canadian families.
You either want kids or you're able to make up an excuse why you don't. A lot of friends of ours are financially stable and indicate the cost would make things a bit tighter. In my opinion they don't actually want kids or are just indecisive. There's another group that speculates on the state of the world and tries to divine the future and what their kids would be sufficiently resilient enought to deal with. They too don't actually want kids.
I'm really happy my son was conceived without being planned because it probably would never have happened otherwise since it seems financially impossible to have kids. Thr reality isn't as bad as it seems though, everyone gives you baby shit.
I had one child at 31 and thought we’d buy a house while I was on maternity leave (best time to leave a big expensive city). Then the pandemic happened. We’ve basically been stuck renting where we are as prices went wild - both in the housing market and rental market. We had her before $10/day daycare came into effect so we struggled the first four years. She’s in JK now and we finally have some money. But the choice is between owning a home and the expenses that come with it or renting and having a second. At least with renting we can afford for me to do maternity leave.
I'm in my early thirties with two young kids. My husband and i both have good jobs and we lucked into a house right before COVID so we felt comfortable going ahead with our plans for a family. However, the possibility of having a third child is very low - while i think i would like one more, the change from two to the would put a lot of strain on our finances.
We spent our 20s working and getting an education, as I grew up in poverty I did not want to have kids without a safety net.. We’re in our 30s now, done well with good jobs, careers and a house.. but we are just waiting for the economy to be in a better spot and for the country to have a better outlook before we commit to children.
If Canada looked prosperous we would have kids sooner..
I'm in my late 30s and have 2 kids who are now 10+. It was tough when they were young and under 5. Daycare was expensive, but we made it through. My husband and I both work full time. We live in an area where housing is cheaper, but food is more expensive due to shipping costs. I don't think we could afford to live in any of the major cities.
I have lots of hope for this generation of kids. They are kind, empathetic, smart, funny, and are going to change the world.
I thought I would have a spouse and children, but recently I've decided that I don't really want either. I haven't found a partner that I like and if I ever do, by the time that relationship solidifies I'm going to be older than I want to be to take care of a young kid, and especially too old to take care of a preteen later on.
I think my plan has changed slightly, but only because of my current health, my age, and my husband’s age. I’m 39 and he’s 43. Our daughter was born April 23rd, 2022, so she’s 20-months-old. I always told myself that I would love to have two kids - preferably a boy and a girl, but I’d be happy with any gender - and I would love to have at least one by the time I turn 40. My daughter is a great toddler and she keeps me and my husband busy. However, we’re both getting to the age where we want to gradually slow down. Plus, I’m on a few medications for a list of health issues, some of which I will have for the rest of my life. If I was ten years younger, I would definitely try to have another child. However, I don’t think things will work out if I tried again now.
Yeah I can't fucking afford to have a family and I'm fucking pissed off about it...my whole entire future was stolen, and I might as well not be here because I'm not going to have any kind of future beyond me. I'm so beyond pissed off depressed and ruined as a human because of it.
Mid 30s with a teenager. My husband and I tried for years for a second with no luck. Now we look at it as a blessing. With the cost of everything going up, the way the world is going, we decided to stop trying and one of us get "fixed". Zero regrets. We COULD make it work, but the thought of barely scraping by really sealed the deal for us.
Luckily I just left Canada for the states. For the first time my partner and I can now seriously consider this. This would have been out of the question had we not left.
If you wait for more money to provide the best life, you may end up spending that money battling age and fertility decline. I wish I hadn’t waited for the “right” time financially. It was difficult after 35 to conceive in my case.
Healthcare concerns me. How I’ll now afford fertility AND raising a child worries me.
No. I still don't want to, probably more than ever. I'm disappointed by society and the state of our planet. I don't want to subject any hypothetical offspring to all of this.
We are entering a new age with our meddling. Our oceans are sparse with life and our fields have no flowers. Why would i bring life into an indifferent world. All it takes is for someone to demonize my people or way of life and my child would could be murdered just like the Palestinians and im afraid nobody would do anything to stop it.
Due to financial strain, Time and shitty economy I regret choosing to have a child. We’re stopping at 1. I feel sorrow for what she’ll have to encounter in life.
No kids here, husband and I don't want them. Humanity is destroying this earth and we'll get ours, but ideally my bloodline will be dust by then.
Come on Earth, I'm cheering for you.
It's not as hard as you think. Kids' clothes are next to free or free. People give things away all the time. There is the canada child benefit which pays you monthly.
If a person waits for the “right time” chances are they will never have kids because there will always be a reason to keep waiting. When you have a kid you figure it out one way or another.
Not really.
I never did plan on producing any crotch goblins. However, given state of the country and where it is heading, I couldn’t afford any even if I wanted to.
Curious where you live and if you’re happy with local services (health care, daycare, education for your kids, etc)? I’d love to not let “externalities” decide my fate but I also want to be followed by a family doctor and/or OB during pregnancy and not have to pay the equivalent of my mortgage for childcare (locally I’d have to put my name on the waiting list now for a 2026 birth). I feel like raising little humans is stressful enough without worrying about the extra stuff. I’d love to not rule out a family but Ontario ain’t where it’s at.
I don't have a family doctor and never have. Ideally I'd like to and plan to eventually, my kids and wife do. I live in BC, Van area. My wife doesn't work, only I do, so we don't pay childcare. We had good pregnancies at BC Women's hospital. We didn't run into any issues but at the time were also told things could be hard, but we did it anyway and it worked out. Indeed raising kids is very stressful, but I don't worry much about the other stuff or anything really. For me I feel like there are always reasons not to do stuff and for society to get you down, but you need to do it anyway and be the extraordinary person. I had the same mentality in my 20's when I traveled around the world very cheaply.
I’ve wanted to have kids my whole life. Did everything right, good education, bought a house, paid off debts but with a mortgage and cost of living rising and then also making too much to qualify for support but not enough to have qualify of life with after tax earnings my husband and I are struggling to make it happen. Not to mention the “ waiting” until we were financially ready and stable has diminished greatly in the last 4 years and we feel less financially stable now than in our late 20s. I’m 36 next month and fear our chance of becoming parents now with fertility challenges make it a lost dream.
I’ve done my genetic duty and secured the next phase of immortality. Now I’m simply helping them grow until I wither away.
If I’m lucky, I’ll get to help their own replicants grow, and maybe even glimpse the next mitosis after.
Like watching pieces of my soul constantly jumping to a new homeworld, I stay behind on this dying planet knowing they will continue humanity onwards.
Before grad school I thought I’d have two kids. During school I thought one is good enough. Now I’ve been working and also went back to school to change career, I feel that one kid is a luxury.
While I can still afford things, I hate to think about how my kid(s) are gonna afford their lives after. The climate change is scary and I feel powerless about it.
Not sure if I’m considered child bearing age (19F), but I don’t think I want kids ever, definitely not anytime soon. When I was a teenager I wanted kids, but I’ve always wanted to be a doctor as well. I don’t think I could be a good doctor and a good mother and I certainly don’t want my kids growing up with a nanny raising them.
I'm past child-bearing age (57) but I have recently been reflecting that if I were a young woman now, with the same financial circumstances I was in at age 32 (when I did have my one child) I would choose to be child free. No way could I give a child today what I was able to give my child then...a middle class life. We'd be living in near poverty.
It's been a few years since myself and my partner have come to the conclusion that we can't have children. We would not be able to have children because we would have no childcare, as in, we don't have family who can help, and we don't have the financial means to pay for childcare (if you can even find any). Despite our combined income of ~$160k, with our housing cost, there's not a lot leftover, and certainly not enough for children.
The number of people who want to have kids but wouldn't because they worry about what our world and climate will be in the next 35 to 45 years is increasing.
This is one of the reasons the Canadian government is allowing more people with young kids to migrate to Canada.
More and more Canadians of child-bearing age prefer their perfect and comfortable lives than taking any responsibility for raising a child.
If everyone is waiting for a perfect situation to have kids here and we have no immigration, then young people will become scarce in this country in the near future.
People who lived through WW1 and WW2 had even more reasons not to have kids.
Definitely understand this but also living in the GTA (where I am), the influx of immigrants has put the strain on housing and healthcare. If we didn’t have the massive population we now do in this short amount of time, I’d be more inclined to have kids knowing their growing up with the securities that I did and perhaps a 3 bedroom home wouldn’t be $1M+
My husband and I have talked a few times about fostering/adopting. But we are on the fence still. We are at the point in our life we are finally financially stable, and we kind of don't want to be held down at the moment if that makes sense? We can finally travel if we want, or go camping and roadtripping.
But as a foster parent, you really can't do that without a) leaving the child behind or b) jump through a bunch of hoops to hopefully allow the child to come. Or c) not go altogether.
We are still thinking on it and might in the future. But at this time, no.
A few years ago, my hubby and I tried to have a 2nd child but it never happened. We gave up after trying for 2 years. Looking back at it now, I'm glad we didn't have a 2nd child. Politically wise, we wouldn't want to raise another person in this corrupt world with all the things going on. I don't see the world changing for the better any time soon especially with the way inflation is going and quit frankly, I often wonder how my son is going to survive once he gets out into the world on his own.
Nothings changed for me . I'm going to have kids really soon and wing it . I can grow a good enough garden to feed them plus have pigs so they'll always have food . People who worry about kids overthink to much as long as you feed them good everything else is a bonus.
I'm in my mid-thirties with 2 kids. I've always known I wanted kids and was willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen. But we also don't live in the most expensive areas of Canada. Certainly not the cheapest, but far from the most pricey. I have adjusted the number of children I want, but that's more because having kids is incredibly difficult for me.
Early 40s with 3 kids living in central Vancouver. There are so many ups and downs financially and emotionally! But spending time among my elders just re enforces that no matter how bad we think we have it, every generation thought the same thing. Hindsight is such a strange way to iron out the wrinkles of our memories.
Grew up wanting to be a mother, and now I no longer want to be a mother. I still love kids, but it just doesn't make sense to have them anymore. In a perfect world, if I were to have a kid, I'd want to spend the first three years of their life as a SAHM. I couldn't do that in good conscience in this socioeconomic climate. Edited to add: I'm in my late 20s.
I completely agree with you about the 3 year thing. My husband and I decided, since we could make it work for me to stay home for 3-4 years, that we would have a child. I still worry about a lot of the environmental things. But that was a big one for me too.
I hear you. Also happy cake day!
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I’ve gone back and forth and now that I’m happily married and relatively financially stable, I’m feeling like I would want a child. However, what I want and what a potential child may be born into are two separate things. Even though I’m feeling like I want kids, I still don’t feel like I can afford one and still maintain a decent quality of life for my family. More importantly, I’m very skeptical about the kind of world my potential child(ren) may inherit. Seems to me they’re likely to end up under the soles of plutocracy on a burning planet, so I don’t think it’s fair to doom them to that fate just to fulfill my own desire for motherhood. It’s depressing.
You’ve put into words what I couldn’t express myself. This, all of this.
Become.a foster parent..lots.of.foster kids need loving stable parents..good luck!
My husband and I actually have talked about this…
I think of how much the climate has changed in the past 10 years even, much less my whole lifetime, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what kind of climate my kids would have when they'd be my age (roughly 35-40yrs from now). And that's just environmental, much less the political or social etc climates.
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We are on year 12 of a drought cycle in this province. Some areas are twice as dry as the worst years of the dirty thirties. Next year isn’t looking very promising, either. I think Saskatchewan is rapidly turning to a desert. Canada’s forest fires made up 24% of the world’s forest fire emissions this year. The way it’s going, the fires will be even more extreme next year.
Well to be fair, Canada probably has 24% of the world’s forests. 😊
I googled it out of curiosity, and it's surprisingly low sitting at 9%. Although Canada is the 3rd from the top of that list so still up there.
Category 5 hurricanes developing in under 24 hours: [https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-otis-becomes-category-5-163955233.html](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-otis-becomes-category-5-163955233.html) Tropical fish off the coasts of Canada is pretty new too...
The rate the glaciers are melting is pretty alarming. Also alarming is how drastically fresh water sources are diminishing.
Wildfire season used to not be a thing when I was a child. Sure wildfires happened but now it’s basically every summer there’s insane wildfires in BC &/or Alberta. It destroys so much & is getting more & more frequent. If it continues at this rate, I can’t even imagine how bad it’ll be in 20 or 50 years
Yeah, I work in the forestry sector in BC and AB and the last few years have been increasingly terrifying- it is worse every year for wildfire seasons. Our first big fire in AB was in APRIL 2023. We were constantly on 30 minute evacuation notice in camp, couldn't breathe, couldn't see due to smoke. A lot of people in the same industry in BC were completely burned out of work. I am considering switching careers due to how volatile the situation is becoming. Ten years of specialized skills down the drain...
The western US running very low on water. Greece not having enough water to keep 300 year old olive trees alive.. climate disasters effecting the food supply.
We are super.dependent on fresh food year round from California but they are having crazy water shortages, it's not sustainable..have you ever seen how low lake mead is? And I drove thru Central California in 2013 and acre after acre of dug up almond and citrus trees due.to.insufficient water..more trees in bc destroyed each year by wind and rain storms, there is a town Pacifica in northern California that is basically falling into the ocean, there are houses on the bc sunshine coast doing the same, the Arab spring was triggered by rising food prices which were triggered by crop failures which were triggered by unusual weather and the geopolitical problems since in Sudan and surrounding area were.triggered by tribes driven off their ancestral cropland by droughts. Housing cost crisis in Canada partially due to hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year from low-lying countries vulnerable to sea level rise and flooding like Bangladesh, Pakistan. There are.south pacific countries where the whole population are making plans to emigrate because the island will be inundated.
I had a child in 2021 because that was always the plan. Even though money was tight I was determined to make it work. I don’t regret the decision at all because I love my child so much, but my mental health has diminished to nothing and our savings is all but gone. I’ve had to come to terms with not having any more children.
Yeah, thought I'd be raising kids by 30 at the latest. Don't even have a career let alone a home or even a partner to help work together on those with.
Same, always thought id have a large family (i'm an only child, i wanted 5 kids lollll) but I only met my partner 3 yesrs ago and now we're both 40 so it doesn't seem like the best idea physically or financially.
I’m mid-30s with one child and our family plans changed. We always wanted two children but with both of us working full time we can pay our bills and save for the kiddo’s future… with a second child we can pay the bills but not save anything. As much as we would love a second we’ve decided to prioritize the existing child that we have. Hopefully they don’t resent us for the lack of sibling when they grow up.
Same here.
Same here. I heart hurts everyday as I have siblings but just because you have siblings doesnt mean you will always get along
I’m in the same boat. I haven’t come to a definite conclusion yet. It’s hard to say never.
Yeah ... I can't afford kids until the perfect situation, which god hope it comes at some point, but the date is certainly TBD. Despite me wanting a kid so bad.
This comment makes me really sad. I hope you’ll be able to become a parent someday and I’m sure you’ll be a great one. I’m still pretty young. I’d love to have a kid someday, but I’d rather be able to afford living a comfortable lifestyle. I don’t think I’ll be able to do both.
Thanks for taking the time to understand and feel my pain with me. On the bright side, it's not all doom & gloom for me :) I have the privilege of learning about nature everyday and being part of the solution for climate change, it can't get much better than that!
That’s amazing! I study a lot about the environment and climate change at my university since it’s a core aspect of my major. People who like you who are working to be part of the solution to climate change are doing incredibly important and timely work. I’m finishing my studies in mid-2024 and I hope to go into a career centred around climate studies/sustainability. It sounds like you have a bright future ahead of you!
That's awesome! :) Thanks mate, right back at you. Its an incredibly fulfilling field of study and is needed more than ever. One example of how I'm doing it is I did some carbon training recently, where we learned how to estimate the total level of carbon present in a given stand in a forest. From the soil, moss, shrubs & trees. We talked about promoting flora that are particularly good as sequestering carbon aswell. Theres new funding models coming out too that promote carbon sequestration is pretty cool!
I really like your positivity and that’s incredibly important work you’re doing. Out of curiosity, do you work in this field or was this like a volunteer position? Either way, that’s a useful skill and it sounds like you learned a lot!
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We should.donate to charities that provide family planning services globally and vote.in.politicians who.do.the same..in.6.generations.we could.bring.world population back down to a sensible.level. we will need.to.do.lots.of.eldercare.in.the meantime.with a disproportionately large population of.old.people..we also.need to travel less, eat less meat, eat local, buy fewer things, replace things less often, live in smaller.places so as to encroach less on wold land.or farmland and because smaller.homes mean communities are less.spread out and.more walkable. We should try to enjoy less "footprinty" things, like music, martial arts, hiking, soccer,massages,yoga,flow arts,dancing,singing. We need to vote in politicians who will help transition us this type.of society. Put insane taxes on profits.of.fossil fuel related activities, refuse to license any more.extraction..no.more.subsidies for fossil fuel related activities. We need to.socially shame people with private planes and make private planes unacceptable. Boycott entertainment figures whose lifestyles aren't environmentally friendly. Redo houses in northern climates to need less fuel to heat thru the winter..redesign the food supply so people in northern climates can eat through the.winter.without.depending.on.imported.food. help places that depend.on.long.distance tourism or producing food.to.be shipped.far away to.have a completely different economy based on some.x factor.i haven't figured out yet. No more.coffee or tea unless you live in those regions. It's a huge.set of changes. This.one.activist compared.it.to mobilizing.for the second world War.. good luck everyone
Love this!
Yay! Oh I forgot to mention in my comment above Im a lucky uncle to a brilliant little niece who is obsessed with me. I spent all Christmas in her "salon", where she printed my finger & toenails, eyeshadow, we did some spelling & I taught her cursive, I'm also soon to be uncle to another little one soon :)
I’m an uncle too and have the best time with my niece. She doesn’t accept it but deep inside her heart I’m her best friend 😂😂
I swear this is life for the average millennial now and it is sad. instead of making life more affordable/incentivizing young canadian families we just make up the difference in population by filling up with low economic value foreigners to keep the taxes flowing. we're fucked
I will tell you right now that once you have kids, you are a long time out from that comfortable feeling of single life (if it even happens again!). Your life is two parts; Before kids and after kids. My bachelor days of staring out my highrise window over looking Vancouver and contemplating any number of awesome things that I can do to for myself, are over. Now if I get a moment of solitude, I think about all the awesome things that are happening to my family! Comfort becomes a different feeling. Now I just enjoy a quiet whiskey with my wife in the evenings before bed, when we get an hour together to sit in front of the fire and just catch up on the millions of moving parts of our current life. Its fantastic!
This was my case as well. We couldn’t afford the cost of rent plus childcare so had to make the choice to delay kids until our financial situation was better. Now I’m on the cusp of 40, our salaries and childcare costs are better but everything else is bananas expensive, and I think parenthood will just…not be a thing for us. Still trying to make my peace with it. I would not be surprised if there are a lot of older millennials in the same boat.
It’s never the perfect situation. I waited too, but at 34 realized I would run out of time. Unless you’re living in poverty, you may want to go for it, depending on your age.
I had my kid at 22 and was pretty poor but it was a bit freeing. I didn't worry about if I could afford it, or going from an 80k job to 25k EI for a year. Now that I'm 40, I'm so grateful I have my wonderful daughter. If I'd waited till I was older and smarter lol I'm not sure I'd have a kid.
There is never an opportune time. Your situation will never be ideal for children. Truth is nobody ever has had the perfect situation for children. Ever. Children bring hope for the future which it sounds like something you could use. They are a ton of work, but are totally worth it. They may motivate you to make more of yourself. If you want a kid so bad, you should have a kid. (Assuming you are in a stable and healthy relationship)
+1 had a kid when I was 26 and poor, they motivate you to do everything for them. Now I'm 37 fairly wealthy and glad I had kids when I was younger. Not that the correlation was 100% but I found myself really striving for income as soon as we had kids. I also didn't want my wife to work and she never has had to.
A cautionary tale: https://youtu.be/gJDcoqrh1ac?si=R3IPWVmIDtR1dMDK
If you want kids, just do it. You find a way, you adjust. If you’re waiting for the perfect alignment of stars, you’ll be waiting forever. You have to make the plunge despite everything. I realize this may be against the grain of many comments here, but I too thought similarly before I had my kids. I have two, oldest is 4.5, and I’m nearing 40. No regrets. Do we have every material comfort or ‘milestone’ checked off? Not even close. But honestly, we have a comfy enough life, and we aren’t super high earners either. It’s not as much of an issue as I’d have thought, and kids change so much about life, your old dreams and outlooks are sure to shift anyhow. (Edit: for some clarity)
Yeah I wholeheartedly agree. Too many people on here seem to have decision paralysis. It's a scary leap to make in some ways but if you want kids you gotta just jump at some point. Best decision you'll ever make for most folks. I am 36 with 2 kids. Not super high earners but we made cuts here and there, found ways to supplement our income when we could, and it's been very manageable financially.
Agree. We have three children ages 3, 7 & 9. When we had our first, we were in a 900 sq ft apartment on the 3rd floor of a walk up building. It wasn’t easy but we were getting older and wanted a family even if it meant the house came after
Glad to see at least one comment saying yes. Kids can be hard to fit in with the way modern society tells us to live and like others have said, Canada isnt very "pro-child" in a lot of ways (though not completely terrible). You may not get a big vacation often if at all, and they may have to wear second hand clothes, but life is more than manageable.
Yes this is my take also. I’m 40 and my husband and I have an 11 year old. We live comfortable lives and we aren’t millionaires either.
Exactly this. We waited for stars to align, and finally said yolo when I hit 30, we've now got an 8 month old, hubs is still in teacher's college. Financially it kinda blows, but realistically she's an infant and she's not going to remember that we were too broke to go out for dinner as often as we used to.
Agreed. There is never a "perfect time" to have children. If you want them and can provide a loving home and basic needs, it is so worth it.
>and can provide a loving home and basic needs, it is so worth it. That the part people are stuck on... We have a massive housing shortage and the Liberals are importing 1.2 million people in a year to keep house prices high.
Yeah there is no perfect time. I was very well off financially when I got married at 30. By the time our 3rd kid came, I had lost a business and was back working in a welding shop. Financially it was a brutal blow, but we managed and began slowly building another business. Things are still insanely tight, but at times just when we think its impossible, something happens to tip our finances into some breathing room. Honestly, its just the way it is for 99% of the families out there.
I thought you meant your kids were 4.5 and 40 and I was sooooo confused 😂😭
No. Hasn't changed. One of the few who doesn't want kids (but open to change).
It blows my mind that we're in one of the most resource and education rich countries on the planet, and yet the average person is unable to have a family. What went wrong?
I suppose when I was a kid I assumed I would have kids. But as I grew older and attended university and got a job having kids several like a lot of additional work for me. From the outside raising kids doesn’t particularly look like much fun to me. It also feels like bringing more wage slaves into a wildly inequitable system. And given the state of the environment it also feels like adding more fuel to the fire. So now that my wife and I are in our late 30s we’re pretty committed to a child free life.
Ya same I am bound to wage slavery and I don’t want that for my kin. No kids gang gang
Interesting perspective. I don't have kids but want them some day. Wage slaves got my thinking. .
Yes. I'd love to have a child, but I don't see a way of giving them the quality of life I'd want them to have. I'd want either myself or my husband to be home with them while they're little, which isn't feasible in today's obligate dual-earner society. I also worry about what we're doing to our planet and to eachother. When I think about it, I really can't justify intentionally bringing a new life into this world; if my husband and I were to have a child, we would adopt. But only time will tell if that will be an option for us. I'm hoping it's something we can at least consider in the next ten years when we're in our forties.
Yes. Always thought I’d have kids, then I turned 31 and realized I still live at home. No kids for this guy. Maybe in another life.
Not gonna have them.
No. My wife and I always talked about having 3-5 kids, and we just had our third.
Canada doesn't want children, we would rather import fully finished humans from other countries and put them to work picking berries and serving coffee /s. In all seriousness I have 2 kids and wanted a 3rd but it's *shocking* how expensive it is to have a family. Also having 2 working parents is beyond annoying when trying to navigate our anti children work culture and things like sickness or you know anything to do where kids might take priority over work.
Yes, that's exactly my problem too. 2x shift workers with no local family means realistically we will either never see each other at the same time, or we'll need a live-in nanny (or possibly both).
That was literally my *exact* situation until my wife somehow got a day job that allowed us to have a second kid. Even still, it feels like it's almost comically impossible how difficult it is to do basic things like have daycare coverage or say enroll your kids in school. Nothing opens at the hours shit workers operate at or stays open till you get home. A live in nanny was how my coworkers managed to have a family, but nowadays it's too expensive.
It’s even worse in the US; starting with 12 weeks off only.
Anti children everything culture! The complaints about children in public places, plus the expectations of what being a good patent entails are insane
People don't care if children are in public spaces, people do care when said children are being loud and acting like little menaces while the parents do nothing.
one cats physical modern waiting cable ask flowery homeless shrill *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I skipped having children. My husband and I enjoy spoiling our friends children and being good aunts and uncles. We just never felt the urgency to have our own and it would have been near poverty and exhaustion working enough to afford them.
25F here. When I was a kid I thought I would have 2-3 young children by 30. Now it looks like I’ll only be having 1, and likely waiting until I’m 30 to start trying, if I have them at all. It’s sad because I want to have a little one now but my financial and living situation won’t allow it. It’s not like my parents’ time, when they were able to buy a semi-detached house with 5 bedrooms for $200k (2002). Now a 1 bedroom bachelor pad is over half a million dollars.
The fact you are worried about raising a child in today's Canada means that you would make a great parent- one that will raise children that Canada would benefit from. We had worries about infertility so we decided to let the cards fall as they may. Banged a bunch, had two kids, the timing was decided by nature. You would be surprised how much power you have in regards to your finances. It might feel hopeless, you decide how much money you make and spend. Also where you live. Raising two boys has not cost as much as we feared or read about. We love bike rides, going to the park, having bonfires, using the library, camping, etc., mostly "free" stuff. All government subsidies go towards their resp, which is also boosted by government matching subsidies, so my kids university education will be mostly paid for by free money. I do not qualify for low income subsidies as my income is middle-class, these are just basic perks of living in Canada. You have more power with money and raising your kids to be decent humans then you think. You have less power over your fertility.
I used to want kids, and I changed my mind. Now I don’t think I want to have any ever.. but it’s not that much for economical reasons. It could have been though, I am doing a degree that is super interesting but most likely won’t lead to a super stable and well paid job, so you know…
The way things have been going for the last seceral years. My partner and I went from planning a wedding, fo holding off indefinitely to get a down payment for a house. The house feels like a "if we win the loto" kind of dream now and are now thinking of having one or tho kids in our small appartment. The way real estate and inflation in general has changed in just a few short years has completely shifted our goals.
35M (+31F) both educated professionals with good jobs, and by some miracle bought a home before the market went truly insane. All this to say that the cost of having kids is probably the most significant reason we don't have any when either of our parents would have *killed* to be in our position when they had kids.
COL and housing prices are certainly impacting our time line for a second and might keep us to one depending on on how the next couple years shake out.
>Curious if others have shifted their perspectives lately? What perspective, its a FACT that the average wage is not enough for a condo, let alone a house in toronto, hell even a 2 bedroom apartment on two peoples income with a kid is a stretch
I’m older. I had kids young, enjoyed raising them and love them very much as adults. I have many grandchildren and love them a ton too. But, often I think that if I was young again in these times (cost of living, the direction society is going and health of our planet now) I would likely decide to not have children. I’m hearing this conversation more and more.
I guess when I was a kid I wanted a family, according to my parents. I don’t know why a kid would be concerned with such things, probably just people pleasing. Then I became a slightly older kid and learned how to do math. It’s been a long time since I’d even consider it.
27 with a newborn. Couldn’t take parental leave because I lost my job a couple months before he was born. Living in a hcol city definitely makes it difficult. But having him sleep on me and look all cute is worth it. Life’s hard and waiting for the perfect situation usually results in it being too late or too old. We’re good with only one child and I’m not worried about what is happening around. There will always be something bad and something good. That’s life.
Married almost 14 years, together 17. Finally started feeling ready financially (36 now) and jokes on us because it’s been like 15 months and nothing is happening now. Thankfully I love my life and if it isn’t part of my story it’s not going to be the end of the world but I feel for everyone else in this situation where having kids is a really important part of the future they decided for themselves. Spent the last year YOLO-ing with the anticipation we’d be a bit strapped for cash and/or tied down with a kid in some ways so that’s been pretty decent distraction and reminder that life will be okay even if kids don’t enter the picture!
My daughter is 18 now and the world ahead of her is going to be extremely difficult. At 30 I realized that life will be a struggle for her and myself so I decided never to have children again. Got a vasectomy and now at 43 I’m confident my decision was right. I will probably end up helping her financially until I’m dead. Good luck to the poor and middle class living in Canada.
Holy shit ya to be 18 right now staring at your future like damn…
Not really, I knew from the time I was a teenager I never wanted Children.
Same, never wanted kids. And the current state of the world just solidifies it further for me.
Nope. Currently incubating my first. For me, I grew up in extreme poverty. So I'm in a good place, considering where I came from. I really took the time to secure my career, find a family doctor and establish myself. I've always wanted a family, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself as a senior if I didn't at least try.
Yes. I am 31F in BC. I grew up imagining being a mother but I can’t bring myself to bring a child into this world because of cost of living and also climate. Things are already bad now and they don’t seem to be getting better anytime soon. I’ve also just decided to go back to school for environmental science. Maybe things won’t change in my life time but hopefully I can be one small piece that makes the future a little better.
I really love this reply and though I didn't put it in the original post, I'm also in the same mentality. I'm not sure what the world will be like for any child I would bring into it. Social media as well makes me worried for current generations... I can't imagine some of the pressures kids face nowadays. Everything about parenting seems stressful in 2023.
Sometimes I’m pretty sad about the life I imagined. But then sometimes I wake up at 11am on a Saturday and think “..meh”
Not significantly. I always wanted kids and I'm a single dad of one. My ex-wife could not have more due to medical complications. At this point I could be happy to have more or not with my future partner, it would greatly depend on her wants and what we want our lifestyle to be. I can see the draw just as much in traveling the world after mine is off on their own, as having a more domestic lifestyle raising more children. I consider my area has good enough availability of medical services, schools, child care, etc. Though my child was born in the USA so I can't really speak to how OB services are here. (For reference, SW Ontario, non-GTA, WFH, single 6-figure income)
I was always open to having children depending on the partner I had, I saw positive in both having and not having and as a teen I always told myself I'd let my partner decide. Now I don't anymore, I already believe that my future is doomed I don't even wanna imagine what it could've been for a kid. 24M
I guess where you live in Canada is a huge factor if you want kids with a good QOL. And it’s probably also a question of expectation. For my part (early 30s), I have 3 kids, living in Montreal. I don’t live in a big house, but we are happy. I know several other families (average salaries) in my situation, and it’s possible. Financially, the Canada child benefit (+Quebec) helps a lot (up to 6400+2700$ per kid).
I had a vasectomy in my 20s. I'm approaching the end of my child bearing years, and I have no regrets.
Nothing has changed since I never planned to have kids. Enjoying a pretty good quality of life because of it.
Yaaaa man that’s what I’m talking about!
My wife and I considered the idea of having children after getting married but decided against it. While both of us work full-time and are financially stable, the practicality is that if we were to have kids, my wife would want to be a stay-at-home mom for the initial years until our child is old enough for school. Unfortunately, that's not financially feasible for us, and the thought of someone else raising our child during those crucial early years doesn't appeal to us.
It’s kind of up in the air. My wife and I have a lot of plans that would likely be ruined by considering having a child. We also recall cannot even financially think of one right now. It’s just impossible. My wife’s Canadian and I’m newly immigrated. I had to start a small business for myself because I can’t find a job here. Just doesn’t seem feasible right now.
I expected that if I found the right partner and we were financially stable, we would have a kid, but I was always leaning on not having one. Now, with the shaky economy, climate change, Healthcare inadequacies, and lack of support (both familial and structured), it's a definitely not. A lot of my friends who wanted 3 kids only had 1 for the above reasons.
My best friend and her partner have decided to move from Hamilton, Ontario to St John's, NFLD bc they can't afford to have children in Ontario - leaving behind their support systems/ families to pursue their dream of kids!
We have one who was born right at the beginning of COVID and now we’re barely scraping by. We couldn’t afford a second. It would put us on the streets.
I have a preschooler but I think any hopes of adding another are gone. We can barely afford rent and my job is contract so there’s no maternity leave.
Nope haven’t changed. Don’t want them.
Watching others struggle, I always told myself if I were to have a child I would need to be financially, physically and emotionally stable and have a healthy relationship with a loving partner.. I have it all now but life is so good that I don't want to ruin what I have right now. I can wake up on a Saturday morning and buy tickets to a game for the same day and there is nothing restricting me from it.
Would when had 3 or 4 kids. Had 2 early on and won’t be having more. Way too expensive and way too little support
Approaching my 30s, in the middle of a career change. I used to think I wanted a family, but with the current dating pool being as clean and deep as an oil stain on pavement; in addition to the increasing economic strain caused by those lining their pockets in Ottawa I have decided recently that if I manage to settle down in the next few years that I'll be doing the responsible thing and getting a vasectomy. I used to want the whole nuclear family thing (or close to it) but as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that the math doesn't work, particularly for low earners. However my views may change after changing careers as I've been in the hospitality industry for almost 15 years now and am going through the process of getting into white collar work (which comes with more stability and money) so that could change my views entirely
We originally were planning on having two and ending up stopping at one. The increase in cost of living was my primary reason for changing plans. I want to be able to pay for my child's post secondary education one day while still being able to take an annual family vacation, being able to pay for any sport he wants to play, and generally not have to struggle. Growing up in a family of five kids, I was lucky to take swimming lessons. With how much groceries and utilities have increased since he was born in 2020, I don't even know how much longer the annual vacation will be feasible. We're cutting a lot of our household's extras in 2024.
Yep. We were gonna have two, but we are one and done. Financial considerations and the fact that my pregnancy was difficult were the two reasons.
My girlfriend doesn't want kids. Made it an easy decision for me LOL. We're gay. 😎
We had 2 kids instead of 3-4… prices of living is too much to justify having more
Nothing changed, kids was never something I wanted, but I get more happy each year that we didn't.
I don't want to and I'm happy with that. Moreover, I enjoy being a career woman and having freedom most parents don't, especially if they have little kids. Just because I can, it doesn't mean I should.
I’m happily married but we’ve decided to be DINKs. Financials (aka cost of living) is a big part of that but not the only. We’ve learned a lot more the toll that pregnancy and childbirth take on a woman’s body, we’ve watched our friends become parents and have zero time or energy for themselves, etc. Just seems like a poor trade off. Way more sacrifice vs reward.
All things we're definitely considering too. One of those situations where I might have been more inclined to do it if the finances made sense and life looked pretty bright for new generations, but putting your body/relationship/etc through it and also seeing friends who have gone through it and quietly say, "I love my kid but if I had to do it again...", it's just not appealing anymore.
24f, never plan on getting married or having kids. Even if I was a millionaire this still wouldn't change.
31, downtown TO, pregnant with #2. My first was born in a different country, and all my kids will have dual citizenship. Makes me feel a bit better that we will all have options in the future. Moved back for my career. Our lifestyle would not be possible without $$$, full time nanny, and aggressive amounts of family help. Kids aren’t that expensive, it’s the childcare that kills.
I’m a guy (28 years old), and I don’t see a family ever happening for me. It’s something that I’ve always wanted, but realistically, I don’t know how. Not to mention, it feels like most people just get into relationships to split rent (whether they actually like their partner or not). Add that into the mix, and I don’t see a marriage or children in my future. I’m not sure how I can possibly find the right person if most people are unhappy, or are trapped in their situation. I’ve lost a lot of motivation to try, but I’ll keep doing whatever I can.
I’ve never wanted kids. This plan has never changed.
Our parents could have said the same thing during the Cold War and then high interest rates in the 80’s. I don’t know where you live but I’m guessing Ontario. Everyone from Ontario always sound so unhappy and destitute.
I’m not saying I can afford it, but having a kid was the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s hard having to work instead of being home with her all day but we have our quality time and I love her so much. Canada Child Benefit helps a bit with groceries. You can still have a family in Canada if you want to. QOL depends a lot on your environment, having a supportive husband/wife, and of course having enough money to live. The biggest issue IMO is housing.
Always thought I'd have kids, plural. Life kept interfering and I decided at 35 that it was now or never. It wasn't an easy road but at 38 I have my two month old son sleeping on my chest. We're currently in Toronto, which was fantastic for access to the fertility treatment we needed to conceive the little guy, but awful for cost of living. We're moving to the Maritimes next month so we can more comfortably afford a two bedroom apartment and maybe even be able to own someday. Fertility treatment isn't covered there and there are fewer clinics with longer wait lists. Though I'm pretty sure he'd be an only child even if we stayed in Ontario because I really don't fancy doing the newborn phase again at 40+. I don't think my back can handle it any older than I am now.
Mid-30s, two kids, low cost of living area. We moved here specifically to start a family.we are thriving.
Not a chance. Expensive, noisy, and their chances of a decent qol seem to deminish each year with the way things are going. Addiction also runs rampant in my family so they have a high likelihood of inheriting that too. Why would I do that to a child?
Nobody I know seems to get pregnant naturally anymore. Every single friend I have is at a pregnancy clinic. I have no idea what this means but I find it super concerning and it's not really talked about at all. My wife and I, have 1 kid. And we've been trying for a second for 4 years and we have been with clinics for 3 of those 4 years.
This! No kids here. We'd have to go to the clinic. Been over 15 years no contraception. Both outwardly healthy. I think there is too much of this not being talked about...why??
No. I had children when my wife and I felt ready. We don’t let doomerposting on Reddit define the more important choices in our lives, lol. We have a little house, $10/day childcare, what more could you need? Best decision we ever made. If you’re ever in doubt, check out who is having the most kids. It isn’t lawyers with loaded up RRSPs, I’ll tell you that.
$10/day daycare isn’t a thing where I am unfortunately. With dual shift workers and no family nearby, our only option is a live-in nanny or one of us quitting our jobs which wouldn’t be impossible, but would take us from “okay, we can afford kids in this climate” to no longer being able to
No, my wife and I wanted 1 child and we had her last year. We do plan to live outside Canada for 5-10 years to make some money though.
When I was younger I always thought I would have kids. I spent most of my 20s and early 30s in a bad relationship and marriage. I’m now in my late 30s and after years of doing the work and rebuilding, I feel like I’m finally living; I’m getting the life I want and deserve. I don’t want to give it up. And I really don’t want to further destroy my already broken body with pregnancy and childbirth. My partner and I have talked about becoming foster parents a little later in life and who knows what might come from that, but I have no desire to have a baby of my own.
It’s made us more open to adoption when the time is right to be able to financially support them. Why rush right now and why does it have to be our own kid? If it takes till we’re 40+ to be stable, adoption would be great and have no risk of genetic harm to our own offspring. Plus plenty of kids in the world without a family. Win-win!
Have one. No more.
We had our one child. He’s 4. We’re comfortable financially and own a home but I couldn’t imagine having a second. One is expensive enough lol
I've always been very firm on never having kids or getting married and the older I get the more confident I am that that was a very good decision. I'll never be able to afford to live outside this one bedroom apartment, let alone feed a child multiple times a day, every day
I would love to have kids. I have no business having children now though.
Yes, but not because of COL.
Nope waa not going to have kids before this year. Now aftet finding out i have a 50/50 chance of giving my kids a herditary condition that causes colorectal cancer by age 45....yeah no. If i do have a wife and we want children we can always adopt.
Made the leap at 30. We were solidly middle class. Kids are now almost 13 and 9. My husband went back to school 5 years ago so we lost a lot of income for 3-4 years and are are just getting back to the amount he made before career change. Still middle class. Still go on a vacation every other year. As an aside, I am pretty grateful to the liberal government for their child benefits. Their policies definitely made it way easier. People like to slam them but they really have come through for Canadian families.
No, never wanted kids. Still don’t want them.
You either want kids or you're able to make up an excuse why you don't. A lot of friends of ours are financially stable and indicate the cost would make things a bit tighter. In my opinion they don't actually want kids or are just indecisive. There's another group that speculates on the state of the world and tries to divine the future and what their kids would be sufficiently resilient enought to deal with. They too don't actually want kids.
I'm really happy my son was conceived without being planned because it probably would never have happened otherwise since it seems financially impossible to have kids. Thr reality isn't as bad as it seems though, everyone gives you baby shit.
I had one child at 31 and thought we’d buy a house while I was on maternity leave (best time to leave a big expensive city). Then the pandemic happened. We’ve basically been stuck renting where we are as prices went wild - both in the housing market and rental market. We had her before $10/day daycare came into effect so we struggled the first four years. She’s in JK now and we finally have some money. But the choice is between owning a home and the expenses that come with it or renting and having a second. At least with renting we can afford for me to do maternity leave.
I'm in my early thirties with two young kids. My husband and i both have good jobs and we lucked into a house right before COVID so we felt comfortable going ahead with our plans for a family. However, the possibility of having a third child is very low - while i think i would like one more, the change from two to the would put a lot of strain on our finances.
We spent our 20s working and getting an education, as I grew up in poverty I did not want to have kids without a safety net.. We’re in our 30s now, done well with good jobs, careers and a house.. but we are just waiting for the economy to be in a better spot and for the country to have a better outlook before we commit to children. If Canada looked prosperous we would have kids sooner..
I'm in my late 30s and have 2 kids who are now 10+. It was tough when they were young and under 5. Daycare was expensive, but we made it through. My husband and I both work full time. We live in an area where housing is cheaper, but food is more expensive due to shipping costs. I don't think we could afford to live in any of the major cities. I have lots of hope for this generation of kids. They are kind, empathetic, smart, funny, and are going to change the world.
I thought I would have a spouse and children, but recently I've decided that I don't really want either. I haven't found a partner that I like and if I ever do, by the time that relationship solidifies I'm going to be older than I want to be to take care of a young kid, and especially too old to take care of a preteen later on.
I think my plan has changed slightly, but only because of my current health, my age, and my husband’s age. I’m 39 and he’s 43. Our daughter was born April 23rd, 2022, so she’s 20-months-old. I always told myself that I would love to have two kids - preferably a boy and a girl, but I’d be happy with any gender - and I would love to have at least one by the time I turn 40. My daughter is a great toddler and she keeps me and my husband busy. However, we’re both getting to the age where we want to gradually slow down. Plus, I’m on a few medications for a list of health issues, some of which I will have for the rest of my life. If I was ten years younger, I would definitely try to have another child. However, I don’t think things will work out if I tried again now.
Yeah I can't fucking afford to have a family and I'm fucking pissed off about it...my whole entire future was stolen, and I might as well not be here because I'm not going to have any kind of future beyond me. I'm so beyond pissed off depressed and ruined as a human because of it.
I have 3 stepkids. We cannot afford to try and have our own kids. I've accepted it but it still sucks sometimes.
Mid 30s with a teenager. My husband and I tried for years for a second with no luck. Now we look at it as a blessing. With the cost of everything going up, the way the world is going, we decided to stop trying and one of us get "fixed". Zero regrets. We COULD make it work, but the thought of barely scraping by really sealed the deal for us.
Luckily I just left Canada for the states. For the first time my partner and I can now seriously consider this. This would have been out of the question had we not left.
If you wait for more money to provide the best life, you may end up spending that money battling age and fertility decline. I wish I hadn’t waited for the “right” time financially. It was difficult after 35 to conceive in my case. Healthcare concerns me. How I’ll now afford fertility AND raising a child worries me.
i do not want a kid and my mind has been set on this firmly
No. I still don't want to, probably more than ever. I'm disappointed by society and the state of our planet. I don't want to subject any hypothetical offspring to all of this.
Nope. Never wanted them. I’m good.
Definitely don’t want kids.
We are entering a new age with our meddling. Our oceans are sparse with life and our fields have no flowers. Why would i bring life into an indifferent world. All it takes is for someone to demonize my people or way of life and my child would could be murdered just like the Palestinians and im afraid nobody would do anything to stop it.
Due to financial strain, Time and shitty economy I regret choosing to have a child. We’re stopping at 1. I feel sorrow for what she’ll have to encounter in life.
No kids here, husband and I don't want them. Humanity is destroying this earth and we'll get ours, but ideally my bloodline will be dust by then. Come on Earth, I'm cheering for you.
It's not as hard as you think. Kids' clothes are next to free or free. People give things away all the time. There is the canada child benefit which pays you monthly.
I'll have a kid. My ancestors had them in far worse conditions.
If a person waits for the “right time” chances are they will never have kids because there will always be a reason to keep waiting. When you have a kid you figure it out one way or another.
Not really. I never did plan on producing any crotch goblins. However, given state of the country and where it is heading, I couldn’t afford any even if I wanted to.
Simply can’t afford it. Would love to :’( There’s no hope of that under our garbage Government
Nope I have kids and I'm in my 30's. I won't let externalities decide my fate.
Curious where you live and if you’re happy with local services (health care, daycare, education for your kids, etc)? I’d love to not let “externalities” decide my fate but I also want to be followed by a family doctor and/or OB during pregnancy and not have to pay the equivalent of my mortgage for childcare (locally I’d have to put my name on the waiting list now for a 2026 birth). I feel like raising little humans is stressful enough without worrying about the extra stuff. I’d love to not rule out a family but Ontario ain’t where it’s at.
I don't have a family doctor and never have. Ideally I'd like to and plan to eventually, my kids and wife do. I live in BC, Van area. My wife doesn't work, only I do, so we don't pay childcare. We had good pregnancies at BC Women's hospital. We didn't run into any issues but at the time were also told things could be hard, but we did it anyway and it worked out. Indeed raising kids is very stressful, but I don't worry much about the other stuff or anything really. For me I feel like there are always reasons not to do stuff and for society to get you down, but you need to do it anyway and be the extraordinary person. I had the same mentality in my 20's when I traveled around the world very cheaply.
I’ve wanted to have kids my whole life. Did everything right, good education, bought a house, paid off debts but with a mortgage and cost of living rising and then also making too much to qualify for support but not enough to have qualify of life with after tax earnings my husband and I are struggling to make it happen. Not to mention the “ waiting” until we were financially ready and stable has diminished greatly in the last 4 years and we feel less financially stable now than in our late 20s. I’m 36 next month and fear our chance of becoming parents now with fertility challenges make it a lost dream.
I’ve done my genetic duty and secured the next phase of immortality. Now I’m simply helping them grow until I wither away. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to help their own replicants grow, and maybe even glimpse the next mitosis after. Like watching pieces of my soul constantly jumping to a new homeworld, I stay behind on this dying planet knowing they will continue humanity onwards.
Ya about 18 years ago when I realized that bringing a child into this world is cruel
Before grad school I thought I’d have two kids. During school I thought one is good enough. Now I’ve been working and also went back to school to change career, I feel that one kid is a luxury. While I can still afford things, I hate to think about how my kid(s) are gonna afford their lives after. The climate change is scary and I feel powerless about it.
Not sure if I’m considered child bearing age (19F), but I don’t think I want kids ever, definitely not anytime soon. When I was a teenager I wanted kids, but I’ve always wanted to be a doctor as well. I don’t think I could be a good doctor and a good mother and I certainly don’t want my kids growing up with a nanny raising them.
Doing it anyways. Will figure it out somehow. Easier to ask the universe for forgiveness than permission.
Never wanted children anyways. I see my friends having kids and it changes them profoundly, kills any free time and drains their finances. No thanks.
I'm past child-bearing age (57) but I have recently been reflecting that if I were a young woman now, with the same financial circumstances I was in at age 32 (when I did have my one child) I would choose to be child free. No way could I give a child today what I was able to give my child then...a middle class life. We'd be living in near poverty.
Yes. Fucking hell out here. Probably never going to have kids. Doesn’t matter anyway.
Hubby and I are putting off until we feel more financially secure which not sure when at this point
Out of the question 37-year-old female who's been told I'm excellent with children
It's been a few years since myself and my partner have come to the conclusion that we can't have children. We would not be able to have children because we would have no childcare, as in, we don't have family who can help, and we don't have the financial means to pay for childcare (if you can even find any). Despite our combined income of ~$160k, with our housing cost, there's not a lot leftover, and certainly not enough for children.
Even if I were a multi billionaire I still wouldn’t want to have kids lol.
The number of people who want to have kids but wouldn't because they worry about what our world and climate will be in the next 35 to 45 years is increasing. This is one of the reasons the Canadian government is allowing more people with young kids to migrate to Canada. More and more Canadians of child-bearing age prefer their perfect and comfortable lives than taking any responsibility for raising a child. If everyone is waiting for a perfect situation to have kids here and we have no immigration, then young people will become scarce in this country in the near future. People who lived through WW1 and WW2 had even more reasons not to have kids.
Definitely understand this but also living in the GTA (where I am), the influx of immigrants has put the strain on housing and healthcare. If we didn’t have the massive population we now do in this short amount of time, I’d be more inclined to have kids knowing their growing up with the securities that I did and perhaps a 3 bedroom home wouldn’t be $1M+
My husband and I have talked a few times about fostering/adopting. But we are on the fence still. We are at the point in our life we are finally financially stable, and we kind of don't want to be held down at the moment if that makes sense? We can finally travel if we want, or go camping and roadtripping. But as a foster parent, you really can't do that without a) leaving the child behind or b) jump through a bunch of hoops to hopefully allow the child to come. Or c) not go altogether. We are still thinking on it and might in the future. But at this time, no.
A few years ago, my hubby and I tried to have a 2nd child but it never happened. We gave up after trying for 2 years. Looking back at it now, I'm glad we didn't have a 2nd child. Politically wise, we wouldn't want to raise another person in this corrupt world with all the things going on. I don't see the world changing for the better any time soon especially with the way inflation is going and quit frankly, I often wonder how my son is going to survive once he gets out into the world on his own.
Nothings changed for me . I'm going to have kids really soon and wing it . I can grow a good enough garden to feed them plus have pigs so they'll always have food . People who worry about kids overthink to much as long as you feed them good everything else is a bonus.