Are you in your 20s, 30s or 40s and people around you are asking when you’ll have kids? Assuming that off course everyone will want those. If you need some support to your decision not to have kids – or if you’re the one who need to understand why someone else feels that way, keep reading, I’ve listed 10 good reasons not to have kids below.

 

Obviously, only not all of these apply to a single person or couple. But there are some common good reasons listed below of which some might or might not apply to you or your friends who don’t want kids.

 

 

10 Good Reasons to Not Have Kids

 

1. Statistically Kids Make You Less Happy

 

 

Did you know that it’s not actually only opinions if you should or should not to have kids? There is plenty research statistics saying that those little ones will make you less happy.

 

General Point of View

According to a German research including over 2000 Germans it’s clear that kids will make you significantly less happy. Actually, the research made by Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrskylä shows that the drop in happiness is even worse than if your partner dies or you divorce. And according to research, the happiness doesn’t get back to the original level for a long while if ever.

If you google a bit, you can find a huge amount of international studies showing similar results.

 

Does Culture Affect on This?

 

However, the amount of drop in happiness seems to vary between cultures and countries. Anyhow, in most cases there is a significant drop of happiness. If you’re interested in results per country, there is an easy-to-read table available in this independent.co.uk article:

 

Honestly, I don’t have time or language skills to dig deeper into every single one of countries. I live in Finland where parenting should make us slightly happier according to independent.co.uk but actually it is not so by local research. According to Finnish researcher Osmo Kontula the kids will decrease your happiness, especially if you’re a young parent (under 40).

I would not rely on that table too much, if you want to dig deeper to the situation of your own country, look for at least couple more local researches. This post is mostly done with sources from the US and the UK.

 

 

2. You Don’t Want to Change and Possibly Ruin a Good Relationship

 

 

People think kids will make them happy and improve their relationships. Actually, however, it’s statistically the opposite. Kids don’t only lower your personal happiness levels. They might also ruin a good relationship.

 

According to Fortune, marriage itself decreases your happiness but if you have kids the happiness goes down twice as much. Steeper the decrease, more likely the couple is to divorce. And actually, around 50% of Americans do not have kids nowadays (compared to 35% 1975) – so people are finally realizing that many parents’ are lying, the kids really don’t make them happier or their relationship better.

 

 

3. You Value Your Freedom

 

 

Are you the one who wants to sleep until noon, spontaneously grab an after work drink or take a flight to somewhere far away? If that’s you and you love your lifestyle, you will probably regret having kids.

 

Even thought you can still travel and explore, part of that amazing and fun freedom will be gone forever (or at least for 2-3 decades). If you value you’re freedom a lot, leaving kidding to others might be a good option for you. If you still like kids, you can help others with theirs’ when you happen to be around.

 

 

4. Kids Just Don’t Fit into Your Lifestyle

 

 

Do you love traveling for work every week? Are you enthusiastically building an international career? Do you have a job with very varying hours and still loving it? Are you loving to have overnight parties around more often than once a year?

 

If you love our spontaneous and busy lifestyle, you shouldn’t ruin it really. Of course, if you’re looking for a change, it’s fine to change things. But if you’re happy about your work, travel and friends – you probably feel like you’re sacrificing everything that made you happy if you have kids. And remember that you’ll probably be outside the circle alone – your partner and friends will still quite likely carry on working and having fun.

 

 

5. You Just Don’t Like Kids

 

Some people just don’t like babies or kids. They just are not for everyone, and that’s absolutely fine. If you’re the one who cannot stand a crying baby for a second or the one who just doesn’t want to tell the same advice million times, it’s okay. And it’s good that you realize that – hopefully before having any kids of your own.

 

 

6. You or Your Partner Have a Genetic Disease You Don’t Want Give to Anyone

 

 

Are you having a disease that your kids would get because of your genes? This is a really good reason not to have kids as well. Of course it depends on what disease you carry, but still.

 

If someone close to you tells this is the reason, you should definitely not judge that person. If you know the kid will be very sick or die young, at least in my opinion, it’s a good idea to decide not to have one at all.

 

Ps. If this is your only reason, you can still consider adoption. However, you might want to read the other points of this list first.

 

 

7. You Don’t Want to Ruin Your (or Your Partners) Body

 

 

Would you like to have some scars around your belly? Or loose those perfect boobies? How about black circles around the eyes and loosing your hair? Do these sound like part of your dreams? Some of us don’t really care about how they look or they can deal with the decreases.

 

However, if you’re having a successful career as a bikini model or fitness athlete this might be real thing for you to think through. Also, if you have other reasons not to want kids this is a good point to use in addition to others when those relatives attack with their questions once again. Obviously there is differences in how much your (or your partner’s) body will change but in most cases it’s still not changing to anything better anyway.

 

 

8. The Globe is Overpopulated Anyway + the Carbon Footprint of People is Huge

 

 

Do you want to speed up the overpopulation and climate change? If your answer is no, that’s one good reason not to have kids. Actually, not having a kid has significantly greater impact to your carbon footprint than recycling and carpooling for the rest of your life.

 

If you’re interested in how huge carbon footprint kids actually leave, check out this article from independent.co.uk. After reading this, you probably never have kids, if you value our globe.

 

 

9. If You Have Kids, You Have to Say Goodbye to Well-Slept Nights – And That Might Cause More Issues and Unhappiness

 

 

Would you be excited to hear that you’ll loose half an year worth sleep within two years? Yep, according to daily mail’s article that’s what will happen. And since 2/3 of parents sleeps less than 4 hours per night you would quite likely be tired and and end up into weekly arguments or even divorce. Why would anyone risk their happy, calm life and well-slept-nights to get that kind of life?

 

Obviously loosing all that sleep won’t make anyone happier, or increase life quality or have positive effect on the relationship. Actually, the lack of sleep can increase risk of many disease and medical conditions. You can find a huge amount of information about how lack of sleep affects your health. It increases your change of getting diabetes, anxiety, obesity and high blood pressure – just to mention some of the negatives. You can find more from this nhs article, if you’re curious.

 

Earlier sleep related articles: the best bedroom colors for sleep and 5+5 tips: how to sleep better + remain energetic during the day. Tips of these apply irrespective if you’re having or planning kids or not

 

 

10. You Need that Money to Other Things

 

*All photos of this post are stock photos from Pixabay

 

Some people say that you should have kids because otherwise nobody will take care of you when you’re old. Really? That’s like the worst reason ever to have kids.

 

If you save that money all the daycare, clothes, education, etc. costs you can easily afford a professional to take care of you. And if you think about it, it’s quite brutal to have kids to give them all the pain and stress of taking care of their parents. And btw, they might move abroad or faraway anyway.

 

If you like numbers, here you go: the cost of raising a kid to 18 years old was around 234.000$ in the US last year, and that doesn’t even include college fees.

This number obviously varies between countries and currencies but it’s not going to be free or cheap anywhere – think about all those foods items, furniture pieces, medical fees, insurances, increased cost of traveling if you travel, clothes, school related book and items, etc.

 

So, if you value your money or wanted kids just to have someone to take care of your old self… Instead of ruining our economy, skip those kiddos and save the money. Have some fun with it and invest some so that you can use it during the old days.

 

 

Overall

 

 

Obviously there is people who cannot get kids and people for who having children is the best choice. So, please do not think you should not want them ever because of this post. However, if considering them it’s good to understand that according to statistics it’s never a rational decision and there is plenty of downsides coming with them. Some of you might have luck and beat some of those numbers mentioned above but it’s not likely.

 

I think, it would be a good thing if this topic would be a little less tabu and this post would raise awareness and understanding of the fact that there actually is many good reasons not to have kids. Also, instead of judging people, try to understand their decisions even if those are different to yours.

 

The idea of writing this post came from a discussion with some friends of mine. We where wondering what good reasons some of us and some of other people have to never have kids. Couple weeks after that discussion I found an Huffpost article of people being criticized because of this decision, which is very wrong since this isn’t anyone else business, right?

 

 

My Plans and Thoughts around This Topic

 

If you want to read what else I’m planning to do with my life in upcoming years instead, check out this previous post about my 10-year-life-plans.

 

 

How does it make you feel if others around you don’t want kids? If you don’t want kids did you often get judged or criticized because of that? How you would like others to react?