I’m 42 and have known since I was 4 years old that I never wanted to be a mother. It’s seriously one of my earliest memories - I didn’t want to make my bed, my mother was exasperated with me and said “you’ll be sad you treated me so badly when you have kids of your own”… and I remember being just appalled at the thought of being a parent.
I just don’t enjoy children. I like peace, quiet, and order, and the freedom to do what I want without having to factor in children. Plus it looks super stressful to be a parent. I have 2 nephews and a niece, and while they’re good kids, their parents always look so utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. And I’m definitely not good at being an aunt - interacting with children just doesn’t come naturally to me.
Everyone told me I’d grow out of it. I had to fight to get my tubes tied in my mid-twenties (for real, I had to see so many doctors and had a botched Essure procedure at Planned Parenthood before I finally found an OBGYN who would take me seriously!).
I swore against having kids-for lots of reasons-, same as my wife. But accidents happened and we became parents. As the cliche goes “it is life changing”.
It alters who you are and your idea of importance. There was stress, and exhausting times, but now they are adults they are my favourite people :)
It is a threshold moment situation, if you like your life how it is never have kids. If you have kids your life becomes different. No path is better than the other; just altered.
it is a fair point. On another platform I got pummeled for suggesting that a terrible family that killed their young kids, had done them a favour; in that they didn’t have to endure a lifetime of abuse, and also would not pass on the learned abuse pattern to the next gen. To cold a suggestion I guess.
As an unrelated side note: One thing that has been interesting is watching genes play out. My daughter smirks like her grandfather, and she has had maybe 5 days exposure to him in her lifetime. And my youngest rubs his feet together when stressed, like a self soothing routine, something his great-grandfather used to do, but he died before my son was born. We like to think we are all about choices and choose to be unique, But some invisible biology still controls things.
That's very generous of you. In my experience, the perspective I replied to is the one that is most prevalent and you can't mention being happy without kids without somebody chiming in to say or imply how happy you would be if you had them. It gets really old.
Understood, that used to bother me too. After a while people realized I was firm and laid off. Other than a few occasional passive-aggressive comments from my mom about how she doesn’t have grandchildren, nobody really says anything anymore.
We have one boy and it didn’t really change our life that much. Some time running him to activities and overseeing homework and such, but our hobbies and friends didn’t change.
I’m gonna have my uterus removed because of that. I’m much younger and although I have some pain during my period it’s not debilitating at all, so it’s not that much medically necessary.
It was also super easy to get a doctor to do it. I’m glad things are getting better in this regard.
I can’t wait to not have to deal with bleeding, pain, and libido killer contraception.
Even though I do want children myself eventually, I think those doctors are silly for wanting to limit the person from their wishes of no children. It’s bonkers.
“Oh, you want to do any <insert medical thing that is either somewhat reversible or not at all>? Why, we know better than someone who probably has already took years thinking about it!”
Medical gatekeeping is real. It’s annoying. It’s why abortion, fertility treatments (of many kinds), HRT, and so on, all honestly should be way easier to access with the person’s own consent.
They might argue, but what about the regret rate, the 10 people that according to some rag paper regret it for life. And then they promptly ignore that many 100,000s of people actually have been enormously helped by it, and that they won’t magically go away if you make it harder to access – you’ll just make it unsafer for them, because now they rely on trenchcoat abortions, poor surgeries, lack of safe medicine due to deliberate underfunding of training, forbidding life-saving medicine, etc.
We oblige no duty to breed. Instead, we have a plight to make life enjoyable for ourselves and for each other. This goes their way too.
I always wanted children. Damn near every major life choice has been fueled by that. Took a job I knew I wouldn’t be happy at, but could be successful at to provide a better life. Yhe cars I’ve bought the safety rating for kids was to priority followed by reliability. The house I bought is within walking distance of every grade school, and the basement could easily be setup for a hangout spot for the teen years, oh and a good sized backyard for playing. One of the reasons I stayed at this job is I’m at max PTO and they actually offer paternity leave! I always make mental notes of fun places for kids so I could take them. When they were younger, and I was still considered cool, my niece and nephew wanted to move in with me 😆.
I just wanna say I am sorry that it is near impossible for single dads to adopt kids. I understand the reasoning but want to cry because there are kids who need parents but you can’t be the parent to one.
No kids. They’re a huge, life long commitment that you need to be willing to sacrifice everything for. Your happiness, your sanity, your time, your money… everything.
And I’m not the type of person who wants kids nearly enough to do that.
Especially when people tell me that I should for reasons like having a caretaker when I’m older. I’m not attached to my parents enough to do that. Why would I expect that of anything I pop out? And what a horrible selfish reason to make a new human that is!
If the only reason I’d be having a kid is selfish reasons in the distant future that aren’t even a guarantee, then that’s not worth sacrificing myself for right now.
Nothing against other people who want to be parents, so long as they’re prepared and not doing it as some sort of life insurance or to make a clone of themselves.
I’m a parent, and we made the conscious decision to become parents. That said, I can fully understand people who don’t want to have that responsibility. It can be exhausting and thankless, changing almost everything with your life, hobbies and habits.
On the other side of the coin, the depth of love you feel as a parent is impossible to describe. With that comes a set of incredible feelings, watching your children experience, learn and grow.
Basically, parenthood is almost completely thankless, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
The moment humans brought nuclear armaments into the world was also the moment that we severed ourselves from our humanity. We are still living in the shadows of metaphorical guns to our heads. This escalation of madness has led us down a very dark path, and for that reason, I’m out.
Wars have always been brutal and involved murdering/raping citizens. Don’t act like nuclear power made a change in morals. Only thing that changed is the scale. The darkness has always been there.
having children sounds disgusting. every year that I’m still alive and I see more of my friends on Facebook posting their fat naked baby slobber garbage I am even more happy than before. fuck your cookie slobber food garbage bowling ball head fat screaming toothless idiot crap. do not ever come to my house. im blocking them all
There would have to be some dramatic changes in the world socially and politically before I’ll feel even remotely comfortable having kids. Also my finances would need to change.
And my family also has some genetic issues I’d rather not pass on.
Adoption is an option, but I’m pretty sure I don’t even want one in the first place. When I was younger I thought having kids seemed like a sucker’s game. My opinion has softened on that a bit, but it’s still difficult to imagine actually wanting children.
I often feel like the odd one out in this conversation because I feel like I’m the only person with no strong feelings one way or the other. Like I could be totally okay with never having kids, but also fine with having kids.
To be clear, I absolutely love my son and I’m glad I have him. But I also still feel like if I had decided not to have kids, I’d have been fine with it.
It’s a different framing now though, of “Do you want a kid”, in the hypothetical, vs. “Would you be ok if you didn’t have [Insert your kid’s name here].” I’d be devastated if my son were not in my life. But I think I’d have been fine if I chose not to have a kid.
Kids! I thought when I was a kid I wanted them no matter what. In my early twenties I decided I only wanted kids if I could find the right partner. Now I have one. Sometimes my partner is great, sometimes he sucks. I don’t care, because my kid is great. She’s a joy to be around and gives my life purpose in a way I didn’t realize was possible. My whole purpose is just to enjoy reading her a story in that moment. My whole purpose is to feed her when she’s hungry. My whole purpose is to look into her eyes. My whole purpose is just to enjoy the moment I’m in, and she accidentally causes me to be fully present so often. It’s amazing.
That said, I would say if you’re not 80% sure you want kids, don’t. Figure out what would get you to 80% first. Financial stability, a good partner, a solid career field, etc.
It’s not our genes that he cares about. It’s his genes.
For me personally, I feel that I am inherently good, humanity is inherently good, and I just want to pass the torch to the next generation and see how far they can carry it. We’re currently in a bit of a slump as a species, but I believe that everything will turn out alright in the end and I’d like for my descendants to be around to enjoy and indeed contribute to it.
Why does it matter if they’re your descendants or others’? My 16 great great grandparents are as much strangers to me as any other 16 people walking around 100 years ago. And everyone here now is in the same place, whoever they came from. Not like I’ll be alive to (or would do so in any case) take pride in saying 'ooh those 12 people have something to do with me if you go back far enough"
Why wouldn’t it matter? If your family doesn’t matter to you, what does?
'ooh those 12 people have something to do with me if you go back far enough"
It’s not about that, it’s that those 12 people won’t ever exist if I never have any kids. They have everything to do with me, because without me, they wouldn’t be alive. And I also think the world will be a better place if they do exist.
I think that’s pure conjecture about how having kids affects the world. And the nature, worthiness, or value of those 12 people has nothing to do with whether or not you happen to personally be their ancestor. There’s nothing different or more special about one person’s progeny than another, so who cares if it’s your kids or 8 billion other people. The idea that that is important in the future is all about making yourself important in the present.
There’s nothing different or more special about one person’s progeny than another
How do you figure that? Are you familiar with the theory of evolution? How do you think we got to the point where I’m communicating to you through a global communication network? Dumb luck?
We are as important to future generations as past generations are to us. If previous human beings hadn’t done everything they did, we wouldn’t be here now. Likewise, everything that we do in the present has a rippling effect for the rest of human history. Having kids allows you to have a little more direct input on what kind of ripples you leave behind.
My point is not that previous people haven’t done significant things, it’s that they did those things independently of who one of their many ancestors happened to be. Much like an actual ripple, the larger the pond, the less likely any disturbance is to reach the shore, and the more likely it is to be quickly lost to the natural turbulence of any body of water.
If your evidence against that is the existence of significant inventions, there are very few, if any, that wouldn’t have been invented by someone else within years. No major invention or discovery, from the light bulb to relativity, has been made while others weren’t working on the same problem and making similar, if slightly slower, progress.
That’s why they say necessity is the mother of invention, not a person or an institution or anything that could be credited to a single creator.
And if you think humans are still evolving according to selection pressure the way that other species have/do, you just don’t understand how evolution actually works. The moment we gained self awareness and created social structures, we drifted so far from biological evolution that it’s an entirely moot point in terms of future generations. The least adaptive of us now, on average, still lives through the entirety of our birthing/fertile years, while significant portions of a population dying during or prior to fertility is the only way that natural selection works. That or the existence of bachelor herds that lead to a very slim minority being the only ones to breed. Neither of those are the case with humans.
Ultimately, having kids to ensure your own legacy is possibly the most selfish reason you could create someone and thrust them into 80 years of what should be their own life.
I don’t believe that anyone truly acts independently. We are all products of our environment, of which our ancestors comprise a significant portion. I don’t believe in free will.
Your contention regarding inventions is wrong, but irrelevant anyway. I understand that it’s nearly impossible to discuss this topic objectively without allowing your personal emotions to bleed into it, so I’ll just leave it at that. I’ve already made my points but you don’t seem to understand at all.
significant portions of a population dying during or prior to fertility is the only way that natural selection works. That or the existence of bachelor herds that lead to a very slim minority being the only ones to breed.
And I don’t understand evolution? Wow. I think it’s possible you may be suffering from a severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
What about my understanding of evolution is incorrect, and how do you see natural selection working in present humans? Very possible that Dunning-Kruger is at play, but we may have to agree to disagree as to where…
I’ll get back to you on that. Seriously, I just don’t have time rn but I’ll edit this when I have a chance within the next 24 hrs. The second half of your question is particularly difficult to answer.
Ok I just accidentally wiped my entire edit before saving. Fuck that, I’m not writing all that again. God damn it that was such a good response too. Sorry.
It’d be wasted on you, as my previous insights have been. But yeah, evolution doesn’t exist, genetics don’t exist, whatever helps you sleep at night buddy.
There’s nothing different between me and LeBron James, I’m just not trying hard enough to dunk 😅. If only I made the choice to dunk the basketball, independently of the fact that my ancestors are not particularly tall. But my ancestors are irrelevant, as you’ve clearly asserted.
I'm just a vehicle to my genes which they use to travel to the future. They only can travel when they have a suitable host who can reproduce them and can make sure that the next version has the best chances to reproduce again. So over time natural selection optimized for the vehicles to want to reproduce. Everyone who didn't have the desire to have kids in the past has none (other than rape victims) to move their genes forward.
Anyway this is a extreme oversimplification of the whole idea of The Selfish Gene
No biological kids. In my opinion, there is no reason to produce biological children when there already are millions of parentless, unloved children in foster homes.
That being said, some days I yearn to take care of a child - to know I have given an existing being the opportunity to a better life.
A couple of years ago, in Portugal, there were more couples looking to adopt than “viable” children up for adoption. While your statement makes total sense, it may be a insensible option on your country. Make due research!
Kids for me. They have improved my life more than anything else. Having the first two pushed me to go back to school and get a real job. I got more when my ex & I split and I married a guy with kids; we have a staggering number between us, most were teens or older when we got together and they are all close now, so they have a network of family to help and socialize with. The youngest is almost done with high school so we are in the final stretch of having them at home. The Thanksgiving feast here is insane, so many people, chaotic and fun.
Now - having said all that, I always knew I wanted kids, not necessarily to birth them but to raise them. Babies are adorable , little kids blistering cute, teenagers so much fun and occasionally helpful, and then they grow up and are actual people. It is work I find fulfilling and it helps the world to have educated, sensible, open-minded people. Most of my kids don’t want kids themselves and that’s fine! Everyone has their own life to live.
So for me, kids. For you, whatever you want, I don’t think it’s essential to become an adult and don’t think it’s the only way to get a family either.
I’m struggling with teenagers being enjoyable, both of mine were monsters. They are adults and doing well now, but I wouldn’t re-do the teenage years if you paid me. I’m glad your experience was much better.
I had two terrible toddlers, but once they were kids they were cool. Two who I guess will get a midlife crisis, because they never caused trouble as kids or teens. The rest I got when they were teens or older and while not all of them (bio or other) were academic superstars or high performing athletes or anything, they were all reasonable and interesting and diverse people by teenage years.
Having no kids. I currently have no children and do not plan to. I am satisfied with my life. My only real concerns are about who would support me when I age. Not monetarily but just in case my mind starts to slip and I need someone to help me get the help I need. I don’t feel comfortable having a child or adopting with that being the sole reason.
Never considered the who would support you in advanced age argument. But I live in the US and any children I have would end up as probably the poorest generation to ever exist in this country, so not them I suppose.
Like I said, I view the financial aspect of my responsibility. It’s more like I’d be worried about not really being able to make my own decisions and not having someone there to help me out. Someone to help pick what retirement home or elder care facility I end up in. Someone to check on me and make sure those places aren’t doing elder abuse. That sort of stuff.
I’d be worried about not really being able to make my own decisions and not having someone there to help me out.
I don’t know about you, but I sure hope I’d be able to check out before that time comes for me. Before my mind and body becomes too feeble, I’d like to be able to just nope out.
So, I have a few family members getting on in age and they are worried about the same thing. In one instance, they hired a house cleaner to come on once a week, just purley my happenstance, but she is able to let us know if said family member feels “a little off base”