The strange grief of not wanting kids

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Mingaile Kieraite remembers what it felt like observing those close to her become parents. As family members shared updates on their pregnancies and friends dragged her to kid-friendly events, she began to feel isolated, as if she wasn’t being let into an exclusive club.

But Kieraite, 33, had already decided she didn’t want to join the club. From a young age, Kieraite never had an intense, or even middling, desire to have kids. She’d helped raise her cousin, a responsibility that was foisted upon her, and found the experience challenging. Now with more control over her circumstances, she considered what she really wanted. And it wasn’t children.

But at some point in her 20s, she had a confounding experience. The hosts of some of her favorite podcasts and YouTube channels announced they were having babies, and instead of parasocial excitement or even apathy, Kieraite was caught off guard by what she felt — a little sad, jealous even. She started to wonder if she should follow suit.

As a thought experiment, Kieraite tried to imagine what being a parent would be like. Her mind immediately went to the good parts — feeling useful, having company — not the early mornings or the ultimate sacrifice of free time. “But that’s not how it works,” Kieraite told Vox. She was still adamant in her choice not to have children, but she felt a sense of loss for an experience she will never have.

“How is it,” Kieraite said, “that I grieve something I don’t want to have?”

Whether it’s the choice of having kids or some other path not taken — a job offer you turned down, that person you never quite got the courage to ask out — the finality of major life decisions is wrought with a complicated and very relatable sense of grief. Not quite regret, the tension between who you are and what you could have been can dredge up feelings of self-doubt. What if? can give way to Did I make the right choice? Accepting who you are now means letting go of who you could have been.

The number of American adults who don’t want kids is growing — 47 percent of non-parents under 50 say they’re unlikely to have children, up from 37 percent in 2018 — but they’re running headlong into an increasingly pro-family culture and political sphere. While alternative family structures are becoming more common, most people say they want children. And remaining childfree — intentionally choosing not to become a parent — remains relatively niche. Women between the ages of 30 to 50 who don’t have children are among the minority. Only around 20 percent of adults in their 50s and 60s do not h

Like Kierate, childfree people may be surprised by their emotions. After all, they’ve made a deliberate choice. But they still experience a loss: a life they don’t get to live, a future they need to relinquish, even if it wasn’t what they wanted in the first place. Rather than signaling regret, this grief is often rooted in a desire to be seen and to be included. And there are ways to navigate these thorny, undiscussed emotions.

Though there are more adults who don’t want kids than ever before, a stigma remains. People who choose to not have children, particularly women, are seen by society (and, at one time, the pope) as selfish, callous, lonely, and potentially regretful. “We do have that natural expectation of people to have children or families in traditional ways,” Brittany Stankhe, an assistant professor in the department of social work at East Tennessee State University, told Vox.

In a culture that values parenthood, childfree people can feel alienated or carry shame, even if they know not having kids is the right choice. Their extended family might not understand why their loved one chose to be childfree — they can’t afford to have kids, are concerned about the future, or simply don’t want to — and thus not see it as a legitimate choice. They might also be excluded from family-centered get-togethers. “Maybe you really don’t want to be part of all these kid events,” Bella DePaulo, the author of Single At Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life, t