What does "childfree" mean to you?

Child-free means one doesn't have kids and doesn't want kids. That's all. I'm here to connect with other people living that lifestyle. There's no need for anyone to brag about their free time/money/energy. There could be some overlap with niche philosophies held by other people here. But my understanding is that's not what the Child-free community is inherently about. Anyway, welcome!

For me it is first and foremost that I don't want children in my life. I won't have them, and I won't live with or date anyone who has them.

I love my nieces and nephews, and have always enjoyed their company. As a skateboard and snowboard instructor I've always enjoyed seeing kids learn new things and how excited they get.

But in my home, in my personal life, they simply aren't welcome.

The money, freedom, free time, etc, are all bonuses, but they are not the driving factor.

I want a calm, quiet, peaceful home. I want uninterrupted sleep. I do not want to spend any time cleaning up after someone else, or having to make my space child safe.

I also don't want to have to deal with other parents, teachers, or navigating the ever changing social landscape that young people seem so wrapped up in.

In the end, there isn't a single benefit I can see to having a child, and a near endless list of stresses I can just do without.

Finding the childfree reddit years ago was the first time I had found a community which supported this lifestyle, so when I moved to Lemmy joining this was an obvious choice.

i don't care if people have kids. i don't want to have kids and i don't want to be pressed for having kids. knowing that like minded people exist make the social pressure a bit more bearable

As I understand it, being childfree simply means not having and not wanting children. There doesn’t need to be a philosophical reason for that; reasons such as finding children annoying can be enough. Antinatalists, however, are philosophically opposed to procreation. They believe that suffering is an overwhelming part of life (stemming from disease, financial status, bereavement, and many others), and they argue it would be better if someone were never exposed to it in the first place. Existing beings, though, learn to deal with it.

Because antinatalism is a philosophy and childfree is a life choice, you will see people across the entire spectrum.

1. Some people are childfree (do not have or want kids) but are not philosophically inclined to any specific position. They do not necessarily want the human race to end.
2. Some people are childfree and antinatalist (philosophically opposed to procreation). Antinatalists may or may not care about extinction. Some ideally want human extinction (anthropocentric extinction), while others want the extinction of all sentient beings (sentiocentric extinction). Some others do not care about extinction at all because it is not practically possible. It should be noted that antinatalists favor voluntary extinction through peaceful means only.
3. Some people are not childfree (they have children) but became antinatalist only after having them.

Personally, I started out as childfree and later became an antinatalist. I don't like how noisy children are. I can spend some time with children, but after a certain threshold, I get really tired and annoyed. Also, my depression and anxiety play a large part in my decision not to bring children into the world. I don't want them to go through all this bullshit (and this is where antinatalism comes in).

If I ever "change my mind" like countless people suggest, I’ll just adopt.

I don't like children in general and would prefer not to be around them in any capacity. It would be fine with me if people stopped having children, but I realize that's unreasonable.

As an “outsider”, I would have assumed this place would be about enjoying a childfree lifestyle, but it seems to be more than that.

It used to be like that going back to the early reddit days, but over the last couple years there has definitely been an uptick in extreme antinatalist viewpoints within the childfree movement. I assume it's coincidental with general negativity around climate change, AI, Trump, and everything else. Maybe these people have been radicalized by some social media or youtube rabbit hole on the topic.

childfree means, that im not getting a kid despite my instinct, i decide not to have any. by doin so i dont repeat the "no money, no time" struggle my parents had.

many also say that the current state of the world is not suitable for a little one. bit of a doomer thinking, but i do accept it as a correct anwser as well.

the "hehe look at all the freetime" is kinda a funny comic strip like state of mind. it is def an advantage, but never a main reason. at least not if you are not an egoistic shithead.

Yeah its like I called myself an antinatilist but then someone pointed out some definition where you would like force people to be. My wife and I in the mid aughts realized we were never going to be able to swing children with our income situation vs what we were seeing society wise. Basically we are not ok with having kids with less quality of life than us and are not ok with us haveing less quality of life than our parents. This is combined with the environmental impact on humanity which is far to large for our biosphere based on how we aport ourselves as a species. Further we basically think people are kinda nuts to have kids in the first world as things are and encourage people not to. So from I guess an antinatilist light perspective I comment here. We though about adoption but things just got worse and at this point we are not sure if we will be able to take care of ourselves at an age when we should be helping young folks get established. Anyway we are not actually childree for any day to day convience type of reason but to tell the truth. With everything that has gone on this millenium. If we were like magically transported to a universe in which all that was not the case. Whelp I think at this point we are a bit like PTSD and would still just not do it. Maybe given enough low stress years we might think about adoption again but again it would need to be magic as we are to old at this point.

Childfree, to me, means I don't have or want kids. There are lots of different reasons why people make that choice, so I'm not really surprised.

Don't want kids, that brought me here.

I am vaguely antinatalist, in that I agree with some of their philosophical positions. But to each their own, it's not my job to decide if someone else wants kids.

You will run into the whole spectrum because this is a small community in a small website, and I'm guessing that an antinatalism community would be like, three people.

It means I don’t sacrifice children to our lord Satan and eat them… anymore.