To think that most people have children because it's just the done thing

[MaryMaryContrary]

AIBU to think that most people have children because it's just the done thing?

Given the massive upheaval children cause to your life and that we're living in 2020 when different lifestyles are more acceptable, surely we should all really be thinking through our reasoning for having children. Or is it just a hormonal urge?

If you don't think through the reasoning beforehand, do you think it can cause regret when the children arrive?

a strong biological urge

if this is the case, why doesn't it apply to all women? And I mean it's not a tiny minority who don't feel it (or feel it very fleetingly).

Tradi just cross-posted, but in this century many do not follow that path beoynd sex and a relationship.
On the other hand more and more women decide to be single mothers and are not in need of a long-term partner, or in some cases, don't want sex.
I still think that biology plays a smaller role than maybe an emotional need (which is partly biology of course, but more of a mental attitude - animals procreate unknowingly by craving the mating process, they dot hanker after emotional love in advance of having offspring, like women do).

*don't, not 'dot'

I think there is a biological urge but I think that is massively inflated by social and cultural pressure.
I am childfree by choice.

Also child-free by choice. Of my circle of friends approximately half are parents and the other half child-free. Of the parents, most have admitted to me that for various reasons they regret the choice to have children. Obviously for some it may have felt like the correct decision at the time only for later factors to cause the regret, but there are a few who clearly bumbled into parenthood without giving it much thought simply because it was the next step in the 'default societal norm' of "leave school/Uni, get a job, find a partner, have kids".

Personally, I'd always found the idea of having children unpleasant right from when I was a child myself. I've never had the biological urge, never seen the appeal, so when I reached adulthood and found myself at the point in my life where a lot of my peers were going ahead and having kids, the only thinking I did involved trying to think of any sort of positive reason to have them, and I couldn't come up with any so just continued on with my default state of intentionally remaining childless. For me, having children was never the 'default' state. It never appealed, I never saw the attraction, and on the contrary, the thought of being a parent always did and still does make my skin crawl. I think there are people who do it without much thought, they're just the natural opposite of what I am.

With my first, it wasn’t really a planned process, we didn’t talk it through or “make a big decision” to have a baby - we simply just did it as soon as we were married because it seemed like the normal next step in life. We didn’t sit down and think about whether we actually wanted a child and what it would actually involve, we just went ahead and did it because it was the done thing (to use you terminology OP).

Our second baby though was much more thought about and the urge for that baby was so unbelievably strong because that time I knew what it was like to be pregnant and to hold a newborn in my arms and watch it transform into a little person.

Perhaps if i'd been a confident, clever, sociable person not having DCs wouldn't matter, I'd be running committees, chatting with friends, probably still working in a career I was very skilled and experienced in, but I'm not those things, and nearly 70, and my life would be veeeeeery empty without DCs and DGCs. I do have hobbies but they wouldn't be enough.

When you see how much people moan about their kids, I have to agree.

Yes, there are difficult times and difficult days and there's nothing wrong with having a moan about that sometimes but I hate how some people talk about their children like they're nothing but a nuisance and a bother.

"a strong biological urge

if this is the case, why doesn't it apply to all women? And I mean it's not a tiny minority who don't feel it (or feel it very fleetingly)."

Because humans don't act purely on instinct.

I think some people have the urge more. I wanted to have a baby, more then wait to have a proper wedding. We decided to try and see what happens at age 28, before being married. I got pregnant first try. Here we are 9 years later with baby number 3 and considering having a 4th 😀

I’d have regretted it if I never had children, they fulfil me in a way my career and travelling just don’t.

Everyone is different I guess. I like travelling of course but if I’d spent most of my twenties doing that and most of my thirties on my career then left it too late to have children I’d have been utterly gutted for the rest of my life.

I have just had this conversation with my neighbour this morning. I never felt the urge to have children. I also wasn’t sure I would be a good parent. I didn’t have great parental role models & I knew I would hate myself if I had a child and then regretted it or was not a good mum. Another reason was that if my partner, childs father etc. hurt the child in any way or spoke badly to them, I would be devastated and honestly could see myself really doing something bad to them for being so horrible (I know it sounds crazy). In all I’ve not regretted it. Plus I’ve never been in the right place/right time with the right person.

I wasn’t able to have children, went through unsuccessful IVF but now in my 50s and older and wiser, I do wonder if I would have regretted it if I’d had any. I still feel sad that I never experienced the wonder and excitement of being pregnant, BFP, telling family and friends and work colleagues, seeing my baby on a scan, feeling them move inside me, going on maternity leave, holding my newborn in my arms, all of that - but do I have a big aching void at this particular point in my life at not being a mother? I can’t honestly say that I do. I enjoy the peace and quiet of my life. Of course your experiences change you, I’m not now the person I would have become had I had children, I might have taken to it like a duck to water. You can never know which is why it’s such a gamble.

Many women have openly told me they didn't put much thought into having children, it was just the next step. As previous posters have said I don't think many people will comfortably admit this or realise they had a choice. As for those who say motherhood isn't pushed on women anymore in 2020, where are you living?! It is still a massive pressure put on many of us.

Yes there is still a huge narrative that you’ll regret it if you don’t, or that you won’t be fulfilled, that nothing really matters as much as having a child. And as I mentioned above in many cultures it’s a religious obligation.

I fell pregnant by accident, so that set the ball rolling then when she was old enough we felt another would make the family more complete. A couple I know have a puppy instead they're not interested in children at all

I’m going through infertility treatment or will be when clinics reopen. As well as the strong hormonal urge for a baby I want the experience of raising a child. My husband and I both had great childhoods and we want to experience that from a parents point of view. I also like spending time with children one on one and I like children’s activities (kids movies, running around in the park or soft play with them, imaginary play, reading kids books to them etc) And seeing the world through their eyes where everything is new, teaching them about the world. I appreciate there will be a lot of drudgery but I don’t even mind the idea if that and it’s temporary anyway, they grow up (hopefully). I have a good adult relationship with my family and would hope to have that with a child when I’m my parents age. I think my husband will be an amazing dad and it’s an experience I want to share with him.

But we also know we only want one child- environmental reasons and the drudgery/ slog part just sounds much harder with 2 children.

Since I was really young, I didn't want kids - I find it tough enough looking after myself, I have a terrible relationship with my parents, and I didn't think I'd be any good at it. I then had a cancer scare and had to have a total hysterectomy at 33, which officially put paid to any lingering doubt. Weirdly, I found it much harder to be comfortable with it once it stopped being my choice. I find solace in knowing that my reasons for not doing it were sound. I can't imagine my life with kids in it, and I'm grateful for my freedom. Knowing that one day I'll have no family, as another PP put it... well, I'll just have to live with it!

I always used to think that OP but ppl talk if this "urge" they have so I assume they just feel something that I don't. I have more of a panic/horror at the idea

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

"I think there are people who do it without much thought, they're just the natural opposite of what I am."

Same! I tend to think about everything in great depth! Probably why I started this post!

I think that people of my parents' generation and before had children as a natural consequence of being married. No doubt some didn't actively want them, or as many as they had, but contraceptive choices were extremely limited and they accepted what they had as simply the luck of the draw.

Similarly, some accepted the lack of children - either because they were unmarried and not sexually actively, or because they were were unable to conceive and unable or unwilling to adopt.

These days we have many more options and ideally every child would be an active choice.

In my case, I married at 31 and had my first child at 36. We didn't want a child straight away for a variety of reasons but I knew that I would want want my own children at some point.

By the time I was 34, I was had a deep longing for a child of my own. It really came home to me on one occasion when I was sitting on a bus in front of a woman with two young children. They were absolutely lovely and I was in tears by the end of the journey, with the realisation that I had to have a baby of my own. I was lucky and it didn't take too long before I did.

In contrast, one of my oldest friends said during her time at university very that she didn't want children and never would. She asked to be sterilised, which was refused on the grounds that she was too young and would probably change her mind. She didn't. She is now 60, has been happily married for 30 years and has no children.

I didn't have a biological urge, primal instinct, hormonal instinct or whatever the terminology on this thread is...

We had a happy accident when I was very late 30s and Dp was mid 40s

Throughout the pregnancy apart from the morning sickness and putting my back out when I was about 6 months pregnant I don’t think I gave having children any thought.

At 7 months pregnant I was on my roof putting a new roof on the flat roof part.
I was still tiling bathrooms and painting and decorating the indoors

Only when dd was born did it hit me that I loved the results of being pregnant. I wanted another straight away.

I wish someone had told me to not believe the naysayers that said having children would be a detriment.
Everyone I knew would say they wished they had never had children don’t get pregnant, you are so lucky being childless and having your freedom but in reality they loved their children so much and would have given their life without a thought to save their child

I was pregnant with Ds soon after and wish I could have had a 3rd 4th and even 5th. One of my few regrets that I started so late.

I called it a primal urge further up thread but I don't think it's something that's hardwired into people. Certainly not everyone wants children and there is nothing wrong with that at all.

To me, I think it's more of an expection of self, I always saw myself with children, the primal urge as I called it was more of a "I love this man, I want to create a permanent bond"
I think for me it was more of an emotional and gut reaction rather than physical or logical which is why maybe not everyone wants children.

That's not to say people who don't want children are missing something emotionally because they aren't, I just can't frame it in a different way myself and reading it back it feels a clumsy explanation, so I apologise if it is taken the wrong way, I just wanted to try and explain my meaning for the use of primal urge.

I will add however that my inlaws never expected to be grandparents and my parents did. So I'm not sure if that had some influence over me having children as someone else said, your parents are your first role models.

I can honestly say however, it certainly wasn't a reaction to my friends having children.