childfree

Very true, and in a pretty surprising turn, most folks really only know how they respond once they get there.

But to the point, the biggest cause of variance between the two is just available resources. Responsibility spans the dial between powerful lived experience of wholesome capability and crippling mortal burden from which no escape but death is available. I'd say that dial is twisted more by support / resources / precarity than by individual characteristics, certainly more than an individual's willingness to "rise to the occasion" or similar.