Now in my sixties and still CF. In my thirties the only real down side was the loss (largely) of friends who had chosen to have children so could now no longer come out to play.
Currently in my mid 30s. Life is good. Spent the past year trying to turn over a new page in the book of life. Hoping to emigrate with my partner soon. I’ve already changed to a remote working job. I split my spare time between: running, photography, sailing, hiking, coding & gaming. Lots of this would be impossible or very difficult with children.
Being CF had allowed me to make choices that would have otherwise been unavailable to me.
I change careers when I want, move where and when I want. I’m open to peruse, or end, relationships based only on my goals and needs.
As others have mentioned, dealing with friends when they have families can be an issue, but honestly, I haven’t had too much trouble. The one couple I’m close with that has kids still find time to do things, and I’m someone they call when they want a night away to do things.
Not once have I felt regret, but I’m from a large family, and have many nieces and nephews, so no one looks at me to “continue the family name”. In fact, being the black sheep, there is often a sigh of relief.
Dating can be a challenge, I’ve had more than one relationship end because they wanted kids, and I’ve had some never start because they had kids already.
Now I’m with someone who is as CF as I am, and this only ever comes up in jokes.
With spare money/disposable income. Want to go on holiday? we do. Want a lie in at the weekend? we can. Peace and quiet? lots. None of this possible with kids as they take over your whole life.
This is what I enjoy most about being CF, everything in life is much more flexible. Both my partner and myself are working shifts and our planning doesn’t depend on weekend and school holidays. Going out for a nice dinner on a Tuesday is much more enjoyable when the restaurants aren’t full. Also, traveling after the summer rush is what we prefer. Things are somewhat cheaper, popular areas are emptier, and the weather is cooler.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !humor
Congrats. I am not childfree and love my family – but nothing was a larger or more dramatic shift in my life than having a child. Complete and all-consuming, especially if you want to do it right. If you know that that was not for you, this was probably the best decision you could have made.
Now get out there and stop turning away attention!
Congrats! Got mine around the same age. Make a note of the date & do something nice each year for the anniversary. I celebrate V-day every year in September.
I’m 27 and will probably be getting it soon. It sounds like it’s not as bad as I though, while also doesn’t affect your sex life in the negative sense later, so that’s good to hear!
What do you think is the best age to start considering it? I’m pretty deeply set on not having kids and I don’t see anything that would convince me otherwise, and it’s so important to me that it’s one of the first things I mention when starting a relationship. I was always trying to make it clear that I will pay for and handle protection, if something happens I always went to get the pills asap, and always was clearly communicating that if even through all of that a child happens, I’m helping with abortion as much as I can, or if she wants to keep it I’ll keep paying her but she will never see me again. While it does sound harsh, it was important to me to get the point across even at the cost of sounding inconsiderate, so I think that I’m pretty much decided on that matter.
But I have no idea how do humans and biology works, and I’ve already seen what the brain can do when I overdid something and got a temporary psychosis, even though I’m perfectly normal otherwise - so if there is some kind of biological process that makes you want kids later in life, I guess I may reconsider and then suffer for it - hence the question. Did anyone older experienced such a strong change of opinions later in life, regarding children?
My experience with the surgery was that I was a bit tender for a week or so, nothing terrible though
You obviously feel pretty vulnerable during the procedure, but I was chatting with the doctor as he did his work which took 10 minutes maybe
I drove home afterwards (sitting was uncomfortable) and iced the boys for a while
The doctor actually offers antianxiety meds to his patients and I saw at least one guy that went with them - his wife was escoriting him while he was all spaced-out
Congrats! I got mine about 24 years ago. It was a great decision and a good experience. I love my kids, but knew I was done having more. It’s so nice to not even have to worry about “mistakes” ever again.
For people considering it, the method I got was absolutely NOT painful or a big deal. The worse part is the awkwardness of having someone mess with your penis when they prep the area (shave and get it ready for the doc). They numb the area, make a tiny incision, and block the tubes from sending mini-yous up and out.
In the old days, they would just straight up cut the tubes which would be painful, but when I got it done, what they did was only partially cut the tubes to leave some nerves intact then put little titanium clips on the tubes to “keep the drawbridge up” and prevent spermies to passing through. They close ya up and you wear a jockstrap for a few days. Procedure took less than an hour.
I was nervous it would hurt after and on the way home, I had to pee and I was scared as the pressure was building - but then as I finally peed, I realize it was just the pressure from peeing (dumbass) and I felt great. Went to the company picnic the next day! ha!
Then a week or 2 later, had to ejaculate in a cup and let them make sure nothing was getting through.
Easy peasy!
FYI - orgasms & sex feel and act the same (in fact better without worries of accidental babies), same erections, same cum, same everything, except just shooting blanks.
My comment isn’t to dissuade anyone. I got mine done and if I needed to repeated the procedure once a year with what i experienced I would still do it.
But I do want to point out that everyone will have different experiences. My vas deferens are/were short so they had a heck of a time getting them into a position where they could cut and put the clips on them. It resulted on what felt like them yanking on them.
It was uncomfortable to put it mildly. Recovery was super easy.
I am in my 40s and had all the kids I wanted. I have seem multiple of my friends delay getting one and end up with an oops kid in their 40s. No fucking way would I want to have an infant at that age. It was hard enough when I was 30 years old when my first was born.
I’m 41 years old. I had my first daughter 3 years ago, and kid number 2 is arriving in February. (It took me a while to get my life together enough, that I was ready for kids)
I fully understand, why you wouldn’t want an infant at that age. 🤣
When they pull the tubes out from the scrotum, that pulls on the tubes further up and there is a sharp shooting pain that rises up into the abdomen, apart from that, the week after is tender, and to avoid further pain, the area should be disinfected regularly until the scab heals.
I had mine just two weeks ago (after three kids) and the most painful part was getting the anesthetic shot. From leaving the waiting room to walking out it took 40 minutes and I had zero pain. It’s healing very nicely and everything still works. And you have to masturbate a lot on doctor’s orders to “clear the pipes” as my doctor put it.
My body processes anesthetics very quickly so I had the shots and about halfway through the feeling came back. The doc said “well…the shots hurt about as bad as the procedure so it’s up to you”. So I can say even without much numbing it is something you can handle. Gives me the chills to think about though.
You can’t worry about everything that can go wrong. When you hit your 40s, you will need to get a colonoscopy. Those can go wrong to but you still get it done.
Congratulations. I’m almost 20 years older than you and child free too. No regrets. Seeing what is happening in the world these days, especially climate change, I wonder why people would want to have kids and inflict whatever is coming on them.
Much better eras to have kids like the old west, medieval times, the dark ages, the Industrial Revolution when children worked at age 5, or even before agriculture was developed and literally every day was a crapshoot as to whether you would survive.
Why not just end the human race and sterilize everyone? I truly believe in and support peoples right to choose not to have children, but saying the world is a fucked up place is not a good reason. The world was a far more brutal and fucked up place compared to modern times. It’s not even really comparable. News headlines always make it seem like the world is in utter chaos but it really isn’t.
You haven’t attempted to explain your position, you just doubled down.
Your position comes across as “Yeah, it’s fucked up, but it’s been worse. Why not crank out some kids?” That’s, to me, an objectively shitty starting point.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, but glad things are looking up now. It's unfortunately such a common story, but sometimes people really do change their minds, especially around that age when they're settling into adult life and learning more about themselves and what they want in the future.
Fortunately, it's increasingly socially acceptable and common to be childfree and I'm sure you'll find the right person for you (if you haven't already with the new guy!).
childfree
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.