Childfree People Are Happy

Guess what? There's a study showing that childfree people are happy.

Thank you to Dennis Prager, whose angry ranting about this alerted me to its existence. [This entry has been bumped up from June 2021.]

New research from Michigan State University psychologists examines characteristics and satisfaction of adults who don’t want children.

That really bothers Dennis Prager and others, for various reasons - that there are so many childfree people and they are happy.

As more people acknowledge they simply don’t want to have kids, Jennifer Watling Neal and Zachary Neal, both associate professors in MSU’s department of psychology, are among the first to dive deeper into how these “child-free” individuals differ from others.

Thank you to the Neals!

“Most studies haven’t asked the questions necessary to distinguish ‘child-free’ individuals — those who choose not to have children — from other types of nonparents,” Jennifer Watling Neal said. “Nonparents can also include the ‘not-yet-parents’ who are planning to have kids, and ‘childless’ people who couldn’t have kids due to infertility or circumstance. Previous studies simply lumped all nonparents into a single category to compare them to parents.”

That's SO important!!! The same thing happens when all "unmarried" people are lumped together. Find out how men who intentionally avoid marriage are doing.

“We were most surprised by how many child-free people there are,” Jennifer Watling Neal said. “We found that more than one in four people in Michigan identified as child-free, which is much higher than the estimated prevalence rate in previous studies that relied on fertility to identify child-free individuals. These previous studies placed the rate at only 2% to 9%. We think our improved measurement may have been able to better capture individuals who identify as child-free.”

More people are going to opt to be childfree.

Given the large number of child-free adults in Michigan, more attention needs to be paid to this group, the researchers said. For example, the researchers explained that their study only included one time point, so didn’t examine when people decided to be child-free — however, they hope forthcoming research will help the public understand both when people start identifying as child-free as well as the factors that lead to this choice.

A trip to the mall or supermarket can be enough, or any public restroom where a kid who's being potty trained is being resistant.

Here's the link they want included.
Dennis Prager went on a rant during the first hour of his show today (June 27, 2021) because of this. Dennis Prager thinks people are obligated to have children. Doesn't that sound lovely? "Add new human beings to your life because it is an obligation!" He says it is good for society and will help the parents grow as people. You have to understand, though, where Dennis Prager is coming from. He thinks having children makes people conservative, and he wants more conservatives. He also thinks he has a religious obligation to have children. He also didn't let having children stop him from getting divorced, nor traveling a lot without them. He also is against "making children the center of your universe." For example, you shouldn't throw them a birthday party every year, nor attend another child's birthday party. You shouldn't attend all of their sporting events or recitals. So, it's not such a big deal for people like him to have children, since their mother or hired help will raise them, or the children will be essentially left to raise themselves while you're smoking cigars or traveling. Dennis doesn't want you sending your children to college, so, no worries about saving up for that.

One major reason not to have children is that it will tie you to a woman for the rest of your life. But again, Dennis thinks that's a good thing. I've gone over all of that here.

Dennis did say on his show today that not having children and not marrying are safer. But he wants you to be unsafe. The thing is, these people have an entirely different outlook, attitude, and set of behaviors than Dennis. If they did have children, they wouldn't raise them the way he likes, and they might even be abusive towards them. It might not bring them the same ego boost and sense of religious accomplishment he seems to have had.

He tells people happiness is a moral obligation, but when they take steps to be happy, he says, "Not like that! You have to do it MY way!"

I agree with Dennis on a lot. But this is one of his core, frequent issues, and I strongly disagree with him. It's great - under current circumstances - for most men to refuse to marry, and, tied to that, not have children.