Why are some women just not maternal?

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Just pondering really. I’ve always known I wouldn’t have kids just as I’ve known that I wouldn’t climb Mount Everest. It wasn’t really a decision and I’ve given it almost no thought.

Yet my sister has always wanted to be a mother and is a fantastic one. I absolutely adore my nieces and spending time with them, but it doesn’t make me remotely broody at all.

I know this is purely anecdotal, but she loved her dolls and prams when we were kids. I never played with dolls.

It is something evolutionary? Or something biological? Why is that feeling to reproduce just not turned on for some women?

38 and I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen. If it did I would have to find a new man quickly because DP wouldn’t humour having children for a second.

I wasn't a particularly caring doll playing girl. I went to an all girls school so never met any boys but hung out with the tomboy types. Most went on to be sporty types but I was quite the opposite and found it hard to make close friends. In Uni I had a lot of male friends, not a girl's girl at all. I had a vague idea that I might have kids but never had an interest in them and didn't know any as a young adult. At about 23 I started to notice them and by 25 I would seek them out to look at or engage with, I would feel a little tug when I saw a pregnant woman or newborn. By 27 or 28 it was my main concern and priority, despite being career focused until then. Luckily I was in a LTR so started ttc at 29. For me it was deeply biological or hormonal and I can't really describe it. By contrast my sister who likes kids and was a girly child spent time weighing up the pros and cons of motherhood and decided with her partner to remain childfree. I knew once she approached this in a logical way, that that would be the answer. There is very little argument in favour of parenthood when you take the natural urge out of the equation. She just never got the feeling and her partner was on the fence too.

I was a tomboy kind of kid. I had my bike, horses, dogs. I hated dolls and the play pram that they bought me was de-wheeled in a heartbeat and became a pretty impressive go cart.
Although I did have a child, I didn’t realise that I was pregnant for a long time as periods were all over the place at the best of times, I never wanted children. I looked after baby sister from aged 6 and it put me right off. Mother was lazy at the best of times.
My DS died, very young. I never felt the need to procreate again. I am 62 now, and don’t regret my choices, except for not taking that go cart when I left home.

I always think the nature/nurture thing is a false dichotomy - like biologist Anne Fausto-Stirling points out, a single cell behaves differently depending on the environment you put it in.

I was never maternal and never really interested in having kids. That started to change gradually as I got older and I’d done loads of things, and I felt the need for a new challenge.

I didn’t feel maternal when I was pregnant.

Now that I’ve got my DD (2 yo) I LOVE babies!!! We’re not having any more (too old, not rich enough) but I just love them now! I always liked young people but now I love babies, toddlers, and kids too. I never really “got” them before I had one. Which is a weird way round to do it!

I never wanted children. Found them very boring. Then suddenly in my 30s I craved them. No idea what changed.

I'm not wired up for it, show me a newborn baby and I'm thinking 'eeeww, wrinkly squished up cone head alien creature'. Show me a kitten though and 😻.

(DS did turn out alright though so I managed to get through it.)

Sorry I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, disingenuous, etc! But I mean the positions you outlined in your op - being completely sure your whole life you didn't want kids, and your sister being completely sure her whole life that she did.

Many people, as I said, are in between and the feelings can change over time. (Unlike the inbuilt love or hate for coriander leaf which seems both fixed and linked to something biological! )

I can't say I had a compelling biological urge to have kids. I thought, on balance, my life would be better having given it a go and I trusted that I would love them when I had them. Luckily, it was and I did. But that's not going to be the same for everyone.

To add to that, having a child only felt like a realistic possibility for me when I met a man who would make a great father and partner. It was never an urge that was independent of context, for me. It was entirely dependent on the right man, and having a stable home to offer, etc.

DP is the best father, and an equal parent who took 6 months paternity leave. We’re very well suited and content. My parents on the other hand were not, and messy divorces and living arrangements ensued that I’ll do everything to prevent my DD experiencing.

You would have had the choice not to marry, if you didn't want kids. Or find yourself a lavender matriage

My sister and I love football, our brother hates football. He likes motorbikes, we prefer Vespa scooters. He is rocker and we are mods.

It’s individual versus collective. An individual doesn’t need to exhibit all the traits necessary to ensure the survival of a species, as long as enough do.

Eating, sleeping and drinking are examples of universal biological imperatives. An individual cannot survive without these things. Reproduction is not necessary for individual survival.

I also believe that the lack of maternal and/or paternal desire is a form of in built population control, as it were. Every member of a species reproducing is a disadvantage in an environment that cannot support the number.

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As a child, I did not play with dolls (I preferred dinosaurs). Even when I was small, I said I did not want to be a mum when older and not once in my life have I ever wavered from that.
I have had so many people tell me I will change my mind, or that I will hit a certain age and all of a sudden I will want loads of kids. Nope.... never happened.
Not maternal, and in no way interested in other people's children either.

I was always keen to have children, I longed to be a mother and as a child was always looking after injured animals and birds and I love children. I'm constantly blown away at how they grow and are so receptive to learning. I have a very patient, nurturing side with children. Having my own was awesome and everyday I feel like I've won the lottery with them. Even though I got PND after my second DC I would do it all again and cannot wait to be a granny.

Sometimes I think I'll quit my job and become a nanny just so I can gang out with kids.

I like children . I have been the babysitter, aunt, godmother, decent stepmother (according to my now grown up step children ) and primary school teacher. I had no urge to have my own. I like children - when I can send them home.

No maternal urge, never had it. Like kids, but categorically never wanted my own. That hormonal thing never kicked in.

Interesting post @Directly171717171717

I knew from a very early age that I didn't want children. Babies were dull, toddlers irritating - I didn't particularly enjoy the company of young children even when I was one. These days I'm pretty good with kids, I'm an aunt and a godmother and the go-to person if someone's kids need entertained at a meal with family or friends. But I never, ever wanted my own. Don't think it was down to parenting.

I am an 'accidental' mother (kicks MN hornets nest). I never planned to be one, but had a contraceptive failure, after I was married and well into my 30s so it felt wrong to terminate. I assumed that once I gave birth, maternal instincts would kick in. Didn't happen. Being a mother has never come naturally, I don't know how to do it 'properly' and feel like I have parented by numbers. Children are utterly tedious, only becoming interesting once they are independent and no longer children!

I honestly think it’s hormonal & the drive to get pregnant is biological. Some women have stronger hormones/more susceptible to being driven by them.

Cats are instinctive yet some will kill their offspring/lose interest after a few days/weeks and abandon them. They get no social judgement for this.

Yes, but I couldn’t have owned my own home without marrying, couldn’t have had the social life I do etc.

And I couldn’t have been with my DP and enjoyed the sex life we have, married or not. I’ve never properly considered before how lucky I’ve been to be born in this slice of time in this country.

Knew from a young age not maternal (Cowboys and Indians with the boys).

I do think there was something about the truly terrible school sex education in the late 1960’s / early 1970’s that played a big part - black and white films that struck terror in everyone, you should not at all costs become pregnant, your life will be truly over, ruined, end of the world - was the absolute message. (Nothing about relationships).

Looking back a number of friends from the same school also did not go on to have children - poor village mining community, “you girls will work in factories or be secretaries”.

The military wasn’t much better in the 1970’s - had to leave immediately on marriage until 1974, and out on the street the same day that you had a positive pregnancy test - possibly until as late as 1996. (Terminations were very much on open offer as an alternative to losing your career).

Aware I’ve been a late developer, felt just about “ready” to sit GCSE’s when I was 40, and feel just about maternal enough now to think about changing my mind (but then I’m 70 🤣).

I do think that terrible austere school sex education played a big part…

I think this in part might be true in some cases.I had a relative who lacked any emotional warmth and had several children none of whom had children, and also whom lack emotional warmth.
Not sure what the father was like as never knew him.

My parents did show a fair amount of emotional warmth (although not as much as I show my children by any means, as they weren't as open with feelings and seemed to confuse showing love with concerns of over-indulgence abit too much) I was an only child, desperately wanted a baby sibling, then a baby as i got older, and have 3 children. I used to talk about it from a very young age, constantly played with baby dolls, drew pictures of families like i wanted when older, and cut out or traced photos of what baby products i would have from the Mothercare catalogue!

Mothering was my calling, the day my 1st baby was born fulfilled whole lifelong dream.

I was going to ask how OPs mum was with her. Mine wasn’t particularly (still isnt) maternal towards me but I always had a desire to have kids and I consciously do certain things and tell myself it’s because she didn’t do those for me. Interesting isn’t it

Maybe the role models you had play a big part my parents were amazing. Both loved children.

It's biological, of course. The only built-in 'purpose' of every life form is to replicate its own cells, so much so that many die straight afterwards But even the most basic of drives is unevenly distributed through a population.

Until the very recent invention of birth control, it didn't matter if a woman had a reproductive drive or not. As long as a man and his drive could get access to her, she would reproduce (successfully or not). But there are men without this drive, just as there are homosexuals of both sexes. I think it's safe to assume the biological need to procreate is on a spectrum from 'no, thanks' to 'what else is there?'

My parents were amazing too.

I am talking about biological urges.