What do you say to people without offspring who are pessimistic?

My DD decided when quite young neither to enter into any partnership or marriage nor have children. She was very sensible. Her very black/white personality makes her very uncompromising - and she knows it. She would be impossible to live with.

It doesn't stop her being a doting aunt and a loving and caring daughter and sister. I have no doubt that she has thought through the problems of old age and has already identified a housing project for older people in her town, where all the properties are freehold but include all the adjustments needed for older people, including built- in call systems. Shopping can be ordered online and the development is close to the shops.

It is perfectly possible for a single person to arrange care systems for themselves and nothave to rely on family and friends - and she will always have her extended family.

I think stating it's 'an attitude' is probably not the best way to describe either a choice to not have children, or not a choice if the decision was taken away from them.... I have no children and the reason why is noone else's business but mine. However I often feel very grateful not to have them. Not every comment or opinion needs a response. Just let people say what they need to say....

I think most of us don’t even think of ‘insurance’ policies at all, especially if you have children at a young age as we did. You tend to think you are immortal at 23 and the thought of old age does not even enter your head. Just saying.

Well,it's been said to me quite a few times over the decades "no children? So no-one too take care of you when you're old?"

Having a child/children as an "insurance policy" to depend on in old age is anything from pretty skewed to pretty selfish. A child is surely not a safety net "just in case"?

It's people who take that view who are,IMHO,somewnat pessimistic. And dour. And mean. And,of course,selfish.

One of the biggest compliments I received from my youngest was that she was so glad I wasn’t a ‘helicopter parent’. She had a lovely free life and has done very well. Funny thing is, she is a bit of a helicopter herself, maybe it skips a generation?

I don't think not knowing how to make a sandwich says anything about a person's resilience in coping with what life throws at them in the future. Maybe she cooks omelets and pasta for herself! Ha!

My children and grandchildren mean everything to me. I worry about the climate change and other catastrophes, but am hopeful scientists can solve the climate problem. Husband's sister was a hippy and chose not to have children. She was disapproving when we had a third baby since that was exceeding zero population growth. I feel sad for people who want children but can't have them. From what I've seen in families who adopted, the love is as strong as if it was their biological child.

I was a teenager in the 1960s and I think we were all under the threat of nuclear war . I still got married in 1972 and I had children. The 70s were a time of recession , strikes and fuel shortages, pretty much like today .
Life goes on and each generation has its own challenges which we usually get through. I do tend to be an optimist though .

I think whether somebody is childfree or not is irrelevant - why should your answer to this question depend on whether you have children or grandchildren? I agree that every generation has its challenges and I don't feel that worrying about the future is a reason to choose not to have children - if you want children in your life then have them!

I know Hollysteers! It's just that I get up to the back molars with the rest of us being with dismissed as irrelevant or ignore!! Thanks for noticing my post😅

Some of the posts above raise the issue of little resilience being grown amongst many children nowadays. I’m just 64 but had a very robust (but loving) upbringing, full of chores, that has equipped me to deal with most problems I encounter.’ My husband is a farm manager, an immensely practical man. Our children have been raised on the same lines and both have found complimenting partners. We just get on with life as best we’re able in the most responsible way we can.
It beggars belief why helicopter parenting has become the norm. I recently encountered a 13 year old that had no idea how to make a sandwich. Just what other necessary skills has she failed to develop - most, I’m sure.

Gabrielle56* No need to take the bombing personally! I’m from a heavily bombed Liverpool and I think Saggi means her own parents were in London.

Excuse moi....but how did my post end up on the wrong topic? Bloody I.T!

Anything that I strongly suspect may veer towards "TNT" - too much testosterone.
And definitely quiz/panel shows.

Saggi

Lucky our parents didn’t feel that pessimistic as the bombs were falling on London

Of course only London was bombed!
The blitz happened all over our countries in UK!!!
Good job that our parents didn't think same as Piccadilly in MANCHESTER wansset ablaze and all the bombs that all but destroyed HULL as th most bombed place during WW11!!! Otherwise those who can just see the end of their south east facing noses would have rewritten our history!
Signing off: on who was born in '56 together with rock n roll and the birth of popular music!!!

My only daughter has not been able to have children of her own because of severe health problems. A sadness. However my friend of longest standing has just had the sweetest little grandson, her first. I do think about what that little boy may see. Though I do not say it to her, I am sure she thinks of it too. But neither of us would wish him not born. Humans and other living things are born to reproduce. It is what and who we are. But we cannot give birth without also creating a death. That has been true for every child who has ever been born. The course of any individual life is unpredictable but it will contain happiness and suffering. Nothing changes this.

Somewhat flippant - and I speak as an adoptive mother - but I do wish that Donald Trump and Putin 's parents had decided to not have any children, ditto Johnsons parents!! Ah well at least whatever state we find ourselves in we did not have these lunatics as our children!!

I look out at the beautiful sunshine today, the green trees and profusion of flowers and think our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are seeing this and feeling uplifted . Every life is a life as they say. I didn’t have a very happy childhood but I am still glad I got to have it,nevertheless.

Lucky our parents didn’t feel that pessimistic as the bombs were falling on London

It would help the environment to only have one child. Also the NHS. Also schools and public services.

It should be a choice though.

If anyone chooses to think that way, they can have no children or only one child, how that can help is anybody’s guess.
Think of the past generations who served in the first world war, then lived through the depression, then their sons going off to the second world war.
Think of having children and grandchildren who do their bit in the service of humanity, breakthrough vaccines and drugs,
Police, armed forces, firemen and so on.

If I'd had knowledge of the future to know I would be estranged, I would have chosen to just have the one child who still lives with me.

It would have been kinder to the planet, to my body, to my finances and I would not have been abused by my own child. Who could know back then. But now, it's more obvious how much trouble we are all in. I could understand today's parents just having one child.

I’m all for choice, for those of us lucky enough to decide whether to have children or not, rather than have the choice made for us

I was fortunate in being able to have children, now in their late 30’s with children of their own. I’m aware of the dangers of climate change, the instability in world and national affairs. I don’t feel pessimistic in the way some posters are.

My family history isn’t unusual in being littered with poverty, deprivation, children in workhouses, 8 surviving children when 15 were born, 18 year olds killed in ww1 and on it goes. It’s also littered with love, family connections, commitment to making the best of life.

I don’t believe we are all doomed. Of course change is necessary, the human race generally has a greater desire to live than to give up.

Nannapat1

The obvious conclusion to no one have any children is the human race dying out. Is that what these apparent pessimists want?

some logic in that, considering the mess we have made of the earth, no?

I can’t imagine not having had dds, and now Gdcs.

Having said that, there have always been awful things going on in the world - I’m sure people thought the world must be coming to an end during the Black Death - whole villages wiped out, or nearly so.

Only until relatively recently, most people were just not aware of so many awful things, whereas now, we have it dinged into our ears and eyes almost non stop - unless we try to avoid being bombarded with all the relentless bad news.

As for my parents’ generation, going through 6 dreadful years of WW2 with, for quite a while, no idea of the eventual outcome. But people were still having babies.

I do think some people - thankfully a minority - do positively enjoy wallowing in doom and gloom - a modern equivalent of those old blokes who used to go around with placards saying The End is Nigh!

On a lighter note I’m reminded of a character in The Darling Buds of May (the book) - Edith? - who was constantly saying, ‘Isn’t it absolutely ghastly?’