What were/are your thoughts on having children?

[nas274]

I'm 23 with a 8 month old DS. It's not the easiest but I have a lot of family support and an amazing helpful DH and feel incredibly lucky to be a young parent as I know some people struggle to conceive. It's been a tough couple of weeks as he's been teething and I feel absolutely drained so I have to remind myself to count my blessings. Some people look at me as if they think I have it hard or I've given up my life but in reality this is what I've always wanted. From a young age I always thought about being a parent and used to panic at the thought of not being able to have children. When receiving my savings at 18 I even thought about putting some aside incase I'd ever need ivf.

For those of you who are parents or want to be parents or struggling to become parents is it something you have always wanted?
And for those of you who aren't or don't want to be what are the reasons?

I'm not meaning to be rude or offend anyone I'd just love to know

Bump

I don't have children and I never wanted them, no other reason than I just wasn't interested in being a mother.

I don’t want children. I’m 31 and have never wanted them. The main reason is because I just don’t feel the urge. I don’t feel this overwhelming desire that a lot of people seem to have. To me, when people ask if I want kids it’s like asking me if I want pizza for tea tonight. Just don’t fancy it. I can’t imagine ever getting any joy out of it.

A lot of people complain about how hard parenting is but say that it’s worth it and the positives outweigh the negatives. But I think for me, the every day mundane relentlessness of parenthood would grind me down and I wouldn’t cope mentally. I know I would be depressed. I’m not patient, I’m easily stressed, easily overwhelmed, I just want a quiet peaceful life where I can do whatever I want, and go wherever I want and spend money on things that make me happy like travelling to different places and experiencing new things.

Once a girl who I worked with said something along the lines of “yeah travelling is great, but Greece isn’t going to be holding your hand on your deathbed” and I really felt that, when my grandad passed away there were so many of us around his hospital bed. The room was filled with love. But that one thing isn’t enough to make me truly deeply want it in my heart. I think having adult children could be great (assuming they would still talk to you and visit etc) but the childhood years wouldn’t be worth getting through for me.

Im sorry that my post hasn’t been more on your wavelength! I’m sure you want to hear more about the people who have always wanted children. But your posts did mention those who don’t as well so thought I’d chime in ☺️

I completely understand this from people I know personally. Some really do rethink their choice of having children and wish they could go back to the life they had before.

I never wanted children even for a second. I think this was mostly because I had a very poor experience of family life (abusive) and was also badly bullied at school. I have never liked children en masse and find the mob mentality quite frightening. I have met a few individual children in my adult life who have been lovely but that was a minority and not enough to dent my overall feelings.
There was also a part of me that worried that I had bad genes and in combination with the abuse I suffered as a child would combine to make me a bad parent.
I am someone who enjoys caring for others and I became a nurse for people with learning disabilities. In meeting the first people with learning disabilities I was introduced to in my late teens I felt I had found my tribe because they too had frequently been treated like crap and I wanted to advocate for and with them to stop this happening. I was also completely overwhelmed at meeting a group of people who were in general kinder and more honest that the non learning disabled population. I felt at home with other human beings for the first time in my life.
I also adore animals and my nurturing side has always been fulfilled looking after my animals and I was a volunteer in animal rescue.
I have very occasionally wished I was someone who wanted children because when I see happy families I feel I missed out but I frequently see unhappy families and am glad I didn’t have to cope with that.
I am also now at the grand age of 57 recently diagnosed with high functioning autism so maybe that played a part in my choice not to have children too.

It's hard work.
It involves a lot of risk (eg what if the child has severe disabilities?).
If you do it right, they will leave home at 18 and you'll never see them again OR you'll spend the rest of your life worrying about them and never be able to relax.
As a parent, you have to give up your independence and autonomy.
Every child needs two parents - what if something happens to the other one?
You need to have a decent income, plus savings.

To be honest, I don't know how anyone ever makes a conscious decision to have a child when there are so many negatives and concerns.

Always wanted to be a mother, and I love being a mum to my 3 kids. It can be draining at times but the vast majority is fun, light hearted, and full of love. I love having children and would have more if my husband would let me.

Enormous respect for those who do it, not for me.

This is very true. I know I'm going to feel constant worry in the back of my mind forever.

I have 2 kids, but I was a decade older than you when I had my first. At 23, children were not on my radar. I was with my dh at that age, but we were just weren't in that head space.

I feel like that was right for me though. I did struggle with miscarriages too when we decided to try. Someone once asked me if I could go back in time and try sooner (assuming the miscarriage were age related) would I? And the answer was no. Despite being heartbroken over the miscarriages, I still feel like I wouldn't have been ready for motherhood sooner.

I think we all mature at different rates and have different wants and needs and we're all just ready at different times. Variety is the spice of life as they say!

Same, but DH really wanted them so I was like "well, I don't object THAT much and I reckon I could do a pretty good job if I gave it a proper try".

And even though much more of the work fell to me than I had ever expected, I reckon I still do a pretty good job. I'm firmer but I'm also more of the doer - I bake with them, I take them on trips, I went to many, many toddler and primary aged activities with them, I read and buy books and spend time finding tv programs I can watch to bond with my eldest even though DH and I don't really do family tv. (BBC Ghosts was a huge hit, as is Friday Night Dinner.)

DH isn't useless btw; he does all the parties and tutoring and splash-park holiday planning. He’s just much more tender hearted than me and a shit disciplinarian, so I have to do most of it.