In my 5th birthday my parents threw a party for me with friends from kindergarten. My father had a pretty good camera for the time and loved taking photos. This was during analog times, way before digital cameras, so you wouldn’t just take a bunch of photos because it got expensive. He wanted to take a group photo and I, always being a little annoyed back then with the constant photos, stuck out my tongue. He tried to make me smile but I refused. So he told me he’d take the photo of me sticking out my tongue and I’d regret it when I’m an adult that I don’t have a nice photo of me on my 5th birthday. I’m 40 and I don’t regret it. Love that photo.
“stop wasting time with that Linux thing. Nobody will ever hire you unless you specialize in Windows”
Linux has done far more for me professionally than being a Windows engineer ever got me, and it repeatedly keeps being proven.
Allegedly I climbed a crane and it was beautiful
Not going to church
Spending time playing video games. I enjoyed every minute and I didn’t miss out on much.
My mom didn’t think I should buy a house. In 2009.
I would have been absolutely screwed by now if I’d listened to her advice.
I had the opposite. In 2007 my mom convinced me it’s conventional wisdom to buy as much house as you can afford, because historically it is one of the best investments you can make.
Thankfully all I could afford at that time was a pretty cheap house…
Not having kids, every time I have any remorse I spend some time around kids and their parents, in about 5 minutes I’m good
I love kids, but I have never felt a want for them.
This is an interesting nuance. I find most children annoying, and I don’t want any of my own, but the love I have for my niece and nephew is bigger than I ever could have imagined.
I guess there’s always room for exceptions.
I hadn’t planned on kids or marriage. I’m so thankful to have both.
Same here, having watched how the lives of my friends who had kids changed reaffirmed the decision of not having any for me. You basically have to be prepared to dedicate next couple of decades of our life to raising kids and not doing much of anything else. And you end up giving up the freedom to do things like move to a different town or try a new career. Your primary goal becomes having stable income to raise your kids.
Transitioning.
Tattoos.
Joining the Fediverse
What kind of tattoos?
Fuck yeah ShadowRun!
I started playing in 1989, I’ve played every edition and even got published in a couple of the sourcebooks, so it was a good choice for a tattoo :)
I had a friend tweak it though so people who know Shadowrun will recognise it, but it doesn’t look like a logo to people who don’t recognise it
What molecule is the flower one? That looks sick
Estrogen!
Unfortunately, it will be my only colour tattoo, because I had a hell of time healing that one. My body has rejected all of my piercings over the years, and clearly didn’t like the colours either. It seems to handle blacks just fine though
That sucks, but if you can only have one color tattoo that seems like the perfect choice even if you didn’t know that going in lol
I’m not normally a fan of tattoos (pretty ambivalent overall) but I really like that one and the added meaning for anyone more up to date on their ochem than I am is even cooler 😂
Not wanting kids.
Cons: you don’t know what you’re missing
Pros: you don’t know what you’re not missing
I don’t begrudge anyone not wanting kids. It’s not for everyone.
That said, my first thought when I saw the post title was “I don’t regret having kids”.
I suppose the caveat is that my twins are only 2 and a half, I may well regret having kids when they start getting pregnant, selling drugs, marrying chat bots, that sort of thing.
Edit: I just scrolled through some of the other comments and noticed that the majority of them say that they don’t regret not having kids. The fediverse is pretty homogenous I guess.
Were you told you would regret having your kids? That’s wild.
It’s a lot more common for people to be told that they will regret not having kids, than being told they’ll regret having them… so I think the similarities in the responses is quite natural, dont you? Not a lot of parents can answer this post with their kids in mind, but pretty much every voluntarily childless person can.
It’s a lot more common for people to be told that they will regret not having kids, than being told they’ll regret having them
That’s not my experience, at all.
When I was in my 20s plenty of older guys would tell me not to have kids. Admittedly, these were the older weirdos hanging out at bars, but the source of the advice isn’t really in question right now.
Every single voluntarily childless person I’ve spoken to have had the experience of being told they’ll regret it.
I can only recall two people being told they’d regret their decision to have kids… and they were both teenagers, so even though I don’t agree with saying something like that, I can understand the sentiment of wanting them to wait a few years.
Seems we life in very different worlds.
I’ve certainly heard the sentiment from childfree people before. My late BIL used to call kids “demon spawn” and “crotch fruit” and loudly proclaim he would never have children because they’re such a drain physically and financially.
There’s assholes everywhere unfortunately. I know childfree people frequently get pushed to have kids as well.
It’s just so rude to say someone will regret their choice regarding kids… BIL is free to make that choice for himself, and more than welcome to keep his mouth shut on your choice.
Yeah any commentary around pregnancy or children should just be positive for what that person has chosen for their life. Having or not having children is so subjective and can be a painful subject for some. Better to be kind and not pushy imo
Mine is older now and some parts of parenting are harder, but I still don’t regret having a kid.
Having a kid actually reinforced my belief that only people who really want kids should have kids.
In my own case, it’s certainly been one of my life’s great adventures. The most meaningful thing I’ve ever done.
Being content with “good enough”
This is the mantra of the family I married to. Sometimes a little too much.
Still love them though:)
This. 100 times this.
That’s a damn good answer.
Getting heavily tattooed, not having kids, not getting married/“settling down”. I grew up in an extremely conservative Christian home that pushed the standard “American Dream” plan but never embraced it. I’m aware there’s experiences that I’ll never have that are a source of joy and life defining for others, but I knew very early on those things weren’t calling me. Decades later I have zero regrets about what I didn’t do and what I did do.
Not having kids. I have hobbies, and money/time for them.
One of the previous popes called childless couples selfish. I say a never-married 70-year old operating the world’s largest paedophile welfare programme has nothing to say to me about child-rearing.
Getting tattoos. Parents, grandparents etc all said by the time you’re 30 you’ll hate them. Well I’m in my mid 30’s now and I still get new ones.
In light of some other replies: the same could be said about having kids.
Cracking my knuckles.
Still waiting on that arthritis I was promised.
Here’s a guy who Cracks His Knuckles in Only One Hand for Over 60 Years. What you need to worry about is when they stop cracking, symptom of systemic inflammation.
Hey if you don’t mind, roughly how old are you?
Not going to prom. Really don’t know on what basis people would say that.
I had zero things in common with my high school classmates. Even before cell phones were ubiquitous, I saw all of them as reckless and incompetent. I identified more with the teachers. They seemed normal and level headed for the most part.
