[xkekjrktllss]

Now in my late 30s, I have spent the past 5 years cornering childless elders and asking them about their decision to not have children. Despite my skepticism, I still haven't found one who didn't convince they are happy with their decision. However, they still have not convinced me to not want children myself.

[low_tech_love]

So… you’re asking a person who never had a Ferrari if they regret not ever having a Ferrari…?

[askin4it]

The fact you are asking should tell you something.

The fact no one admits regret means someone is fibbing or you have not been looking very hard.

[orwin]

I'll post part of the article

“In this study, we compared how much adults age 70 and older said they’d want to change something about their life — in other words, whether they had any regrets about how their life had gone. We didn’t see any difference between childfree people and parents. This suggests that childfree people are similar to others in terms of life satisfaction and often don’t regret their decision later.”

[mftrhu]

> The fact no one admits regret means someone is fibbing or you have not been looking very hard.

Or that none of the people sampled has any meaningful regrets.

[AussieWog93]

Based on people I know, especially with women, there's this weird duality of broadcasting to the world how absolutely perfect and happy their childfree life is while privately crying ugly tears about how nobody loves them and they're going to die alone.

I guess knowing a couple of people like that, it makes it difficult to believe that everyone really is all that satisfied with their life.

[xkekjrktllss]

Admittedly, the selected sample is biased towards seemingly responsible people, and it strikes me as recklessly presumptuous to assume that otherwise responsible people tend to make such decisions with anything less then tremendous consideration. However, I have learned that HN is an extremely cynical and misanthropic forum.

[jstarfish]

Not necessarily. They may simply not know what (if anything) they're missing enough to regret it.

[xkekjrktllss]

I am beyond certain that crossed their mind at least twice but thanks.

[xkekjrktllss]

>The fact you are asking should tell you something.

What should it tell me? That I want children but know I can't afford to have children? I already know that, and it's why I'm asking in the first place.

>The fact no one admits regret means someone is fibbing or you have not been looking very hard.

Two have admitted failure, which is to say they simply never found a person they wanted to have kids with. I don't consider this a decision subject to regret and neither did they.