I think not having kids is a life choice anyone will regret as they get older.
i can confirm. i was 38 when my son was born and i had a hard time explaining myself why i left it so late. obviously i can't do anything about it now. i can only suggest you guys to not overthink it. just do it. the first year was tough, after that every minute is a blessing
but i get point of those who won't have a kid. a friend recently explained how a kid and a maternity leave would compromise her career, and all i could reply was fair enough. we all have different priorities
we've also given up on things in our careers. now i don't earn nearly as much as i could, but at least i have the freedom to stay at home with my son when he's sick, we can spend plenty of time together, and i wouldn't want it any other way. my son will be 8 in may, we still have a few years until he doesn't want to be around us that much anymore, so we're enjoying the current situation until we can
On the real, you ought to have kids but it comes at a great great risk and expense in the west.
it's not cheap for everyone and in every country, it's certainly something you need to consider. we were lucky enough to already have a few real estates before my son was born, so when he'll need a place to move in, we'll just sell something and buy an other in any city he prefers (unless it's in switzerland or luxembourg or facsimile lol). we're also not opposed to give him well kept used clothes, and my gf has a friend with a son who's like 2 years older and has basically the same build, and she's giving away basically unworn brand clothes regularly. our only additional regular cost on the long run is the food until he goes to university. and so far he's been smart enough so that i can realistically expect him to get a state financed scholarship. he's having some additional stuff like drawing school, horse riding, etc, but those aren't too expensive. half an hour of horse riding cost like $5 even last year lol, it was recently raised to ~$7.5, still not expensive. buying a bycicle or building him the tree house i spent my time with durig last spring/summer aren't terrible either. for example the tree house cost me around $1000 or so in materials, an other few hundreds in tools, and i enjoyed it much more than any project i did in the last few years, and my son loves the thing a lot, so the benefits easily overshadow the costs, be it time or actual money
anyway, when it comes to costs, we were probably both prepared and fortunate enough. we're also closer to being ascetics then hedonists so there's that too haha
bottom line is that there wasn't a single moment when i didn't feel blessed and i never regretted my choice of having a kid. it never felt like a task or a sacrifice