What would life we like without children?

[SummerRay1994]

Interested to know whether anyone on here has chosen to not have children and whether they’ve regretted it or not?

For background I’m nowhere near ready to have children (I’m 25 and partner is 27), we both have very demanding - but well paid - jobs, both working 50+ hours a week at the moment but we recently bought a nice “family” sized home close to good schools/community and it has always been our plan to have children when I’m between 30-35. However, as we get older and life gets more complicated with work, a house, pets, bills etc etc I’ve started to wonder more and more how we would cope with children and whether I even want to have any? Am I being unreasonable? Selfish?

Never wanted children, babies used to terrify me....got pregnant at 34 and absolutely love being a mum...love babies too which l never thought l would say! Probably never a right time to have one but things always fall into place somehow

@Depechetoi

I LOVELOVELOVE being a sahm, I don’t find it boring at all

@MGC31 it says twice that I was referring to myself, pre kids and how I felt.

There’s no right or wrong about the choice. But to be happy, and have things as best they can be, should be an informed, consciously and rationally made decision. Hopefully can help prevent things going wrong, and it’s a hell of a life sentence for all concerned if it does.

I didn't have DD until I was 41. She changed our lives forever. Being a parent, for me, is not better or worse, just different.

I was ambivalent about having children, and after fertility investigations resulted in being told that becoming a parent was very unlikely I just saw it as an opportunity to do the things that having children made impossible or very difficult to do.

I was happily child free, then got pregnant out of the blue at 41.

I have to be honest and say that the feelings of overwhelming broodiness described on this forum are utterly alien to me. I have never in my life felt broody. I love DD to bits though.

@Beansprout30
Yes. But that isn’t how it came across. 2 people have now said this. Your post came across as the typical “you can’t possibly understand”.

@mgc31 wow well it certainly wasn’t meant like that. Not sure how else I could have worded it. Won’t bother posting again

@MGC31 I think my first post on this thread goes some way to answering your questions, but here goes in brief. There was no reason, it was just an overwhelming urge, stronger than anything else I have ever felt. I remember bursting into tears in front of DH because I was so desperate to have children In my first post I mention that this urge overrides all rational thought. I think this is how the human race ensures its own survival, because rationally speaking it's bonkers to have kids!

I find it interesting you're asking these questions, as I started a thread asking how people knew they did not want children when I was pregnant I think it shows the desire to have children or not is almost innate.

With regards to your second question: I did not know he would enrich my life (and in the first few weeks there was more than one occasion where I wondered if I could turn the clock back to life pre kids). Now he is here I feel a love for him that is unparalleled. He brings so much joy to our lives just by virtue of his existence. For me, it has turned out to be "you don't know what you were missing until you got it". I imagine this linked to the fact that I had this aforementioned urge to have a child; if you don't have that urge, I imagine you don't feel like anything is missing from your life and then the enrichment offered by having a child might also be less?

All that said, I would never be a SAHM, not for all the tea in China!!!

Depechetoi

Not everyone feels like you. I wouldn't be a SAHM because our family has financial responsibilities I need to shoulder, but i don't find it boring. I'm currently on mat leave with DD and i LOVE being at home with her & DS.

I had mine in my 40s. Never had an urge to before that, and was put off by pregnancy/birth horror stories, and the feeling being a SAHM would be mind numbingly boring.

I love my kids beyond measure. They have added so much more to my life than they have taken away. I wish I'd had them younger, as I won't lie the combination of small kids and the peri-menopause can be exhausting. But despite that, having kids has been the best thing I have ever done. The love they give back. The way they have of making you look at the world through different eyes. The hugs. The funny little notes they write you and presents they make. The times when they do something really sweet like bring you breakfast in bed when you are ill. I could go on all day. I love it.

Not yet hit the teens bit yet though

I think when you want children then it's not really a logical decision. It's an urge, and if you can't have them when you want them then for some people that is simply heart breaking.
You will know if you want them in future - and if you never have that feeling then enjoy having time, money and the lack of excruciating worry about the wellbeing of people that are more precious to you than your own life.

So just wondering....Why are all you smug childless people on a parenting site?

BINGO and rude, unless you're being sarcastic?

I have one. I don't want any more.
However the thought of life without DD... I can only describe it as "devoid of sunlight".
She's brought something to my life that I couldn't live without. It's a maternal instinct. Cut and dry. I certainly don't judge anyone who doesn't want kids, that's just how it is for me.

@SunbeamsOverhead

That’s only just clicked.

Why are you on a parenting site childless people?

It would be the end of humanity. At least the planet would survive!

My sister doesn’t have any. Her and her DH have a wonderful life, travelling the world and our country, always with friends. They’re very close to our other sisters children and are an awesome aunt and uncle, really spending time with them and know them in and out. (Mine don’t see them as we live abroad)

Pros and cons for each option of course. I didn’t have a yearning for them and generally don’t like other people’s kids, until I’ve discovered, they’re about 8+, then only in small doses. It’s a wonder I had any at all. They’re funny, delightful, and maddening, stress inducing all at the same time.

For those that say their parent friends complain about it, well yes it is hard, and I’m sure if they were childless they’d find something else to complain about

@SunbeamsOverhead......if you don’t have children, it’s informative reading about all the issues that those with children encounter. Gives a better understanding of why some families thrive and how others fail. I admit to open mouthed wonder at some of the issues discussed......but I now know that not only did I make the right decision not having children, but I also got right the decision not to make teaching my career! Apologies for the blunt honesty

In my 20s I was adamant I didn’t want children. Now I think about it, I think it’s because the way others spoke about children was something I couldn’t resonate with, e.g they felt maternal from a young age, couldn’t see a future without a child and would plan their future around one. I never gushed over other people’s babies and had a job I loved.In my early 30s, I changed my mind; I really did feel an urge to want a family that came out of nowhere almost (made that much harder by then finding out I had low ovarian reserve) I wanted a baby but still felt I could see a future without one. He is now 8 months old and I still don’t think I actually changed like I was scared of -I still love my work and I’m still not particularly broody! I don’t feel it’s taken over my identity like I was scared of. I do love him so much, he is amazing but never have I understood the choice to not have a child more since having a baby. It is just a completely different life. I do agree with @Ginfordinner in that it is just different. There are a million different directions anyone’s life could go in and this is just one of them (although I know I’m very lucky)

I have literally never met anyone, with or without children, who thought life was exclusively about flash cars and fancy holidays, and the materialistic, shallow, careerist childfree person zooming about in a convertible and nipping off to Lisbon for the weekend for a spot of high quality non-reproductive sex is as much of an unhelpful myth as the skint but spiritual earth mother with a baby permanently attached to one nipple and a smile of beatitude on her stripy cheesecloth trousers.

I had no interest in having a child, and neither had DH, and we had a lovely relationship, fulfilling careers and the freedom to flit around the world at will. There was nothing missing. Then I had an attack of curiosity and we had a baby when I was 39 out of a conviction that having a baby was really out of character. He’s fabulous. My life is differently good. Not better, not worse. It’s what it was like before, but with an extra, very beloved person in the family.

My sympathies in many ways remain with the childfree, as I was one for far longer than I’ve been a parent, and I could add to the litany of the various stranger comments about missing out on life in Technicolour, selfishness etc — a lot of parents seemed to see me choosing not to have a child as a personal insult.

The responses on this thread will be skewed towards happy childfree couples, which is good to hear their perspective. Many parents with children are probably keeping a diplomatic silence.

I believe most parents, however much they may moan in the moment especially when the children are young, would not be without their children nor bring themselves to imagine life without them. Life without your children would be an unfathomable bereavement.

People do of course love their parents, friends and pets deeply, but until you are a parent, it is not quite the same

Parenthood is not compulsory. I will respect anyone who turns away from it. And the environment will thank you.

@SunbeamsOverhead

BINGO!!!

I had my daughter at 37 after thinking I didn’t want kids. Loved the baby stage but went back to work quickly as being at home wasn’t for me. Enjoyed toddler til about six. Then hell for a few years. Think we are coming through it now at ten but then teenage years to come. Not sure I would have done it if I knew what I was getting into.

Today, much less complicated both autistic with occasional asshole tendencies.