If you're over 30 and you don't have children, I want you to do it this and
tell me what you love about not having children.
Because I'm still reaching a lot of moms with kids and
misogynistic men that keep telling me how lonely inside my life is.
>> An influencer named Danny Duncan on TikTok wanted to normalize the decision
to not have children.
Which feels pretty damn normal to someone like me, but others might still feel
the pressure to have kids when they don't really wanna have kids.
So here's how people responded to Duncan's call.
One person decided to submit a video saying or post a video saying 30th
birthday on the coast of Kenya in the most beautiful, relaxing house,
can't imagine this being possible slash peaceful if I had kids, okay?
Others right in, here's an individual who says I can travel to
Europe at the drop of a hat and I do, I sleep in every weekend and I do.
I don't understand people who could sleep in, I feel like you get to a certain age,
and it's like impossible to sleep like I wanna sleep in so badly.
But then it's like 5:30 AM on a Saturday and my body's like,
get up bitch, you can't go back to sleep, it's time to get up.
But anyway, that's beside the point we're talking about childless people,
yep, I know [LAUGH] I can work from home and get more done.
My money is my own, my time is my own, my life is my own,
I was able to go to Grad school, PhD, and also care for my elders.
Though through the end of their life, I also have no man children, do you boo?
This is the best time of my life says this one person,
let me give you one more time to knit, I love that.
Not having constant anxiety about being responsible for another human being,
I hear your sister.
Being the fun aunt, I hear you sister, not having to watch hours of something,
I don't know anything about.
Jake, you tell me you have children, what is that?
>> You're gonna have to watch tons and tons of kids movies, that's for sure.
Okay, I mean, I watch at least four X kids movies too grown up movies now.
>> [LAUGH] a new kids movie came out on apple plus, and
I got excited like we got a new movie to watch.
>> My gosh, that's insane.
No, I mean look, I have to say those Pixar movies are the bomb.
>> Yeah, they are.
>> But we don't talk about Bruno.
>> No, no, no, although John Leguizamo.
>> Bruno No, no, I love that song.
>> And John Leguizamo, who is Bruno's voice fan of the young Turks, so we dare,
we just talked about.
Okay, that's awesome.
Yeah.
All right, so let me jump in on this, so everybody will catch feelings of course,
[LAUGH] That's the standard for any story.
The parents who like it will say how dare you, the parents who don't like it,
will tell everybody will say something different, okay?
So my experience is that I love being a parent, I think having kids is amazing,
giant pain in the past, don't get me wrong, okay?
But totally worth it, I couldn't be happier, okay?
Now, for my friends who don't have kids, I think it makes perfect sense.
Why doesn't everybody just do what they wanna do?
>> Exactly, it's because of parents, it's because of people's parents, right?
Guilt tripping them for not having kids, and making them feel like they're
disappointments for not giving them grandchildren.
By the way, my parents don't think I'm a disappointment, so
I'm not speaking about this from my perspective, they finally accepted,
like I like my life, and I like being the fun on.
And don't get me wrong, like I get as a woman, the maternal instincts,
I just don't want the bad stuff that comes along with it.
So I get to like carry out my maternal instincts with my nieces, and
it's amazing, like my niece slept over for the first time.
Like my brother and sister in law are like their protective, I get it, and
they also they think it will be inconvenient.
But finally, like they needed help, they were gonna go to a wedding,
so my older niece got to stay with me, and it was amazing.
It was so nice to experience that for one night and then give her back.
>> Yeah, no, no, it's absolutely, and I have a friend,
we grew up together and went to the same high school,
he's Vietnamese, he grew up in the projects of our hometown, okay?
He wound up gonna a really great school, went back to Vietnam,
started his own business, did really well, got married to a lovely woman.
And I tell you all that because they decided not to have kids, and
they now do their business, which is online while they travel around the world.
Because they have excess money, because they didn't have kids, right?
And so they'll go to Paris for two weeks, they'll go to LA for four weeks,
they'll go to New York for a week, and go wherever they want.
And so I had lunch with them a couple of years back when they were in LA.
>> You could have just stopped at excess money.
>> Yeah, I know, right?
No, they described their life and I'm like, it sounds amazing.
Now, I don't like I envy the specific trips of course, right?
But at the end of the day, I prefer my life like I love that I had kids,
I couldn't get, King Richard did this weekend.
I started teaching my kids tennis even though I don't barely know tennis, okay?
So but it doesn't matter, we'll go out there, we had fun,
they hit the ball, and I loved it, right?
But I just, I know it's because of old school stuff, and
we did a story just a couple of days ago about Indian grandparents suing their son
because he didn't produce a grandchild.
So this is the pressure real, the pressure is real, okay?
So and it's in all the cultures, and we have goods, hard goods.
Okay, I'm here to tell you, you don't have to have kids, if you have kids,
you might love it like I do, and you might not by the way, that's also really.
>> You have to look, I get why parents wanna like pressure their kids to
have kids so they can be grandparents, but you have to live for yourself.
And what I like to think about whenever, like any time I did feel guilty, and
I considered it the way that I thought about it was, and this is a little dark,
but it's the truth.
One day my parents aren't even gonna be around and then I have to live with
the decision I made for them, so make decisions for you, right?
You're the one who has to deal with the ramifications of that decision, not that,
they just wanna be grandparents, and honestly, like sad day for you, right?
Like you don't have to deal with everything that comes along with it and
having kids isn't right for everybody.
But by the way, I can't help but
mention one other part of this that is a little dark,
which is these are people celebrating their choice not to have children.
And we're getting very close to a time in America where a lot of people,
a lot of women, don't get to make that choice.
>> Yeah.
All right, I'm gonna end on the lighter note about marriages and kids.
Look, if you're doing the just the calculus of it,
not having kids is the safer bet, I'm just being real with you, okay?
Now, I gambled and I got two great kids that I'm thrilled about, okay?
And I'm happy that I made that gamble.
But you are gambling and the cost of having kids, I don't mean just financial,
but just in every way, the amount of time et cetera, independence is inarguable.
That is a constant, and you're hoping the benefits outweigh the costs and
a lot of times they do, okay?
But if you don't have kids, you don't have the costs, okay?
[LAUGH] So it's a safer bet, but
I don't care what you do unlike everyone else, okay?
[LAUGH] Because I don't live your life.
And so my final point to you guys is if society tells you to follow certain rules
because it would hurt other people, like punching people in the face.
Society says don't do that, you should follow that rule,
that's a good rule, okay?
When society tells you something about how you should do
something that doesn't affect anyone else but you, feel free to ignore that rule.
Okay, that's like your opinion, man, okay?
You should do this or you should do that, it doesn't affect anyone else.
But society puts so much pressure on you, ignore them,
they're irrelevant, do what makes you happy.