To think it is pretty common for men to be a bit 'meh' about DCs?

[RevoltingPeasant]

When I first got together with DP, neither of us was sure if we wanted DCs. DP had a brandnew niece and thought she was very cute, but also a lot of work.

Over the last couple of years, I have decided that I really do want DCs and have talked about this repeatedly with DP. He wavers between comic resignation and looking a bit disturbed; he never says 'Absolutely not', but he never shows real enthusiasm. However, he did recently move halfway across the country with me to follow my career and has said with a tremor in his voice 'So you want to start a family when you're 33 or so, right?'

When I put it down in black and white, it looks really bad at first, like this is a no-goer and he's really not interested....

But AIBU to think that in fact, a lot of men in their late 20s/ early 30s have cold feet about having children until they actually arrive? DP's bro was really not into the idea but is now a very hands-on dad with 2 DDs; my own BIL is very cautious but I can see he'll make a brilliant dad. DP has loads of qualities that would make him a great dad - he's sensitive, careful, playful, loyal, and has an absurd sense of humour.

So AIBU to think I can live in hope, and his feelings are quite normal? Or am I ridiculously over-optimistic? Tell it to me straight....

Bartimaeus - "When I first met DH we both wanted children "in about 6/7 years". "

Yes me and DW discussed it like that before we got married. I definitley knew I wanted children but it was still largely a 'sometime in the future ' idea for me. The feeling slowly got more and more strong as I reached 30 like your male friends. I guess I felt i had done a lot of things and now wanted to move on to a new chapter and have children. However, it still felt really 'abstract' even after we had decided to get on with it. At the back of my mind was this recurring question all the time right up until DS1 was born:

"Great we are trying/going to have a baby....OK....right....erm....what does that mean exactly?"

I used to look at people with babies and young children in the street and try to picture myself in their place pushing a pram to sort of capture the feeling of what it would be really like. It never worked. It was so far outside my experience.

I know it sounds odd but even though I went to all the scans with DW and 100% behind the idea of having a child I felt really detached throughout and just couldn't get excited like women seem to do.

Reading many posts on MN about this issue I sometimes think women are disappointed their man isn't as excited as they are they begin to think he doesn't like the idea. Some men really don't want children at all and I think thy should be honest about that but most men I suspect do want children but have a really different emotional response to it than their DP/DW.

All the men I know (friends, family and colleagues) were eager to become fathers once they hit mid-30s. When we were all in our early 30s, very few of them were that bothered. In my NCT group, DH and I were the oldest couple there - nearly 38 yo when we had DD. All the other couples were in their early 30s - my DH was certainly the most keen to have a child; the other fathers-to-be looked a little scared, to be honest.

This is just my own experience, with my own social circle, though. Obviously there are many men in their 20s and early 30s eager to have children and many men post-35 not eager to have them .

Incidentally, most of those "shit-scared" fathers-to-be are now very happy being Dads .

I think you need to ask him, right up.

'Do you want to have children with me or not?'. And believe him if he says 'No'.

You are 31, which is still young, but not so young that you can throw away the next 5 years on a 'hope'.

DH and I both wanted one child. He then asked how I felt about maybe having a second. We are now trying to make a decision about a third.

TBH the fathers I know who were not that into having children to start with are still not that into their children/families and view the whole thing in a resigned sort of way. Not the sort of situation I would find acceptable personally.

DH was 29 when we had DS1 and 35 when we had DS2.

DH has always wanted to be a Dad and actually wanted to be the one who was pregnant, although unfortunately that wasn't possible . In fact it was me that had to hold him back. We had DS1 when I was 34, but I would have been more like 24 if he had had his way.

Consequently he is a great dad, very involved and loves the DC to bits. He's prob more maternal than I am.............

BTW DH has wanted to be a dad since he was about 21. I made him wait until he was 38................

BsshBossh you hit the nail I think.

I would say that the most common problem is not that the woman wants a child and the man doesn't, but that the woman wants a child now and the man wants one, definitely at some point but not yet.

The question is what do you do in that situation? If you wait till DH is "ready" you may no longer be fertile, and you'll be broody and impatient (and possibly quite unhappy) in the meantime. If you press DH into speeding up his timetable, then you risk him being a bit "meh" - you might be lucky and he'll fall in love once the DC appears, or you might not.

(This is not a theoretical question btw - I'm in this position myself...)

one of the main reasons my DH and I got married was because I KNEW from the off that he wanted to get married and have children. We got together when he was 23. He is now 27 and is still v keen to add to our family, if anything I am the reticent one at present.

It's difficult, isn't it? I was always firmly in the 'meh' camp, and if it wasn't for the infernal hormonal prodding from inside me, I would still be 'meh' (instead of horribly broody but resigned to it probably not happening for various reasons).

If I didn't have those extra hormones, I'd probably still be 'meh'. It all seems like it would be horribly disruptive to my life, which I rather love. So I can totally imagine how someone without the old biological clock (aka a man) would remain at the 'meh' stage a lot longer.

As I have posted elsewhere on this subject today though, my partner's ex-wife stopped using contraception without telling him (he believed, correctly, that their marriage was failing and that bringing a child into it would be irresponsible; she believed having a child would keep them together) and he does adore his child, but the marriage was over from that point for him, even though he stayed for several years after.

Not read thread, but I don't think you can generalise tbh

In my own case I was def not ever going to have children, and then when I met DH it all clicked into place (and I was into my 30s by that time, with a career, so that all helped)

DH was v keen to have DC and was waiting for the mother of his children to come along - I never had that mindset.

Sometimes I think it's just timing.

I reckon there's always a bit of "meh" to do with the giving up of certain freedoms in life associated with having children. But the positives of parenting far outweigh the freedom of your own time!

Gay40 So everyone says, but there's a MASSIVE part of my brain that says "But what if they're wrong, because I can't take it back!" and there's also a deeply paranoid bit of me that says "What if that's not actually true but nobody's willing to say 'actually, having children was a huge mistake'?"

Ambivalent, me?

CotesduRhone, there are actually lots of people who have children and believe it was a huge mistake. Most won't say it happily to their group of girlfriends... but will write it anonymously, or if they have a really good friend, they will tell her/him.

My mom confessed to me that, even though she loved my sister and me fiercely, if she had known back then what she knew now she wouldn't have had children.

I know many, many women, and even more men, in that position.