General Discussion

As a labor and delivery nurse, Bari M. is used to answering questions about having babies. As a happily child-free woman, she’s also used to answering questions about not having them — and is readily equipped to answer them.

“I have so many reasons that I find it’s always a different one that flies out of my mouth,” the 36-year-old tells Yahoo Life. "If it’s someone I’m very close with, I’ll give them a deep, multi-level answer. If it’s someone like a patient, I usually give a brief, kind of silly answer like, ‘Well, I just went to Paris for three nights for my birthday, and I’m going to South Africa next month. I have no interest in giving that up.’”

There are myriad reasons why a person might not have children (all of which are, quite frankly, no one’s business). In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll of 1,597 U.S. adults conducted last month, 43% of respondents said they don’t have children. Of that number, 19% cited concerns for the future of the planet, and 32% attributed the decision to cost. And then there are those who, like Bari, are choosing to be child-free ... well, because they just don't want to. More than a quarter (26%) of the poll respondents who didn’t have kids said it’s because they “prefer life as it is,” and 25% answered, “I’d rather just not” have children.