People Confess The Real Reason They Don't Want To Have Kids
There are people who spend their adolescence and early adulthood dreaming of being a parent.
And those people should have every opportunity to achieve that dream for as long as it remains a life goal.
Then there are people who never feel the pull to be a parent.
But society tends to only ask one group "why."
Repeatedly.
While asking any person that question is rude AF—seriously, don't ask people why they don't have/want children—the anonymous realm of AskReddit is a different environment where people can be honest with few repercussions.
So Redditor Ekudar asked:
"What made you not want to have kids?"
So much work...
"To be honest, I'm too lazy to be a parent."
"Plus I'm terrified of the idea of pregnancy and labor."
- _elisheba_
GiphyKnow your limitations...
"When I realised that having a kid would mean that kid would have me as a parent."
- WhyDoIHaveRules
Not ready...
"This lowkey scared tf out of me. Made me imagine myself being responsible for another human being… and all of their life experiences, and providing for all of their needs, and wants?
"Oh my God. No."
"Kids are an amazing treasure, but you have to be mentally, financially, and emotionally sound for them. Because it’s no longer YOUR life. You can’t transfer your bullsh*t onto them—because they’ll end up dealing with that when they’re older."
Giphy"In an ideal world, I’d love to have a kid. But pregnancy/labor scares me, I’m not mentally ready, not financially prepared, I like my alone time, I do NOT have the patience, I’m far too selfish, I can’t cook, and honestly—I love my cat more."
"In my head it seems nice. But that’s not reality. And that’s not fair to a human life. The maternal instinct is there, but my own selfish wants/needs right now outweigh any want for a kid."
- Abandoned_Asylum
Never my dream...
"I never decided to not have kids. Kind of assumes I wanted some then something changed my mind."
"I don't want kids because I never have wanted kids. I've never felt any longing or fondness for babies. No part of having children ever appealed to me."
"I don't feel the need to force myself to have kids despite all the pressure from family and friends, so I made sure I never had any."
- LakotaGrl
Giphy$$$...
"I'm broke and I hate noise."
- quantum_ice
Sssshhhh...
"The sheer fact that I enjoy peace and quiet is enough.
"I love my godson and would die to protect him but I don’t want him living with me (godfather responsibilities aside)."
- HellfireKyuubi
So much to worry about...
"Lack of freedom especially to travel, constantly worrying about someone else/being responsible for them, the state of the world, my own mental health stuff that can be genetic, knowing pregnancy is incredibly dangerous, having 4 friends very recently have their first children and seeing them miserable, the idea of forever being a mom."
"It's all overwhelming.
"Plus I see kids everyday with behavioral and mental health problems. I kinda just don't want to risk that being my kid."
- AmeslJ55
...when people who probably shouldn't have had kids do...
"Ugh. Teaching them to read, acting as a lifeguard any time we were around water, trying to patch their wounds or reassure them school isn’t so scary…"
"My brother is dyslexic and my sister has a learning disability. I taught them both to write their names and would always help them with homework before working on my own."
"I don’t recall my parents being anywhere nearby in 95% of my childhood memories."
"I love kids but the stress of raising kids as a kid has deterred me from ever even considering that sort of responsibility again."
- livelaughween
"My mother's mental illness left the lion's share of supervision and housekeeping to me at the expense of my own education (we also had not nearly enough resources for the number of children)."
"The despair of those years turned me off ever being responsible for a child again. I love my siblings with all my heart, but they nearly broke me."
- PixieDrifter
Not my dream, Part 2...
"Honestly, no idea."
"Just never envisioned a future with children."
- MultipleHipFlasks
...and Part 3.
"The idea of having kids never entered my mind, unless other people brought it up.
"I married a woman who had mostly grown kids, so it was just a couple years of taking care of them and that was it."
"I have grandkids now, and every time they visit, I'm grateful I never had kids of my own. My stepkids are exhausted, broke financially, and always on the go."
"I'm more than happy to sit in my chair, watch movies, play video games, and max chill."
- Jeremy_Smith75
Society pressures people to procreate, but if it's not for you, then you do you.
Just say no to unwanted children.
Do all mothers go to the say mom school or something? Because they seem to share the same advice or go on the same platitudes, don't they?
Here's an idea.
Maybe they're just older, have more experience, and are trying to keep us from being dumbasses in public. At least, that's what I think.
I'm definitely grateful for my mother's advice—it's saved me more than once—and it seems many out there are too. And they all seem to have heard the same things from their mothers, too.
Any of these sound familiar? They probably do, and we heard all about them after Redditor lame_excuses asked the online community,
"What are some things all moms say?"
"I'll go first..."
"I'll go first: 'So if your friend jumped off a cliff would you jump off too?"
lame_excuses
Okay, my mother did not say this, but all my friends' mothers did.
"We have fun."
"My mom always made me put on a coat when we went outside, even if I wasn't cold, simply because she was cold."
"Now that I'm an adult, she no longer tells me this but instead I complain about being cold and ask, indignantly, why no one told me to put in a coat."
"We have fun."
Louis_Louise
I want a documentary crew to follow you both around. It'd be hilarious.
"I credit George Carlin for all of these."
"When you lose something."
- Have you tried looking for it?
- Have you looked everywhere?
- Well, it didn't just get up and walk away.
"I credit George Carlin for all of these."
Mahaloth
George Carlin knew what he was talking about. RIP.
"You know Glynis? She's your aunt's mother-in-law's close friend. Anyway, she died last week."
VanderlyleNovember
Every.
Single.
Time.
"I have eyes..."
"I have eyes in the back of my head."
"My mom used to say that to my sister and I so we wouldn't be sneaky behind her back. One day she was washing the dishes and I came up behind her with my two fingers and poked her right where I assumed her back eyes would be. She shouted, 'Ouch!' I believed her for years!!"
vkyklynn
I was convinced of this too! Damn, my mother was good.
"I had some friends over..."
"I had some friends over when I was a teenager, and I bet them I could get my mom to say the word 'food.'"
"Hey, mom, what's for dinner?"
"Worked every time."
jcpmojo
You both clearly planned this!
"When at the billing counter..."
"When at the billing counter every mom has the maternal instinct to say - 'Just stay in the line, I need to go grab a few more things.'"
AlertMongoose2021
This is my mother.
Oh God.
How many times have I dealt with this?!
"It's because..."
“It’s because you didn’t drink enough water."
beautifullydamaged_
BUT I DO!!
FILTHY LIES!!!
"If you have siblings..."
"If you have other siblings and they’re trying to yell at you they will call you by all your other siblings' names before they get to yours. Usually starting with the oldest and working their way backwards."
Trex_N_Truex
Good thing my family was small!
"My Mum used to use it all the time..."
"'Soon.'" An indeterminate time frame from 5 minutes to several hours. My Mum used to use it all the time to deflect stupid questions like 'When is dinner?'"
"Answer: she always, always served it around 6 pm."
zerbey
It's true! My mother would do this – and still does this. And we definitely don't eat as early as that!
Confirmed: All mothers meet for the annual mother convention to say all–and I do mean ALL–of these things to their kids.
Anything missing, though? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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Parenting isn't always fun. Parents may love their children, but frustration is normal and expected when raising kids.
Things get more thorny once the child is older, too. As a child grows and matures and develops their own personality, parents might find themselves sparring with their children more often than not.
But airing grievances—especially about one's children—can be considered taboo in some circles.
Redditor RoseyTreatsBakery asked the online community:
"What is your least favorite thing about your child?"
"It does annoy me."
My kid can literally talk non stop for hours. It does annoy me. Ive been making an effort to stop what im doing and just listen.
"They both think..."
Both of my children, actually:
They both think being in a lockdown/virtual school situation means they never need to bathe or use deodorant again.
"He is constantly..."
Sock balls. He is constantly making balls out of socks and throws them around endlessly. He never has any socks to wear because they are nowhere to be found due to constant sock balling. Drives me insane. It's a good thing he's cute and a really good kid. It could be so much worse at 15.
"I can correct a stubborn kid..."
How much he's like me. I can correct a stubborn kid, but when it's more like looking in a mirror... that makes it 10 times more irritating and I have no idea why.
"All of the things that annoy me..."
All the things that annoy me about my kids are traits they inherited from me. Apparently I'm pretty annoying.
"Which means..."
Can I answer as an uncle that does more parenting of the kid than his deadbeat father? My nephew adores me. He's autistic, and I'm one of the few people who "gets" him, but it means any time I'm around he's attached to my side. That's fine, but he doesn't seem to be able to understand that he can just "be" around me without having to fill the silence. I'm cool with him playing his switch with my left arm around him while I browse facebook with my right. I like conversations, but he feels the need to always be talking, even with nothing at all to talk about.
Which means 3-4 times a day I have him pop his head up and ask whatever random question he can think of in the moment. Like "What would happen if Super Mario were blue" or "What if black holes weren't black holes?" or "What's your favourite type of.... um.... wall?" (All of these have been asked at one point).
"Turns out..."
When our son was two, he was a horrible eater and sleeper. Just very finicky with his food, and very difficult to keep asleep. We would get so frustrated and sometimes just be distraught with lack of sleep every night.
Then we went to the doctor. Turns out he had a minor structural issue in his mouth that made it very hard to eat solid food. He wasn't eating because he physically couldn't, and he wasn't sleeping because he was always hungry.
"Including..."
My stepdaughter has entered the phase of her life where she wants to know what we're doing at all times. Including when I'm sleeping/laying down. Two weeks ago I took a nap and she got into my face while I was sleeping to confirm I was still sleeping. The good news I'm happy to experience this now so I can prepare for it later.
"It's only been..."
Currently, it is the scream. Basically, she's just started the most godawful high-pitched scream whenever things are going badly for her, especially when she's frustrated or raging. It's only been the last couple of weeks and we're cracking down on it hard now, because if you banshee scream over minor things how do we know if something is really truly wrong when you do it? (Aka boy who cried wolf.) It's definitely slowed down in the last day or so since we got stern with her, so hopefully its ending but it was not a fun phase.
"She has some brave moments..."
My stepdaughter is afraid of everything. When I first came into the picture we couldn't even get her to walk past the Halloween stuff in Home Depot (she was 8), we can now get her in a Halloween store but she still won't go anywhere near the animatronics (she's 13 now).
She has some brave moments though, I gave her a staff that I had gotten from a ren faire to make her feel a little more safe. Now when she hears a loud or strange noise she'll come running out of her room with the staff, banging it into the walls and almost falling when she gets it tangled in her legs.
What's your most annoying thing about children?
People Born To Teen Mothers Describe How Their Lives Are Different Than Other Folks
Person A: "Is that your sister?"
Person B: "Nope. That's my mom."
The dialogue above can be humorous to kids who have great relationships with their teen moms, while others may scoff at the very suggestion that their mothers are close enough in age to be siblings.
While this scenario seems atypical, kids with teen moms are not all that uncommon.
According to the CDC, "a total of 194,377 babies were born to women aged 15–19 years, for a birth rate of 18.8 per 1,000 women in this age group" in 2017.
With the rate of U.S. teen pregnancies dropping 7% in 2017 from the previous year, it is still considered higher than in other "western industrialized nations."
Curious to hear from the child's perspective about growing up with a teen mother, Redditor eggyboi422 asked:
"Kids born to teen mom's, how different is your life compared to other kids?"
Wouldn't Change It For The World
"I was born to a teen mom, and a single one at that. I definitely had a lot more freedom and less supervision as a child since both of her parents (my grandparents obviously) passed away soon after I was born, so there weren't many options for babysitters. Since she worked two jobs I would often be on my own after school until about 8 or 9 at night, sometimes later."
"She definitely struggled to hold down jobs due to not having an education and the overall grind would eventually get to her. At one point she was walking 11 miles a day to and from work because we didn't have a vehicle. Eventually, we lost our home and we remained in and out of shelters until I was about 12."
"I learned ALOT about the world in those days. At the time I hated it and was jealous of other kids having normal lives. Now that I'm older, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It gave me every bit of motivation I have, it gave me better social skills (gotta learn to make friends quick when you move frequently), and most importantly it taught me to be humble and never view less fortunate people as beneath me.
"She was diagnosed with cancer when I was 13 and died when I was 15 which sucks, cuz IMO I grew up to be a good person and good father. Would love to have her around to see it."
Growing Up Fast
"I've noticed that I didn't have the same opportunities as other kids because being a teen mom can lead you down a road of struggle and poverty if you don't have help from family."
"I've always wanted to play sports, but she could never afford the equipment needed at school to be apart of it. Mentally, I've had to mature faster at a young age because she was still a kid herself. It's unnerving to think teachers would tell me I seemed older than my age at 10 years old."
– Ainika
Couldn't Afford To Play Soccer
"My mom was 19 when she had me (she was from a third world country on top of it). There was a year i stopped playing soccer because there wasnt enough money. There was also the year i asked for a sega genesis from santa (a couple of years earlier) and didn't get it and my mom made up some excuse about how it came but it was missing a part. That was the year i realized a) santa wasn't real and b) anything i asked for from santa was coming out of her pocket."
"I was six that year, i tried to pretend i believed her but i think she knew i knew she was lying you know, me being six and all and not all that great at acting. I never really asked anything expensive of santa again and only got chocolate from Santa in the following years a tradition that continues whenever I'm home for christmas even now when I'm in my late 30s i still get a stocking full of chocolate from 'Santa.' It's a beautiful little silent tradition we don't talk about that's like a reminder for when times were tough."
"But i know my mom carries a lot of guilt about the things she couldn't give me as a kid that she was able to give my younger brother and sister because their financial situation got much better right around the time my younger sister was born."
"I try to tell her that she shouldn't, and highlight all the things i loved about my childhood, and the intangible things i was given because i was able to see how she was struggling and how hard she was trying, and then got to see how her trying paid off at a young age. Those were gifts my brother and sister didn't get to have, and they're much more valuable than a season of soccer, a sega genesis, or whatever else i could have asked for. I hope your daughter can see it that way too."
– Teantis
Treated Like A Sister
"I was born in 1964 when my mother was 16. Grandparents adopted me so I'd have a 'name.' Father's family paid for the hospital bills and that was it because they didn't want to ruin his chances to go to VMI. Mother had three other kids from at least two other men and tried to treat me like a little sister although a girl in 3rd grade decided it was her duty to tell me I didn't really have a daddy."
"Three bedroom country farm with four kids, grandparents and mother was a constant fight complete with fists and screaming almost daily. At least we could go outside....Lost a brother to a gunshot when stepfather cheated on mother and left gun down while he was leaving, other brother accidentally shot him."
"Mother continued to treat me like a sister until she decided she wanted to be a mother. My grandmother was the one who raised me and the one I consider my true mother. When she died, she left me the land with her house on it and my mother tricked me into signing it over to her (I was very naive). She accused my straight-edge goth-y kids (in their 30s now) of being on drugs because they wore black and has held a remark I made about moving away when I was 16 against me to this day."
"My father sent me $50 when I graduated and $100 when I got married the first time. And I had no idea he was even my father until I was 23."
"I would have liked to have had a different childhood."
"Edit: Y'all are some wonderful people. Thank you to those who had kind and healing words, hugs to those in need of a little extra."Growing Up With Live And Well Great Grandparents
"One of my friends has a teen mom, she doesnt talk about it too much but she says that its nice how all family members (great grandparents) are still alive."
– VViard
"That threw me off so much. My parents had me at 40 and their parents had them around 30 so by the time I was born I already was one grandparent down and it only took a few years for the next to go. Now at the age of 22 I have none. Meanwhile my bf whose family all have had children around 18 and his great great grandparents are still alive and he goes on trips with his grandparents."
– eneuendo
Not My Sister
"When friends would come over for the first time growing up, I'd get a lot of, 'I didn't know you had an older sister!'
"I don't. That's my mother."
"Also: since my Mom and I are only 16 years apart, we ended up liking a lot of the same music. Which made going to concerts a lot easier, because we'd often wanna go to the same shows. So, I've definitely seen a lot more bands than friends."
Growing Up With Music Festivals
"My mom was 16 and my dad 19 when they had me. They took me to a lot of concerts music festivals growing up. Starting around age 9, their go-to birthday present for me was concerts. The first couple years it was stuff they liked. After I started developing my own tween/teen tastes, they'd give me 3 tickets so I could take a friend and my uncle as chaperone."
"Edit to address something that has come up multiple times in the responses below."
Cool Aunt And Uncle
"My mom was 18. So my aunt and uncle are only 10 years older than me (my uncle is 6 years) so I got to do all kinda of rad stuff with my aunt and uncle like skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding."
"They were and are more like a brother and sister."
"Real dad is a pos. My mom fell in love at 20 with a 40 year old. They are still together 38 years later. Raised me like his own.
"He had 5 other kids. So I had all kinds of brothers and sisters and tbh a better life than if my real dad stuck around."
Emo Mamma
"I'm an early 2000s baby, my mom really liked emo music when I was little, so I considered myself 'emo' at 6. I remember sitting in the backseat of my mom's 4Runner and listening to Mindless Self Indulgence, MCR, Blink-182, American Football, Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, and all the late 90s-early 2000s emo music. I got to watch a lot of 90s cartoons along with 2000s stuff because it was what my mom watched, and we always had fun sitting on the couch watching TV. I had a really good childhood, me and my mom were always friends, she is great mom, and I always look up to her for being a bada** young single mom who raised me alone."
She Was A Pregnant Pre-Teen
"my mom wasn't a teen when she had me but she started having children when she was 14 and was basically pregnant every other year... I was her 6th child at 25 and she had 11 children in total. She doesn't remember or know exactly who my biological father is lol so yeah..."
– les_beau
"It Is The Person That Makes A Difference"
"My teen mom - less money, less patience, dated more men, has been divorced several times."
"My SOs teen mom: lots of money, lots of patience, dated two men, only divorced once."
"I think it is more the person than the age that makes a difference."
"Edit: the reason my MIL had more money is because: she had a good personality and was able to get good jobs, she was able to advance her career, was financial responsible with spending, worked very hard to get her college degree, and this was 40+ years ago so the cost of living and wage were more comparable."
"The reason my mother didn't have more money: she is hard to get along with and struggled to get a good job, when she did get a good job she was not financial responsible, the divorces caused her to lose most/all of her gained sums because she choose to walk away rather than split assets. My mother also got a college degree and STILL struggles with jobs because she argues so much."
"Lastly, none of the were strippers/escorts. They are very close in age. Both had little/no parental support (my MIL having moved to the US away from the Philippines and my mother was kicked out). Thank you and good night!"
The 5-Year-Old Chef
"I was growing up at the same time my mom and all of my aunts and uncles were."
"On a more obvious day-to-day note, I was at home on my own making stove top spaghettios at 5 years old... So I would probably say I have needed to be more mature, independent, and more okay with a majority of things not going my way than a lot of the people I know. I don't really get along with people my age because of that."
– hiimdull
"My Childhood SUCKED"
"My mom is 15 years older than me and has banged 7 of my friends throughout my life... 4 when I was still in high-school...."
"Other than that i think I was became mature than her when I was 12..."
"I took care of my 3 siblings, did the cooking, cleaning... got them to school... hell I started working 40 hours/week at 14 so my siblings could have some sort of a normal childhood (get clothes, school supplies, i even took them go-karting on each of their birthdays... those are some of my favorite memories)"
"Over all I think that my childhood SUCKED, I never got to be a kid... I don't think ANYONE should have kids before they are mature enough to handle one... and teen mom's should have a lot if over-sight by cps."
"Edit: giving more context... this was in a small town in the 80's... my siblings and I are doing pretty well nowadays."
Children are not for everyone. Yes, to some they are "bundles of joy," but to others, they are simply not a good choice.
For example-children are expensive. Most millennials don't make a ton of money, hardly enough to support themselves, let alone a family.
Others see the state of the world and think, "Why would I bring a child into this?"
u/Yuckoz asked:
What's your main reason for not wanting children?
Here were some of those answers.
Not My Style
There doesnt have to be a reason. I dont want to raise kids. You can choose not to work a desk job or choose not to own a vehicle without a big discussion, but if you choose to not have children, people suddenly get interested in your business. I don't want to. Simple as that
Not Responsible Enough
The idea of being in charge of another human being, scares me.
It seems like a lot of things can inadvertently go wrong, even if you try your damn hardest to be the best parent you can possibly be. I mean, just take a look around you, at your peers or even at yourself. Pretty much no one comes out of their childhood unscathed. You got humans raising humans, so there's bound to be mistakes made along the way.
It's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of time and it's a lot of money.
More power to the people who choose to become parents but I wish more people took the time to better understand the full commitment that they are about to embark on for the rest of their lives. When you become a parent, you no longer live your own life, your life now revolves around making sure that you are providing the best possible life for your child. It can mean a lot of sacrificing to ensure that your child has a better life.
For many people, just because they can have a kid, it doesn't mean that they should.
That's my two cents. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pain
I don't ever, ever, ever want to go thorough pregnancy. It's terrifying to me. Also I just don't think I'd be a good parent. I'm still recovering from my own childhood; I shouldn't be responsible for someone else's.
Not My Path
I just don't see the appeal.
People have different dreams in life.
Some want to achieve great things, some want to help other life, some want to conquer the planet that has life, some want to look for undiscovered life.
It just happens that the natural biological imperative is to reproduce & make more life - hence the idea is so common.
I just don't want to do that, simple as.
Anxiety
I feel like I'd ruin them. I feel like I'd be an awful mother and make my child grow to resent me. I feel like I would completely fail a small human, or at the very least my self hatred would be reflected onto them and they would feel less loved and valued because of my mental illnesses.
Peace And Quiet
I just have no desire to. Having kids is too much of a hassle and I would much rather spend my time and money on myself than on a child. Plus, I enjoy the freedom and peaceful quietness that I get from being childfree.
Mental Health
Personally I don't see how it could make me happy. I'm very insecure about my own body and I would hate it so much more if I got pregnant and had a child. I never think I'm good enough at anything so I would kill myself worrying about if I'm a good enough parent. I don't see how dealing with behaviour, eating being a hassle, never having time for yourself, a child waking you up early, having someone else to worry about, and having more expenses could possibly make anyone happy. Maybe I will change my mind when I'm older, but I won't even be thinking about having a child until I'm fully happy with myself and my mental health has improved.
Money Money Money
The cost of having a child, plus I have a lovely host of diseases on both sides of my family that I could potentially pass on to my hypothetical child (Alzheimer's, diabetes, high blood pressure, weight problems, and so on).
Plus I don't want my life to be restricted - if I want to go on holiday, I don't want to have to wait until school holiday time so my child can come too (plus then you end up paying double the price, because that's when everyone wants to travel somewhere). If I want to move from one house to another (or hell, from one country to another), I don't want to have to worry about finding a house in the radius of a good school. I also don't want to constantly fret about my child's academic development - getting them into good primary schools (the best one in my city charges something ridiculous like $40,000 per annum for years 1-6), then worrying about getting them into a good university, and so on.
I want to be able to live my life freely - spend my income on fun things like a quick weekend getaway to the wine country, or whatever. I don't want to tie myself down.
Bad Lineage
Family history for disorders like autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. Thankfully all I have is anxiety, but my mental health combined with the thought of having a child that struggles similarly or worse scares me. For the longest time I dreamed of the marriage/kids route, but there are a lot of "what-ifs" that have made me decide it would not be good for me or the child. It's hard enough some days for me to keep my shit together, adding a child on top of that seems like a not good idea.
A Bad Direction For The World
The environment is only gonna get worse tbh, the competition in schools and the workplace as well. Also, children are expensive and it's a little hard to travel the world for months when you have kids around. And I guess kids seem like they could turn out nasty too easily and I don't really wanna deal with that. That's probably about all the reasons.
Anti-Motherhood
Motherhood is a trap. If you stay home you have no income that you could possibly use to regain your independence if your relationship fails, if you keep working people think you're a bad mother, and no matter what, as the woman the majority of the housework and childrearing will be dumped on you (even if your partner says he'll do his fair share)
Having kids chains you to the person you have them with. It stifles your dreams for yourself, every good part of yourself is sucked out for the kids.
It's a straight up snare trap that you can never escape from (from my perspective)
A Hugely Analytical Look
Having kids is a bizarre combination of selfish and selfless behavior. You have to give up your autonomy completely, a totally selfless act right? Except you're doing it in the name of creating a half copy of you in order to maintain the future spreading of your DNA all over the world. I think a lot of people do it just because it's "what your supposed to do" and end up dropping the ball and creating dead weight in the world or worse. I think child rearing is only something worth doing if you put in 100% and I am not prepared to commit to that. If you drop the ball you may well be making the world shittier because of your selfish whim to clone yourself
Unfair Expectations
A few different things, one big reason is that I am consumed with my goals and I worry that I would be absent or resentful. A second concern is that the child would become a project and that I would push them too hard. It's an atmosphere I grew up in and, while it has shaped me in a big way, it created a lot of anger and resentment.
When It Passes Along
Aside from enjoying my lifestyle as it is (which would basically become nonexistent since my hobbies are both expensive and not child conducive) my real answer is that my mother has suffered with depression her whole life and so have I and I can't imagine creating something I love more than anything only to pass (essentially) my family defect onto them and watch them suffer with it for their entire life.
Kids? Ew, Next
I just kind of don't like children.
I don't like people much to begin with, but I get on with some people if we have similar senses of humour or interests.
Kids are like extra-annoying miniature people. They're loud, obnoxious. They require near constant care/supervision/attention until they're 13/14 or so. They ask stupid questions and require me to dedicate large chunks of my time and attention to them, much less bankroll everything they need - which is a lot.
The upside is, what? I get a child that lives in my house and calls me "Mum"? That's a terrible trade!
It's Much Too Hard
Not a solid never, but I nannied for 7 years and helped raise 2 sets of kids (3 infants from newborn to 4/5 year old kids).
Being a nanny you get to see the dynamic of the families you work with and you also are the person mom and dad vent to and it just seems really... hard? Especially with all the stress with the world we live in, should they be enrolled in more activities? Should we be doing more at home with them? If they're not in private school Will they get a decent education and go to college? How do we pay for that? Who will pay for braces? Who will pay for therapy if something traumatic happens or they need help? Who can watch them when both parents work?
I respect parents but I'm just not sure that I want to bring a child into this mess nor am I sure that I want to allocate all my funds and time to raising a little tiny person. It's a giant commitment and seeing it from the inside, I'm Just not sure it's the choice I want to make for myself..