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.
It’s not such a binary thing. For example, you can obtain some, hodl for a bit, and later return them for a profit. It’s basically like the stock market, except people refer to the money you get as a “ransom” rather than a “profit” for some reason. What many people outside the industry don’t know is that it doesn’t officially become a crime until police get involved. So just insist on “No police!” in your sales calls. /s
I’m in my mid 40s now but I knew even when I was a kid that I never wanted kids. I see my friends and family now struggling with their own children and I just cannot imagine that life for me. I have no regrets not having kids, but if I ever did, I know it’s better to regret NOT having them than to regret having them.
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.
If my life were financially more secure and if the climate didn’t seem objectively fucked in the future I could imagine myself being a happy father of kids
Yeah man, this is it. I like freedom and disposable income. But I feel like it would be rewarding raising kids. But also it’s sentencing them to whatever fucked up reality the last few generations have pushed us towards.
This is it for me. I absolutely love kids, but everything is so expensive. Having kids would be a big risk as things could quickly become very difficult is there was an emergency.
I’m in my 40s now and never liked children, even when I was one myself. So to me the decision not to procreate came very natural and has never changed. I was so certain that I never wanted any kids that I got myself sterilized when I was 25 or 26, don’t remember exactly. Just to be certain I couldn’t be trapped by some oopsie. Didn’t regret that step for a second.
Even if it were possible, I still would not prefer to have any kids.
First off, I haven’t even been a “proper adult”, and probably would never be. How can I be expected to raise a child with the care and love they deserve when I don’t even have my life sorted out? Even if you argue that I’d have to change once having a child, I’ve also seen people fail to change even after having children they swore they loved even more than their own life.
Secondly, we’ve already got enough people that are unwanted and abandoned. Why not take better care of people we already have now?
Lastly, parenting is a huge commitment. It’s not just about you and your “legacy”, but another life that will suffer for your mistakes. For those who are up to the task and willingly take on the responsibility, thank you and best of luck!
I don’t have kids of my own, but through my time with my step-kids, I’ve learned I would’ve loved to have one or two. I totally understand people who don’t want kids. They can be a huge, expensive hassle. But I feel like I’ve gotten so much more back from them than it ever cost me. Plus they gave me this cup that I drink from every morning. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d9705874-dd49-4b02-8a43-a497638c7131.jpeg
I was well into my 40's when my kid was born, so I've had it both ways. I vastly prefer the kid. Yes it sucks to not being able to do some stuff on occasion. It even sucks more that my parents are gone so I have a real hard time finding babysitters. But I just love the little one so damn much!
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 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!