MSN Article: "What Would You Sacrifice to Retire Early?"

[rk911]

I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

[GenXguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rk911 I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children was in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

Yeah, I totally don't get how "not" having kids would be considered selfish. Many of the people that have them shouldn't be for that matter.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarieIG Seems an easy topic for an anonymous poll here. For those who have had children, would you do it again. Yes No

We asked friends and coworkers that same question when we were deciding whether or not to have kids. The parents with young and grown children mainly said yes, and the ones with teenagers almost all kind of hesitated and said things like I"m not sure or maybe not.

[Lurking]

At the risk of beating a dead horse (clearly not a scientific survey), I find the word choice fascinating.

Calling a choice to have children/pets or not have children/pets as “giving up” children or pets makes the strong implication that having both is normal and lacking either is abnormal.

I think this is one of those cases where the opinions of the survey writers end up there in the results. It’s a pretty common bias (so much so that some/many people don’t recognize it) but I sympathize with anyone who decided kids weren’t for them only to face constant comments from family or friends who are really trying to justify their own decisions.

And I say this as a parent, with pets!

[rk911]

while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife.

say hi to Maggie!

[ncbill]

Got married a year out of college, started having kids ~5 years later.

If I could change anything I would have gotten married immediately after graduation & started having the kids right away.

Mostly because the non-Alzheimer's dementia that killed my mom strikes very young (as early as one's mid-40s) so my kids never got to know my mother.

[Teacher Terry]

Bill, that’s so sad about your mom.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rk911 while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife. say hi to Maggie!

Maggie is a cutie! Our kids are grown so now we baby our dog.

[msanniee]

I retired in order to be home enough to get my 3 French Bulldogs. No way would I traded my dogs for an earlier retirement, which was 59.5 anyway.

[MarieIG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rk911 while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife. say hi to Maggie!

Hi Maggie. You sure are a cutie!

[FIREflower]

DH and I both strongly desire to have kids, which is much of our impetus behind shooting for RE. We want to have the most quality family time available as possible.

I think it's awesome when people know themselves and know that they don't want children. I've always wanted kids, and DH feels the same.

[HI Bill]

I made a conscious decision in high school that I'd have no kids, or 1, but not more. Because I was single and working with many remote assignments and travel, I've never had a dog because I didn't want to put the dog through the trauma of being left in a kennel or alone all day while I was at work. I would have loved to have had a dog, had I had a proper yard, and a partner to help care for it, and had I not needed to travel so much for work.

[Gallaher]

Five kids! Horses, dogs, beautiful home in the country, wife was stay at home mom. We always gave over ten percent, gross, a year to charity (church). Child rearing was/is crazy hard. Would do it all again.
Was “asked” to retire early at 57. I earned stupid money.

All of the secrets are in the “Millionaire Next Door”.... live below your means, save hard and invest aggressively.
If you are disciplined, you may be able to have it all.
I feel like I got my fair share of everything.

[cyber888]

What would I sacrifice ?

1) Kids .. yup no kids.
2) The Playboy life .. stick to one woman (now)
3) Eating out often ... we're not a fan of eating out anyway, we like to prepare our own organic food. We try to eat out once a week.
4) Clothing .. too many clothes to wear .. not buying in the next 3 years at least.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rk911 I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

That is bizarre. I can only think of the old church mandate to “go forth and multiply” as being behind such an attitude. And it’s not as if the human population is shrinking!

Personally we would only choose to have kids if we really wanted them, and we didn’t have a strong feeling maternal or paternal urge, so we didn’t. I’ve had to explain this a few times, plus that we thus didn’t see the point of adding to the human population.

I have also never criticized someone who chose differently.

We also have no pets. We chose not to have pets after we started traveling a lot. I did have a cat who lived to 21. That was enough. We are surrounded by pet crazy retired neighbors who probably think we are oddballs for not having pets. Pets are constantly discussed on our neighborhood Facebook page and people are constantly out walking them. That latter is obviously a good thing as it’s a good motivator for seniors to get out and walk multiple times daily.

[MarieIG]

We are not seeking to get another pet at this point, due to the desire to travel, and a concern about the pet while traveling.

There is a current custody issue involving a particular pit bull which son #1 left behind when he moved out. The remaining kiddos are taking care of her at this point but . . .

[Teacher Terry]

Travel is one reason we have downsized from 4 pets to 2 as they died. Much easier to travel with 2. When we cruise we get a sitter.

[SpinDoctorTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teacher Terry I never bugged my kids about having children because it’s none of my business. Heck they don’t even want pets. It ended up being a good thing because 18 months ago she had a tennis ball size tumor removed from her brain stem and is still recovering. She can only work 3-4 days a week and is exhausted most of the time. I let my 3 kids know as teenagers that I wasn’t raising grandchildren so they had better be responsible. I always knew I wanted kids and my sister knew the opposite.

Smart lady.

I felt as your sister did, & thankfully my siblings were good producers (whew for me- no parental pressure!).

That said, I love being an aunt to my 7 nieces & nephews, and we are active in the lives of the ones who want us to be. DH has 2 sons from another marriage, but they were grown by the time we met. Lucky for me I get to be a grandma- skipped right to the fun bits. It doesn't hurt that they are in Pensacola (9 hour drive to a beautiful place), so we weren't conveniently around for babysitting duties.

[SpinDoctorTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 You are making a common mistake when it comes to describing childfree people. Many of us do value kids even though we don't want to have any of our own. Many of us (like me) do volunteer work with kids and are loving and generous aunts and uncles. Just because we would rather have pets than kids doesn't mean we value kids less than pets.

Exactly.

[SpinDoctorTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lurking At the risk of beating a dead horse (clearly not a scientific survey), I find the word choice fascinating. Calling a choice to have children/pets or not have children/pets as “giving up” children or pets makes the strong implication that having both is normal and lacking either is abnormal. I think this is one of those cases where the opinions of the survey writers end up there in the results. It’s a pretty common bias (so much so that some/many people don’t recognize it) but I sympathize with anyone who decided kids weren’t for them only to face constant comments from family or friends who are really trying to justify their own decisions. And I say this as a parent, with pets!

Thanks for that. People can really get into other folks business.