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That's because people drag all kinds of baggage from their childhood onto this forum.
I joked a few posts earlier about my wife living on a sailboat right now if we had been childless. And, yes, there are times when I get tired of college tuition, car insurance, and whatever else siphoning cash out of my bank account. But our children have enriched our lives beyond measure, and have proved worth all the effort it took to raise them. People who have never had kids simply will never understand this.
No...not for me. My mother was very resentful of my sister and I. I think my parents adopted and perhaps even married just because it was the thing to do at that point in their lives. Then my mom got (surprise!) pregnant with me a couple months after adopting my sister. So two babies less than a year apart...later to find out my sister had developmental issues. We were not a picture perfect family and she didn't have a maternal bone in her body. There was little if any joy in her, certainly not anything she attributed to my sister and I.
You can tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get through all those tough family times - we have to justify our decisions somehow, right? Just don't think I will ever envy a parent. But hey, you'll never envy selfish me with all that income and freedom, right?
No...not for me. My mother was very resentful of my sister and I. I think my parents adopted and perhaps even married just because it was the thing to do at that point in their lives. Then my mom got (surprise!) pregnant with me a couple months after adopting my sister. So two babies less than a year apart...later to find out my sister had developmental issues. We were not a picture perfect family and she didn't have a maternal bone in her body. There was little if any joy in her, certainly not anything she attributed to my sister and I.
You can tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get through all those tough family times - we have to justify our decisions somehow, right? Just don't think I will ever envy a parent. But hey, you'll never envy selfish me with all that income and freedom, right?
Actually, I have quiet reflective moments when I put price tags on my experience with my children. It's kind of a spiritual experience.
Others have covered it, and this is truly not some newly uncovered phenomenon.
The reality is that actively raising children responsibly takes a tremendous amount of resources...time, money, attention, the sacrifice of sleep, etc. This is intensely true in the early childhood years, when they are literally defenseless, helpless, and dependent upon you for nearly every aspect of survival, from the most basic to the most complex. But it continues as they grow, the context is just different.
For a marriage to withstand the shift of resources away from both partners and toward the children, certain things need to be reality:
-Both partners need to recognize that there are finite resources, and that the bulk of them will go toward caring for children and meeting their needs. If anybody's not okay with this, having children is not a good choice. They have the greatest basic needs, and those needs are priority.
-Partners need to come to a common ground on what they expect and what they will personally do in order to create a household and dynamic where they are able to carve out opportunities to reconnect. Sometimes (and especially when kids are babies and toddlers), meeting kid needs can be physically and psychologically gruelling, and when that's done, you're just spent, and the idea of making time to reconnect with your spouse can seem daunting. But it is important to periodically do so.
-Partners need to value the family unit, as a unit, and not look at is as a competing front that takes time away from time with their spouse. Not everyone does this.
I'm a 31 year old female and a fence sitter... this is not helping
It's on my mind EVERY day, the decision whether or not to have kids. i think deep down i don't want them. but what if i regret it?
at this point i hope that i end up being infertile so i don't have to bear the weight of a decision anymore.
Consider why you think you might regret it.
If you know deep, down that it isn't something you want, it's worth examining where your regrets are coming from. Most of the time when we have deep convictions about something, regret doesn't play into it.
Nor do most child free people like me care to. If you decide to have kids fine, just don’t expect me to care. That’s all
Do you really run into people who expect you to care about their choice to be parents, on a regular basis? Serious question.
I spent most of my adult life not a parent. I was among the people with kids, on a daily basis, and did not have any myself and wasn't working on having any. Now that I am a parent, I can honestly say I couldn't care less whether or not the people around me care about the fact that I have kids, or understand my choice to have kids, or appreciate it, or whatever. It was my choice, and it was an important one for me and my partner, and it doesn't really matter if it is or isn't to anybody else, and that's all. I can't really fathom this apparent phenomenon of parents stalking people without kids and harping on them that they just don't understand that this is what life is all about, or anything like that.
That's fine. I'm extremely happy for you. Just don't twist your arm patting yourself on the back.
It's interesting that this your response to "I'm enjoying the life I chose; it works for me and was worth the effort and resources I put into it."
Why WOULDN'T people take pride in having created a life that works for them and making choices that have enriched their lives, really? Don't most people celebrate things that work out for them?
Don't you, yourself, in fact, celebrate your own choice to not have kids, quite regularly on here, at least, and pat yourself on the back for the wisdom of that choice?
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa
Do you really run into people who expect you to care about their choice to be parents, on a regular basis? Serious question.
I spent most of my adult life not a parent. I was among the people with kids, on a daily basis, and did not have any myself and wasn't working on having any. Now that I am a parent, I can honestly say I couldn't care less whether or not the people around me care about the fact that I have kids, or understand my choice to have kids, or appreciate it, or whatever. It was my choice, and it was an important one for me and my partner, and it doesn't really matter if it is or isn't to anybody else, and that's all. I can't really fathom this apparent phenomenon of parents stalking people without kids and harping on them that they just don't understand that this is what life is all about, or anything like that.
Considering I’ve gotten nothing but side eyes because I haven’t contributed one penny to the six or seven baby showers my company has had and absolutely refuse to, the answer is yes. I’ve been asked several times when I’m going to settle down and have kids, just in the few months since I turned 30. I’d say people care a lot over something that is none of their damn business anyway.
I'm a 31 year old female and a fence sitter... this is not helping
It's on my mind EVERY day, the decision whether or not to have kids. i think deep down i don't want them. but what if i regret it?
at this point i hope that i end up being infertile so i don't have to bear the weight of a decision anymore.
I feel like you would know by now if you wanted them. My mom had me when she was 25 and she had always loved kids and knew that she wanted a little girl before she ever met my father. I’ve never once thought to myself that “I love kids” or that I want to experience the joys of motherhood. I also don’t like other people’s children the way my mom does. That’s not to say that I don’t believe that there are positive aspects to being a parent. I can imagine positive scenarios. If I were married to someone who I thought would make a good father then maybe I could be more open to the idea of having a child. He would have to be a much more optimistic person than I am and able to counter all of my (very good) reasons for not wanting children. Even then I couldn’t say that I’d be 100% onboard, but I definitely do not have fantasies of motherhood as a single woman.
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