Introduction
My name is Wang Jin. I’m a programmer from a third-tier city in Jiangsu.
A few years ago, I came across the term DINK and looked it up to understand what it actually meant. At the time, I thought it sounded like a reasonable choice, but I still didn’t really understand why someone would decide to live that way. As I got older and went through more of life, I gradually began to understand people who made that choice. What I didn’t expect was that I would end up there myself—and with even firmer resolve.
Where this began
Even before I knew the word existed, I think I already had the idea in me. Back then it wasn’t as settled as it is now. I simply didn’t like children, but I still believed reproduction was some unavoidable human duty, so I assumed I might change my mind one day. As I got older and saw more of society, I had to ask myself again: in the world as it is now, is having a child really the right decision?
After 24 years of life, I can honestly say that compared with many of my peers, I’ve been unsuccessful both personally and in terms of family background. I left home early and have been making my way on my own for a long time. There is freedom in that, but every year my family repeats the same script: live properly, get married, have children. It’s exhausting.
When I was working in Nanjing, my parents divorced. My father had squandered the family’s assets, and my mother finally left because she could no longer endure it. I don’t think I’m in a position to judge their marriage, but it shaped the way I see marriage itself. A partner should never be chosen out of obligation or compromise. If I never meet the right person, I would rather stay single.
In my eyes, my father was the kind of person who drifted through life and lived for his own comfort. He never truly took responsibility for my life. He is the kind of parent who gives life but does not raise well, and raises without teaching. I don’t hate him for that. Life itself came from him. But his example made one thing clear to me: bringing a child into the world without being able to truly take responsibility is not something I can accept.
Family background, class, and the price of ordinary life
In today’s society, I lost badly at the level of family background. For many people born in the 1990s, what they are really competing with is not only personal effort, but the capital their original family can provide. That makes the competition fundamentally unequal. Some people are not even starting at the same line as you—they are already waiting near the finish.
Then there is the biggest practical problem in front of me: housing prices. In my country, marriage often comes with an unwritten minimum requirement—a home. Near my university, apartments that once sold for around 2,000 yuan per square meter a few years ago have risen several times over. Looking at those prices, my salary feels like a drop in the bucket.
That reality forced me into some deep reflection. Is a house really worth tying one’s entire life to? I’ve seen families where three generations save for decades just to buy one home for the child. Three generations, three lives, all poured into a single apartment. There is something chilling about that. If I end up fastening my entire life to a house in the same way, what meaning is left in that life? As for why housing is so expensive, I don’t see some noble logic in it—just another story of ordinary people being squeezed.
Why I decided against having children
Now that I’m at the age when people are expected to marry and have kids, many coworkers and friends have already gone down that road. Whenever they talk about children, one thing becomes obvious: giving birth is one thing, raising a child is something else entirely.
These days, very few people are actually willing to hand over full responsibility for raising their child to their own parents. And if they do, I can’t help seeing that as a kind of irresponsibility. Pushing a child onto one’s parents often means repeating the same distorted family pattern we grew up in.
To put it bluntly, many of us were raised like domesticated animals. Our parents provided food, shelter, and basic survival, but they rarely considered our inner world. I don’t say that to blame them completely. They themselves often had no language for emotional life, no understanding of mental well-being, so naturally they could not pass it on to their children.
Then there is education. Rich families and poor families each raise children in their own way, but the difference in what a child can receive early in life often shapes the rest of that life. Some gaps cannot be repaired later. I know myself well enough to say this plainly: I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide a stable and secure environment for a child. If that child grows up only to repeat my life, and then passes the same burden to the next generation, what is the point of keeping that cycle going?
Fear is part of it too
In recent years, has there really been any shortage of news about violence and cruelty? Cases of abuse, sexual assault in kindergartens, child abuse scandals, the murder of a flight attendant by a rideshare driver late at night, even random attacks against strangers—events like these have become impossible to ignore.
There is a line between living in a broadly stable society and pretending danger does not exist. Danger exists. And if a child were harmed, whether a family could survive that kind of blow is another question entirely.
What unsettles me even more is how often society now seems to smash through basic moral boundaries. It feels as if one appalling story replaces another. There is an old saying: hell is empty, and the devils are here among us. So if I may make one final decision in advance as a would-be father, it is this: I would rather not bring my child into such an ugly world.
I feel I’m not confident that I could raise a child into a good person, into someone with a sound personality.
Society is like this, and I truly don’t know if I could watch him grow up surrounded by trashy television and junk food. I don’t really approve of the way many people in this country live. — Singer: Pu Shu
What people usually say—and why I disagree
This isn’t an attempt to persuade anyone. I’m only explaining the kind of life I want to live and the reasons behind it. To me, being childfree is an attitude toward life. It is not irresponsibility, not selfishness, and not some failure of filial duty.
The pressure, in reality, often comes from parents. Their objections tend to follow familiar patterns.
“Who will take care of you when you’re old?”
Is having children really supposed to be a retirement plan? In today’s world, that idea no longer holds up. By the time I am sixty or seventy, my child would likely be in their thirties or forties, trying to care for their own family and children. Why should I assume they would have the time or energy to revolve around me?
To think of children this way makes parenthood sound like a transaction. It turns the child into an attachment rather than a person. That, to me, is the truly selfish position.
I once read a passage that stayed with me: children are brought into the world so that we can experience life and witness life, not so that they can serve as protection in old age. Security in old age should come from one’s own savings and insurance. Parents should not use aging as a reason to invade or pressure their children’s lives. If a daughter is willing to care for her parents, that is affection and grace—not an obligation. If she is unwilling, that is also normal.
“But what about continuing the family line?”
People from my generation grew up seeing families punished and fined for having too many children because the population base was already so large. Most families, including mine, have plenty of branches already. The family line does not depend on me alone.
And as for humanity as a whole, the planet already has an enormous population. Human beings are not going extinct because I choose not to reproduce. If anything, with such a large population, one less birth here and there is hardly some tragedy. I don’t think my genes are so extraordinary that they must be passed on. If the future belongs to the best humanity can produce, then let those who truly want that path and are prepared for it walk it.
“You’ll regret not using your child to fulfill your dreams”
This may be the ugliest idea of all.
It reminds me of a suicide note supposedly left by a child: There is a kind of bird that cannot fly itself, so it lays eggs in the nest and forces the next generation to fly desperately in its place.
Over the past few years, there have been too many reports of children taking their own lives because the pressure from their parents became unbearable. Parents who never became the “great person” they imagined themselves to be then dump all of those failed ambitions onto their children. They believe hardship and harsh discipline can force excellence out of a child, and that the child will then secure comfort and status for the family.
But a child is not a tool for completing your unfinished life. A child is a living human being.
In the end, the deepest reason is simple
Everything I’ve written so far involves external pressures and social realities, and those do matter. But they are not the deepest reason I chose a childfree life.
The deepest reason is that I want to live for myself.
At heart, I am an idealist. I want more time and energy to pursue what gives my own life meaning. I want more room for my interests, for experience, for enjoyment, for seeing the world as it is. There is a line I remember well:
Some people live to carry on the family line. Some live to enjoy life, some to experience it, some simply to witness it. I am a witness to life. I came into this world to watch how a tree grows, how rivers flow, how white clouds drift, how dew forms.
That way of seeing life resonates with me deeply.
Some people may think I’m too young, that my views are immature. But on the questions above, I feel I have already seen enough to make my decision clearly. Different people will understand it differently. In the coming years, I know I will face criticism and judgment from some people. That doesn’t matter much to me. We are simply not looking at life from the same level of experience or thought, and there is no need to argue endlessly about whether being childfree is right or wrong.
I am not trying to convince anyone. I am only stating the kind of life I choose to live.