kids: do you want them? do you feel guilty for not wanting them?

my kid is great. dunno about other people's kids.

"I wanted to have kids when I was younger but I didn't want to be a single parent and now I am too old and it's too late" is not an option on that list. ;_;

haha i just realised the thread title implies the want/not-want of existing children

i like the ~idea~ of having kids, but i honestly don't think i can deal with the reality of it

I would have liked the option.

had a kid last year, my wife and i kinda knew we were gonna try in a couple years but then it just happend (does that make him planned or unplanned?). i never had a strong urge towards parenthood or really wanted it, or felt guilty about being that way, but i knew whenever it happened i'd probably enjoy it, which i do.

My kid was unplanned but is the most amazing person I've ever known.

yeah see i think i might have changed my mind by the time i'm in my late 30s and in a better position in life, but by then it'll be too late for me to have my own.

i am really into the idea of doing foster care, though.

I simply never wanted kids.

just had a planned baby. I was always wary of the idea but like many ideas I'm not sure about my wife eventually convinced me (like over a period of a few years) and I'm glad she did.

Late 30s is not too late to have children.

that will probably be me.

I do rly want kids of my own, have for years and tried to face the idea that I might never have a partner and I didn't want to be a single mom but hadn't reconciled all that with the approaching 40s quite yet, and was sort of grieving that I had lost a decade already of youth & health & time to Do Things.

Now I have a partner (until we kill each other) and I'm kind of like "Wait, wait, you didn't say it had to be NOW. What do you mean, it's "now" already??"

i am in a committed relationship and this is a point of contention

I don't particularly expect to have kids, or feel a need to have kids, but I don't think I'd be averse to it if that turned out to be what I was doing. I do think that if I was settled it'd be good to do fostering, though.

committed relationship and we feel like we're way too young to even be thinking about it. not until 30s for sure.

My wife and I are both turning 41 in the next six months, have been married 19 years, never wanted kids, don't have any, and don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it. Anyone who tries to make someone feel guilty about it is an asshole of the first order. And anyone who says, "Oh, you'll change your mind!" should be beaten to death with a hammer.

Anyone who tries to make someone feel guilty about it

Are there really people that consciously do this (prospective grandparents aside)?

don't want kids, feel mildly resentful that people apparently feel able to bring this question up or say things like "oh, you'll change your mind!" to gay people now

Anyone who tries to make someone feel guilty about it

Are there really people that consciously do this (prospective grandparents aside)?

yeah I've never seen this happen except with prospective grandparents - people telling you you might actually enjoy raising kids does not necessarily mean they're trying to make you feel guilty, although that might be how it makes you feel.

I guess watching Idiocracy might make you feel guilty

Anyone who tries to make someone feel guilty about it
dunno if "guilty" is the right word but i think once people have kids, they might start thinking that child-less couples are missing out or are strange, just because once you have a kid you almost instantly can't imagine *not* having a kid. if that makes sense.

i have definitely witnessed women guilting other women for not wanting babies, i'm sorry to say.

yeah that sucks. if you do not want kids, do not have kids! i guess i have known couples who have had a difficult time conceiving, and the idea of someone who *could* have kids but just doesn't wat to seems unfair.

I hate the guilting from other women, but I hate it for a different reason. It's complicated, and it makes me angry and actually quite upset when I think about it, so I should probably stay off this thread. But I feel like the decision not to have kids was not something I actually chose, but something the viscitudes of life handed to me. And it's taken a long time to make peace (and a little bit of mourning the kids I was not able to have) to get to the point of being OK with it. So when I ever see other people espousing the joy of parenthood in a "you'll change your mind" kinda way it just brings up rrrrrrrage because the only way I can make sense of the position I ended up in is in a kind of child-phobic sort of way.

tl;dr - bitter childless woman is bitter and hates children

lol

well, the end bit was lol

the actual pain you feel is not so lol

Committed relationship, never want kids.

And anyone who says, "Oh, you'll change your mind!" should be beaten to death with a hammer.

Absolutely this. I have never ever wanted kids. Probably said this before, but it gets me so mad because the people who say I'll change my mind have ever-changing goalposts. When I was a teenager, they said to wait until my twenties and I'll change my mind. When I hit my twenties they said 'oh, wait until late twenties and you'll change your mind'. Now I'm in my late twenties they're telling me to wait until my thirties. This won't end until I hit the menopause, I reckon.

do not want. Nephews are quite enough for me.

My feeling if you don't think you want to have kids is DON'T DO IT. Raising kids is hard, serious business. It is rewarding in many very profound ways, but DAMN it is tough. Plus, you might have twins!

OTOH, Idiocracy (as Shakey mentioned).

We got together when we were in our early 30s. Money, family support, and emotional resources were all a bit thin on the ground, so we didn't think seriously about having kids for a while. About five years in, we decided we were ready and started trying. The next few years were a tough period of fertility treatments and miscarriages from which we emerged stronger as a couple, but without kids. We are very comfortable living child-free now, but this isn't what either of us expected at the beginning of our relationship.

The biological clock runs at different speeds for different people. Late 30s/early 40s turned out to be too late for us. If we'd given this more thought early on, we might not have done anything differently, but we would have understood how important the timing of our decision was.

xpost, Karen OTM

a good friend of mine just split w/her longtime partner because of the kid question. he didn't want them, she did, in the end they both realized that you can't force the other person to change their mind b/c in the end one of them will resent it. if you are in a relationship and this issue is a problem, unfortunately you should probably consider ending it. i was ambivalent for awhile (basically "oh i could go either way") but on my honeymoon we hung out with some friends of my wife's who have two awesome, sharp kids (3 and 5) and it changed my mind totally in favor of wanting children.

And anyone who says, "Oh, you'll change your mind!" should be beaten to death with a hammer.

Or "you'll change your mind when you meet the right guy!" Uck. Yes, there are definitely people who'll try to make you feel guilty, or like a freak about it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10786279"">This recent BBC article overstates the case a bit, but there is a stigma, especially towards women without a desire to procreate.

I like kids, but have never wanted any of my own. I'm in my late 20s now, so I hope that if I was ever going to feel my biological clock start ticking, I'd have felt it by now. There's a tiny fear in the back of my brain that I'll reach my late 30s and suddenly become baby-obsessed. Sometimes I wonder that I've chosen to be childfree as a defense mechanism, just because that sort of family-oriented normalcy seems so far removed from the way I live my life. These fears don't keep me up at night, though.

18 years in a gay couple; can barely keep cats alive, fed, vetted = no kids, no kid plans but . . . I think we do have a vague middle-aged sense of "now what?" where most parenting couples we know don't have the freetime/freeheadspace to worry about that because childrearing relentlessly asks more of them than they can give. Neither schadenfreude nor envy, but a real feeling that my life is *very* different from my peers who are parents.

a good friend of mine just split w/her longtime partner because of the kid question. he didn't want them, she did
this is why it's so important to talk about this before you get married/committed, and not to have the expectation that you're gonna bee able to change anyone's mind either way.

My feeling if you don't think you want to have kids is DON'T DO IT. Raising kids is hard, serious business.

yeah ^^^ this. there are already more than enough shitty parents in the world.

I want them but I'm not ready for them right now. although given that I'm almost 30 I should probably decide for sure when I might be.

life is hard enough for me w/out little helpless people putting their lives in my hands.

I agree that it's rude and dumb to tell somebody they'll change their mind about having a baby, and there are some people who never want kids and that's fine. But the whole frame of discussion about deciding to have kids or not is kind of weird to me because people can change their minds, because people change. like I understand saying it's important to talk about whether people want to have kids before getting into a committed relationship but my wife and I got together when I was 19 and have been together ever since but if you asked me if I wanted kids when I was 19 I probably would have been like "uh I dunno probably not" and if you asked me when I was 28 (when we got married) I would have probably waffled and been like "oh maybe someday but I'm not sure I dunno." I guess it's different for dudes because we can have kids basically whenever and don't bear as much of the literal physical burden of pregnancy and pain. And also I'm just generally a wishy-washy person who doesn't like to decide things until I have to so this whole thing of deciding you don't want kids when you're like 22 or 25 or even 30 is a strange concept to me.

and again, not criticizing people who have made this decision, just saying it's alien to me

basically if you're a man or woman who doesn't want kids, find someone who feels the same way, don't find someone who feels the opposite and try to change their mind the other way, because that's the sort of thing that will be like a time bomb waiting to ruin your relationship later anyway. i don't think the kid conversation is something you need to have when you're 19 or something, of course.

I have an adopted son and a biological daughter on the way. We aren't really ready for another child - we just bought a house and have all kinds of other things going on - but we decided to start trying to get pregnant because my wife is a little older and we were worried about fertility problems/running out of time/complications. I'm super super super excited about the baby though.

physical burden of pregnancy and pain

I will just say that Mrs. KKVGZ is going through a hell of a lot of this right now and I just want her to be comfortable again.

yeah i agree with congratulations. my wife and i started dating when we were 20-21, and the topic of children probably didn't come up in a serious way for at least six years. i always thought that it was something i'd want to do eventually, but it wasn't anything i felt was necessary to do RIGHT NOW. my wife was a little wary. mainly because of the physically taxing aspects of pregnancy. but she's the one who really ended up pushing for having a kid when we did, because she did feel like as she gets older, the harder it might be.

Approaching 30, been married a few years, and struggling with this one a bit. I feel like I'll definitely regret not having them when I'm older, so trying to prepare myself mentally for it to happen in the next few years. But realistically can't see it happening!
My big problem with it is that I like to weigh up pros and cons when making big life decisions. The cons here are obvious but the pro is this unknown "magical" thing that I have no past experience on. I think I'll love it, when it happens, but it's making the decision to *actually* do it that's so hard.

Omar OTM re: the time bomb

BTW I don't at all have any problem, and wouldn't feel any guilt, about the choice to not have kids. It's a very appealing prospect too, tbh - I enjoy my life as it is and who knows what they'll do to it :)

they'll change it

I would think the pros to having kids - boundless source of joy, another person in the family to share things with, someone to look after you when you're old and carry on your loony behaviors/patterns, excuse to play with all your old toys - would be kinda obvious

from my perspective, i look at having kids as the potential to have people in my life in the manner of how my bro and i are in our parents' lives. we're not only their kids but also their good friends and fellow concertgoers and we all share similar interests. like i can talk to my dad about jazz and crime books and to my mom about sonic youth and philip glass and art museums.

I'm getting to something starting to resemble this ^^ now w/ my son (14) -- in between all the early teenage moodiness and sarcasm and being a knucklehead -- and it's awesome

it's a lovely idea but I don't know how often it always works out that way. if I had kids and they were as different from me as I was different from my parents, we'd never have anything to talk about.

Kate, didn't you say you were selling your ova for a while when you were younger? You might have kids out there and not even know it.

Kids are a luxury item, but they are a thousand times more satisfying and meaningful than a BMW.

I never thought I wanted kids until I met my wife. Now have an awesome 1 year old girl. Won't lie - the first three months were totally shitty. So was the pregnancy. But it's so awesome now. Can't really picture my life without her.

We're stopping at one though. I have no idea how anyone makes ends meet with multiple kids. When people asks when we're having another I thank them for the $900 a month for day care I presume they're offering.

I am in a committed relationship and neither my girlfriend nor I wants kids. For me, it used to be terror of having that much responsibility on someone's development, though now it's more just that I don't want to give up all the freedoms of a childless life. (My gf is always saying, "Can you imagine how expensive it is??")

Still, I'm enough of an egotist that I sometimes think it would be cool to see what kind of spawn I would have.

Um, no. Considered it while very poor in my early 20s. My dad said he'd give me $200 not to do it, which was probably a really good idea considering I had no health insurance at the time and they did not cover it if anything went wrong with the (rather invasive) procedure. x-post to CLGD

boundless source of joy

Those kids are gonna be teenagers one day, Shakey!

My wife had a grad student interning in her office this summer. She and her husband are both about to turn 30, and she's got some health problems that mitigate against the idea of having children. So she sat down and made a pro/con list, and the cons outweighed the pros for her. One of the other women in the office was flabbergasted that she even made lists and tried to make her feel bad about it. Like the idea of having children being a rational, informed decision you make was a crime against nature or something.

Kate, didn't you say you were selling your ova for a while when you were younger? You might have kids out there and not even know it.
not this Kate. They wouldn't really be "my" kids anyway.

Sorry, I was directing that toward KDT.

it's not fair, it's not rational, and I'm sure it wouldn't apply to the kid-havers on this thread who aren't smug about it, and don't presume to judge people who choose not to have kids... but a lot of the time, when parents talk about how kids are so meaningful, it makes me feel like I'm talking to brainwashed cult members.

Sorry, didn't read up the thread enough.

boundless source of joy...etc.

OK, I must say that there is a flip side to that, which is that any source capable of bringing boundless joy is equally capable of bringing boundless grief. That's never what prospective parents want to think, but it is true. You spin the wheel and you get... no guarantees.

Still, even when you factor in the worst possible outcome, what I said above is true. Your connection to your child digs right down to your foundations as a human being and builds its home there. When you come to understand that, you gain a committment to making that foundation solid and reliable enough to bear the weight of another life. Sometimes that weight is much heavier than you anticipated.

we planned our child. then we decided we could never have another one. and now we physically can't and really want one. dissatisfied forever.

dissatisfied forever

You may want to expand your thinking about this desire and how it could be satisfied.

i said in a work meeting that I wasn't going to have kids, and some people interpreted this as sad and it was really weird

I'm thirty, pretty broke, selfish, single (and not a prospect in sight). I don't see any of these things changing in the next ten years.

I expect I'll be sad if in 20 years time there's no family around....we're now at the stage where it's a running joke, which suggests that either (a) it's something we are starting to entertain as a realistic possibility or (b) we're compartmentalising it as "not a serious thing" and therefore actually less likely to do it. Hmm.

OK, I must say that there is a flip side to that, which is that any source capable of bringing boundless joy is equally capable of bringing boundless grief. That's never what prospective parents want to think, but it is true. You spin the wheel and you get... no guarantees.

sure - you may note my "reasons" were kind of flippant/silly. which doesn't mean there isn't a grain of truth in them (there is) but obviously yeah it's a double-edged sword and moments of joy may obviously be followed by moments of agonizing pain. just like anything else really. but the highs are, you know, REALLY HIGH

i am in a committed relationship and we'd like to someday have kids if we can one day get our shit together.

~ er, poorly worded :(

Want to do foster care or adopt. Don't want to depend on having a mate in order to raise a child. If I end up being married or in a committed relationship I'll probably want to have my own kid but I think adoption will be just as wonderful if I get too old or can't or something. Do they let single people adopt?

you'll be at the bottom of any list

Single and not eager by any means, but not closed to the idea of ever having them.

that's the sort of thing that will be like a time bomb waiting to ruin your relationship

you'll be at the bottom of any list

thx

I don't mean cuz you'd be a bad parent or anything! but just consider there will be a LOT of infertile couples ahead of you.

On the plus side, in a lot of states you'd be listed ahead of Teh Gays.

oh! yes of course. Foster care then, yeah? It's funny how much easier it is for people to just have a biological kid and how hard it is to adopt when there are SO many kids that need adopting. I understand why and everything. It's just weird that people think that just because a kid has a mom AND dad who are married they are gonna be fine.

On the plus side, in a lot of states you'd be listed ahead of Teh Gays.

this is sad, too. My cousin is gay and getting married in a few months. He and his fiance want to adopt and I hope they are able to because they'd make great parents.

ha three weeks a poppa and i'm shellshocked, joyful, scared shitless

i don't know about a list of pros and cons but most things in life don't make sense like that usually

my little girl is beautiful tho...she's a lot stronger than mom and dad already

aw! <3

ps. even if I do get into a committed relationship or married adoption would be the first option. I've always wanted to.

It's funny how much easier it is for people to just have a biological kid and how hard it is to adopt when there are SO many kids that need adopting.

Don't want to get into a big fite about this, because non-adoptees never understand, but I'd talk to a few grown up adoptees before assuming kids 'need' adopting (and that because you are obviously such nice people, you ought to be the ones to do it); you'll find many of us are strangely ungrateful.....

On the substantial issue, have one grown up child - best thing ever, but it may also have cost my relationship with her mother: we're both good, devoted parents, and good friends again, but we couldn't do it together....

Sorry, shakey, I wasn't trying to squash you. I've just spent far too much time at the boundless grief end of that spectrum; my main point was that even though parenthood can be extremely painful and exhausting, it still has an enormous depth that few parents would choose to forego once they have experienced it (assuming they could).

having nieces i see once a week or so is pretty ideal for me

I don't want to fight either. You're probably right. I'm super uneducated about the process because I'm not at the stage in my life where kids are fathomable. But I do know quite a few adoptees of varying ages and the parent/child relationships don't seem vastly different than biological kids- with all the good and the bad. I shouldn't assume that someone would want to live in a home with some sort of parent figure rather than be institutionalized or homeless until 18, but I kind of do. I have not met anyone who has been through that experience, however, so how can I know at this point.

do you want to have kids?

I definitely want kids. In fact, we recently just talked about when this might happen and it looks like it'll (assuming all goes smoothly) be about three years from now. We'll both be 33.

I never really thought much about kids but during the last year or so I've become ridiculously baby crazy. I firmly believe that for some (but not everyone) there is a biological drive to have kids. I become crazy stupid when I'm around - or even just see - a cute baby. This is not normal for me and I'm blaming it on the drive to procreate.

― ENBB, Wednesday, April 2, 2008 8:56 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, that pretty much went away. I still think kids are great but the crazy seems to have gone away and I definitely won't be having any at 33.

Just stay involved with kids, ENBB. If you like them, that's Urgent and Key.

In a longterm relationship, don't really know if I want kids (don't want to rule it out completely, but I wd be a terrible mother, the People-Making board makes me think "oh wow, I could not deal with that" a lot, don't want to pass on various genetic conditions/misfortunes, etc)

the other half would like them "eventually" so I've been kind of hoping that one day all these worries will disappear and i'll know it is TIME, but now we're 30, so could we ever feel "ready" in time?

but I am kind of terrified of getting to late 30s and suddenly really wanting kids and not being able to (have a few fears that some minor health issues might already complicate it), plus guilt that if my partner will want them and things don't work out that way, he will come to resent wasting all this time with me

it's all good and well to say how wonderful kids will be, but what if you end up having a kid who turns out to have an awful personality? you also have to weigh up the risk of having a child with a severe disability, mental or physical, and whether you're capable of handling it.

the genetics thing is scary too - we have some serious stuff in our family medical history that we'd be concerned about.

xp to ENBB- i'm kind of worried that baby-crazy will cloud my mind in a couple of years and make me ~think~ i want them. stupid hormones.

People-Making board makes me think "oh wow, I could not deal with that"

I used to think the same thing - it's crazy what loving a little baby does to you/makes you capable of.

whether you're capable of handling it

That's like trying to figure out whether you'd hold up or break down in combat, before you've ever experienced it. No one's ever figured out a great way to suss that out ahead.

also have to weigh the risk of having a child that might become a yankee fan

yeah, there's no way i was "ready" for a kid -- financially/emotionally/whatever.

That's like trying to figure out whether you'd hold up or break down in combat, before you've ever experienced it. No one's ever figured out a great way to suss that out ahead.

yeah it's kinda hard to assess - it's not like those fears go away, and when you're in the middle of it you don't really have any conception as to whether you're doing it right or not. It's not like it's a standardized test where you get a pass/fail/grade. you just end up doing your best and hope it all works out. which is all any parent can do.

also, the people who say "it would be sad to not have a family in twenty years" - having children does not guarantee they'll stick around. a lot of people don't even talk to their parents. i think that sounds much sadder. anyway to the person who said there are no guarantees: OTM.

yeah but i'm pretty aware of my expectations and limitations, and it's something that i think is important to think about.

a lot of people don't even talk to their parents.

good rationale for trying not to be a jerky parent

Justine - It may and if it does you and J will discuss the situation and deal with that then. I agree with what NA said earlier about people changing. While I do understand that some people definitely know they never want kids and that it's really annoying when ppl try to tell them that they'll change their minds, some of them might do just that. Things change, people change and sometimes even formerly firm opinions on huge life decisions change. Likewise people who always thought they wanted kids sometimes decide otherwise. It doesn't make any of this any easier to deal with but it does happen. Sometimes.

some people don't talk to their parents and their parents didn't necessarily do anything WRONG. You can upset your child or make them think you screwed up their life even with good intentions.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be wankers!

oh that's another thing - i'm definitely aware that over the course of time we could both change our minds. which is why i'm not totally anti-baby: i like kids!

one thing i have trouble understanding is: people who get together and have kids within the first year or two of their relationship (with the exception of people whose biological clocks are running out). i mean, one of the reasons i'm not ready to have kids now is that i really enjoy having my husband to myself.

My o/h has a bit of a weird attitude which is that he would never want to decide to have kids, because it'd be me that has to put up with the pregnancy/pain etc so he'd feel wrong deciding for me that I have to do that. On the other hand I'd hate to make the decision myself.
All a bit theoretical reallly, the reality is that we'd both be overjoyed.

i am in a committed relationship and we'd like to someday have kids if we can one day get our shit together.

yr doing it wrong

it is crazy though, having a kid is so terrifying. i mean, marriage/falling in love is this big risk -- you're putting all this emotional weight on another person. what would i do if something happened to my wife? but having a kid, jesus, it's ten times more horrifying to think about. (fun stuff, i know!) but it is worth it imo. (i just changed a stinky diaper and it was awesome).

some people don't talk to their parents and their parents didn't necessarily do anything WRONG

I didn't talk to my father for four years, and he didn't do anything at all!

As someone with mood swings, which I am not proud of but can't get fully under control, the idea that I couldn't have a bad day - lose my temper, have a crying jag, want some alone time - any more is terrifying. Having something around which deprives me of sleep and doesn't understand logic (or, later, actively delights in denying it) is pretty much guaranteed to make me shout and thump the table and maybe worse - Christ, I hope not, but could I trust myself not to?

And if your kid turns out to have problems, they'll go to psychologists to explore how they're all your fault, for all the times you fell foul of the above, or were insufficiently loving, or too clingingly loving, or both at once.

Brr.

in a committed relationship, getting older, never wanted kids, husband doesn't either
not prone to giving more of a reason than that due to years and years of people asking me why and telling me that i'm going to be sorry someday

do i feel GUILTY for not wanting them? absolutely not. why would i feel guilty? i don't really get this question.

do i envy other people's lives sometimes? sure, of course. who doesn't want a source of boundless love. but wanting that doesn't mean that i can have what they have. people have told me that i would make a good mother, but they are missing out on one aspect of motherhood that i would not be good at: never being alone.

I don't understand, are you saying that you won't give up going to the bathroom with the door closed for 5-15 years, in order to put your children's needs first? BAD MOMMA, BAD.

the idea that I couldn't have a bad day - lose my temper, have a crying jag, want some alone time

parents are allowed to - and do - do all these things btw

I don't bring my kid to band practice fwiw

my parents have finally accepted that they will not have grandchildren. I occasionally (very very rarely, about as often as i hear the Beatles - lol) have Idiocracy-type guilt, but that just makes me support my smart, awesome friends who have/want kids.

in my peer group - the "baby rabies" tend to get fierce starting in the mid-30s

i could never handle that never being alone aspect, either. it's also why i cant seem to hack a long term relationship. LEAVE ME ALONE!

the idea that I couldn't have a bad day - lose my temper, have a crying jag, want some alone time

parents are allowed to - and do - do all these things btw
― bring me your finest milksteak and a side of jellybeans (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't bring my kid to band practice fwiw

― bring me your finest milksteak and a side of jellybeans (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Are these two responses related? ;)

lol schwantz

but seriously there is nothing about being a parent that says you can't ever be alone I dunno what you guys are talking about

i think it's different for women than for men though

For the men: how often do you take sole control of the kid(s) so that your wife can be totally alone? Apologies natch if you are the primary caretaker in yr fam and this is a stupid question, but you know, for everyone else, just on average...?

I work all week long, but usually I take the kids for a few hours each weekend so my wife can do yoga or something...

our routine is that I get my daughter out of the house with me for several hours on both Saturday and Sunday, and then I also have her to myself Wednesday night. So that's, I dunno, 12 hours of alone time a week my wife gets, on average.

how many currently childless women on this thread think that only 12 hours of alone time a week sounds appealing?

i could never handle that never being alone aspect, either. it's also why i cant seem to hack a long term relationship. LEAVE ME ALONE!

i am blessed with a partner who needs the same thing -- lots of alone time -- and it's working out for us just fine. there are others like us out there, don't worry.

12 hours a week is not enough for me tbqh -- now, or ever

god i hate that word blessed

i meant "fortunate enough to have"

My wife and I try to trade off, so we each get a few hours a week away from the house. We try to keep it pretty 50/50.

12 hours a week alone sound pretty awesome to me.

well, that's 12 hours when there's no one else in the house - there's plenty more time when I'm watching V downstairs and my wife is upstairs, or the kid is asleep etc.

Yeah, I was going to say - our baby goes to bed around 8, so that last few hours of the day we can have to ourselves. I'd say the biggest change in our routine is how insane 5 pm to 8 pm has become.

I guess it depends what you mean by "alone time" - like if you require the freedom to smoke crack naked whenever you want, yeah there isn't much time for that. if you need time to read shit on the internet or crochet or go hiking, there's PLENTY of time for that. at least after the first 6 months or so.

also, babies take naps. and when they get too old for naps, they go to school.

In a long term relationship; we had just the one kid 22 years ago, so now I'm still relatively young (46) and have a grown up adult. It's weird!

I would never tell anybody that they should or shouldn't have kids. (But I might think it.)

SMC otm about alone time.

also the question I was answering was how often do I take the kid so my wife can have some time to herself - but my kid is also in a co-op preschool thing for three hours a day three days a week, so technically that's time my wife has free as well.

I guess it depends what you mean by "alone time" - like if you require the freedom to smoke crack naked whenever you want, yeah there isn't much time for that.

this is what i'm talking about when i say that every time i tell someone my reasons for not wanting kids, they have some shitty comeback about why i'm wrong ^^
wtf

maybe i should just tell people that i have a painfully deformed uterus

hey different people have different definitions of "alone time", I was just making a joke
sorry

right now, everything is so new and this early period is so intense that i am really mourning a lot of the freedom and things...

but my wife kinda reality checked me because we were both talking about some of those feelings and she said, "you know honey we really didn't do that much...we spent so many nights just watching TV and doing nothing, it's just now that's attributed to the baby"

and she's right...like honestly...we'd fucking watch reruns of Friends or something, like what is that?

so if anything maybe i feel guilt for wasting so much time....i dunno, maybe the lil' one will at least make me value the time that i do have now....try to live more "consciously" i guess

yes i do require the freedom to smoke crack naked whenever i want, even though i don't smoke crack, I want to feel like i have that freedom - you gotta problem with that?

you go girl!

so I always assumed that as a male I could have kids whenever I wanted. I only recently discovered that's not true - that as I get older, the viability of my sperm will decrease, and if I do have kids, they're more likely to be autistic, have various birth defects, etc. sobering! especially since i do want kids, i'm 32, and a long-term relationship seems distant.

i fully admit that i have NO sense of humor about this
just tired of defending myself

maybe i should just tell people that i have a painfully deformed uterus

I have found that, when faced with the kind of idiot who says "there's still time" or some such bollocks when I say I don't have kids, a swift lowering of my eyes, a muttered "it's not going to happen, ok?" and a quick subject change stops it ever getting mentioned again (this happened to me TWICE within an hour of starting my new job a couple of months back, middle aged women who have nothing in their lives but their kids be weird).

I haven't actually told any lies, right?

I don't want kids because I don't have any urge to have them. I like kids, I like all my friends' kids, I like my nephews and I like to think I'm pretty good with them. But I don't see or feel the need to have any of my own. That's all it is, really.

yeah sh@kedown, we definitely have moments now where we think: "what happened to our lives, we can't do anything now" and then realize that we were pretty homebody-ish to begin with. there's definitely a feeling that we can't do all those things that ... we didn't do before. but that varies for everyone. and anyway, it makes those times when you do go out on dates, or to shows or whatevs a lot more fun/unique.

I have kids. Were they planned? haha I kinda hate that question. We weren't (too) drunk those nights/days! I guess it's asking: had we talked about having kids before? I guess so! But we weren't on some kind of schedule or taking medicines: we fucked as spouses are wont to do, a few times we got babies. We were cool with that.

heh - i had to develop a sense of humor about it because i got tired of defending myself

maybe we can smoke crack naked in separate rooms of the same building some time

and she's right...like honestly...we'd fucking watch reruns of Friends or something, like what is that?

But see, if my choices are "sit around watching reruns of Friends" and "sit around watching reruns of Friends and cleaning someone's poop also" I'm pretty sure I'll go with option A.

I just always knew I didn't want kids. I had a vasectomy four years into my marriage. Telling that to people who pull "oh there's still time!" usually shuts them up. Equally effective is "mind your own fucking business."

how many currently childless women on this thread think that only 12 hours of alone time a week sounds appealing?

― sarahel, Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:06 PM (24 minutes ago)

lol no fucking way. more like 12 hours a day.

otm

i do not want them and i do not feel guilty for not wanting them. can't understand why anyone would want to be pregnant tbh :(

every time i think about pregnancy i think of videodrome and James Woods removing the gross gooey gun from his stomach, and i think, what if that was how babby was formed?

xp ^ yeah for me the whole pregnancy business is a BIG part of the 'cons' list. The more I learn about it or see friends going through it, the more horrendous it seems. Also I have to climb 4 flights of stairs to our flat, and I like my flat right now more than I do my non-existent baby.

xp

Spoiler: It's not.

for me it has nothing to do with pregnancy -- that's short compared to the 20+ years of raising children

it would make me hate my significant other for doing it to me. yeah and then there's the other 20+ years.

what if your significant other was Satan and you were pregnant with demon babby?

^^ things i sincerely think about a lot when i contemplate pregnancy

It would be interesting to revive this thread in 10 years...

I am single and don't significantly care either way. Could see myself in a relationship with someone with or without kids, or not in a relationship.

I'm sorry for asking that Q and then running away -- I had meetings! Just curious what kind of "alone time" was considered valid by moms & dads across the spectrum. My mother certainly never got 12 hours a week, I'm pretty sure she didn't get TWO hours a week, and no one thought she was due any. So when people say things like, "I don't take my kids to band practice" I just wondered, you know, how that works. Apparently it's awesome! I don't have 12 hours of alone time per week NOW, so...

i adore kids but i like them best when they're *other people's* kids. motherhood is just not on the table right now, and biologically i only have a few years left.

facebook status updates of pregnant friends and family are often pretty horrifying. Once there was talk of a mucus plug. MUCUS PLUG! I'll do it though, if I get shacked up with someone and we want to and stuff. I'd like it to happen like this:

we weren't on some kind of schedule or taking medicines: we fucked as spouses are wont to do, a few times we got babies. We were cool with that.

i'll never know the difference, anyway

i'd rather have a dog, i think.

pregnancy is beautiful, come on. you could get a portrait like this done:
http://www.linnealenkus.com/image/pregnancyLLS01.jpg

yeah, in the past year, i've changed my mind about kids - they are pretty damn awesome and entertaining - but I still don't want any of my own.

http://www.whitetrashheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/whitetrashseniors.jpg

http://www.blinkon2.com/images/pregnancy1.jpg

So when people say things like, "I don't take my kids to band practice" I just wondered, you know, how that works.

I dunno, we just set up a routine that sounded amenable to both of us and stick with it. considering how much structure kids require this wasn't super difficult, you just make yr schedule work around theirs. so the nights I have band practice the wife puts the kid to bed and stays home. it isn't that complicated for us...? there's exceptions, of course. sometimes she needs to be out two nights a week, or I have studio time booked, or someone's offered to babysit so we can go see a movie or whatever.

xp

jesus christ tyler

lol

I think the last time I was in the studio all weekend, my wife took the kid on a mini-vacation to Chicago. worked out great for both of us!

xp

I like how dad-to-be is gripping his baby mama's ass in that white trash portrait. so touching.

I think I would be a good mom. I'm not in any hurry to have kids, though.

harbl wins

what does she win? a demon babby? a lobster babby? taco babby?

harbl's prize

http://amog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/the-mutter-museum.jpg

it's a two-headed einstein baby in a jar!

do you like it?

I remember when my friend and I were at Uni and she was training to be a doctor (doing ob/gyn type stuff). We were both agreed that 28 would be a good time to start trying for kids, plenty of time to look into it if there were any problems, etc. We were so serious too; at the time, 28 was a lifetime away and once you were 28, you were as good as 40 by then anyway (to us). Now I could happily leave it 10 years but feel a bit like even now I'm against the clock, with all my near-future plans. I have a tendency to feel like that about everything though.

i'll consider having a baby once we can grow them in jars cheaply and safely

Why does that babby have a mustache? It looks like what would happen if Statler and Waldorf had gay Muppet sex and produced conjoined twins.

I would feel more guilty for having children. My reasoning in this matter may be a bit kooky, but I believe that parents are ultimately responsible for whatever harm their children suffer, and the idea of possibly foisting a lifetime or even just intermittent periods of pain and misery on someone is unappealing. Also, I have awful genes and my kid(s) would most likely have to grow up in a world that is much less tolerant of useless people like me.

I could see myself adopting, though, if I find the right partner.

Babbies in jars are nothing; my housemate made a latex foetus and put it in my box of cornflakes.

Do you want children?
Defend The Indefensible: Babies
childlessness
Children

^^ link to iconic how is babby formed thread while you're at it?

Making a latex foetus from scratch sounds difficult. Your housemate must have talent.

ppl just don't get tired of this topic

there's definitely a feeling that we can't do all those things that ... we didn't do before.

ha i kinda feel like this is like a real truth bomb about people in general and how we think of our lives, kids or no kids

ppl just don't get tired of this topic

if everyone got tired of it, ilx of the future would have no people. no opinion on whether that's a net negative or positive.

I wanted kids once. then I remembered I had one. damned if I can remember where I left it.

^^^ otm

whenever I bitch to my wife about what we can't do it's always crap we haven't done in 5 years anyway.

plus, it's not like babysitters are THAT expensive.

x-posts

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/06/LOBSTER%20BABY.JPG

if everyone got tired of it, ilx of the future would have no people. no opinion on whether that's a net negative or positive.

the human race has run its course. if we all stopped reproducing we could get it over with sooner.

ehh someone's gonna have to set off a nuke or two too tho

yeah, shit like sarahel's pic is exactly why we should stop parenting

I know this is super-irrational, but sometimes I think deciding to have kids would be an admission that my own life is a dead end and so I might as well start the cycle over and focus on someone else.

i am way too young to even think about this. i don't want to "have a kid" but i work with kids and love them to death and would totally take some of them home if their parents let me :p

rolling "keep your children away from k3vin k." thread

Never wanted children of my own, never have, probably never will. I have a nephew and niece i spend time with and that's quite enough for me.
At 37 years of age, i've noticed there's a lot of females out there you meet on dates that are very quick to bring the subject up, i'm guessing it's the biological clock ticking away?

Have only ever dated 2 girls that've not wanted children, the rest regardless of age, it's come up early in a relationship.

At 37 years of age, i've noticed there's a lot of females out there you meet on dates that are very quick to bring the subject up, i'm guessing it's the biological clock ticking away?

yeah this pressure is WAY more intense on women, both for hormonal and social reasons - it's like they have a deadline to either do this or not, whereas with guys we're like "eh I'm gonna keep makin sperm for awhile no big deal". But with women the "OMG if I don't have kids now I will NEVER HAVE KIDS" can be kinda scary

I have a friend who's 34 who never wants them, but he's also polyamorous which I think has something to do with it....

I'm on the fence - I think I'd be a good dad and raise a good kid, but I have a very negative view of where the world is headed over a hypothetical kiddo's lifetime and not a great deal of hope that some day I'll be pulling down a nice middle class income to support one.

i've had a couple of relationships end because of the children subject. i think women expect you to change your mind after a year from saying you didn't want children.
Sitting in a pub talking to someone you've been seeing for 3 months say she wants 2 children and wants to take 3 years out from work while you support her and the children is quite off putting.

man I hope I didn't offend anyone on this thread. This is such a big deal in people's lives it's hard to not to be defensive about your decision, whatever it is. But I'm glad there are people out there who don't have kids. We have these family friends when I was growing up who were a couple who never had kids and I always had fun when we would visit them and their lives seemed nice; they had a nice house in the middle of the woods, owned their own business, they seemed cooler than my parents.

I need people who don't have kids - so that they can come over and babysit!

I know this is super-irrational, but sometimes I think deciding to have kids would be an admission that my own life is a dead end and so I might as well start the cycle over and focus on someone else.

― jaymc, Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:27 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I understand this too; I think I was finally ready to have kids not because I felt like my life was a dead end but because I was ready for my life to be different. I don't feel like I'm giving up anything other than stuff I was ready to give up.

That's a good way of looking at it.

tbh i think human reproduction should be completely mechanized

will never have kids and it gets me down. i made my choices though...

i am way too young to even think about this. i don't want to "have a kid" but i work with kids and love them to death and would totally take some of them home if their parents let me :p

Yeah, it really isn't the kind of job where you can bring home free samples, is it?

xp - how do you know?

don't have any plans to, don't have any particular desire to, but I guess wouldn't be too averse to having one if the stork just dropped one down my chimney I guess? sometimes I feel like it would be totally totally weird to point to another human being and say "I made that"

it's all good and well to say how wonderful kids will be, but what if you end up having a kid who turns out to have an awful personality? you also have to weigh up the risk of having a child with a severe disability, mental or physical, and whether you're capable of handling it.

― just1n3, Wednesday, August 25, 2010 3:16 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

this also kind of terrifies me. what if my kid grows up to be a young republican?

you'd probably still like 'im

was that a subtle dig at my political leanings

Anyone who tries to make someone feel guilty about it

Are there really people that consciously do this (prospective grandparents aside)?

It's usually family members who could be the most inappropriate, but friends would offer up opinions of their own (whether or not you asked for it). To be fair, my experience as a fortysomething guy is markedly different from those of my ex who had just turned 30 and who's friends were thinking of having a second child already. In retrospect I'm pretty sure that the pressure was a contributing cause (of many) as to why our marriage fell apart.

was that a subtle dig at my political leanings

― dayo, Tuesday, August 24, 2010 6:54 PM (54 seconds ago)

ha naw just that it's hard to hate kids you've grown to like a lot

Voted for the first option, but honestly would have voted for "I am single and am not interested, but could change mind if circumstances were different"

also the question I would have to answer first prior to answering this question is "do I ever want to get married" which is scary in and of itself tbqh

12 years ago (when i was 30), i couldn't imagine being a father. now (at 42), i couldn't imagine life without my 9-year old daughter. she is everything to me and my wife.

(currently watching spongebob squarepants, btw. educational tv).

like i can talk to my dad about jazz and crime books and to my mom about sonic youth and philip glass and art museums.

PAINFULLY JEALOUS

tbh my biggest immediate fear is not not being a good father or provider but just having a kid who only wants to play sports & has no interest in music art etc. and just slowly drifts away and grows subtly resentful because he or she had to go elsewhere to learn how to throw a football

Aw Dan esq that was really sweet.

as a female in my thirties, i've hardly gotten any pressure from friends or family or colleagues about babymaking. it helps that i don't actively hang out with that many people who have children -- we're urbanite hipsters with other priorities. last person to ask me about my "status" was my general practitioner -- i told her i had none and wasn't planning to and she said maybe i would change my mind and i shrugged and said okay and we changed the subject.

as for family, my grandparents have all passed on, and my parents know i'm a misfit and i'm not gonna give 'em grandkids until i'm good and ready.

the thought of having to be re-exposed to adolescence & pre-adolescence through the eyes of someone i care deeply about and am responsible for is nauseating.

can't wait for my sister to have kids though!

tbh my biggest immediate fear is not not being a good father or provider but just having a kid who only wants to play sports & has no interest in music art etc. and just slowly drifts away and grows subtly resentful because he or she had to go elsewhere to learn how to throw a football

― itsinthetrees, Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:56 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Or, they might become an art- and music-loving geek who never learns the value of exercise, and ends up a chubby schlub with back problems (like me!)...

One cool (?) thing about being a parent is that you find out how much you CAN deal with. We ended up with twins, one of which had (and still may have) some pretty scary health issues, and we dealt with it. Because really - what are you going to do? NOT deal with it?

Don't want kids. I had a boyfriend of 4 years who had a child (was 7 when we broke up) and most of the time he was around I was just wishing that the BF would give him some children's Dimetapp. Same with my niece and nephew. They were sort of cute to look at every now and then, but usually I wanted them to just sit quietly and leave me alone. I felt guilty about those things (especially re my niece and nephew - I mean, they're family - but they just do nothing for me.

My dad used to make me feel guilty by saying that it was "natural" for people to want kids. My mom would intervene by saying (in broken English) "No, he's right, better not to have kids."

Way back when, you didn't deal with it. You just threw them into an institution/orphanage/foundling home/exposed them on the mountainside/whatever your culture had evolved to deal with unwanted/problem babies and went on with your lives.

(That was a reply to Swantz's post)

A scary reply!

The idea of parents taking care of their disabled children is less than a century old. The idea of them being treated as anything other than a family embarassment to be hidden from view is even newer.

polio probably changed things a lot in that regard.

my point about being worried about their personality and not liking them: i had a terrible, awful, miserable childhood, and felt like an unwanted burden until i was about 19 when i finally came to terms with the fact that i didn't fucking ask to be born and my mother only had herself to blame. i never for a moment felt loved by my parents until i was an adult (and even now i'm sometimes a little unsure, but i care a lot less). AND we were pretty poor. i just can't stand the thought of even slightly reliving my own childhood experiences through my own kid.

everyone who has had kids always says you can't wait for perfect financial stability before you start having kids, but i feel panicky just thinking about how we would afford it. i don't want my kids to grow up with the constant worry and stress over money that i grew up with.

I can only say this because I don't know any of you in real life, but one of the main reasons I don't want to have kids is that my wife, although I love her, has horrible genetics in her family, and I don't want to have kids with super high risk for diabetes, alcoholism, mental illness, and assholism.

uh, in case it's not obvious, I've got some genetic loading for mental illness and assholism on my side, too.

My husband has assholism on both sides of his family; I don't know how he escaped getting the condition.

I'm bipolar, I've got auditory processing problems, and I also have assholism lurking in my family tree.

xp to dan: that's kind of what i meant about 'feeling guilty' in the opening post - personally, i don't think there's anything wrong with taking those things into account, since it's not like we're doing the world a huge favour by pro-creating. but i know some ppl think it's somehow selfish to not have kids bc you're worried how they might turn out.

love reading this thread title as a loud children's commercial demanding of its audience about the product: "KIDS! DO YOU WANT THEM? DO YOU FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT WANTING THEM? BUY THEM!"

It's weird to me that people I know who are of my generation who share my culture are having kids. Since college I've taken it for granted that the people I know and am friends with wouldn't have kids. (I'm 35, educated, liberal, prone to world-weariness, and gay.) Other people our age might, but people "like us" wouldn't have kids any more than they'd convert to Scientology. This year has turned that part of my worldview upside down. I kind of thought we'd age together griping about breeders.

But I'm glad that my friends and people like them are having kids. I mean, I'm friends with them because I like them, I think they're smart, curious, progressive, emotionally ... aware? healthy? Anyway, I like knowing that there is going to be a crop of kids raised by people who I would loved to have raised me.

this whole thing of deciding you don't want kids when you're like 22 or 25 or even 30 is a strange concept to me.

Plenty of people that age decide TO have kids, which is a massively more irreversible decision; is that a strange concept to you?

Didn't want them at all until I was about 27. Wanted them badly after that after hanging out with several friends' cool kids (hello Ned Trifle). Now at 38 I think the clock has shut off, but I'm scared that it will start again, very probably with no biological ability to back it up. Very early in a relationship with someone who has an adult child and likely doesn't want any more kids.

Would not rule out adoption or fostering, but would want to do a whole enormous massive bunch of research first.

For the men: how often do you take sole control of the kid(s) so that your wife can be totally alone?

Usually just for three or four hours on Saturday, but he goes to preschool full time so we both have all day every weekday.

Single, and a v. small part of me likes the idea of being a parent, but I think there's no chance of that happening. And there's no way it should be allowed to happen, as long as I have my own neuroses and irresponsibilities to potentially inflict. I think little kids are great fun when they're happy and laughing, but I've never had to deal with the nastier aspects - my single tentative attempt at a diaper change while babysitting was mercifully aborted halfway through, thanks to the timely return of my cousin (the child's mother.)

As for the "Do you feel guilty" portion of the question: No. I was thrilled to become an uncle last year, and still am, and that's good enough for now (and probably forever)

31, married 4 months ago to my girlfriend of 9 years, who is 3 years my junior. We have a mortgage (but only on an albeit quite large flat, not a house) and decent, secure jobs. Just at the point after 3 years of mortgage paying where we have enough disposable cash to go out for a meal every week or two or book a holiday without guilt panic. We have 2 cats. Emma is DESPERATE for a dog, but we can't really have one until we have a garden. Fully intend to get house with garden in next 2 years, so we can get a dog, because I want one too. Em has said since we got the flat that if we have kids she wants to be trying for one at age 30 because she doesn't want to be an old mum, but, to be honest, neither of us actually really want kids at the moment. Several people (colleagues, not friends) assumed when we got married that it must be because we wanted to start a family. We already did start a family, with cats, ages ago. It's ace. Friends came round for dinner and brought their 14 month old son on Sunday; he was very cool and enjoyable and they're as happy as we've ever seen them (they lost two pregnancies before they had Sonny), but frankly it just made me want a dog more.

People-Making board makes me think "oh wow, I could not deal with that"

Pinworms, waking up every nights, lice, tantrums,... Yes, I definitely agree. :-) My youngest is almost three and still wakes up every other night. No wonder I am still exhausted.

Honestly, having children has made me realize even more that deciding not to have kids is/can be a positive decision (for others). Personally I couldn't make that decision, I desperately wanted kids, but I see no reason why someone has to have kids (because someone else says so.) I never pushed my husband. If he didn't want to, then that would have been perfectly fine. But would the relationship have lasted? Not sure really. I don't think I would have broken up with him. But that's easy to say now since I do have two wonderful kids.

Same (similar) here.

I *have* had the weird thing where a female acquaintance will start demanding to know why I've never had kids, loudly insisting that I answer the question, and it happened in mixed company so I couldn't just lamp her one and tell her that her obnoxious brat was the best form of birth control I have ever seen in my life.

Neither me or the mrs want kids. Both of us have siblings with children so there's no grandparent problem.

I suspect this might start to become more of an issue than it has been because now I'm 34 more friends are starting to sprog. One of my best friends is adamant she's not having any so we at least have no-kids solidarity with her.

Probably best for the gene pool anyway as others have said.

of course the flipside to all of this is people making you feel guilty for *having* kids. when i told some friends my wife was pregnant, they acted as though i had betrayed them or something. "it'll never be the same, man."

i'm single and don't want to have kids. i find it hard to put up with the compromises i have to make when i'm in a relationship with a girl let alone having the welfare of a defenceless little human to factor into everything.

a current issue: maintaining no-kids friends so that i have people i like to hang out with while also staying in touch with the friends who have kids because they have been my friends forever. i understand that something changes in people when they have kids, and it's not about SPENDING TIME with me since we don't even live in the same state, it's most about not judging my life because i have time to do things that they don't have time to do (cook elaborate meals, go to shows, relax alone, take long aimless bike rides, go on vacation, etc)

i get the "oh, must be nice" treatment sometimes and it's kind of shitty imo
i don't say anything about it though.

I worry about a gene pool filled with the offspring of conservative idiots, but other than that, I've been going 'oh, shit - that's 15 years' commitment' when considering a dog. My sister is also not going to have kids, but I think she is all up in the upbringing of my young cousins (9, 11) since she knows they'll have to come to her eventually because their (single) dad is frail and full of pacemaker at 65. I don't actually like the young cousins that much, not because they're vile but because there's just a lack of a bond. However, I love my best friend's three girls to distraction. Go figure...

Had a mentally ill teenager touch my belly and loudly demand that I tell her why I don't have any children yesterday while I was giving her a shower. Didn't get upset because, uh, mental illness and boundary issues ahoy.

Maybe the thing is that some people think about doing those things, but even while childless never quite get them off the ground and end up staying home watching tv or whatever (cf the convo above about how "we never did any of those things anyway, really").

LL, you on the other hand actually Do Things a lot! I admire that state of mind. People who're gonna say "must be nice!" should be careful about inspecting their habits to see if they really WOULD have or are just being lazily bitter.

Yeah, there's a bit of that, I think. It's not a conversation I feel like having with people I care about, so I just say, "Yeah, I guess it's pretty nice" and change the subject.

these particular friends were a little bit that way before they had kids, so i guess now it's just the kids' fault instead of theirs :-/

that kind of shit makes me sad

i get the "oh, must be nice" treatment sometimes and it's kind of shitty imo
I always response, "yes, it's totally awesome!!!"

of course the flipside to all of this is people making you feel guilty for *having* kids. when i told some friends my wife was pregnant, they acted as though i had betrayed them or something. "it'll never be the same, man."

Yeah, we got a lot of this. People stop inviting you to do things and/or give you a hard time about why you can't do this or that.

xp - how do you know?

― sarahel

[in response to my getting all doomy about never having children]

well, you know, i'm over 40 and my life isn't really pointed in that direction. i can barely afford a small apartment, am hardly the responsible sort to begin with. mope.

i can barely afford a small apartment, am hardly the responsible sort to begin with

Where i'm living at the moment, i regularly see young mums with at least 2 kids and they're pregnant.

yeah, pretty sure they don't do that in the u.s.

Because it's absolutely true and not a bunch of reactionary bullshit.

zing

i have kids and wanted kids and even though it's a huge amount of stress and work and god knows there are times (daily!) where it's more of a burden than a pleasure, i've loved it from the day the first one came home from the hospital. that said, i never planned or intended to be a divorced parent, which is what has transpired in the past year. prompted some re-evaluation of the whole thing for me, in the sense of "this isn't what i signed up for." but we're all adjusting pretty well. it's pretty weird being essentially a single dad of two small boys half the time, and just plain single the other half. like, now i get to do all kinds of things that i haven't been able to do much for the past 5 years -- go see bands, hang out late drinking with friends, rent a pontoon boat and spend an afternoon on a lake without worrying about anybody drowning. but then on my parent weeks, it's this all-consuming one-handed juggling thing.

but what i eventually realized is, of course, kids don't come with any guarantees. you have them, and then you figure out what to do. all sorts of things can happen -- divorce, death, illness, unemployment, who the hell knows -- once you have the kids, they're yours to deal with no matter what. and (this is corny, cliché, and 100 percent true) as long as you love them and show them you love them, they'll be able to deal with pretty much whatever they need to. i've been really proud of how well both of them have adjusted -- since january, they've moved to a new city, lived four different places, been enrolled in multiple schools and day cares, and had to get used to their parents not living together. it's a lot, but one thing you realize is that they just trust so much that the grown-ups know what they're doing. if we say they're with me this week and her next week, or whatever, they just accept it. it's of course a little terrifying, because what we do and how we do it really matters and will have a huge impact on them. but it's heartening too, how accepting they are.

kids are very adaptable

well said, tipsy. i'm sorry to hear about the divorce.

thanks. it's been quite a year. but we're all doing ok.

i think i really shouldn't be on this thread with a 3 week old baby

sure you should. once yr in the pool, yr in the pool. there's no wading area.

(also, that feeling of not being entirely sure what you're doing? you get used to it, but it doesn't really go away.)

tipsy, bro, just hold me and tell me it's gonna be ok, ok?

of course!

tho i have to say ... for the past few months i've been watching a friend deal (or try to deal) with the death of an adolescent son, and it's been the most painful thing imaginable. i mean, literally, it is hard for me to imagine anything worse. that's one thing people don't talk about with having kids, because it's so scary, but it's there: as soon as you have them, you meet this whole new level of terror at the thought of anything happening to them.

not to bring the thread down. but it's a big part of parenting, even if you have to just make yourself not think about it most of the time. if there's anything i miss about not being a parent, it may just that looming sense of what you suddenly have to lose.

i mean, what i miss is being able to live without that sense.

^^^^ otm about that dread

it's a big part of parenting, even if you have to just make yourself not think about it most of the time.

don't feel this way about my kids, fwiw, i mean, of course bad things should happen but i would say this knowledge is a really SMALL part of parenting for me.

well, i mean, i don't think about it all the time or anything. but it's part of the package that i didn't fully appreciate until it was there.

(probably exacerbated for me because our first was a super-preemie and spent three months in the hospital fighting off infections and on and off a respirator, so from the beginning there was this sense of the tenuousness and fragility of it all.)

i have the same fears as tipsy.

My wife deals with a few really sick children as part of her job, and after listening to her tales, that fear is never far all that away for me. It's a hard one to deal with, I just have to bury it cos it's just too utterly paralysing to think through. But folks that do have to live through it, my heart just cries for them.

too young to have given this much thought but the (however remote) possibility of losing a child disturbs me a lot

i think i'd want to have at least three kids, so one child wouldn't be left with unbearable guilt / parental anxiety

The stoics used to say that having a child was the same as handing over a hostage to Fortune. But the stoics were kind of assholes about a lot of things.

Am 34, married for 9 years. We both sort of wanted kids but not hugely.My wife had a miscarriage. Now neither of us really do want kids, and worry about why. It's sort of like we wanted THAT child, and it didn't work out, and now we're not sure what to do.

reading this thread, i suddenly feel...weird for wanting kids (as a young male person who enjoys alone time). i knew i wanted kids when i started working for an after-school program. some of those kids were such assholes, there was no way i was gonna let them run shit when i got old.

I too worry that if anything happened to my son I'd never get over it and my life would be definitively ruined. But the stakes are high because the reward is high too. Not having a child because you're worried about how you'd react to the theoretical child dying strikes me as being overly cautious about life. There is barely a decision you can make about your life that couldn't go wrong.

i think i'd be sadder about losing a dog than a kid. pretty sure i shouldn't be a parent?

i think that you only say that because you don't actually have kids

Yeah, everyone that has had a pet in childhood knows the pain of losing one.

I do worry about the remote possibility of losing them, but it makes me moreconscious of knowing them now and enjoying the times as they happen.

Of course, eventually they will go out into the world, and right now that makes me miss them already...

Is that one of the reasons people have their kids keep pets? To teach them about death and loss, as well as teach the about responsibility?

My parents were always quite matter of fact about the animals we kept. Like, my mum grew up on a farm, she has this view of "we got these animals from the pound, we take care of them, but if they get sick, we don't spend vast amounts of money on them, we just get them put to sleep." Never had any sense of mourning about the animals we kept.

So now I think she kind of deserves it when she tells me someone from the family is going through some trouble and I should be nice to them and phone them, and I just want to shrug and say "we got this family from the pound, I don't want to spend vast amounts of time and energy on them."

This is when I think my awful ex was right, and I would have made an absolutely terrible parent anyway so he was right to dump me and I was right never to have any children. :-(

did you tell your awful ex that you got him from the pound and he didn't deserve the vast amounts of time and energy you spent on him?

Genuine LOL. <3 U sarahel

(I probably would make a terrible parent, which is why that hurts so much and I still remember it 5 years post breakup)

Medal for sarahel.

Is that one of the reasons people have their kids keep pets? To teach them about death and loss, as well as teach the about responsibility?

That's also why they have elderly grandparents/great-aunties,etc. (except for the responsibilities, etc)

Oh, we had those put to sleep long ago.

Nobody likes your ex anyway, K - I mentioned him to my friends who are nommed for T. Prize this year (who don't normally indulge in the sport of bitching about people in the arts) and they were like HOWL LOL HOWL LOL 'how does he expect to be taken seriously? by anyone?'

It's a tough one: My kids have been wonderful and I have always felt engaged with them and their personalities, but I would not necessarily recommend other people to have kids, because mostly they are dreadful.

Hmm, that wasn't so tough after all!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I just found out my little brother is going to be a dad. He's 27 and his gf, who I've only met twice, is younger. They don't even live together and she has some pretty bad health problems, so while I'm pleased for them I'm also a bit concerned. Not much I can do from the other side of the world short of sending presents or cash, though (and I'm unemployed too).

i am in a committed relationship and we don't plan to have kids...... but i dunno would i want to some day kinda thing.

but my wife kinda reality checked me because we were both talking about some of those feelings and she said, "you know honey we really didn't do that much...we spent so many nights just watching TV and doing nothing, it's just now that's attributed to the baby"

and she's right...like honestly...we'd fucking watch reruns of Friends or something, like what is that?

so if anything maybe i feel guilt for wasting so much time....i dunno, maybe the lil' one will at least make me value the time that i do have now....try to live more "consciously" i guess

TRUTH BOMB

i resisted kids for YEARS because i imagined it would be the end of my life as an independent person. since my son has been born, i:

- got a part in a show on the Disney Channel
- got a part in a monthly "learning English" TV show
- did the reporting on an entire feature for an award-winning podcast
- produced a weekly half-hour radio show for five straight months

previously, i like... what, played playstation and drank

I'm glad there are people out there who don't have kids.

yeah TBH i sort of prefer hanging out w/my childless buddies more these days - at first it's great to have friends w/kids so you can RELATE to each other about all these little details that would drive everyone else up the wall but now i really enjoy folks without these baby issues rattling around inside their heads

Do you do any of the daytime childcare TH? Was talking to Tom E at the ILx10 FAP the other day about how amazed I am at his productivity despite having two under-fives. After three days in the office, two days of wrangling toddler, weekends of visiting family etc, I find I have less and less time for freelance writing...

my son goes to a childminder 5 days a week, from 9-5, so that's pretty huge.

tipsy's posts here are great

pretty much everybody's posts v v interesting to read

those of you who are parents and don't live near family or close friends: how do you deal with that?

that is one of my main issues about having kids: we don't really know anyone out here, all our family is split between new zealand and chicago (we're in CA), we have like ~one~ couple we are close friends with here. so i feel like if we were to have kid/s we'd have to be prepared to move within reasonable driving distance of family. i don't think we could manage on our own completely, and i would want my kids growing up with a sense of a close family (unlike my childhood).

well it's only been six weeks but so far, my parents, my wife's sister and my wife's dad have all been out to visit once each, and my mother-in-law, who lives 3.5 hours away, has been several times. it's nice in that they help out around the house a little and buy us food, but I kind of like it more when it's just the three of us. we also don't really have many friends with babies but it has been nice to get together with them and not have to worry about being boring talking-about-babies people.

just to clarify, my mother-in-law is our only family member who lives anywhere near us.

my feeling is you're going to be alone with the baby and solely in charge eventually, so you might as well get used to it. "growing up with a sense of a close family" is more of a concern I guess but we're just trying to plan lots of visits

i resisted kids for YEARS because i imagined it would be the end of my life as an independent person. since my son has been born, i:

- got a part in a show on the Disney Channel
- got a part in a monthly "learning English" TV show
- did the reporting on an entire feature for an award-winning podcast
- produced a weekly half-hour radio show for five straight months

previously, i like... what, played playstation and drank

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, September 3, 2010 5:21 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

its amazing what you can do when you suddenly have (a screaming, poopy ball of) motivation to get out of the house.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yay godless heathens!

you need to crunch those numbers again

ilxor.com needs more mexicans and mormons or else we will have serious demographic problems in the long-term

that's racist!

maybe start a mexican/mormon friendly subboard

there was one, and then it became a different one - and pretty much it's just plaxico posting about art

sunny - lol, I like to think it's not just that but you make a compelling case

those of you who are parents and don't live near family or close friends: how do you deal with that?

You spend money on childcare and you don't go to the movies much.

i am in a committed relatinoship and plan to have unplanned kids is a missing option imo

that is certainly much closer to my situation than any of the original poll options, yes

(previous unserious comment reminds me of another real, if vague and silly, concern I have abt having kids: have been in relationship for several years now, neither of us wants to get married, but my parents and grandparents are slightly old-fashioned and would be pretty much horrified if we spawned w/o getting married - so I guess at least 1.5 years' advance planning required after all, without even knowing by then if I even can have kids - man do I hate stuff that requires advance planning)

We lost one. It was very early (7 weeks), but I am terribly sad about it. I know it's strange to be posting here about it, but I feel the need to say something about it to someone. I haven't really been able to talk to anyone about it at this point. I actually got sort of attached to it - we referred to it as "Celly" and I had some really cool name ideas. For a few weeks I felt this transformed, heightened sense of everything, and then there was this scare where we thought something was very wrong, but it turns out everything is probably ok now otherwise.

really sorry to hear that, dude.

I'm terribly sorry to hear that. It is rough, my wife and I went through the same thing although it was a week earlier than yours. The good news is that everything was fine and we are now expecting our first baby in September. We had the 12-week check-up today and things are going along well, so we're feeling very good about this one. Sincerely not trying to rub this in, just telling you that it doesn't mean things won't get to where you want them to be. I was a nervous wreck from when we found until, well truthfully, this morning though.

ah fuck i'm so sorry hurting

I am so sorry, Hurting. Take care of each other.

Thanks.

Yeah, I know it doesn't mean anything in terms of future pregnancy (if anything it just means it's possible). Just surprised that it's hard to take. I had always taken that Peter Singer-ish "it's just some cells until it's sentient" approach.

I went to work after the doctor and didn't tell anyone about it and it felt very strange. Work relationships are strange.

The only person I ever talked to about it directly was my brother.

xxp yeah but it's different when the reality is your ~own~ little group of non-sentient cells, so it's ok and good to grieve. my condolences to you, hurting2.

i meant to post to this thread at xmas time after a discussion with my mother in law about having kids: she basically said not to have them if we already have a fulfilling life, bc kids aren't that great and bring you a great deal of trouble and can be a huge burden... lol!!!! i mean, that's kind of awful to hear, but also funny bc she has 3 sons who are all extremely intelligent, gifted, funny, interesting, kind (and handsome!) people.

Thanks for posting, Hurting. I don't know what to say or to add but I'm glad that you posted...if it can ease the hurt just a little bit, it was worth sharing.
Hugs for you.

sorry to hear that, hurting. i know how devastating the loss can be.

<3 to you both, let the feelings of loss happen and run that emotional course regardless of what your logical mind says

so sorry to hear that hurting. this happened to us also, about a year before our son was born. it was very rough for awhile but time (and love) will heal. don't give up.

I'm sorry, hurting.

o shit. v. sorry man

so sorry to hear that H2.

Sorry hurting, wife and I went through years if fertility treatments and lost a baby early in when she finally did get pregnant, I understand. It sucks. Keep your head up it will all work out as it did for us.

My cousin and her husband lost at two attempts in as many years, only to have a case of third time lucky - their son was born on Christmas Day. Hang in there, famille H2!

My mother had five miscarriages before having me. I guess it was just a matter of the perfect one sticking. ;)

Hurting, I'm very sorry to hear this and I'm glad you have somewhere to let it out because not being able to talk to anyone about it must be awful.

i meant to post to this thread at xmas time after a discussion with my mother in law about having kids: she basically said not to have them if we already have a fulfilling life, bc kids aren't that great and bring you a great deal of trouble and can be a huge burden... lol!!!! i mean, that's kind of awful to hear, but also funny bc she has 3 sons who are all extremely intelligent, gifted, funny, interesting, kind (and handsome!) people.

That's pretty funny but also so scary!! I think about that sort of thing all the time. If you had asked me a couple years ago if I wanted to have kids I wouldn't have hesitated at all but now I'm not so sure. The idea of adopting one or two like 10 years from now is more and more appealing. I keep watching people with kids and as cute and awesome as I'm sure they are, it also seems like so much fucking work.

btw congrats Jon - I don't remember seeing that news posted before. :)

I guess I worry that I'm too selfish with my time to have kids. That might change but I don't see it doing so any time soon. Plus there are so many things I still want to do that kids would make near impossible if you factor in $$ and practical aspects. I think I'd actually be a pretty good mom but it's such a HUGE thing. idk. I was never one of those people who always dreamed of having kids anyway so maybe it's just not for me.

sorry to hear about that Hurting. i know 2 couples who went through the same thing in the last couple years, and both of them kept trying and had pregnancies that went totally smoothly soon after.

kids are a lot of work, but its the rewards you get from putting in that work that make it easier!

really sorry hurting

I'm so sorry, Hurting. It's a really difficult experience to go through.

btw congrats Jon - I don't remember seeing that news posted before. :)

Thanks, I just posted it in the Chicago thread about the same time this one got bumped, so still relatively fresh news!

he basically said not to have them if we already have a fulfilling life, bc kids aren't that great and bring you a great deal of trouble and can be a huge burden... lol!!!!
My new coworker tells me exactly this, every day.

oh congrats jon, didnt see that either. Start it on popcorn in the womb.

erica, i'm totally with you - i mean, i really like kids and i'm pretty good with them but every time i start feeling clucky i think about the ~reality~ of having kids and honestly, i find it such a downer! i just wish there wasn't a stupid ticking biological clock, bc i think i would probably be way more into having my own kids in 10 yrs or so. but by then it'll be too late. but in 10 or 15 yrs, if j is making enough money that i don't have to work, i would really be into doing foster care.

I deal with Foster Care here...these poor kids.

Hugs to you, H2.

i've always wanted kids, but it gets to be a weaker urge every passing year.

he basically said not to have them if we already have a fulfilling life, bc kids aren't that great and bring you a great deal of trouble and can be a huge burden... lol!!!!

That's such a strange thing to say. It makes parenthood sound like some desperate, grasping thing.

ENBB FWIW I've done more to further my own selfish dreams since I've become a dad than in all the years before. There is definitely something "focusing" about it.

Hang in there, Hurting.

ENBB FWIW I've done more to further my own selfish dreams since I've become a dad than in all the years before.

Yup. Something about "taking the kids to NY/Venice/etc" and so on...

Sorry to hear it, Hurting. It's hard but it's not uncommon. Look after each other and take it easy for a while.

it's also a weird outlook in terms of the 'unfulfilled? Try kids!' mentality it seems to espouse xps

If everyone followed that advice, all kids would end up with malcontent parents.

hardly an uncommon outcome either way tbf

he basically said not to have them if we already have a fulfilling life, bc kids aren't that great and bring you a great deal of trouble and can be a huge burden... lol!!!!

My mom used to say this to me and my sister all of the time.

ty for kind words all

ENBB FWIW I've done more to further my own selfish dreams since I've become a dad than in all the years before. There is definitely something "focusing" about it.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 24, 2011 12:02 PM Bookmark

This is sort of the sense I started to feel. I remember noting that Robert Moses had kids very early and right in the middle of his ascendance -- not that he's exactly a role model but he certainly did have an impressive and productive career, and it seems like he was an involved father in spite of his constant work, at least in his early years.