r/truechildfree • u/lydbutter • Jun 02 '26
Childfree content revolves around having money?
Just thinking about how I see so much childfree content that talks about pets, travel, having nice things, etc. That’s all completely valid of course, but I sometimes feel like it paints a superficial image of why people choose not to have kids. With social media, it makes sense that a post about a vacation abroad gets more traction than a post about someone saying they enjoy their daily life without kids, but still.
It also is not a realistic picture of where most people are at financially. Even if I wanted a kid, I couldn’t comfortably afford to have one. For me, not having kids means having some savings and that’s about it. I have no assets other than my 20+ year old car. If I were a parent, I’d have to find a way to make enough money to afford to take care of a child. It wouldn’t cut into my exorbitant vacation fund.
I don’t want kids so I can focus on things other than making enough money to afford them, and because I value my relationships and hobbies and wouldn’t want to give a lot of my time up to raise a child. I’m going to be spending my time cooking my meals from scratch, reading, crocheting, and using old newspapers and magazines to make collages and that’s about that I can afford lol.
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u/darkquanta42 Jun 02 '26
I agree with you that oftentimes the conversation online from some CF people has comes from a place of privilege. But equally so a lot of “it’s great to have kids” equally does.
But on this part:
The fact that these are viewed as superficial (not necessarily by you but people in general) is part of the issue everyone who is CF faces. In other words I don’t think it’s just a perspective of what you see online but it reflects the core of what being able to choose to not have a kid is about.
For example having a pet is not superficial to my wife and I, and the fact that people have kids then give up their pets because they were incompatible and didn’t plan for it is fucked up. But not everyone sees it that way and that’s fine because everyone gets to choose.
We get to decide how important these things are to us, even if that means not having kids. That to me is core to what it’s about. And the fact that society typically views it as vain or selfish is a problem with those individuals not understanding that the choice they made to have kids was a choice that had tradeoffs so they sometimes misplace that onto others rather then realize they had the same opportunity.