Who Will Care For Me When I'm Older? Nobody, Not Even Myself.

One of the top reasons why humans create new humans is because they believe those they imposed life on will care for them in their late years. I'd never be such a selfish schmuck to do such a thing.

Many of us are products of exploitation from the second we are born. Digital truck ad in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“Who is going to take care of you when you are older?” is a common question / argument I get when I participate in Stop Having Kids advocacy. Sometimes people want to hear my answer, other times they just keep walking past me with no intention or desire to hear my reply. The question assumes many things about myself (a complete stranger to these people), such as that I will live to an old age, that I will be unable to care for myself in that old age, and that I have no limits to where my selfishness can take me like the people who justify having kids for this reason. Just as having children isn’t something all humans desire, neither is living to an old age or wanting to burden yourself or other people with your deleterious health issues. People are also seemingly blinded to the fact that it’s normal for older people to not receive any care at all from their adult children, oftentimes not even visits, and this can be the outcome for anyone who has kids given that each new human comes with no guarantees. Some people have even done such an abysmal job of taking care of themselves that they wouldn’t even be able to care for a parent if they wanted to. Anyone who has worked in a nursing home or hospital can attest to the fact that parents often have to rely solely on the costly care of total strangers rather than the human(s) they created.

My parents took care of me as a child and adolescent because they were obligated to and because young humans absolutely need to be cared for. They chose to bring me into this world against my non-desire to be birthed and as a consequence they had the responsibility to feed me, clothe me, take me to doctors appointments, send me to school, clean up after me, brainwash me, and so on. Fortunately, they’ve never expressed that I owe them anything when and if their health eventually deteriorates to a level that renders them incapable of living independent lives free from human assistance. The unspoken trade “I cared for you when you were young, now you must care for me when I’m old” does not exist in my family.

Although I wish my parents would have cared for lives that were already here and in need of a loving and stable home (instead of creating new humans that didn’t have an interest or need to come into existence), I’m grateful that they have been a safety net for me throughout my life, which is something I’m a huge proponent of. I don’t believe in the arbitrary 18-years-old-and-you-are-on-your-own rule that dictates that financial and other forms of support by parents are unnecessary once their kids reach 18. Thankfully when I’ve run into tough times my parents have always been there to help me, whether I was in need of money, in need of a room, or in need of answers to certain questions. It’s the parents who forced their kids into existence and if their kids face any struggles in our complicated and challenging world it’s the fault of the parents (to at least some degree) that their children are in the predicaments that they are in. They couldn’t have been in such hardships if they weren’t born as a vulnerable individual in the first place.

I’ve never asked my parents, but I do not believe that either of them had me as a twisted form of health insurance for their late years in life. Both of them seem to be in relatively good condition despite the fact that neither of them are far away from the American death expectancy age of 76. I largely attribute their relatively good health due to the fact that they eat a primarily plant-based diet (largely influenced by yours truly) and that they don’t fall into any of the health pitfalls that most Americans fall into such as poor diet, lack of exercise, cigarette smoking (or exposure to cigarette smoking), persistent chemical exposure, heavy pharmaceutical product usage, insufficient sleep, and alcoholism.

As for me, I will never reach either of the current ages my parents are at, not even close. I simply have no aspirations to live that long. Hell no, I won’t force myself to live as long as possible just because that’s what most other people do. Given that I’ve had no children and I don’t have a moral obligation to be anyone’s safety net, I have nobody to be responsible for other than myself. When I want to close the curtains to this shit show dystopia we call life I will close those curtains shut like a boss. I had no say in the start of my life, but I will be the executive producer for the finale of my life. Life for me won’t be so lengthy to the point that I could possibly subject myself to watching my mind and body endure significant deterioration beyond repair, nor will I subject anyone I care about to such an awful aspect of existence. If I can avoid incurring a vicious disease like cancer I will damn well do nearly everything in my power to do so, which includes unaliving myself before cancer or any other disease can have the power to conquer my health and wellness.

While most humans have a fear of death, I can promise you that I’m looking forward to my death more than most people have looked forward to every birthday and holiday they’ve ever celebrated in their lifetime combined. I did have a fear of death as a child, which made it difficult to fall asleep and not wet the bed with tears, but luckily I got over it while I was still young. I did a complete 180 to the point where I look forward to death every single day. Admittedly, I don’t look forward to death in the same exact way as I did for years because I’m no longer a strong believer in the idea that nothing happens to us after we die. My hope for when I die will just be peace, whatever that looks like.

Right now I am 35 years old, but honestly I feel just as young as when I was 18. I feel younger now than when I was 21 years old dealing with overwhelming stress, ingesting loads of toxic “food”, drinking gallons of alcohol each month (sometimes drinking liquor just so I could pass out for an afternoon nap), living with careless roommates, and breathing in air plagued with paper mill pollution. Currently, I’m fortunate to say that I have no health issues undermining my quality of life, I have a very well behaved immune system, and I almost never get sick (still haven’t even had Covid-19 despite disobeying all “expert” orders), and I plan on trying to remain in astounding health all the way up to the day I die.

Unlike so many people, I take responsibility for my own health and this is another part of the equation for why in all likelihood it will never be necessary for anyone to be burdened with the job of caring for me. If you go onto the CDC and WHO pages for our top killers like heart disease and cancer you’ll see that both of these diseases are largely preventable with a high consumption of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts, abstaining from cigarette smoking and heavy drinking, and getting sufficient exercise. In fact, the CDC has been reporting since 2020 that 94% of people who have died from Covid-19 actually had 4 pre-existing medical conditions such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Not since I was a kid have I witnessed anyone I care about deteriorate and later succumb to death. All of my grandparents were dead by the time I was only seven years old and I haven’t even been to a funeral in nearly 30 years (I wouldn’t go to one anyway, but that’s a whole different story). Witnessing someone you care about and love go downhill and never return back to a figure of basic wellness is very sad, depressing, and traumatizing. When we impose life onto humans we are guaranteed to not only create a human who will suffer and one day die, but who will also be traumatized from a wide variety of sources throughout their entire life. Doesn’t sound like a gift to me. In my experience as a kid, it was less traumatizing when a relative would die unexpectedly than when I would visit a relative in a hospital, only to experience each subsequent visit a person who is becoming more disconnected with themselves, the world and people around them, and who is existing inside of a body that becomes increasingly less bearable to look at and communicate with. I’d prefer to not deal with this ever again, either as the person visiting the hospital or the person living in the hospital. Good thing my relationships with nearly every relative I have is broken and never returning!

How and when I will die is still a mystery that’s just as unknown to myself as it is to you the reader. Preferably my death would be induced by a sanctioned form of voluntary euthanasia in which I get to leave my body legally, peacefully, blissfully, swiftly, and most of all - humanely. I want the people I care about and love to become aware of my passing before it happens so we can have some potentially joyful times beforehand and end our relationships with closure and love. I promise you I don’t want to ever end my life by any means that are dangerous, violent, or gory and I don’t want my death to be a profound shock to anyone who I know and care about. I can’t help it if someone is saddened by my passing, but I will do everything in my power to not let my death be the cause of anyone’s trauma, which is all too often the case for deaths by suicide in a world that mostly prohibits someone’s basic right to exit life on their own terms- a flagrant bodily autonomy violation.

If someone I know prefers that I continue living against my will for their own peace of mind then that’s just too bad for them because I will not be a slave to an already brutal existence just to delay the inevitable and to appease their emotional state. If someone truly cares about me they should be okay with me ending my life when I choose and not continuing to subject myself to the self-harm that daily living resembles to me. I’d prefer to leave the world in a state of pleasure rather than delaying and thus increasing the chances that I leave the world in a state of pain and misery like how so many other people unsuccessfully die.

It kills me how people willfully choose to make terribly unhealthy lifestyle decisions day in and day out and then they expect others to care for them when they’re older because of the consequences of their own poor decisions. What also kills me is when people say things like “heart disease runs in my family” when what often runs in their family is the decision to adhere to bad habits that lead to poor health outcomes, such as heavy drinking, eating large volumes of animal flesh and chemical-laden food, smoking cigarettes, and living a perpetually sedentary lifestyle. Sure, some people can be genetically predisposed towards certain conditions, but poor lifestyle choices can be the driving factor of what causes something like heart disease (the top killer of humans for over the last two decades) to manifest.

So many people don’t feel empowered to take control of their health and invest in wiser and healthier decisions that can lead to a greater chance of living and thriving independently without the need for hospitals, nursing homes, surgeries, pharmaceutical products, devices, and son and/or daughter labor. They act like becoming old and pathetic is a fact of life just like procreation, when in reality we can make investments in ourselves to not be able to cause pregnancies and to not have our health go completely downhill. Humans seem to value convenience and instant gratification above virtually all else, rarely taking the time to do a cost vs. benefit assessment of what conveniences like fast food can entail for their future, which may have to include costly medicines, adult diapers, surgeries, hospital visits, and nursing home stays. Also, what about their own children having to sometimes move and/or quit their job (or drastically reduce their hours) to take care of their parent(s) who prioritized convenience and unhealthy habits in life over making scientifically grounded health changes, ultimately leading to the inconveniencing of others.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of seeing the vegan author of The World Peace Diet, Will Tuttle, speak at one of his stops on his speaking tour. Will is 67 years old, childfree (but not antinatalist), one of the most profound speakers I’ve ever heard, and he’s been vegan for the last 42 years of his life. He’s spent enormous amounts of energy, money, and time educating people on our history of animal exploitation and how it relates to our financial system, slavery, wars, disease, and how what we have done to animals for over the last 10,000 years is coming back to haunt us in major ways that humans are largely oblivious to and unprepared for. He is one of the rare humans who practices what he preaches. Will’s commitment to wellness has kept him away from a doctor’s office for longer than I’ve been alive. He eats a predominantly whole foods and organic vegan diet and doesn’t take any pharmaceuticals. I thought he looked wonderful for his age and he’s still cognitively sharp as a nail. Instead of creating a human and banking on them to care for him when he’s old and in need, he has taken the higher road of putting the burden of health and care in his own hands as we all should.

One of the most disturbing Covid-19 policies to me was excluding people from visiting their loved ones in nursing homes and hospitals, even if the patients were on the brink of death. What will be the next reason that’s used to keep families apart when it’s essential they get to see each other? Despite vaccine mandates in nursing homes for all staff, Covid-19 still spread like crazy. Certain places let news crews come inside (people who had no relationship to any of the patients), yet people who were related to the people living in these quasi prisons weren’t allowed to come see their mothers, fathers, etc. before they passed away. These ridiculous and clearly harmful policies only made the sick even sicker, as loneliness can destroy someone’s health to the point of causing an earlier onset of death. People who never got to say goodbye to their loved ones are still broken thanks to these imbecilic policies. In a Covid documentary I watched called “The First Wave” which takes place in a New York hospital in 2020 a nurse spoke about how tragic it was that some patients never even got a chance for a final goodbye over Zoom, FaceTime, or anything else because their cell phone battery died and nobody working at the hospital wanted to lend them their charging cord because that could supposedly give them Covid. When we bring people into the world they will be surrounded by an ocean of nonsensical behavior and they will be subjected to complying with unjust and unscientific laws and policies, which can make life and death so much harder than it needs to be.

It’s bad enough that people don’t take the act of procreation seriously, but it’s even worse when people don’t take proper precautions for safeguarding their health for their own good and for the benefit of their loved ones and community. This mindset that “I’ll live my life however the hell I want and my kid(s) will care for me when I’m older and in need” is toxic and nearly as selfish as the act of procreation itself. Your kids do not owe you anything period, they didn’t ask to be born and they didn’t sign a contract to become your caretaker. I’m not going to talk anyone out of helping their parents, that’s clearly not what this is about, but I want people to know that they are not obligated to help their parents just because their parents cared for them. The burden of care lies on the parents to the children, not the other way around.

The least we can do is try to raise humans in healthy ways and take care of our own health to the best of our ability so we minimize the chances of our children feeling obliged to deviate from the life that they are interested in living to care for us, and so that they don’t have to be as likely to go through the heartbreaking ordeal of watching their loved ones fall apart into deeply unpleasant versions of who they used to be.

As for me, I’m going to continue to live my best life and have the peace of mind about not getting older and relying on a stranger or a loved one to care for me. The quality of the years of my existence matter much more to me than the quantity of the years I will live. Being childfree gives me more freedom to live the life that I want for myself and the freedom to end it when I want since I’m not living with an obligation to be anyone’s safety net or caretaker. So yeah, nobody is going to care for me when I’m much older, not even myself.

Dietz is the founder of SHK. You can reach him directly at info@stophavingkids.org.