AIBU to ask why you chose to have kids?

[Jade218]

Before I start this thread - I hope noone takes offence to it. It’s not intended to be an offensive question

Whenever someone says they don’t want kids I think it’s odd that people always ask why - as if they are abnormal or something.

So to put a bit of a spin on it I want to ask why people want/chose to have kids?

I only ask because yesterday a thread was started to ask people why they chose not to have kids.

I do want kids so please don’t feel I’m trying to ask this question to be defensive to the thread I’m quoting, genuinely just curious as everyone’s reasons are different and it's interesting to hear the reasons.

People who don’t want kids get asked the question more often that I think is fair, I think only fair to be able to pose the same question to parents (without hopefully causing offence)

YouJustDoYou, of course it's too late now but do you not think it is a pretty bad reason to have children?

Me and DH chose not to have children and I am sick and tired of being told I will end up old and lonely. There may be many reasons for having children (although it only really seems to boil down to "I wanted one") but having them to stop you being lonely in old age is silly and very selfish.

I swung wildly from all the kids to no kids and back again. I can remember being 12 in group therapy doing a 'considering your future as a coping mechanism'-type exercise and blurting out I wanted six kids, but not that long later talking about not having any because my/my parents' genes shouldn't be pass on any further.

I'm quite happy with the kids I have (not six!) and they mean a lot to me, but if I hadn't met their father when I did (went into menopause in mid-twenties), someone who really wanted a family and planned ways to centre his career path and most everything else to take an active role in family life and making it something we would do together and made it seem meaningful beyond reproduction, I probably wouldn't have had kids (and if he hadn't gone above and beyond with our first and become a SAHD for years, I probably wouldn't have had more than one). It would have been a very different life that I find it hard to picture at times, with different joys & sorrows, risks & benefits, and so on, but I think I could have been content either way.

I'm not suggesting anyone do it because their DH wants to, I agree with the sentiment I've heard from others that if having a child isn't a hell yeah, then a no, at least for now, is better than going in lukewarm on the issue, but having had no real fixed idea of what I wanted in my future, the way he talked about it, his enthusiasm and consideration for it, rubbed on me to the point I became a hell yeah, but I think he had been enthusiasm about another kind of life that I was already open if not certain about (many things like traveling a lot or drinking was never going to be the cards no matter the consideration) I could have been content as well.

Mainly because of social norms. I wasn't broody or anything. My dh was keen because ’that's what people do’ so I sort of just took a leap of faith and went for it. Luckily I really like motherhood - it’s been a pleasant surprise.

Because I wanted them in my life in a way I can't rationalise or explain. I just wanted them there.
I still do even tho they can be hard work at times - it's mostly pretty joyous.

I think life would become a bit empty and meaningless without children. (That's just my outlook, not saying that everyone without children has an empty life)

Mine was an unplanned pregnancy which I went forward with because I didn't want to have an abortion.

I decided to have my second because I didn't want my DD growing up as an only child as I had.

Years and years later, we chose to have DC3 as we loved our kids that much that we wanted to do it all over again. No more though. We are fully complete.

@BiBabbles - that's an interesting point you raise. I would consider myself lukewarm on the issue - I'm still going to do it though. I'll post another thread in a couple of years assuming things go to plan and let you know how it pans out LOL!

We never wanted children - until we witnessed friends of friends with small children and raising them so very badly. DH and I were on exactly the same page about why it was wrong and how we would do it differently... that turned in to a conversation about how we should have one and we now have DS (19mo)

I'd always wanted to be a mum because my own mum made it look so rewarding. She really loved being a mother and made a great job of it.

And I had liked babies and small children since I was 12 or so. I wasn't in any particular hurry, and I put it all off until my biological drive couldn't be ignored any more.

I'm really happy with how it all worked out for me. I wouldn't change a thing.

Oddly, my love for small children evaporated almost completely after my own youngest had passed that stage. I like them in a theoretical sort of way, and I'm fond of a few specific children whom I know well, but in general I don't want much to do with little kids any more, and I've almost forgotten how to interact with them!

That feeling of wanting one is either in you, or it isn't. It was in me when I had my first and still is now. If it's not in you, don't have them. You're pretty much handing your entire life over to a small ungrateful person so you have to really want it.

Definitely a biological urge for me, I was desperate to have a baby. Rational choice didn't come into it

It was something I always wanted, there are seldom times I ask myself the question. usually if they stress me out
Mostly I am very happy, content I had them, when I hear them giggling, playing, it fills me with love.
When I hear them squabble, fight, scream it fills me with stress.

Very good question. I know I always wanted the experience of being pregnant and giving birth, was afraid that if I didn't have kids I would regret it in later life. On the whole I'm glad I took plunge, my husband certainly is, but it was hard at first.

I'm going to sound pathetically naive and like I don't know that they'll shit on my face and may turn out to be assholes but when I think about kids as a childless person (I'm young so not ready yet) but if you want the honest truth...

I want them because I love family, I want my own family and I want babies and children that blend mine and my partners best bits. I want my mum to open presents with my son/daughter on Christmas. I want my sister to make them say they love her more than me to be an arse. I want to help someone to be a lovely person. I want to hold a baby in my arms and know they mean more to me than my own self. I want to watch DP look at his child with wonder. I want to read school reports and be weird on their first date and to cheer them on at sports day and cry when they leave for uni and stand proudly on their wedding day. I want to embarrass them in the supermarket.

I want to feel heartbreaking love for another human being. I feel like they'll make me see a whole new, painful, lovely world.

Or it'll be shit but ah well, hopefully they'll be funny.

I wanted to be a mum, and now I'm a very maternal granny.

I fancied being permanently knackered and poor, lol!

Seriously though, I didn't really want children when I was younger. Being in love and living together, and seeing close family with their own children made me broody and now I have 2. I quite like babies, although all stages have their merits.

I don't have children so I can only answer on why I want them. DH and I have been together since we were teens and we've always been very into gigs, parties, going away. We got married and thought we'd try. Decided not to and buy a house. Did that. We used to say once we were 34 we'd have to crack on. Now we are. I love our life. It is filled with music and lie ins. But! I see him with our niece and I recognise how I am about her and I just know it is what I want. I'm also from a very close family, as is he, I know there are no guarantees but I feel the need to try and add to that.

Being is mother is all I've ever wanted.

@YouJustDoYouyour grandmother clearly had children and grandchildren - so have a think of why she really died alone

Well my dad died when I was 19. My little brother was too young. All her other family had died. So it was just me and an underage boy who was struggling 2 hours away at school. We couldn't afford to learn to drive, our mother, who hadn't seen my nan in almost 20 years, was a raging alcoholic. So it was just 19 year old me with 2 jobs and a uni degree to study for and crippling depression and grief. So yeah, i didn't really need to "think hard" about why she died alone. Because it was just me, a long, long way away, with a 5 hours multiple train and bus ride to get to her one way, and she would.lie about how much she'd eaten. So yes. It was my fault she died alone.

Thanks for reminding me.

I didn’t want any. Met DH, got married and WHAM....the body wanted a baby! 3 desperate years later and DD popped out and .....WHAM... the urge disappeared and I was left holding a howling vomit machine. I don’t like babies (this included my own). However it seems I like little kids (same intellectual level) and I am a great mum to anything that can talk. DD is 8 now and she and I are incredibly close. No husband anymore, no more kids, just a mad dog!

She was an accident. I considered an abortion, as the timing really was terrible, but couldn’t do it. Turned out to be a good decision as I’m the happiest I’ve ever been!