[taeric]

This is a category that I would be hesitant to trust polling? Or, more likely, the hormones is actively counter to what you are seeing in these polls? (Please note the question marks, these are legit things I'm unsure on.)

That is, there is a sizeable number of people that think they don't want kids, until they have one. Does this mean that these folks are liars? I'm not aiming in that direction. I'd expect this is more an area where you can change your mind.

[toomuchtodo]

I help hundreds of people per month get a bilateral salpingectomy (a "bisalp") or vasectomy as a virtual patient advocate for the childfree, so it's entirely possible we're operating mostly from our own lived experiences. Intent via survey is certainly up for confidence level discussion vs "revealed preference" of actual fertility rates year after year. Agree we won't know for sure until we keep looking back over time.

[taeric]

I don't think this is disagreeing with my questions? Nor do I think I'm disagreeing with folks that make these choices. If someone wants to take efforts to make sure they never have children, I think that is something they should be able to do.

My question is if there is no actual contradiction between the polls of how many childless people don't want children, versus how many people with children consider it a defining facet of their lives?

I'd be interested to know how people would have polled on those questions throughout the decades? Fertility rates would tell us how many people are acting on having kids. But it would not let us know how many people that are happy with kids today were saying they did not want kids in the past. Would it?

[toomuchtodo]

Apologies if I misunderstood. It’s an interesting line of inquiry. People are tricky, expectations, regret, life circumstances and time periods, and so on. It is a long path between actions and feelings.

[taeric]

Apologies not needed! Agreed it is a tricky topic. And there are almost certainly nefarious reasons to push arguments similar to what I'm asking.