u/AmberAtlasStudio

I'm 31 and have been childfree my entire adult life. My mom has known this for years, we've had the conversation multiple times, and I genuinely thought we were past the point of relitigating it. Then last week at dinner she said it. The classic. "But what will you do when you're old and need someone to take care of you?" I've heard this argument used on other people and always had a response ready in my head. But hearing it from my own mom, at dinner, after years of thinking we had reached some kind of peace on the subject, it just made me feel exhausted in a way I wasnt expecting. I said something like "the same thing people without children do, I'll plan for it" and changed the subject. But I kept thinking about it afterwards. The argument is so strange if you actually examine it. It treats having a child as a retirement plan. It assumes the child will want to and be able to provide that care. It ignores that plenty of people with children end up in care homes anyway while their kids live across the country. It also sort of implies that the correct reason to bring a person into the world is so that they can eventually be useful to you. I dont resent my mom for saying it, I know she says things like this from a place of genuine concern. But I'm 31 and I have thought about this more carefully than most people think about almost anything. The assumption that I havent considered my own future is the part that gets me every time.