How are you childfree couples navigating life here?

I’m just curious… Do you get any snarky remarks from family or friends? How is your workplace reacting to you being childfree?
How do you keep your friendships alive with people who have children? How’s your life going here without children of your own?

As far as I am concerned, I am very content with my decision to be childfree as of now, and so is my partner. We just live our nurturing instincts differently by helping animals or volunteering in kodomo shokudou and the alike. My friend group is divided in happily married parents of children, who never said anything bad to me and those who give me the occasional passive aggresive or envious comment which I tend to laugh off.

Anyway, please feel free to share anything regarding this topic, I am very interested in how other childfree couples are navigating life here in Japan.

11 comments
  1. Before we had our kid, we kept getting the…Why don’t you have kids yet….your hafu kids will be so beautiful…yada yada yada.
    I think this all up to your preference. I wouldn’t worry too much about it if you and your partner are happy being childfree.

  2. If you enjoy a marriage visa the queers may have a few words for you. So you can enjoy all the benefits of marriage while not popping out mini mes, but us queers can’t do the same. Must be nice. I mean that is the purpose of marriage here in Japan right, to make a family? This is only half sarcastic, sorry for the ‘shade’.

    Edit: Feel free to downvote me. The last thing Japan needs is another listless housewife or ding bat gaijin husband who is ‘taking over the family farm’ as a pseudo job. Puhlease!

  3. Literally never had it come up even once. Nobody cares.

    Also I can just imagine how repulsed my wife would be at having to associate with mamatomo groups lol

  4. My wife and I have zero interest in kids. We travel often (even more often pre-pandemic) and not having to worry about kids means we can do whatever we want in our own time. Life’s good ✨

  5. literally in a society where childfree seems to be the norm(per the population decline), people dont care. the ones with kids are way more about their kids than your “childfree” life, and if they make a comment, it’s more of a reflection of their lives…not yours.

    sincerely a guy with a kid.

  6. Due to political environment, until now me and my wife still not think about kids yet. We do have some friends who are not planning to have kids, also we spent lots of time on traveling, as well as pets. Probably the next thing to do after getting PR is to buy a house and get a dog (we have rabbit and hamster now).

    We also love gaming, so with own house we might want to buy old arcade machine at home 😃

  7. Single. Don’t really associate with people after they have children, don’t want to hear their ugly little voices. No problems particularly, though potential employers seem to be wary that I can’t just wait to pop out one of the little shits.

  8. Given japan low birthrate , they are not in position to judge honestly.
    文句言える立場ジャネ〜😅

  9. Snarky remarks? No. All my friends are very much aware that I can’t stand kids. I am unabashedly vocal about that fact. And anyone questioning said fact will swiftly be in receipt of my list of reasons as to why I believe that bringing a child into this existence is basically an immoral choice in this day and age.

  10. I’ve had this come up from Japanese and non-Japanese co-workers.
    When are you getting married?
    Oh you got married? When are you having kids?
    Oh you had a kid? When are you having your 2nd kid?

    I find it very intrusive. Having or not having kids is nobody’s business except the couple involved.

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