I have ultimately never really wanted children. From a very young age, I wasn't really into the idea and I've always sort of known it. My ex husband - we didn't really want children and honestly there is no way in hell I would have ever done it with him because I knew I would be the only parent in the relationship and that was not appealing to me.
My current SO - we don't really want children either. And we're at an age where it's becoming less of a possibility. Would I have had children if I had met him first? Possibly but even then it's unlikely. I can say with 100% certainty I have never ever in my life even remotely considered the possibility of me being pregnant. That is not something I've ever wanted to do.
We are almost 47 and our time has more or less run out. The thought of raising a child at this age is definitely unappealing to us as on a daily basis I contemplate my retirement. Lol... We have no real regrets about our decision. I know people think about - who will take care of you when you are old? There is no guarantee your children will take care of you when you age, and in my mind that is not a good reason for having children.
I know people think about - who will take care of you when you are old? There is no guarantee your children will take care of you when you age, and in my mind that is not a good reason for having children.
My standard answer to this is - all of my DINKy money will look after me.
(flippant I know but seriously, you can't rely on kids to look after you - they have their own lives, or may not be healthy enough to do so, or may not like you)
“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,”
First, a nitpicky thing, but you already have a family. Family doesn't only mean kids. Anyway, we're late 30's DINKs and love our childfree life. What is it specifically that you think you will regret by remaining childfree? There will always be paths that we don't choose (careers, moving, marrying or not marrying...) but worrying about all the what-ifs will be exhausting. It's okay to love your life as-is.
Definitely agree with this. Family also doesn't have to be family in the traditional sense; family can be the people you choose to surround yourself with as you move through life. I'm part of a very close-knit group of friends who I consider my "friend-family," and in many ways we're just as close as my biological family.
I was always pretty sure I was in the no-kids camp. H was ambivalent and could have been happy either way. We're 12 years into our marriage now and happily child-free and plan to stay that way.
Another agree, H and I are a family. I have friends who are closer to me than my family. You make your own family.
H and I are childfree by choice. I've always been no-kids, and H was ambivalent. We've been married for 10 years and I love our life together. No matter what choices you make, there's always a chance that you'll regret it, you just need to do what's right for you.
I was also on the fence, H was not. We had one, and then we had a 2nd 4 years later. I love both kids dearly and would have told you with the first that our lifestyle has not changed much, but with kid 2 it’s a whole other ballgame. That being said I don’t regret having either of them and know that most of the difficulties we are experiencing are temporary.
Also, I will say that as someone who talks to people almost daily about sexual and reproductive health, many people are very ambivalent about pregnancy and being parents. I think the research shows this. It's also the reason many of us hate the term "unplanned" pregnancy.
So anyway, kind of a tangent, but I just wanted to point that out for OP. Maybe it's not talked about enough, but ambivalence towards pregnancy and whether or not to parent is very common.
Thanks for mentioning this, I hate the term unplanned pregnancy, unless you take birth control to the T, and/or a condom breaks, or a failed vasectomy (and a few other medical reasons). I feel like so many people throw out the term unplanned when they were using zero protection or weren’t doing ovulation trackers, temping, etc.
Also, we temd to think about the best case scenario. You have to be prepared for a child with serious health or other issues. That's stuff we thought more about when deciding to stop at 1. Were we strong enough to take on more than even the typical work of parenting?
This is another reason I was always on the fence about having kids. There are serious mental health issues in my family (sister, dad, dad's extended family) and I was terrified if I had a kid they'd end up with some of those same issues. After growing up in a family that had to deal with that, I just didn't want to chance it. I know how hard it was on my mom, and I just don't have it in me to deal with the worst case scenario.
Also, we temd to think about the best case scenario. You have to be prepared for a child with serious health or other issues. That's stuff we thought more about when deciding to stop at 1. Were we strong enough to take on more than even the typical work of parenting?
This and also what Sonrisa said. I've been reading all morning, typing and deleting and can't seem to put how I feel into words. I don't regret my son, I love him to death but I don't think I have the temperament to be a mom and I probably shouldn't have been. He has a lot of challenges, and I struggle every day. I'm exhausted.
Yes, my husband and I were married 12 years before we decided to get pregnant. My daughter was born last February and I can’t imagine my life without her. For the first few weeks I wondered why the hell I decided to have a baby, and was super overwhelmed with the responsibility of it. After a month or so that passed and I don’t feel the impact to our lives has been too dramatic. She was also a tough baby and I’d still make the same decision. We are one and done and I think that’s the best of both worlds. The only issue right now is that the kids in our friend group are all 3 and older so I feel a little isolated right now (Covid doesn’t help either) as they can do a lot more than we can, but that will pass as soon as she can be trusted to not put something in her mouth or fall down the stairs lol. I do believe people can be happy without children and had an extremely happy life before her, but I’m glad I’m experiencing being a mother and it will only get better as she gets older.
I simply do not believe anyone who says their lifestyle didn't change much from childfree to one child.
Unless some people are living a radically different lifestyle than I am as a childfree person (which, I suppose is possible).
Probably depends on your social life pre-kids. We mostly hang out with a group of 4 couples and their kids, so it’s not a huge deal to bring our daughter and still have fun. I still have girl’s nights often as my husband is great about staying home with her. Sometimes we take turns hanging out with our friend group individually and the other stays home. My mom also babysits at least once a month. I think as long as you have a supportive partner and one good option for babysitting, it’s possible.
Also, I will say that as someone who talks to people almost daily about sexual and reproductive health, many people are very ambivalent about pregnancy and being parents. I think the research shows this. It's also the reason many of us hate the term "unplanned" pregnancy.
So anyway, kind of a tangent, but I just wanted to point that out for OP. Maybe it's not talked about enough, but ambivalence towards pregnancy and whether or not to parent is very common.
thanks for pointing this out - I definitely feel like I'm the odd person out in my overall friend group for not feeling a strong pull to be a parent
As a low-energy introvert with anxiety who never had the 'biological' urge for kids, but worried I'd regret not having them (and DH really really wanted them), I can say with certainty now that I would've been plenty happy having stayed child-free
Of course I love DS, and who is 7, and I think I'm a good enough parent, but I don't find parenting to be a source of personal fulfillment. I struggle a lot. He's not good at entertaining himself, so the pandemic period has been pretty miserable for me.
Thank you for sharing this. I am leaning toward no kids but my H wants one, and I’m pretty sure I would feel exactly the same way.
My H is really hung up on not wanting to be an “old dad” (turning 33 this year) and wants to have a kid soon, so we’re going to have to work through that 😣
I simply do not believe anyone who says their lifestyle didn't change much from childfree to one child.
Unless some people are living a radically different lifestyle than I am as a childfree person (which, I suppose is possible).
Probably depends on your social life pre-kids. We mostly hang out with a group of 4 couples and their kids, so it’s not a huge deal to bring our daughter and still have fun. I still have girl’s nights often as my husband is great about staying home with her. Sometimes we take turns hanging out with our friend group individually and the other stays home. My mom also babysits at least once a month. I think as long as you have a supportive partner and one good option for babysitting, it’s possible.
I'm referring more to the notion that going from having no dependents in your life to being completely responsible for (even just one) human life, their needs, wants, education, future, etc. doesn't change one's lifestyle much. Not just, "I like to be social and now I can just tote my child along."
Long wow to those saying that just having one didn’t upend their lives.
Mine is four and I still feel in recovery from the massive change having her took on our lives.
Since I'm the one that used the term upend - I don't mean to diminish how life changing it is to have one child. The first few years were HARD, especially on me since DD was a Stage 5 Mommy Clinger. I used to say that if she could crawl back up into my uterus and live there she would. We always planned on having 2 kids....until we had 1. We even went back to the fertility clinic when DD turned one, as we had been instructed to given my age. Testing showed that we were much worse off than we were before DD. We were given our options, and we decided to do nothing. We didn't prevent either. H went for a vasectomy consult and somehow we both couldn't commit to scheduling it. But save for one very early MC it didn't happen and now she's almost 6 and I'm 45. So we kind of let fate make the decision for us and while we both sometimes feel sad about what a great big sis she would be, we can admit that she is enough for us. Would we love that second child just as much, sure, but would our overall quality of life be harder, we think yes. We have more disposable income, less juggling of our time and she has lots of cousins and friends so she's far from lonely. Of course, Covid has sometimes made us wish she had a playmate in the home but then I look at my sister having to referee her 2 boys because they got so sick of each other, and think "nah". Randoms have finally stopped with the "time to have another one!!" thing and we are pretty open with our friends and family about why she's an only. I think if we had been even 5 years younger we might have made more of an effort for a second, but here we are and we're good.
As a low-energy introvert with anxiety who never had the 'biological' urge for kids, but worried I'd regret not having them (and DH really really wanted them), I can say with certainty now that I would've been plenty happy having stayed child-free
Of course I love DS, and who is 7, and I think I'm a good enough parent, but I don't find parenting to be a source of personal fulfillment. I struggle a lot. He's not good at entertaining himself, so the pandemic period has been pretty miserable for me.
Thank you for sharing this. I am leaning toward no kids but my H wants one, and I’m pretty sure I would feel exactly the same way.
My H is really hung up on not wanting to be an “old dad” (turning 33 this year) and wants to have a kid soon, so we’re going to have to work through that 😣
Yeah, DH is 12 years older than me, and after having DS I knew he was the max I could handle and DH definitely had to take his time to mourn not having the multiple kids he imagined he'd have, though he understood. And I haven't even touched on the sads I have about the impact on my body and our marriage
Thank you to everyone who responded - I really appreciated being able to hear thoughts from people who either don't have kids or both partners were really on the fence because I don't know many people in this boat IRL.
I think my feelings of worrying about regret come from thinking about holidays and special times, like seeing my friends' post videos online of their kids on Christmas morning. I do also think that constantly being told that we regret it, that parenting is hard but you'll love your kid, etc. and being made to feel like it's odd that we wouldn't want to have a child also deeply shape my thoughts to the point where I don't know how much of my thoughts are coming from me or coming from outside voices / traditionalism.
I know people think about - who will take care of you when you are old? There is no guarantee your children will take care of you when you age, and in my mind that is not a good reason for having children.
My standard answer to this is - all of my DINKy money will look after me.
(flippant I know but seriously, you can't rely on kids to look after you - they have their own lives, or may not be healthy enough to do so, or may not like you)
This is such a good point. I don't know why I haven't thought about it like this, lol.
As a low-energy introvert with anxiety who never had the 'biological' urge for kids, but worried I'd regret not having them (and DH really really wanted them), I can say with certainty now that I would've been plenty happy having stayed child-free
Of course I love DS, and who is 7, and I think I'm a good enough parent, but I don't find parenting to be a source of personal fulfillment. I struggle a lot. He's not good at entertaining himself, so the pandemic period has been pretty miserable for me.
Thank you for sharing this. I am leaning toward no kids but my H wants one, and I’m pretty sure I would feel exactly the same way.
My H is really hung up on not wanting to be an “old dad” (turning 33 this year) and wants to have a kid soon, so we’re going to have to work through that 😣
My H is getting ready to turn 37 and this is why we're feeling the pressure to decide. Also, my mom always told me that 2 kids was way easier than having 1 because when we got older, we played with each other and she never had to entertain us. When I think about the timespan of having 2 kids, that would put is until our 40s at this point.
Probably depends on your social life pre-kids. We mostly hang out with a group of 4 couples and their kids, so it’s not a huge deal to bring our daughter and still have fun. I still have girl’s nights often as my husband is great about staying home with her. Sometimes we take turns hanging out with our friend group individually and the other stays home. My mom also babysits at least once a month. I think as long as you have a supportive partner and one good option for babysitting, it’s possible.
But, you still have to get up with them in the morning. Lol. And SO many other things!!
YES. This is what I think about when I see cute newborn baby videos and my heart goes "But loooook" I think about just how much I LOVE sitting around and doing absolutely fucking nothing on a weekend day. Feeding myself day in and day out gets exhausting, I can't imagine doing it for another human being while also worrying about the quality of food that's being given because I don't worry about that for myself lol.
Thank you for sharing this. I am leaning toward no kids but my H wants one, and I’m pretty sure I would feel exactly the same way.
My H is really hung up on not wanting to be an “old dad” (turning 33 this year) and wants to have a kid soon, so we’re going to have to work through that 😣
Yeah, DH is 12 years older than me, and after having DS I knew he was the max I could handle and DH definitely had to take his time to mourn not having the multiple kids he imagined he'd have, though he understood. And I haven't even touched on the sads I have about the impact on my body and our marriage
Ugh, yeah, that too. I have absolutely no desire to go through pregnancy, although before we got married I thought I wanted kids and agreed to compromise on one biological child. I could see myself maybe enjoying parenthood with a different partner and an easy kid, but not with my H. I don't know if our marriage would survive it.
Post by Jalapeñomel on Jan 25, 2021 15:07:11 GMT -5
There's nothing wrong with having kids in your 40s, if you want.
I don't think you should invalidate any feelings you have having, ambivalence or the idea of having regret. All of them are valid, and I don't know if you will ever find the true "right" answer.
Probably depends on your social life pre-kids. We mostly hang out with a group of 4 couples and their kids, so it’s not a huge deal to bring our daughter and still have fun. I still have girl’s nights often as my husband is great about staying home with her. Sometimes we take turns hanging out with our friend group individually and the other stays home. My mom also babysits at least once a month. I think as long as you have a supportive partner and one good option for babysitting, it’s possible.
But, you still have to get up with them in the morning. Lol. And SO many other things!!
Well, DD isn't quite 2 and it's the dogs who wake us up in the morning on the weekends while she sleeps in later, which is one reason it didn't feel like a huge lifestyle change! We have 4 needy pets and so what's one more 😂
Thank you to everyone who responded - I really appreciated being able to hear thoughts from people who either don't have kids or both partners were really on the fence because I don't know many people in this boat IRL.
I think my feelings of worrying about regret come from thinking about holidays and special times, like seeing my friends' post videos online of their kids on Christmas morning. I do also think that constantly being told that we regret it, that parenting is hard but you'll love your kid, etc. and being made to feel like it's odd that we wouldn't want to have a child also deeply shape my thoughts to the point where I don't know how much of my thoughts are coming from me or coming from outside voices / traditionalism.
Everyone needs to make their own personal choice to be a parent, obviously.
But as a CFBC person, this is what just pisses me off. Ask anyone who has remained childfree and they will tell you that this kind of thing never ends. I'm 40, and when people find out I have no children several have launched immediately into "well, you could still adopt!" or "I hope you don't regret it."
I don't tell my friends with children that they might regret having them, and when a friend announces a pregnancy I don't ask them why they made that choice. But that same courtesy is not extended to childfree people, because we are outside "the norm" for not wanting to be a parent.
Whatever you do is the right decision for you. But please don't listen to these people who say this to you.
Thank you for sharing this. I am leaning toward no kids but my H wants one, and I’m pretty sure I would feel exactly the same way.
My H is really hung up on not wanting to be an “old dad” (turning 33 this year) and wants to have a kid soon, so we’re going to have to work through that 😣
My H is getting ready to turn 37 and this is why we're feeling the pressure to decide. Also, my mom always told me that 2 kids was way easier than having 1 because when we got older, we played with each other and she never had to entertain us. When I think about the timespan of having 2 kids, that would put is until our 40s at this point.
I work in a very affluent school community where the average elementary school dad is mid-40's, and the moms who work full time aren't much younger. So I definitely see the benefits of waiting and 37 doesn't seem old to me at all.
I'm pretty sure all the sibling squabbles my mom had to deal with outweighed the benefit of us playing together.
Long wow to those saying that just having one didn’t upend their lives.
Mine is four and I still feel in recovery from the massive change having her took on our lives.
I think part of this is just where some of us are with the age of our child. I know if felt like a huge difference when my DS was small but now that he's older, we're back to "normal" more or less. Or maybe I just can't really remember life before him as well? Both are equally possible, LOL. But I don't feel defined by being a mom, which was a major fear of mine, or held back from doing what we want to do. We just do it with him along.
I agree that it gets easier as your child gets older, but I also think it has to do with your lifestyle pre-kids and maybe general temperament.
I struggled A LOT after the birth of my DD, and the number one thing I mourned was the loss of my independence. I was the kind of person who was always up for traveling on short notice (whether for work or pleasure) and I fed off the adrenaline of working long hours at a busy job. And then adding to that, I was the first of my friends to have children so it was very, very isolating, and we didn’t have local family to help either. (And I’m an introvert so I crave alone-time.)
I don’t think I’d be in as good of a place now (mentally) if my H weren’t so amazing. I kind of cringed when I read in the OP about being on the fence plus feeling like she’d need to be the primary caretaker. I love my child fiercely but that love still wants breaks, me-time, and the ability to hop on a plane and leave my DD with her dad whenever I need to. (Side note: this pandemic — and distance learning in particular — has been very challenging for that reason.) Even the easiest, most laidback kid still requires some degree sacrifice, even if only in terms of finding childcare.
Post by emilyinchile on Jan 25, 2021 15:24:28 GMT -5
I think seeing both the pros and cons and having some appreciation for both options is really normal. I am currently pregnant and have always wanted to have a child, and even so it's not like I went "ahh yes, this is the perfect time, and I have no doubts at all".
That said, reading your OP and your follow up, it really doesn't sound like you WANT kids at all. It makes total sense that permanently closing that door is scary, but I don't think that fear/doubt is a reason to change your entire lives and have a child just so you didn't "miss out" on something you don't seem to have any desire for. Not trying to tell you what to do, just sharing how I (as someone not in your head) is reading your words!
[My H is getting ready to turn 37 and this is why we're feeling the pressure to decide. Also, my mom always told me that 2 kids was way easier than having 1 because when we got older, we played with each other and she never had to entertain us. When I think about the timespan of having 2 kids, that would put is until our 40s at this point.
This is pure luck. My sister and I were never friends and DH and his brother aren't friends. Except that my sister and I looked alike, we had completely opposite personalities and clashed from a young age. DH and his brother don't even look alike and I still wonder how he's related to his family.
I would not base having more than 1 kid on built-in playmates.
Also, I will echo goldengirlz. It is 10x easier having a kid because DH will take on the lion's share of work. I'm still the default a lot, but I've done more weekend and work trips than he has and he's had to solo parent a lot more than I have.
My H is getting ready to turn 37 and this is why we're feeling the pressure to decide. Also, my mom always told me that 2 kids was way easier than having 1 because when we got older, we played with each other and she never had to entertain us. When I think about the timespan of having 2 kids, that would put is until our 40s at this point.
I work in a very affluent school community where the average elementary school dad is mid-40's, and the moms who work full time aren't much younger. So I definitely see the benefits of waiting and 37 doesn't seem old to me at all.
I'm pretty sure all the sibling squabbles my mom had to deal with outweighed the benefit of us playing together.
This was our experience at DD's daycare (which borders 2 affluent communities) as well. I wondered if I'd be the "old" mom, but most of the parents there were mid-30's and up. But when I was 33 and wanted to get married and have kids I felt like I was so old and running out of time!! LOL.
But, you still have to get up with them in the morning. Lol. And SO many other things!!
Well, DD isn't quite 2 and it's the dogs who wake us up in the morning on the weekends while she sleeps in later, which is one reason it didn't feel like a huge lifestyle change! We have 4 needy pets and so what's one more 😂
Seriously!! If DD wakes up before me she goes downstairs and watches her ipad, but then one of the asshole cats will come and wake me up! Even if my H is up and has already fed them, the one who likes to eat a glob of coconut oil every morning comes in my bedroom and screams his head off until I get up and give it to him in the bathroom.
There's nothing wrong with having kids in your 40s, if you want.
I don't think you should invalidate any feelings you have having, ambivalence or the idea of having regret. All of them are valid, and I don't know if you will ever find the true "right" answer.
Yes we are in our 40s. In our HCOL area there are lots of older first time parents.