childfree

Good news! Article is paywalled but

https://archive.md/CWwUB (archived link)

Three more EU member states — including the most populous, Germany — have joined the list of countries with “ultra-low” fertility rates, highlighting the extent of the region’s demographic challenges.

Official statistics show Germany’s birth rate fell to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, below the UN’s “ultra-low” threshold of 1.4 — characterising a scenario where falling birth rates become tough to reverse.

Estonia and Austria also passed under the 1.4 threshold, joining the nine EU countries — including Spain, Greece and Italy — that in 2022 had fertility rates below 1.4 children per woman.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/29563625

In over 30 years of practice, Dr. Errol Billinkoff rarely saw a man without kids come into his Winnipeg clinic to get a vasectomy. But since the pandemic began, he says it's become an almost daily occurrence.

And he's not alone.

"At first, I thought I was the only one who was noticing this," Billinkoff, who brought a no-scalpel vasectomy procedure to Winnipeg in the early 1990s, told CBC News in a November interview.

"But I am part of an international chat group where doctors who do vasectomies participate and the topic came up, and it's like everybody notices it."

Welp, will they come after this Lemmy sub? /s

Following on from this post

https://slrpnk.net/post/14377077

https://archive.is/fhpYd

I don't always love his videos, but this one hits home.

I'm childfree for many reasons, but there are so many obvious ones - no one should be wondering why millennials are choosing not to have kids.

Hi all,

As our community is still small and not overly active, I thought instead of trying to have a weekly or monthly chatter thread up as a sticky, we could try a perpetual one and see what happens.

So anything you feel doesn't warrant a post of its own, just put it here.

Cheers and take care!

What helped you make the decision to be child-free? How do I be sure about what I want? Looking for recommendation - resources, articles, books etc.

My partner just let me know he would be ready to start trying in a year. My head just spun. I am not ready now at 31 (as a woman and my clock is going tick-tock) and I don't think I will ever be ready. I am neither excited about the process of birthing nor does a crying pooping tantrum-throwing machine excite me!

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share my story real quick. I had a bilateral salpingectomy in March of 2020 (squeezed in just weeks before the big panini). All went well. I healed up and it seemed like everything was fine. Hell, my scars looked great! Well... Over the course of several months, and eventually years, it became clear something happened. I started getting really bad pain in my bellybutton area each month on my period. Then I started actually bleeding from my belly button each month. Then the pain became nearly constant, also coming on during ovulation too. I'm also allergic to bandage adhesives, so you can imagine the nightmare each month when I'd have to somehow manage the bleeding, but that's besides the point.

I'm now recovering from a surgery to remove the endometrial umbilical hernia, which I ignored for far too long. When they did my laparoscopic sterilization, the endo cells migrated where they shouldn't have, and reproduced. I'm childfree af but also an endometrial mess with a 3-4in incision/scar who will no longer have a bellybutton at all after this surgery (too much damage done by the endometriosis—it was not worth reconstruction according to the surgeon). Thankfully I wasn't big on bellybutton piercings, but still, it's unsettling to go in to a surgery not knowing they'll take a whole-ass part of your anatomy off that you're not expecting. It feels like some autonomy was taken from me there, but at the same time, I'd certainly rather have that than the amount of pain I was in.

I say all that just as a cautionary tale and food for thought. I still think that my snip was the best decision I could have made for myself so this isn't a "I shouldn't have done it and here's why you shouldn't either" post. I love being sterile. But I also wish I knew about this VERY MINIMAL but possible risk before I had my original surgery, because when it comes down to it, sterilization is a procedure of bodily autonomy—and everyone deserves to know the possible outcomes even if they're unlikely.

Open to questions. AMA.

Don't ask me for translation, just google Corendon xd

Like holy fuck do you not hear your kid screaming? Do you not have consideration for other fucking people? Or are you just so fucking useless you have zero ability to parent your child? I'm assuming the latter.

Fuck people.

I'm chilling in a hotel hottub, and there's a kid in the pool just screaming, fucking just screaming on and off at the top of their lungs, the sound just echoing off all the tile, it's fucking horrible, holy fuck.

Ughh, just really needed to vent that. Thank you. And fucking thank god they just left.

Fuck I'm greatful I don't have kids.

-edit-

New group of kids started floating around the hot tub bumping into me 😑 Asked them to stop, and then had to speak to their parents about it.

Hello, I am a young CF man of thirty years. I want to hear from my elders CFs. How they were living in their thirties.

A bit of a rant, pre-sorry but so sad and annoyed right now.

Went to my favorite barber shop today. It's built on being nice, upscale, and men's haircuts. They do the works, good cuts, beard trimming/shaping, hot towel, the whole thing, and it's built to be man's place, they have a pool table, they have a couple of kegerators, they'll pour you a whiskey while you wait. Very nice.

(Note I say man's but really if you're a woman/any other gender and you like that sort of thing, then awesome. I mean man in the masculine sense)

Until recently this was my favorite place, but apparently it's gotten on the mom groups online and now the last few times I've gone it's just filled with children and moms. Where I could go and get a whiskey while I wait and find someone to shoot pool with, now kids are literally running around and as for the pool table they're just throwing the balls around. Meanwhile the moms are either talking with each other or hovering over Bradley getting his hair cut and how cute it is.

On top of it all, because there was a group of them instead of my normal 20 min wait it was almost a 2 hours wait. I just walked out.

I'm just so tired of it, this place obviously was built for adults but god forbid we have any adult places that aren't "actually meant for children". I mean obviously it was built for children, there's 2 kegs and a shelf of nice scotch but yes, bring all of your children here.

How come every place that used to be for adults is now a child zone? My favorite breweries used to be great places to let off steam after work and now I have kids playing tag in the middle of them. I flat out don't go to movies anymore because even the super late showings are just dumping grounds for inattentive parents to leave their kids. And god forbid you ever mention outside a community like this that you want to drink a beer without a kid running around or you're literally the devil who should be shunned.

Anyway, this isn't going anywhere specifically, I'm just really sad, and I didn't get my haircut today.