Either way you did someone wonderful and I respect you for that. Glad that you're happily retired, I hope I can be like that soon (Spoiler Alert: It won't be any soon LOL).
I can understand that. Childfree but I'm a social worker who works specifically with queer teens and adults. A lot of them have been tossed aside by family, so it's fucking bullshit that popping a kid out automatically results in love
Damn it I need a tissue, if I had known that was a job I would have worked towards it. My childhood was bad but not the hell you're saving the kids from, but I knew so many and befriended them, helped them as we aged together, helped keep many of them alive. Now many have families or are living their best life and I'm so happy for my friends
I'm not the person you asked, but I wanna work with children and teens in the psych ward in the future. Just because I'm childfree I don't hate children. Sure, sometimes they are annoying, but adults can be equally as annoying and if I don't have them around 24/7 it's really no big deal.
Same! I work in early childhood education and many colleagues leave the field at some point once they have kids because it’s really hard to work with them then go home to the same. I chose the work because I was leaning childfree, but many choose kids over that job
I can Imagine. I've worked in homes for disabled adults and even that wasn't always easy, no matter how much I liked them, so I can only imagine what it's like with children. Kudos to you!! ❤️
I think it helped me (being cf) compared to my co-workers who weren’t cf. They didn’t want to work with kids because they had to go home with kids. They wanted a break. Yes it could be very difficult working with adolescents (in the psych ward I was at) because so many of them have trauma from being sexually abused and it could be very difficult hearing about it, but I really enjoyed my work. I saw it as helping them build up positive coping skills so they’d hopefully not need to be back as an adult.
Yup, it's like how some people work with animals all day but don't have pets of their own.
Plus it's good to have a separation between work and home life /j
Similar to you, OP - I used to work in academia (I don’t anymore), but I also found that many academics I knew didn’t have kids. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the job often requires you to travel a lot, and particularly after doing the PhD, many people need to move around internationally depending on the post-doc role they find. I believe that for the majority of academics, it is simply not practical to have children due to logistical and career-related factors. However, another thing I found interesting was that many of them (due to being analytical and critical thinkers) were also critical of the traditional ’family unit’, and critical of the very concept of bringing new babies into the world (for many reasons, e.g. climate change, future living conditions, violence/neglect, war, overpopulation etc). I no longer work in academia but still hold the same views regarding children.
You are absolutely right. I'm about to retire after 40 plus years as a CF college professor and it seems clear to me that well educated, intelligent people are far less likely to automatically buy into the whole "you must have children" mindset. I don't mean to suggest that if you have children you are stupid and uneducated, but I do mean to suggest that if you are stupid and uneducated you are far more likely to have children.
Totally agree. Worked in academia for a while and one of mentors discussed how it really changes at the doctoral level. So many of the programs are not designed to foster parenthood—especially for women. As this level of educational achievement often coincides with childbearing years, women especially are forced to make a choice between their career and a family. In my field of psychology, the shift was very apparent—master level students predominantly women and phd students predominantly men.
I had a lecturer at uni that moved around Europe and then came to the UK without his wife and young kids. He would go to see them where they lived every holiday. I would never want to be in a relationship where my partner spends about 5-6 months of the year away from me.
I'm sorry if this perspective offends the academics in the crowd 😅
I've heard from my doctorate friends that basically academics aren't mentally built to commit to other people. Like, they're socially very self-centered. My sister (a PhD) admits that academics are likely to divorce.
This is purely anecdotal, but I find many academics (particularly in the sciences) to be very narcissistic. These are not people you want to be parents in the first place.
My own ancidotal evidence- my husband has a PhD (psychology) and he is one of the most compassionate, empathetic, kind, and committed people I have ever met. We are both well educated (I have a masters in clinical social work) and we are extremely committed to each other and to our relationship. I also work in a large agency with a lot of other practitioners- I’d say 80% of us are married. One is divorced. I don’t think any of my coworkers are self-centred or narcissistic. I genuinely enjoy all of their company and really enjoy going in to work and being around those well educated, academic people all day.
Can confirm. I work in academia (but more chill community college level) and my wife is a professor at an R1 level institution and she is very sweet and cool person. However.....we can not hang out with ANY of her collogues from her work/field. We can't stand to be in the room with any of them more than 15 minutes. The arrogance is too much of a vibe kill.
What exactly did you notice that made you think they were full blown narcissists and not just more on the self-centered side? There's a huge difference, though I think neither should be parents.
Excessive need for admiration (the ones I've met in this vein dont like attention being taken away from them. One particular instance got mad at a baby for stealing the limelight at a party), lack of regard for other people's feelings (one PhD I know had a bad breakdown due to an allergic reaction to anxiety meds which basically sent her into self harm thoughts, but she refused to work on herself and her mental health but just expects everyone else to cope for her. We can't have problems or mental health issues of our own, because they're never "as bad" as hers and we should be catering to her feelings) , can't take constructive criticisms (granted, a lot of people can't, but many times Ive heard from PhDs/PhD candidates that their advisor/supervisor just doesnt like their dissertation subject, doesnt like them personally, blah blah blah and its always the advisor/supervisor's fault that they cant move forward in their process/paper/etc or are getting bad remarks/feedback), generally entitled (ex. "OH, well, I have a PhD. That should automatically get me to a 6-figure salary anywhere, "heard this one from multiple PhDs). Arrogant (ex. They believe no one could ever have more experience in any subject than they do simply because they have a PhD, therefore they believe they're experts on everything, my personal experience was a physics PhD proclaiming himself to be an expert fiduciary and no one could manage his family trust as trustee better than he can).
Granted, not every PhD I have met or interacted with exhibits narcissistic behaviors. One of my good friends has a PhD and is very down to earth, good person. However, like 3 of the 5 PhDs tend to display narcissistic traits. They may not be diagnosed as narcissistic, but as with many psychiatric disorders, it is a spectrum, and one can display narcissistic tendencies without being a diagnosed narcissist.
I work in travel and by its very nature this industry is pretty unfriendly towards parents particularly if you work in some jobs like flight attendant, tour guide etc. Maybe pilot but somehow those guys manage to have parallel lives with multiple families lol
Im an agent so i book holidays and a large part of my role is sales and relies a lot on experience and knowledge of destinations and logistics etc
If you're a woman? All of them.
[https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty](https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty) (you can find links to studies in the article)
I feel that the whole “women break to have a child” BS is used as an excuse not to pay men and women equally. I don’t have children, but was never able to “catch up” to my male counterparts doing the same job. I started at a lower level and lower salary and have always been doing the same job the men at my company, but getting a smaller paycheck.
Yup! As much as people try to say otherwise, the problem still exists. In fact in my company, they tend to overcompensate mothers. They will go out on maternity as a manager and come back as a director!
There has been a general trend of women having fewer children and being more likely to not have any, if they have more of an education. So it makes sense that women in academia would be more likely to be without children than the general population.
Evidently, at the higher end, this trend is lessening, but still women with Ph.D.s or professional degrees are less likely to have children than women who don't have a bachelor's degree:
[https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/06/25/childlessness-up-among-all-women-down-among-women-with-advanced-degrees/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/06/25/childlessness-up-among-all-women-down-among-women-with-advanced-degrees/)
Also, the overall trend is more people not having children than in the past, even among the not well educated (see link above).
Yeah the trend of longer time in education is driving some other changes in society as well, such as kids still living with their parents really late in comparison to other generations. I'm in Europe, and many countries in my region (Western Europe) the average age to leave the parental home is like 23, 24, 25. Dodged a bullet LOL I don't want to be 'parenting' and paying into my 50s!
After investing so much time in education, a lot of people don't want to just leave that all behind and pop out some kids LOL
First off, I love that you're in Ocean Sciences. Originally I wanted to get into marine biology since I grew up in Florida, but had a really hard time getting into a school in the south since I'd been moved to the Midwest as a teen. Ended up getting my degree in wildlife biology instead, so at least sort of similar!
My husband and I are wildland firefighters. He can be gone 90-100 days out of the year on assignments because that's what he does full-time. I can only do one 2 week assignment because my regular job doesn't allow more than that. Every person I know that's in the business struggles with family issues. Most are divorced, or just not married, and those who are, and/or have kids, have soooo many home issues. I always thought it was a bit selfish for people who do wildland fire full-time to have kids because most of the time they don't even live in the same state as their family during the season, and the wife/GF always ends up stuck with raising the kids alone for 6 months out of the year.
Funeral directors lol
Edit: elaborating more: funeral directors usually work long and sometimes erratic hours. On call a lot. The pay isn’t really great unless you’re working extensive hours. Not to mention sometimes traveling for work when a family wants an out of state burial, or if remains are in another state and need to be moved. A lot can happen and there’s a level of flexibility needed if you want to be successful. At least in my experience
I’m a teacher. I teach 16-18 year old. I’ve gone town to part time because I want more work life balance. I was literally depressed working 5 days a week. So I changed colleges and went down to 4 days
I work with teens. Other teachers have kids. They work with kids and then go home to kids. How?????????????????? I'm not even that old, and I am tired af. *How* do they do it?
So interesting!! What do you love most about your work?? I'm currently a PhD student in Neuroscience and Speech Language and Hearing Sciences. My research interests are speech and language, and how those processes are impacted by brain injury. I actually have a huge passion for medicine and I want to have a direct impact on patient care so I plan on going to medical school a few years after I finish to become an otolaryngologist- head and neck surgeon. In the future, I see myself teaching everything neck up to med students and other clinical professionals, doing research, and doing head and neck surgery at a teaching hospital. I'm excited for my career that I can focus on because I don't want any kids!! I love doing interesting work that helps so many people!!
Not many people in my field or academic space are childfree, but I think that's okay because other people having kids means better work life balance! People in my field are chill and understanding, which is great!
Hey! I did my master's in speech-language pathology last year! So cool to see someone in a similar area, and i love that you want to go on to do ENT. Huge props to you.
When i tell people i'm an SLP they assume i work with kids, teaching them to say their "R"s. I actually work in rehab with stroke and TBI patients (high dysphagia caseload), and i absolutely love it. My clinical director in school was constantly bingo-ing me and telling me how my school internship would change my mind and i’d want to work with kids + have my own.
It makes me so mad when people call this a “pink-collar” field (like 90% female, where women get a degree, get a husband, and only work until they have a baby). I worked so hard to get where I am and get competitive pay. I think it’d be significantly higher across the board if more men were SLPs.
Omg thanks for sharing! Actually my PhD program is dual with SLP so I plan on practicing for a few years as a med SLP before going back to medical school. Yes I agree with many things you said and I think it's the reason why my school is so focused on peds and I'm already feeling like speech therapy is just not fulfilling for me and I want to do more for my patients. I wish I did more medical based SLP things than just working on articulation and language expansion. I'm doing 2 medical externships, a medical CFY (hopefully), and maybe travel med slp for a bit before going back to med school.
i wonder why most highly educated people choose not to have kids 🤔
and why less educated folks pop them out like candy 🤔
edit: i’m being facetious, the link is quite obvious
Probably educated people understand the financial and social pressures of raising kids and also they actually want to have careers, which having kids can ruin.
Conversely, less educated people don't understand contraception and family planning and tend to have kids because they have no career prospects.
My husband is an RN and I'm a sonographer (ultrasound tech). We both have childfree coworkers and are happy to talk about our cats, spare time, money, and general life enjoyment. We are acutely aware that we have immense privilege that has allowed us to live our lives how we want. We like to remind our slightly younger coworkers that kids are a choice. (I then point out my most miserable coworker that complains ad nauseum about her kids)
Neither of us work full time. My husband works a 0.85FTE of 12hr days only due to medical issues. My medical issues are finally improving and I'm working on getting back to work. I am very lucky that I have great employer benefits with my disability situation. My workplace has been extremely flexible and is willing to accommodate. My husband is backed by a union and has a good pension.
Pet Care
I own my business doing dog walking and pet sitting. Not very child friendly. I cringe when other "sitters" bring their children with them on the job and think it's "so cute" how their kids "help." I wouldn't want the liability.
That said, it can be a flexible part-time job for parents, so idk if it's "child-friendly" in that way.
I work at a dog daycare and boarding facility (with dog walking) and there are only 2 parents in the whole company both being managers. I didn't even know one of them had kids tbh.
Anyway, our staff is 25-30 in age range, no children and most childfree.
Nope, applied like any other job. And the only previous experience I have is working at a movie theater, doing stock for a chocolate store and having spent a good majority of my life around dogs 🤷♀️ Been there almost 2 years.
ETA: I did have the bonus experience of having given my SO's family dog her insulin shots, because we also dispense any medication/vitamins the owners give us.
Autopsy assistant.
In this field, we are on call for autopsies at any time. We might get a call at 3am to do an autopsy at 6am. We might have 10 cases that will take us 12 to 15 hours to complete, and we need to work all those hours straight.
We’re a lot like EMTs in regards to needing to be available to show up on a moment’s notice — ESPECIALLY if the person died in the hospital. Hospitals are ruthless and expect to have autopsy results the day before the person died. (I exaggerate of course, but it really do feel like that with the amount of pressure they put on us.)
Also studying for a PhD, and it's evident to me that success - more so for women - in academia is dependent on childfree status.
I'm also a musician in the evenings and it simply wouldn't be doable with children.
I mean it IS possible, both of my parents are academics (so were my maternal grandparents) and my other co-supervisor is a woman with a family, but it requires a lot of sacrifices and potentially having kids at an older age. My parents were 34 when they had me and 38 when my brother was born, for instance.
Oh it's absolutely possible, but I'm witnessing far greater proportions of women drop out of academia compared to men because the environment isn't conducive to their desire to have children. The women in my department who do have children are all remarkable individuals who have incredible skills in time management and dedication!
Law. I can't imagine how can anyone with kids function properly with a field-related job. You're literally buried under a mountain of cases to solve and there's barely any time or energy left for anything. I worked at a difficult case and dropped my fanfiction writing passion because I couldn't find time and energy to devote to this hobby. I spent most of my time in the library😭
Especially homicide and vice detectives in police forces. I watch a lot of serial killer documentaries, and the number of times the case officers mention hardly seeing their families because of having to work 24/7 to solve a case and the toll it took on their children is staggering!
Aviation/Pilot for sure. Many male pilots have a wife at home raising their kids and joke (they're not joking) about being absentee fathers because they're gone 10-15 days a month. I'm a woman pilot and it makes absolutely zero sense to me how other women do it, especially when they don't have a partner that helps. The child rearing falls on the grandparents so much. It seems unfair to everyone involved. You couldn't pay me to have kids in this industry. Bananas.
My wife has her PhD in Ocean Sciences and I teach English as a second language at community college. I WAS k-12 teacher for ESL, but switched to teaching adults b/c I can't handle the k-12 world anymore. Teaching community college gives me the same high number of days off per year, much better pay, and none of the things that are broken about k-12. She is far busier than me, working in the higher up layer of academia. But I wanted to be exactly where I am at. We love our lives and our free time and take advantage of every day of it with goals/hobbies. And are so glad we didn't decide to fill it with laboring after children.
I do shift work in a factory, if it’s shift work it’s not suited for people with kids unless you have a partner who doesn’t work. Some days I do night shift, sometimes day shift, mostly afternoons. Ranging from 8-12hr shifts. I’ve noticed that the full-time workers only have older kids (16+ yrs old) or no kids, anyone with young kids seem to take casual work (1-2 days a week)
STEM fields, in general, tend to favor the childfree. A [2019 study](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810862116) that came out of New York University demonstrated that, after the birth of their first child, 43% of women will leave their full-time STEM careers. Study respondents that left their full-time STEM careers either pivoted into other careers or left the workforce entirely. Furthermore, the 2019 study cited prior studies which demonstrated that women with children are less likely to be employed in STEM fields, are viewed as "less valuable" employees when compared to the childfree, and are less likely to obtain tenure-track academic jobs when compared to similarly qualified fathers. New fathers are also affected but to a lesser extent (shocker /s). The study found that 24% of new fathers left their full-time STEM careers permanently, citing "family-related" issues.
I’m a forensic social worker at a public defenders office and most of my colleagues who are my age don’t have children, and not many of the middle added ones have them either. This is at least for the attorneys and social workers, not sure about admin. Nobody ever talks about wanting kids and the ones who have them don’t talk about them much. I have a much older colleague I’ve bonded with over being childfree, and he told me he, his wife, and their childfree friends are all just as fulfilled as the people they know with children. It’s very refreshing 💕
For me it’s been the freedom to move and seek better opportunities. I’ve worked with people who hate their jobs, are unhappy but are stuck because switching jobs would require to relocate and it’s a significant impact on their kids. I didn’t have to think about any of that.
Having no kids or family to tie me down is the main reason I got offered my previous job in marine enforcement. According to one of the senior marine officers who hired me I was the only applicant on the waiting list who was happy to relocate.
My late stepfather worked in a field where it was always tricky finding staff, and an overriding issue was that people couldn't relocate for jobs because of their family commitments.
Dental fields. Seriously it's a lot of training and certifications that cost money and time. There are parents in the field but working until 7 pm is probably tough for them.
I can imagine being a flight attendant doesn't land itself well to having kids with the amount of travelling and spending time away from home it entails.
I’m an accountant (public accounting) and our busy seasons you can push 80 hour weeks without blinking easily. Somehow so many people in my profession have children. We do have great leave benefits to be fair but the unspoken thing is that one spouse is always having to put work down to revolve around the kiddos and help the other one. The partners at my firm all seem to have either stay at home wives or wives with mobile careers because they have all of these stories of traveling and taking overseas assignments with their kiddos for like two years.
To answer the actual question, I feel like my career favors child free lifestyles in the sense that I have that freedom without having to handle kids, make a schedule work around my kids, I can take whatever opportunities I want. I don’t think my career hinders those with kids at all honestly but I know behind closed doors there are a lot of logistics and conversations and compromises that I don’t have to have. Single parents in my job have it rough because they end up working until 11 pm if they want to see their kid at all during the day and they don’t have help. I’m just glad I can grind now while I’m young without having to even think about it
I'm a self-employed/freelance Camera Assistant & Focus Puller
Flexible lifestyle but inconsistent schedule, love what I do & get to work with friends a lot.
Everyone I work with who has a kid basically uses work as their social life and has a VERY understanding partner who takes on most of the parenting workload & has a low demand/normal hours job.
I personally would hate that kind of relationship because you are either working or taking the parenting workload off your partner - where is the relationship being kept alive in that?
Academia for the win!!! I absolutely love that being a childfree woman is completely normal and common there. And while there are plenty of people who do have kids, they are generally not completely kid-focused and kid-obsessed the way most other parents are. Their kids are a big part of their lives but they have plenty of other substantial and fascinating things to talk about, related to their own work and the ideas swirling around them at all times, and THAT is primarily what we share with each other.
Motorcycle mechanic, children can’t afford them and the children that do ride aren’t on Harleys so I basically never even deal with them. It also allows me to basically live the biker lifestyle that I prefer as a guy and have it be a full time, well paying career. Most good shops have policies that keep anyone who doesn’t work there out of the bays. For me, bikes, weed, guns, combat sports, rescuing dogs are where it’s at. Half the guys I look at with kids are on the bikes to get away from the their kids for a little while. I don’t have that issue, it’s basically Daytona every day with me
I work in mental health (therapist). And my partner works in academia (professor). Both of those roles can at times have long, unpredictable hours and there’s a real need for down time in the evening because they are mentally straining. I don’t know many people in either of our fields with children, and those who do have children tend to have only 1.
i'm a self employed vintage seller online & at markets, and for fun on the side i work at festivals - absolutely nobody i know that does either of those things has kids, the only person in my business circle who had a baby quit to be a full time SAHM because you need a ton of spare time, freedom and availability on weekends
The film industry! It’s very tough to have kids if you get into this line of work.
Most people who do want kids don’t till after 40.
Majority in my area of the industry (makeup & hair) it’s SO rare to have kids because of how long projects/shows run for and the more freelance you are or non-Union? FORGET IT!
Heck you have divorces more often because you’re constantly traveling.
My one friend described it as a military circus. You are constantly traveling & living out of a suitcase, you are having to juggle a lot in the air while falling in line to chain of command to execute work as requested without questing it too much, you are constantly having a crazy schedule that can exhaust you but it’s structured chaos, and you need to check the personal life at the door to focus on everything.
And I’ve read from the FB crew stories posts how so many who had kids, they rarely got to see important milestone moments & wish they never got into the industry or quit a decade sooner for their kids. One guy said he was gone so much because the industry is heavily choosing to film in NY, Atlanta, Austin, etc… over LA, so instead of relocating his entire family and distrusting his kids lives, he sacrificed missing out on the big stuff with his kids over the last 20yrs!
And spouses who have partners in the industry joke about how they feel like widows 6-7 months out of the year because their partners are gone for work on a film set or tv show.
So if you want kids?
Do not get into the film industry!
But if you are 100% Childfree and plan to always be?
I say if you want a career in the film industry? GO FOR IT!
Nothing fancy on this end. I'm a claims dispatcher. I work from home most days a week so it's nice to not have kids to run around after. One of my coworkers on my team was never at his desk because he was looking after his sister's kids every day and he ended up losing the job due to it. I'm not kidding - chances were if you messaged him, he wasn't there. Not good for a fast-paced operation, lol.
Business, especially in higher up roles. I'm not sure how people with kids even manage some of these roles. While business jobs can have some flexibility, the workload and demand can make it so hard to have time for kids outside of work. A lot of my colleagues only spend time with their kids on the weekend, and even then, my general manager brings work home and does work at his hotel when he goes on family vacations.
Most if not all of them. Having a family can slow or stall any career. I can't think of a job that is improved by having children. Of course some are better than others for people who have kids, and I'm glad that those who want children have some options to still be employed. But a job ***favoring*** a child-free lifestyle indicates that it's better to not have kids than to have them, which is just true in general. Taking a long time off work for childbearing and early child rearing, randomly having to take last-minute days off when your kid is sick or has another emergency, having to make significantly more money to make ends meet (while also working less due to the aforementioned issues), being more dependent on your partner for both money and child-rearing (often leading to couples staying in bad relationships), being more dependent on your job for reasons like needed the group insurance for not only yourself but for the health of your child (again, often leading to staying in shitty jobs out of desperation), I could go on... none of these things are good in any field.
Well obviously having a family can stall any career, but I'm asking more about jobs that childfree people tend to gravitate to as the nature of the job favours them especially over say jobs like retail, childcare, hospitality etc that can accommodate parents quite easily.
You're right that careers like academia and other very demanding jobs. But a lot of us take "easier" jobs because we don't need to make as much money to pay for kids, plus we enjoy all the free time that a 40hr job and no kids gives you. I think that's the short version of what I was trying to say: we can do virtually whatever job we want and still get a ton of benefits from being child-free.
I'm not sure that child-free people gravitate towards the more demanding jobs, rather it's the other way around - people in demanding jobs often end up gravitating towards a child-free lifestyle.
In my area, Libraries tend to lean childfree, especially specialist and University Librarians.
Public libraries tend to have a good mix.
Childcare. The centre I used to work for tended to prefer to hire older childfree people. They did this by not offering discounts for childcare. I hated working in childcare (I did for ten years. I did get a degree out of it), we ended up being the most sort after service in my city.
I also come from an academic background and have chosen to remain childfree. I believe that having a child would impede my ability to fully master my chosen field.
I’m an industrial service technician. I drive all over sometimes spending a week or two doing PM’s and repairs. I love traveling and seeing new places and the job is involved and interesting. Could not even dream of doing this if i had a kid.
I used to work for a tertiary institute's library on a part-time basis as well as having a slight inkling into the tertiary education work thingie (I have worked temporarily at the university student dormitory too pre-pandemic times) so I can confirm it does favour the childfree by choice lifestyle
I’m 25 and I work in higher ed. I’m just starting my career in higher education, i’m going to school for my master’s in higher education, and then I’m planning to get a PhD. I don’t want to slow down, I know I can make a difference in the lives of the students I work with, and I know if I have a baby, it will deter me from the work I want to do. Many of my colleagues are successful in higher education and they do have multiple children, and that is great for them, but it’s just not the life I want for me.
I’m in social work. You can kinda pick what age group you want to work with. It’s funny I started my career wanting to work with seniors I’m now moving more towards working with youth.
Big law. You work hard, you play hard. And instead of giving your hard earned money to little snots you can enjoy a fantastic lifestyle. I seriously love my life.
I'm going back to school to become an ADHD specialist. I want to help adults that got diagnosed late, and help create better treatment options for kids. (As someone who grew up in the 2000s).
I work in a factory and am honestly shocked with how many of my coworkers have kids. Its such an exhausting job with frequent overtime, theres no way these people can have a good work/life balance doing this job with kids. I personally find it to favor my life of never having kids tho lol
My husband and I are both electricians (he is still an apprentice, and I am a journeyman). The nature of our jobs, level of danger, and the fact that being pregnant while shuffling around an attic or crawl space literally sounds like hell, were all deciding factors. He and I are very happy with no kids, and just our dog. Plus... no daycare is open at 4am for all the tradies to drop off their kids, so one of us would have to stay home. We both love what we do, so it just isn't in the cards.
Health care… I’m a pharmacist and of all my friends with kids they have husbands who are stay at home dads. We often work at least 2-3 days a week of 10-14 hour days (depending on location) and being in a retail setting we have to open at a certain time, PERIOD (or the Karen’s start Karen-ing) so you have a kid you need to drop off at school or take to daycare or a doctors appointment and need a little flexibility in the morning? Well too bad, there’s no flexibility with getting to work late. And I imagine the pharmacists working in the hospital have the same struggles. I knew quite a few hospital systems that worked on “7 on, 7 off” rotations where they work 7 days for 12 hours straight then they get 7 days off. I can’t imagine it’s possible to parent when you’re working that long for 7 days in a row.
Academia and also I work at a computer/tech/gaming retail business and on the whole 99% of the people don't have kids working for them. Just because most of them prefer to have their own space and hobbies (usually associated with gaming).
The visual arts. I don't know why. Most of the successful artists I know don't have children. The ones who made a bunch of money in some other field first, and now make art and live off their copious savings, most of the time they have kids. (Speaking from the point of view of working in the gallery indistry and for art dealers)
Looks like not having kids when you're an artist is very common, as this list highlights:
[https://internationalchildfreeday.com/famous-artists-who-had-no-children/](https://internationalchildfreeday.com/famous-artists-who-had-no-children/)
Anything art related. The Stress of taking care of little ones sucks the creativity out of you so so fast.
Also you need any free minute you can get to make this line of work sustainable
Anything with frequent travel or shift work. When working at sea, about half of the people on board had kids, and most of them struggled with being away for so long. They also tended to have slight fractious relationships with their older children.
The child free contingent (whether actively or passively) used to be much more suited to the lifestyle, with most of us coming back to work for a bit of rest, relaxation, and structure, after overdoing it for three months of leave. Hell, I was jokingly referred to as "the adventurous unemployed friend with money".
My wife used to work in academe (linguistics) until she had a major burnout and depression. But yes, academia definitely discourages people to have kids. And can frown upon people having other interests besides their field of research. For my wife it was too much. She does need her time off and delve into other interests and hobbies as well (making music, reading and writing about other stuff). And she -more then me- had a desire to settle down in one place and have some stability.
I know some other people in academia have to make big concessions to combine career and family life (for example: living in 2 countries and travelling from your workplace to your spouse and kids in the weekends).
I also had childfree uncles and aunts that worked in academe all their lives.
I'm glad you have found your place. Ocean science sounds so cool to me, what is your research about?
Diseases in brown crabs.
One of my fellow post-docs just moved to Norway for her work, and she's taken her husband and 10 year old son with her. She said the stress of having to move them is something she wouldn't want to repeat and told me if you're going to move to a foreign country for work, do it BEFORE you have a husband and child!
I work in the safety field as a manager. Nothing like getting called into work at random hours for after hour emergencies. I don't mind the extra hours (= extra money) and my employer always shows appreciation in the form of nice hefty bonuses for going above and beyond (covering for supervisors in other depts cause kids are sick etc..). I rarely call in sick and am able to give my 100% since I'm not drained from caring for kids all the time.
Travel agent. You get the opportunity to do a lot of travel by yourself or in groups without other family members and the hours can be long. Having a kid just isn’t conductive in my opinion.
I hope I can find a partner to marry/co-life with as wonderful and interesting as people commenting on this. Really inspires me as I totally change careers going into 40 ☺
Military. One of the reasons I don’t want kids is because my spouse is in and wants it to be a career. I have no clue why a lot of service members pop them out like rabbits.
Not even that, just the lifestyle doesn’t favor having kids. Constant moving, away from family, depending on the job the military member can be gone from 6 am to 12 am or sometimes for a week or more, and let’s not get into deployments.
Child Abuse Investigation. I was told I wouldn’t have time for even a pet (& it was true)
Fucking hell. I can't even imagine. Thank you. Sincerely, you are a hero.
May I ask why you don’t want kids but ended up working in CAI?
I wanted to save children from what I went through (& I did)
Kind people like you are so fucking rare, thank you for what you do!
You’re a hero.
Congratulations! What you do is amazing, actually!
It’s not a sustainable career…I had to take many breaks. I’m now retired (very happily)
Either way you did someone wonderful and I respect you for that. Glad that you're happily retired, I hope I can be like that soon (Spoiler Alert: It won't be any soon LOL).
Good for you, I hope that you have an awesome retirement! My mom did similar work. Bless you.
I can understand that. Childfree but I'm a social worker who works specifically with queer teens and adults. A lot of them have been tossed aside by family, so it's fucking bullshit that popping a kid out automatically results in love
You’re amazing 🩷
💗
That’s amazing. I’m in school for social work, but I don’t think I could handle CAI. My aunt had the same job and only lasted a year
You're awesome. Thank you for all you do.
Respect
You're a great Person. I really appreciate people like you ❤️
Thank you for saving them. From the bottom of my heart.
Damn it I need a tissue, if I had known that was a job I would have worked towards it. My childhood was bad but not the hell you're saving the kids from, but I knew so many and befriended them, helped them as we aged together, helped keep many of them alive. Now many have families or are living their best life and I'm so happy for my friends
I'm not the person you asked, but I wanna work with children and teens in the psych ward in the future. Just because I'm childfree I don't hate children. Sure, sometimes they are annoying, but adults can be equally as annoying and if I don't have them around 24/7 it's really no big deal.
Same! I work in early childhood education and many colleagues leave the field at some point once they have kids because it’s really hard to work with them then go home to the same. I chose the work because I was leaning childfree, but many choose kids over that job
Special ed teacher and I couldn't be happier. The (high school) kids are mostly cool, I get paid every two weeks, and summers off.
That’s a fair point. I work with children that have special needs. I love them to death. But at times it takes a big mental toll on me
It's very fulfilling to support families who really need your help. And, I get to give them back at the end of the day 😅
I can Imagine. I've worked in homes for disabled adults and even that wasn't always easy, no matter how much I liked them, so I can only imagine what it's like with children. Kudos to you!! ❤️
Yes, I worked psych inpatient. But special needs was not for me.
I think it helped me (being cf) compared to my co-workers who weren’t cf. They didn’t want to work with kids because they had to go home with kids. They wanted a break. Yes it could be very difficult working with adolescents (in the psych ward I was at) because so many of them have trauma from being sexually abused and it could be very difficult hearing about it, but I really enjoyed my work. I saw it as helping them build up positive coping skills so they’d hopefully not need to be back as an adult.
Yup, it's like how some people work with animals all day but don't have pets of their own. Plus it's good to have a separation between work and home life /j
Personally I enjoy working with kids for a few hours per week but not having then 24/7. Huge difference.
What kind of education did you need for this? Criminal justice?
The irony
Similar to you, OP - I used to work in academia (I don’t anymore), but I also found that many academics I knew didn’t have kids. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the job often requires you to travel a lot, and particularly after doing the PhD, many people need to move around internationally depending on the post-doc role they find. I believe that for the majority of academics, it is simply not practical to have children due to logistical and career-related factors. However, another thing I found interesting was that many of them (due to being analytical and critical thinkers) were also critical of the traditional ’family unit’, and critical of the very concept of bringing new babies into the world (for many reasons, e.g. climate change, future living conditions, violence/neglect, war, overpopulation etc). I no longer work in academia but still hold the same views regarding children.
You are absolutely right. I'm about to retire after 40 plus years as a CF college professor and it seems clear to me that well educated, intelligent people are far less likely to automatically buy into the whole "you must have children" mindset. I don't mean to suggest that if you have children you are stupid and uneducated, but I do mean to suggest that if you are stupid and uneducated you are far more likely to have children.
Love that last bit.
Then stupid people = stupid kids
Yep. And on the cycle goes
Basically the premise of the movie Idiocracy.
Yep. I never related to a movie scene more than the one at the start of that movie.
Totally agree. Worked in academia for a while and one of mentors discussed how it really changes at the doctoral level. So many of the programs are not designed to foster parenthood—especially for women. As this level of educational achievement often coincides with childbearing years, women especially are forced to make a choice between their career and a family. In my field of psychology, the shift was very apparent—master level students predominantly women and phd students predominantly men.
All of what you have said is 100% spot on!
I had a lecturer at uni that moved around Europe and then came to the UK without his wife and young kids. He would go to see them where they lived every holiday. I would never want to be in a relationship where my partner spends about 5-6 months of the year away from me.
I'm sorry if this perspective offends the academics in the crowd 😅 I've heard from my doctorate friends that basically academics aren't mentally built to commit to other people. Like, they're socially very self-centered. My sister (a PhD) admits that academics are likely to divorce. This is purely anecdotal, but I find many academics (particularly in the sciences) to be very narcissistic. These are not people you want to be parents in the first place.
My own ancidotal evidence- my husband has a PhD (psychology) and he is one of the most compassionate, empathetic, kind, and committed people I have ever met. We are both well educated (I have a masters in clinical social work) and we are extremely committed to each other and to our relationship. I also work in a large agency with a lot of other practitioners- I’d say 80% of us are married. One is divorced. I don’t think any of my coworkers are self-centred or narcissistic. I genuinely enjoy all of their company and really enjoy going in to work and being around those well educated, academic people all day.
Can confirm. I work in academia (but more chill community college level) and my wife is a professor at an R1 level institution and she is very sweet and cool person. However.....we can not hang out with ANY of her collogues from her work/field. We can't stand to be in the room with any of them more than 15 minutes. The arrogance is too much of a vibe kill.
Uh... extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Can your sister cite any references on this?
Yeah, plust that dumb emoji makes my blood boil
What exactly did you notice that made you think they were full blown narcissists and not just more on the self-centered side? There's a huge difference, though I think neither should be parents.
Excessive need for admiration (the ones I've met in this vein dont like attention being taken away from them. One particular instance got mad at a baby for stealing the limelight at a party), lack of regard for other people's feelings (one PhD I know had a bad breakdown due to an allergic reaction to anxiety meds which basically sent her into self harm thoughts, but she refused to work on herself and her mental health but just expects everyone else to cope for her. We can't have problems or mental health issues of our own, because they're never "as bad" as hers and we should be catering to her feelings) , can't take constructive criticisms (granted, a lot of people can't, but many times Ive heard from PhDs/PhD candidates that their advisor/supervisor just doesnt like their dissertation subject, doesnt like them personally, blah blah blah and its always the advisor/supervisor's fault that they cant move forward in their process/paper/etc or are getting bad remarks/feedback), generally entitled (ex. "OH, well, I have a PhD. That should automatically get me to a 6-figure salary anywhere, "heard this one from multiple PhDs). Arrogant (ex. They believe no one could ever have more experience in any subject than they do simply because they have a PhD, therefore they believe they're experts on everything, my personal experience was a physics PhD proclaiming himself to be an expert fiduciary and no one could manage his family trust as trustee better than he can). Granted, not every PhD I have met or interacted with exhibits narcissistic behaviors. One of my good friends has a PhD and is very down to earth, good person. However, like 3 of the 5 PhDs tend to display narcissistic traits. They may not be diagnosed as narcissistic, but as with many psychiatric disorders, it is a spectrum, and one can display narcissistic tendencies without being a diagnosed narcissist.
I work in travel and by its very nature this industry is pretty unfriendly towards parents particularly if you work in some jobs like flight attendant, tour guide etc. Maybe pilot but somehow those guys manage to have parallel lives with multiple families lol Im an agent so i book holidays and a large part of my role is sales and relies a lot on experience and knowledge of destinations and logistics etc
Absolutely agree!
If you're a woman? All of them. [https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty](https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty) (you can find links to studies in the article)
I feel that the whole “women break to have a child” BS is used as an excuse not to pay men and women equally. I don’t have children, but was never able to “catch up” to my male counterparts doing the same job. I started at a lower level and lower salary and have always been doing the same job the men at my company, but getting a smaller paycheck.
Still in the 21th fucking century!!!
Yup! As much as people try to say otherwise, the problem still exists. In fact in my company, they tend to overcompensate mothers. They will go out on maternity as a manager and come back as a director!
There has been a general trend of women having fewer children and being more likely to not have any, if they have more of an education. So it makes sense that women in academia would be more likely to be without children than the general population. Evidently, at the higher end, this trend is lessening, but still women with Ph.D.s or professional degrees are less likely to have children than women who don't have a bachelor's degree: [https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/06/25/childlessness-up-among-all-women-down-among-women-with-advanced-degrees/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/06/25/childlessness-up-among-all-women-down-among-women-with-advanced-degrees/) Also, the overall trend is more people not having children than in the past, even among the not well educated (see link above).
Ooh, that's really interesting!
Yeah the trend of longer time in education is driving some other changes in society as well, such as kids still living with their parents really late in comparison to other generations. I'm in Europe, and many countries in my region (Western Europe) the average age to leave the parental home is like 23, 24, 25. Dodged a bullet LOL I don't want to be 'parenting' and paying into my 50s! After investing so much time in education, a lot of people don't want to just leave that all behind and pop out some kids LOL
First off, I love that you're in Ocean Sciences. Originally I wanted to get into marine biology since I grew up in Florida, but had a really hard time getting into a school in the south since I'd been moved to the Midwest as a teen. Ended up getting my degree in wildlife biology instead, so at least sort of similar! My husband and I are wildland firefighters. He can be gone 90-100 days out of the year on assignments because that's what he does full-time. I can only do one 2 week assignment because my regular job doesn't allow more than that. Every person I know that's in the business struggles with family issues. Most are divorced, or just not married, and those who are, and/or have kids, have soooo many home issues. I always thought it was a bit selfish for people who do wildland fire full-time to have kids because most of the time they don't even live in the same state as their family during the season, and the wife/GF always ends up stuck with raising the kids alone for 6 months out of the year.
Not to mention they must be constantly worried that something will happen to their partner and they may never come back.
Funeral directors lol Edit: elaborating more: funeral directors usually work long and sometimes erratic hours. On call a lot. The pay isn’t really great unless you’re working extensive hours. Not to mention sometimes traveling for work when a family wants an out of state burial, or if remains are in another state and need to be moved. A lot can happen and there’s a level of flexibility needed if you want to be successful. At least in my experience
I’m a teacher. I teach 16-18 year old. I’ve gone town to part time because I want more work life balance. I was literally depressed working 5 days a week. So I changed colleges and went down to 4 days
I work with teens. Other teachers have kids. They work with kids and then go home to kids. How?????????????????? I'm not even that old, and I am tired af. *How* do they do it?
Mary Jane dispensaries. The only time we have to deal with them is if they're a medical patient, which is sad honestly :(
I had to look up what that was as I'd never heard of Mary Jane being used as another word for weed.
I typed in marijuana but it autocorrected to Mary Jane lmao oopsie 😂
Well then you have never seen the cinematic masterpiece that is Half Baked.
Never heard of it, let alone seen it
It's great for a "stoner comedy." If you enjoy 90's mindless fun comedies like Road Trip, How High, Old School etc. Worth it just for the fun quotes.
That's awesome, that literally is a code word for Marijuana and has been since at least the '70s 😂 your autocorrect just looking out for you lolol
So interesting!! What do you love most about your work?? I'm currently a PhD student in Neuroscience and Speech Language and Hearing Sciences. My research interests are speech and language, and how those processes are impacted by brain injury. I actually have a huge passion for medicine and I want to have a direct impact on patient care so I plan on going to medical school a few years after I finish to become an otolaryngologist- head and neck surgeon. In the future, I see myself teaching everything neck up to med students and other clinical professionals, doing research, and doing head and neck surgery at a teaching hospital. I'm excited for my career that I can focus on because I don't want any kids!! I love doing interesting work that helps so many people!! Not many people in my field or academic space are childfree, but I think that's okay because other people having kids means better work life balance! People in my field are chill and understanding, which is great!
Hey! I did my master's in speech-language pathology last year! So cool to see someone in a similar area, and i love that you want to go on to do ENT. Huge props to you. When i tell people i'm an SLP they assume i work with kids, teaching them to say their "R"s. I actually work in rehab with stroke and TBI patients (high dysphagia caseload), and i absolutely love it. My clinical director in school was constantly bingo-ing me and telling me how my school internship would change my mind and i’d want to work with kids + have my own. It makes me so mad when people call this a “pink-collar” field (like 90% female, where women get a degree, get a husband, and only work until they have a baby). I worked so hard to get where I am and get competitive pay. I think it’d be significantly higher across the board if more men were SLPs.
Omg thanks for sharing! Actually my PhD program is dual with SLP so I plan on practicing for a few years as a med SLP before going back to medical school. Yes I agree with many things you said and I think it's the reason why my school is so focused on peds and I'm already feeling like speech therapy is just not fulfilling for me and I want to do more for my patients. I wish I did more medical based SLP things than just working on articulation and language expansion. I'm doing 2 medical externships, a medical CFY (hopefully), and maybe travel med slp for a bit before going back to med school.
Environmental work. Sooo many of my colleagues don’t have kids.
Why is that?
Maybe it’s because those people can see what humanity is doing to the planet and don’t want to add to it?
i wonder why most highly educated people choose not to have kids 🤔 and why less educated folks pop them out like candy 🤔 edit: i’m being facetious, the link is quite obvious
Probably educated people understand the financial and social pressures of raising kids and also they actually want to have careers, which having kids can ruin. Conversely, less educated people don't understand contraception and family planning and tend to have kids because they have no career prospects.
There's a study on that, someone already posted in another comment, check it out
My husband is an RN and I'm a sonographer (ultrasound tech). We both have childfree coworkers and are happy to talk about our cats, spare time, money, and general life enjoyment. We are acutely aware that we have immense privilege that has allowed us to live our lives how we want. We like to remind our slightly younger coworkers that kids are a choice. (I then point out my most miserable coworker that complains ad nauseum about her kids) Neither of us work full time. My husband works a 0.85FTE of 12hr days only due to medical issues. My medical issues are finally improving and I'm working on getting back to work. I am very lucky that I have great employer benefits with my disability situation. My workplace has been extremely flexible and is willing to accommodate. My husband is backed by a union and has a good pension.
Pet Care I own my business doing dog walking and pet sitting. Not very child friendly. I cringe when other "sitters" bring their children with them on the job and think it's "so cute" how their kids "help." I wouldn't want the liability. That said, it can be a flexible part-time job for parents, so idk if it's "child-friendly" in that way.
I work at a dog daycare and boarding facility (with dog walking) and there are only 2 parents in the whole company both being managers. I didn't even know one of them had kids tbh. Anyway, our staff is 25-30 in age range, no children and most childfree.
How did you find work at a dog daycare/boarding facility? Did you have volunteer experience first?
Nope, applied like any other job. And the only previous experience I have is working at a movie theater, doing stock for a chocolate store and having spent a good majority of my life around dogs 🤷♀️ Been there almost 2 years. ETA: I did have the bonus experience of having given my SO's family dog her insulin shots, because we also dispense any medication/vitamins the owners give us.
Well, I work in healthcare so maybe that will help! 😂
Any line of work that deals directly with sex offenders
Autopsy assistant. In this field, we are on call for autopsies at any time. We might get a call at 3am to do an autopsy at 6am. We might have 10 cases that will take us 12 to 15 hours to complete, and we need to work all those hours straight. We’re a lot like EMTs in regards to needing to be available to show up on a moment’s notice — ESPECIALLY if the person died in the hospital. Hospitals are ruthless and expect to have autopsy results the day before the person died. (I exaggerate of course, but it really do feel like that with the amount of pressure they put on us.)
Also studying for a PhD, and it's evident to me that success - more so for women - in academia is dependent on childfree status. I'm also a musician in the evenings and it simply wouldn't be doable with children.
I mean it IS possible, both of my parents are academics (so were my maternal grandparents) and my other co-supervisor is a woman with a family, but it requires a lot of sacrifices and potentially having kids at an older age. My parents were 34 when they had me and 38 when my brother was born, for instance.
Oh it's absolutely possible, but I'm witnessing far greater proportions of women drop out of academia compared to men because the environment isn't conducive to their desire to have children. The women in my department who do have children are all remarkable individuals who have incredible skills in time management and dedication!
Doctor. Plan to do telemedicine full time and travel.
Game Development - I worked with so many child free couples in this industry.
Law. I can't imagine how can anyone with kids function properly with a field-related job. You're literally buried under a mountain of cases to solve and there's barely any time or energy left for anything. I worked at a difficult case and dropped my fanfiction writing passion because I couldn't find time and energy to devote to this hobby. I spent most of my time in the library😭
Especially homicide and vice detectives in police forces. I watch a lot of serial killer documentaries, and the number of times the case officers mention hardly seeing their families because of having to work 24/7 to solve a case and the toll it took on their children is staggering!
Fiction novelist. Holding an imaginary world and imaginary people in your mind requires uninterrupted focus.
I work in humanitarian aid and it's very hard to have a family in this career. I know people who do but it's challenging.
Aviation/Pilot for sure. Many male pilots have a wife at home raising their kids and joke (they're not joking) about being absentee fathers because they're gone 10-15 days a month. I'm a woman pilot and it makes absolutely zero sense to me how other women do it, especially when they don't have a partner that helps. The child rearing falls on the grandparents so much. It seems unfair to everyone involved. You couldn't pay me to have kids in this industry. Bananas.
NOT: Union Construction. 😆 Forever odd man out.
All of them
I'm actually in the same field as OP (masters level tho) and I've noticed this too !
What are you studying?
Brackish and marine ostracodes. What about you ?
Diseases in brown crabs
Merchant mariner. Gotta be 18 to even work on a ship
My wife has her PhD in Ocean Sciences and I teach English as a second language at community college. I WAS k-12 teacher for ESL, but switched to teaching adults b/c I can't handle the k-12 world anymore. Teaching community college gives me the same high number of days off per year, much better pay, and none of the things that are broken about k-12. She is far busier than me, working in the higher up layer of academia. But I wanted to be exactly where I am at. We love our lives and our free time and take advantage of every day of it with goals/hobbies. And are so glad we didn't decide to fill it with laboring after children.
I do shift work in a factory, if it’s shift work it’s not suited for people with kids unless you have a partner who doesn’t work. Some days I do night shift, sometimes day shift, mostly afternoons. Ranging from 8-12hr shifts. I’ve noticed that the full-time workers only have older kids (16+ yrs old) or no kids, anyone with young kids seem to take casual work (1-2 days a week)
STEM fields, in general, tend to favor the childfree. A [2019 study](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810862116) that came out of New York University demonstrated that, after the birth of their first child, 43% of women will leave their full-time STEM careers. Study respondents that left their full-time STEM careers either pivoted into other careers or left the workforce entirely. Furthermore, the 2019 study cited prior studies which demonstrated that women with children are less likely to be employed in STEM fields, are viewed as "less valuable" employees when compared to the childfree, and are less likely to obtain tenure-track academic jobs when compared to similarly qualified fathers. New fathers are also affected but to a lesser extent (shocker /s). The study found that 24% of new fathers left their full-time STEM careers permanently, citing "family-related" issues.
I’m a forensic social worker at a public defenders office and most of my colleagues who are my age don’t have children, and not many of the middle added ones have them either. This is at least for the attorneys and social workers, not sure about admin. Nobody ever talks about wanting kids and the ones who have them don’t talk about them much. I have a much older colleague I’ve bonded with over being childfree, and he told me he, his wife, and their childfree friends are all just as fulfilled as the people they know with children. It’s very refreshing 💕
Medicine The time tax alone is a real deterant
For me it’s been the freedom to move and seek better opportunities. I’ve worked with people who hate their jobs, are unhappy but are stuck because switching jobs would require to relocate and it’s a significant impact on their kids. I didn’t have to think about any of that.
Having no kids or family to tie me down is the main reason I got offered my previous job in marine enforcement. According to one of the senior marine officers who hired me I was the only applicant on the waiting list who was happy to relocate.
My late stepfather worked in a field where it was always tricky finding staff, and an overriding issue was that people couldn't relocate for jobs because of their family commitments.
Dental fields. Seriously it's a lot of training and certifications that cost money and time. There are parents in the field but working until 7 pm is probably tough for them.
...the more educated, the less kids.
Nonprofits because the pay is generally lower than for-profit companies
My spouse is a flight attendant.
I can imagine being a flight attendant doesn't land itself well to having kids with the amount of travelling and spending time away from home it entails.
I’m an accountant (public accounting) and our busy seasons you can push 80 hour weeks without blinking easily. Somehow so many people in my profession have children. We do have great leave benefits to be fair but the unspoken thing is that one spouse is always having to put work down to revolve around the kiddos and help the other one. The partners at my firm all seem to have either stay at home wives or wives with mobile careers because they have all of these stories of traveling and taking overseas assignments with their kiddos for like two years. To answer the actual question, I feel like my career favors child free lifestyles in the sense that I have that freedom without having to handle kids, make a schedule work around my kids, I can take whatever opportunities I want. I don’t think my career hinders those with kids at all honestly but I know behind closed doors there are a lot of logistics and conversations and compromises that I don’t have to have. Single parents in my job have it rough because they end up working until 11 pm if they want to see their kid at all during the day and they don’t have help. I’m just glad I can grind now while I’m young without having to even think about it
Academia for sure, anything traveling, especially for long periods of time.
Day Trading. That way, people can't force/guilt us to work holidays so PaReNtS wOn'T hAvE tO.
Trades. No time for kids, too busy running my business, and it's non-stop.
Travel especially active travel and outdoor industry.
I'm also a PhD student and all the researchers and professors around me have kids
What field are you in?
Computer science, but the lab I work in is mostly people from psychology and social sciences
Ah then those fields tend to be more concentrated on parents
Artist/Creative fields Professional athletes Trucker/Pilot/Conductor/Long distant transportation workers
Plenty of professional football (soccer) players with families, many have 4+ children.
Travel blogger
Tattoo industry
I'm a self-employed/freelance Camera Assistant & Focus Puller Flexible lifestyle but inconsistent schedule, love what I do & get to work with friends a lot. Everyone I work with who has a kid basically uses work as their social life and has a VERY understanding partner who takes on most of the parenting workload & has a low demand/normal hours job. I personally would hate that kind of relationship because you are either working or taking the parenting workload off your partner - where is the relationship being kept alive in that?
Chemical engineering, it's the second highest percentage of childfree women in any career.
Why is that?
Academia for the win!!! I absolutely love that being a childfree woman is completely normal and common there. And while there are plenty of people who do have kids, they are generally not completely kid-focused and kid-obsessed the way most other parents are. Their kids are a big part of their lives but they have plenty of other substantial and fascinating things to talk about, related to their own work and the ideas swirling around them at all times, and THAT is primarily what we share with each other.
I was a process / application engineer for nearly 25 years and they don't have families.
Also life entertainment...
I am also in academia and find many like-minded people in their mid 20’s. Who knows how that will change with age but for now it’s refreshing.
Motorcycle mechanic, children can’t afford them and the children that do ride aren’t on Harleys so I basically never even deal with them. It also allows me to basically live the biker lifestyle that I prefer as a guy and have it be a full time, well paying career. Most good shops have policies that keep anyone who doesn’t work there out of the bays. For me, bikes, weed, guns, combat sports, rescuing dogs are where it’s at. Half the guys I look at with kids are on the bikes to get away from the their kids for a little while. I don’t have that issue, it’s basically Daytona every day with me
I work in mental health (therapist). And my partner works in academia (professor). Both of those roles can at times have long, unpredictable hours and there’s a real need for down time in the evening because they are mentally straining. I don’t know many people in either of our fields with children, and those who do have children tend to have only 1.
Events/Live Production. We often work weekends and nights and live a very social lifestyle.
i'm a self employed vintage seller online & at markets, and for fun on the side i work at festivals - absolutely nobody i know that does either of those things has kids, the only person in my business circle who had a baby quit to be a full time SAHM because you need a ton of spare time, freedom and availability on weekends
Be a computer programmer in Silicon Valley for a company that wants you to work 60 hours a week.
Construction
The film industry! It’s very tough to have kids if you get into this line of work. Most people who do want kids don’t till after 40. Majority in my area of the industry (makeup & hair) it’s SO rare to have kids because of how long projects/shows run for and the more freelance you are or non-Union? FORGET IT! Heck you have divorces more often because you’re constantly traveling. My one friend described it as a military circus. You are constantly traveling & living out of a suitcase, you are having to juggle a lot in the air while falling in line to chain of command to execute work as requested without questing it too much, you are constantly having a crazy schedule that can exhaust you but it’s structured chaos, and you need to check the personal life at the door to focus on everything. And I’ve read from the FB crew stories posts how so many who had kids, they rarely got to see important milestone moments & wish they never got into the industry or quit a decade sooner for their kids. One guy said he was gone so much because the industry is heavily choosing to film in NY, Atlanta, Austin, etc… over LA, so instead of relocating his entire family and distrusting his kids lives, he sacrificed missing out on the big stuff with his kids over the last 20yrs! And spouses who have partners in the industry joke about how they feel like widows 6-7 months out of the year because their partners are gone for work on a film set or tv show. So if you want kids? Do not get into the film industry! But if you are 100% Childfree and plan to always be? I say if you want a career in the film industry? GO FOR IT!
Funnily enough in school and before I decided marine science was a better career choice I wanted to get into the film industry.
You still could but documentaries with marine science for things with PBS and educational stuff.
That would be my dream job, ngl. If only it wasn't so damn competitive!
Nothing fancy on this end. I'm a claims dispatcher. I work from home most days a week so it's nice to not have kids to run around after. One of my coworkers on my team was never at his desk because he was looking after his sister's kids every day and he ended up losing the job due to it. I'm not kidding - chances were if you messaged him, he wasn't there. Not good for a fast-paced operation, lol.
Military. You end up moving around a lot. People with kids do it, but it’s much easier without kids.
Also there's a very high chance of you being killed and leaving your kids minus a parent
Business, especially in higher up roles. I'm not sure how people with kids even manage some of these roles. While business jobs can have some flexibility, the workload and demand can make it so hard to have time for kids outside of work. A lot of my colleagues only spend time with their kids on the weekend, and even then, my general manager brings work home and does work at his hotel when he goes on family vacations.
Most if not all of them. Having a family can slow or stall any career. I can't think of a job that is improved by having children. Of course some are better than others for people who have kids, and I'm glad that those who want children have some options to still be employed. But a job ***favoring*** a child-free lifestyle indicates that it's better to not have kids than to have them, which is just true in general. Taking a long time off work for childbearing and early child rearing, randomly having to take last-minute days off when your kid is sick or has another emergency, having to make significantly more money to make ends meet (while also working less due to the aforementioned issues), being more dependent on your partner for both money and child-rearing (often leading to couples staying in bad relationships), being more dependent on your job for reasons like needed the group insurance for not only yourself but for the health of your child (again, often leading to staying in shitty jobs out of desperation), I could go on... none of these things are good in any field.
Well obviously having a family can stall any career, but I'm asking more about jobs that childfree people tend to gravitate to as the nature of the job favours them especially over say jobs like retail, childcare, hospitality etc that can accommodate parents quite easily.
You're right that careers like academia and other very demanding jobs. But a lot of us take "easier" jobs because we don't need to make as much money to pay for kids, plus we enjoy all the free time that a 40hr job and no kids gives you. I think that's the short version of what I was trying to say: we can do virtually whatever job we want and still get a ton of benefits from being child-free. I'm not sure that child-free people gravitate towards the more demanding jobs, rather it's the other way around - people in demanding jobs often end up gravitating towards a child-free lifestyle.
Film industry due to travel
In my area, Libraries tend to lean childfree, especially specialist and University Librarians. Public libraries tend to have a good mix. Childcare. The centre I used to work for tended to prefer to hire older childfree people. They did this by not offering discounts for childcare. I hated working in childcare (I did for ten years. I did get a degree out of it), we ended up being the most sort after service in my city.
Tattooing.
I'm an academic, but the majority of my colleagues have children. I am in a female dominated discipline though; I have no idea how they do it.
I also come from an academic background and have chosen to remain childfree. I believe that having a child would impede my ability to fully master my chosen field.
I’m an industrial service technician. I drive all over sometimes spending a week or two doing PM’s and repairs. I love traveling and seeing new places and the job is involved and interesting. Could not even dream of doing this if i had a kid.
I used to work for a tertiary institute's library on a part-time basis as well as having a slight inkling into the tertiary education work thingie (I have worked temporarily at the university student dormitory too pre-pandemic times) so I can confirm it does favour the childfree by choice lifestyle
Youth work with children in out of home care. I have trouble liking the kids but I fucking hate the parents.
I’m 25 and I work in higher ed. I’m just starting my career in higher education, i’m going to school for my master’s in higher education, and then I’m planning to get a PhD. I don’t want to slow down, I know I can make a difference in the lives of the students I work with, and I know if I have a baby, it will deter me from the work I want to do. Many of my colleagues are successful in higher education and they do have multiple children, and that is great for them, but it’s just not the life I want for me.
I’m a Nanny…almost 20 years. I adore kids, I love my career, I have NO desire to be a parent.
My first nanny was like that too, she had a hysterectomy in her 30s and has never wanted kids of her own.
ems. especially if you end up a single parent.
I’m in social work. You can kinda pick what age group you want to work with. It’s funny I started my career wanting to work with seniors I’m now moving more towards working with youth.
Anything in national security. Childfree folks have a lot more options and flexibility when the environment changes.
Big law. You work hard, you play hard. And instead of giving your hard earned money to little snots you can enjoy a fantastic lifestyle. I seriously love my life.
I'm going back to school to become an ADHD specialist. I want to help adults that got diagnosed late, and help create better treatment options for kids. (As someone who grew up in the 2000s).
I work in a factory and am honestly shocked with how many of my coworkers have kids. Its such an exhausting job with frequent overtime, theres no way these people can have a good work/life balance doing this job with kids. I personally find it to favor my life of never having kids tho lol
My husband and I are both electricians (he is still an apprentice, and I am a journeyman). The nature of our jobs, level of danger, and the fact that being pregnant while shuffling around an attic or crawl space literally sounds like hell, were all deciding factors. He and I are very happy with no kids, and just our dog. Plus... no daycare is open at 4am for all the tradies to drop off their kids, so one of us would have to stay home. We both love what we do, so it just isn't in the cards.
Health care… I’m a pharmacist and of all my friends with kids they have husbands who are stay at home dads. We often work at least 2-3 days a week of 10-14 hour days (depending on location) and being in a retail setting we have to open at a certain time, PERIOD (or the Karen’s start Karen-ing) so you have a kid you need to drop off at school or take to daycare or a doctors appointment and need a little flexibility in the morning? Well too bad, there’s no flexibility with getting to work late. And I imagine the pharmacists working in the hospital have the same struggles. I knew quite a few hospital systems that worked on “7 on, 7 off” rotations where they work 7 days for 12 hours straight then they get 7 days off. I can’t imagine it’s possible to parent when you’re working that long for 7 days in a row.
Academia and also I work at a computer/tech/gaming retail business and on the whole 99% of the people don't have kids working for them. Just because most of them prefer to have their own space and hobbies (usually associated with gaming).
The visual arts. I don't know why. Most of the successful artists I know don't have children. The ones who made a bunch of money in some other field first, and now make art and live off their copious savings, most of the time they have kids. (Speaking from the point of view of working in the gallery indistry and for art dealers)
Looks like not having kids when you're an artist is very common, as this list highlights: [https://internationalchildfreeday.com/famous-artists-who-had-no-children/](https://internationalchildfreeday.com/famous-artists-who-had-no-children/)
Whoa! This list is amazing. Thank you
Anything art related. The Stress of taking care of little ones sucks the creativity out of you so so fast. Also you need any free minute you can get to make this line of work sustainable
Anything with frequent travel or shift work. When working at sea, about half of the people on board had kids, and most of them struggled with being away for so long. They also tended to have slight fractious relationships with their older children. The child free contingent (whether actively or passively) used to be much more suited to the lifestyle, with most of us coming back to work for a bit of rest, relaxation, and structure, after overdoing it for three months of leave. Hell, I was jokingly referred to as "the adventurous unemployed friend with money".
Commercial pilot :)
My wife used to work in academe (linguistics) until she had a major burnout and depression. But yes, academia definitely discourages people to have kids. And can frown upon people having other interests besides their field of research. For my wife it was too much. She does need her time off and delve into other interests and hobbies as well (making music, reading and writing about other stuff). And she -more then me- had a desire to settle down in one place and have some stability. I know some other people in academia have to make big concessions to combine career and family life (for example: living in 2 countries and travelling from your workplace to your spouse and kids in the weekends). I also had childfree uncles and aunts that worked in academe all their lives. I'm glad you have found your place. Ocean science sounds so cool to me, what is your research about?
Diseases in brown crabs. One of my fellow post-docs just moved to Norway for her work, and she's taken her husband and 10 year old son with her. She said the stress of having to move them is something she wouldn't want to repeat and told me if you're going to move to a foreign country for work, do it BEFORE you have a husband and child!
I work in the safety field as a manager. Nothing like getting called into work at random hours for after hour emergencies. I don't mind the extra hours (= extra money) and my employer always shows appreciation in the form of nice hefty bonuses for going above and beyond (covering for supervisors in other depts cause kids are sick etc..). I rarely call in sick and am able to give my 100% since I'm not drained from caring for kids all the time.
Travel agent. You get the opportunity to do a lot of travel by yourself or in groups without other family members and the hours can be long. Having a kid just isn’t conductive in my opinion.
Racing engine machinist and builder here. If you want to grow your clientele you have to be available all hours and on weekends
I hope I can find a partner to marry/co-life with as wonderful and interesting as people commenting on this. Really inspires me as I totally change careers going into 40 ☺
Nannying and stripping
Military. One of the reasons I don’t want kids is because my spouse is in and wants it to be a career. I have no clue why a lot of service members pop them out like rabbits.
Like, do they not think about what would happen if they were to die in the line of duty?!
Not even that, just the lifestyle doesn’t favor having kids. Constant moving, away from family, depending on the job the military member can be gone from 6 am to 12 am or sometimes for a week or more, and let’s not get into deployments.
Madness to bring kids into a home like that