To be a parent or remain childfree?

[MiddleLane]

I'll try and cover this as briefly as possible!

I'm 35. DH is 40. We are financially comfortable and very happy together. I admit I love my clean, tidy house and ability to please myself. We have lovely holidays and can be spontaneous with cinema/restaurants/day trips/weekends away. Life is peaceful and I love my hobbies.

I have zero experience with children. No neices/nephew's or anything, so I've been unable to foster any meaningful relationships with kids. Perhaps because of this I find all kids rather intimidating!

I don't actively dislike children at all (though lots in supermarkets tend to be loud and unruly!) but I've never thought 'I must be a mum'.

Since I turned 30 I've tried to decide whether to try for DC or not. My DH is on the same fence; happy to try, happy to not try. Neither of us feel broody.

I suppose right now I'm happy with how things are, but I do feel sad at the idea of never having a family. I think about Christmas and the future and perhaps all the romanticised ideas of family life.

I realise you have to sacrifice a hell of a lot to bring DC up. Once you've had them I'm sure it must feel like you'd never be without them; but would you say your life is much improved with your DC? I worry about the world and our society too, the stress of growing up in our social media climate worries me as does the impact of more children on the environment.

Yet...I don't want to regret not having kids.

What tipped the scales for you into deciding to have DC, or deciding to remain childfree?

One last bit of info that's quite important; I know I do qualify/would need IVF due to a medical condition, it would be unlikely but not impossible to fall pregnant naturally. So deciding to try would mean the added stress of facing potential infertility.

It seems sensible to think 'Well it may not happen, so if I'm on the fence, then why try?'. But this nagging idea of regret still gnaws at me.

Sorry for the length of the post

What @zafferana said. I hate Christmas now I've got children. So much hard work, so much money, so much effort! So much pressure to make everyone 'happy'.

Being a mum is hard. Really hard. For years on end.

As hard work as it is (I have 4 DC) I always knew I wanted children. I desperately wanted them. Always wanted 4. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

However if you have the feeling of, "Don't mind either way" then I'd say enjoy your life. Sounds like you have a wonderful one!

childfree, unless you are 100% enthused about the whole thing.

We are both late 30s, financially comfortable and very happy together. We love our clean, tidy house and ability to please ourselves. We have lovely holidays and can be spontaneous with cinema/restaurants/day trips/weekends away. Life is peaceful and we love our hobbies.

I never wanted children until - very specifically - I met my husband. He felt the same. When we tried, we found it was medically impossible and IVF/adoption were not paths for us personally.

For 12 months after this, I sometimes cried about the situation and found pregnancy announcements etc. difficult. We had decided we would not have children and were both certain in our choice, but for some indefinable reason I felt sad at not seeing my husband play with and care for our child, for example.

5 years later, these moments are rare (but not absent). We are both content with our choice and enjoy what we can choose to do.

I don't know if our feelings will change as we get older e.g seeing friends become grandparents. All I know is that we have have made choices together, and have navigated these and other ups and downs together because we are a team and a family

It's such an individual choice; I hope an individual story has helped you in some way

I think this is such a difficult position for you to be in .If you are ambivilent about children .Can you perhaps babysit for a friend or go on a day out with them maybe.I was an only child and desperately wanted a family .However it is very hard work but rewarding too .Why not look at it another way.How you would feel in say 10 years if you didnt have a family ?.There are many people who are happy with this but you cant really know on way or another TBH.

Your life sounds great!! If you aren't that fussed, don't ruin your life.

Kids are lovely 🙄 but hard and your life changes!!

Your clean house and freedom kinda makes me regret my two wonderful and beautiful little girls 😂

If you're ambivalent, don't do it. Kids affect everything, just read any of the threads on here about how hard it is.
Questions you need to ask: are you prepared to have a severely disabled child? Not because of your age, but nobody is guaranteed a healthy child so you need to know if you're really up to it.
I am not so am remaining childfree. Never had a biological urge and cannot relate to people that do.

For me it wasn't something I had to think about, it was an instinct/need to have babies. I found the toddler stage really hard but apart from that I love it, they're everything to me and I can't imagine growing older without children/grandchildren...that's all that matters (to me) .... my parents both say now they're much older they wish theyd had MORE children, seems to really make the difference to some people towards the end of their life

I was pretty much in the same boat as you (without the fertility issues though). We ended up deciding to try. I wouldn't worry about not having experience with kids - even doctors and teachers etc go to nct because dealing with your own baby is very different to other peoples mainly older children, and you read up and learn with your baby. I'd never held a small baby or changed a nappy but those practical things were the easier side of it.

I love my kids and they bring me joy every (well most) days.

But the relentlessness of it all, the one of you always having to be in, the schedules having to be dictated by toddlers, the lack of popping out for a nice dinner when you feel like it, the lack of nice holidays (both destination and any form of relaxation), the lack of time off when you get sick, the impact on career and just how bloody busy everything is, and how many things are always in my head to try and remember (just organising a whole other person eg their health appointments, their friends birthday presents etc) is all harder than I thought and does have a massive impact on my life. And I say that as someone who's husband does probably more than his fair share (though he feels the same as me)

Overall I'm not happier or more unhappy, it's just different and hectic with an added layer of guilt for everything I do (working, not taking them to enough activities, being too knackered to be fun parent etc)

We dont have much family nearby to help day to day though (my family are at least an hour away though see them every few weeks which is a godsend) so that might be something to factor in - when they are older it's a bit easier with babysitters but when they are young, having someone to leave them with while you pop out to the cinema or for a meal, does mean you can retain some level of spontaneity and sanity

On the other hand there are parents who always knew they wanted kids, who hate it and are shit at it, and parents who weren't sure or didn't want them and accidentally got pregnant who absolutely love it. Its unfortunately one of those things it's really hard to know what you're going to be like as a parent

Are you on any kind of hormonal contraception? I don't think having children is a logical decision at all, on paper it's a mad thing to do but I think our hormones push us into broodiness.

I'm not sure about the comments saying if you couldn't cope with a disabled child then dont do it.
Nobody goes into pregnancy thinking they would cope with a disabled child or with demanding special needs. And if tests in pregnancy show an issue, the majority off people do have an abortion. If the worst happens most people cope because there is no other choice

I could have written your post, but we have bitten the bullet and I'm now 39 weeks pregnant (we are same ages as you and your husband).

I've never ruled out children, but also never had a 'yearning' for any. We have good jobs, nice house, comfortable lifestyle, and enjoy holidays. For a while there was always something getting in the way of trying to conceive, but when I ran out of those excuses we thought 'let's go for it and see what happens'.

Also from around 30, I was seeing friends kids growing up and thought that could have been us if we'd got our act together sooner! I've enjoyed every moment of being childfree, but I'm now looking forward to this massive lifestyle change.

Have just one to start with! Just one child won't change your life that much; you can take turns looking after the child, you can still go to nice restaurants, nice holidays, etc.

Making the leap to 2+ children is a far bigger game-changer, IMHO.

It’s a tricky one isn’t OP - it sounds like you’re trying to make this decision when really you know you’re not quite ready, but due to age you need to (nature is cruel and unfair!)
Did having children improve my life? It’s just different I suppose - some things are much better with kids and others more difficult. I just felt ready to have that change in life. I sometimes think in can be harder for older mums because you will have had much longer being used to pleasing yourself so it would be a big change. I think there’s nothing wrong with making a little list of pros and cons - like you say family life, christmases, having that extra love in your life vs spontaneity and general adult stuff (there’s obviously more to it than that!) and bear in mind they grow up quick, so once they’re older you can do many of those things you still enjoy now again.

The regret thing goes both ways - you may regret having children, or you may regret not having them. It's a gamble that everyone takes, whichever road they choose.

I was on the fence for a while too. For me I sat down and thought seriously about what I wanted my future to look like. I felt that the grown up holidays and freedom to do expensive things spontaneously would eventually start to feel empty and meaningless, and that future with children sounded much more fullfilling long term, albeit a more difficult/unpredictable one.

That's how things looked to me. You probably have a completely different view on it - you may think the idea of giving up those nice things in favour of kids sounds mental. It's a very personal choice that will lead everyone to a different answer. No one else can decide for you.

I have a six month old. I love him so much and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I never had that urge and we made a decision that we’d rather have a child than regret not having one.
I’m not saying you’ll feel the same, just giving you my experience! I could have written a lot of your post before I had my baby.

Child free , and now 62. Neither of us have regretted it, odd fleeting wonder how life would have been with children, but deffo no regret. I really think you need to WANT rather than be ambivalent about it, but hey that's just me. Good luck with whatever you decide

@zafferana I don't like the tone of your post, with all due respect as you would say.
I have spent 15 years working with 11-18 year olds, so I do have quite a bit of experience of teenage behaviour. This includes working with complex needs, as well as the usual teenage hormones.
He is crawling, and I am not saying it is hard work, just that my life has changed much for the better, it hasn't taken over and I don't regret it.
As for taking him on holiday, I guess we'll have to see, won't we? I know plenty of people with teenagers who happily vacation together. Luckily, our son will also have the option of extended summers in Europe with the support of that half of his family. We'll be happy for him to do that if he wishes.
Thanks for implying life will turn out badly for us though.

I was like you, pretty ambivalent and quite fond of my lifestyle, etc. My DP was the same. But now we have DD, who is six months old, she is the best thing I've ever done. I accept we've been blessed with a very easy and happy baby, but it's not been the huge lifestyle adjustment I imagined. I've actually been out and about and done a lot more things since having her as motivation.

However, we are sticking at one. I think for us more than one would change the balance of things. One has fitted into our lifestyle very well, but I think a second would mean we would have to change and sacrifice a lot more.

dealing with your own baby is very different to other peoples

I did have someone suggest that because I wasn't all goo eyed about other people's babies and while I like the majority of children and toddlers I had limited experince with them that I shouldn't be a mother.

Turned out I was really smitten with my babies - I'm still not not bothered about other people's - I don't rush to hold them and I learnt about parenting on the job as it were.

There's so much out of your control when you fall pg, how the pg is how the birth is, type of baby you get and their personality - it's all one huge unknown entity.

“Just one child won't change your life that much; you can take turns looking after the child, you can still go to nice restaurants, nice holidays, etc”

I find this attitude bizarre. 0 to 1 is a MASSIVE life change. It’s not just about restaurants, it’s about a lifelong, daily, 24/7 obligation.

Oh and I did not care for other people's children at all. I still don't, really, but it's true that your own is completely different. And you learn pretty quickly what to do. Neither me or DP had a clue what we were doing but we seem to be muddling through!

I think a good question to ask is are you a family oriented person? Do you enjoy spending time with your parents and in laws and attending family gatherings? If so you may feel sad in the future when the older generation have passed away if you don't have any children of your own. This might not really apply as much if you have lots of wider family that you get on well with.

I do sort of agree with the poster who said one child isn’t that much of an impact. One child is easy. Once you have more the craziness is exponential. Would you have just one?

0 to 1 is a MASSIVE life change. It’s not just about restaurants, it’s about a lifelong, daily, 24/7 obligation.

I agree.

Most of the mother's I've encounter who admit not liking parenthood - and there's a huge taboo about saying that - have stopped at one child - quite reasonably. Many have huge amounts of support from extended family and they still struggle with the changes it's caused to their lives.

Though it is reasonable to say having one child is more flexible than having say having three like we did - depending on the family’s unique circumstances it's often easier to keep both carers going and have less impact on finances.

However when we were broody and contemplating a fourth – we kept being told the baby would slot right in but when I spoke to some mothers with four the said that wasn’t their experience and that child had turned out to be the hardest. In end we didn’t go for the fourth and despite some people saying we’d regret that we really haven’t and in fact are quite relived we didn't.