Seth Rogen’s resurfaced comments on being happily child-free spark online debate

Seth Rogen’s comments on being child-free have resurfaced and sparked an online debate.

The actor went viral again for old comments he made on the Diary of a CEO podcast about him and his wife Lauren Miller’s decision to remain child-free. Last year, he spoke at length about how fulfilled they feel without kids, adding that it’s partially the reason why his career has been so successful.

At the time, Seth said to host Steven Bartlett, “There’s a whole huge thing I’m not doing, which is raising children.”

When asked if having children would make them “happier,” Seth was quick to tell him why that wouldn’t be the case.

“I’ve been around obviously a lot of children, I’m not ignorant to what it’s like. … Everyone I know has kids. I’m 40, you know? I know,” he explained. “Some of my friends have had kids for decades. Some people want kids, some people don’t want kids.”

“A lot of people have kids before they even think about it, from what I’ve seen, honestly,” Rogen added. “You just are told, ‘You go through life, you get married, you have kids’ — it’s what happens.”

“Me and my wife, neither of us were like that,” he continued. “Honestly, the older we get, the more happy and reaffirmed we are with our choice to not have kids. It was something we kind of talked about more, and we were like, ‘Have we made the right choice? Are we sure?’”

“Now, more than anything, the conversation is like, ‘Honestly, thank god we don’t have children,’” Seth admitted. “We get to do whatever we want.”

He added that they’re able to enjoy their child-free lifestyle primarily because they both feel like they’re in the prime of their lives, with no financial or existential burdens.

“We are in the prime of our lives. We are smarter than we’ve ever been. We understand ourselves more than we ever have.

“We have the capacity to achieve a level of work and a level of communication and care for one another, and a lifestyle we can live with one another that we’ve never been able to live before, and we can just do that and we don’t have to raise a child — which the world does not need right now.”

An X, formerly known as Twitter, user reignited the online debate on Rogen’s lifestyle when they shared a screenshot of Rogen commenting that he’s glad he doesn’t have children so he can enjoy Saturday mornings smoking weed. They wrote, “I wouldn’t trade Saturday mornings with my kids for anything.”

Many agreed with the user, saying they couldn’t be able to imagine life without their children.

“That’s the kind of thing you say publicly, because you think it sounds cool,” one person commented. “while privately, when you get older, it eats away at your soul.”

“A simple, ‘we are selfish narcissists,’ would’ve sufficed,” someone else added, while another wrote: “Sad, they will wake up at 50 and realize their life has no meaning.”

Some people, however, stood up for Rogen.

“I love that people want to spend their mornings with the kids they love and chose to have,” someone commented. “I also love that people who don’t want kids get to have the mornings they chose to have. Because that man smoking and enjoying his love ain’t about you and your kids. Go be happy. He is!”

“Why can’t we just be happy everyone has the freedom to do what they want?” one more asked.