My friend’s kids make me not want my own

[Undecided123456]

I may get called a witch for this, and judged as not being cut out for motherhood - can you give me some perspective?

I have a varied group of friends with kids of different ages (babies to early teens). I am thinking about starting a family but I am having serious doubts

More recently I have been spending time with friends with younger kids and as more meet ups are suggested I find I am not looking forward to them. The kids don’t listen, they are demanding and bossy, whiny and unreasonable. The parents shout a lot and/or continually appeasing demands. I know parenting is tough, so is this just how it is? Juggling small rude dictators? Or am I only seeing a particular way of life?

Recent meet ups leave me cold, there seems little joy in it all, just trudging through with ‘it will be better when they’re at nursery/school/out of nappies/sleeping/grown out of xyz’

Am I just a non maternal person, better off out of it?

[StrangeLookingParasite]

because it's a lot easier to imagine being strict than the reality of actually doing it with the person you love most in the world.

This is one of those things that males me think I'm an unnatural mother. I never had this um, sentimental feeling. I've seen what being too soft does to other people's children, and I'm not at all interested in that outcome. Perhaps I'm a terrible cold wench.

But having children is one experience. Yes, there is nothing like it, and if you don't you won't know what its like. But I'll never know what it's like to be a ballerina. That's another experience. I won't even be a surgeon, and so on.
I think there are too many people who believe having children is the best thing you can do (my husband had a friend at one point who said that having children was 'the most creative thing a woman could do'. God he was a dick). I think it's one thing we can do. I don't think it's for everyone, and that is just fine.