Worried that I don't have the patience to have a child

[Obsessedwithpizzas]

I'm of that age (31) where several friends have recently had children and a couple of others are pregnant. I'm just really undecided.

I have a partner, but I really like our current life and love the fact that I can do what I want, and have a lot of time to myself/ourselves.

I love having disposable income to spend on what I want, and pretty much just don't want to change my current life.

I also wonder whether I'd be patient enough. I work with nursery and reception age children and they can be very testing.

The constant 'why' questions, for instance, I was putting a coat on and a little girl asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was putting a coat on, and she asked me why.

The lack of ability to regulate noise levels, constant loud voices and screeching/whining (I'm very sensitive to noise).

Lack of spatial awareness so constantly banging into you, knocking drinks over, knocking things everywhere.

The constant nose picking.
Children in reception class love to stare at you for no reason even if you ask them to turn around.
Constant squabbling, "Sarah pushed me" type arguments.

Don't feel like I'd have it in me to go through a pregnancy and a birth after hearing the stories of my friends.

I am rubbish after no sleep.

I also work with elderly people, some whose children very rarely or never visit them at their care homes so I don't think it's even a guarantee of no lonliness.

I hope this doesn't make me sound like a horrible person. Children are lovely and I do enjoy working with them, I just don't know if I am willing to sacrifice so much and change my life.

@RepublicOfNarnia

You sound like a really empathetic person.

I cant tell you how tired I feel sometimes at work after having done so much to get everyone dressed, fed, out of the house and dropped in the correct location after minor attempts to make myself presentable. All this before my commute! Sometimes when I see it is just 9am and the start of endless back to back meetings and honestly, I just want to go to the toilet for a cry.

Useless partners don’t help I suppose. That is another angle to consider @Obsessedwithpizzas

I think this is tricky for women, though. Having kids, even now, is the default. I grew up pretty much feeling like it was obligatory. It's very hard to know how much of the 'seeing your future with kids' was a societal expectation rather than something you actually wanted.

'It's very hard to know how much of the 'seeing your future with kids' was a societal expectation rather than something you actually wanted.'

Such a good point. You can't underestimate how hard it can be to separate what you actually want from what you are expected to want

I always wanted kids and I feel that having kids are even more wonderful than I had imagined.

However, I know several women who just had kids because they felt they were supposed to have kids and it never goes well. The kids range in ages from 8 to 26 and none of them have a good relationship with their mothers, and most of them have not done well in school/life due to a lack of support from their parents. Please do not have kids unless you want them enthusiastically.

What is with all these silly responses?

It's a massive life decision. Probably the biggest one. Once it's too late, it's too late. Why are you acting as if she's considering buying a new TV or something?

As someone who is yet to feel any biological urge for kids and is pretty sure they would be too stressful for me, I get a lot of people going 'well, life is fun now, but what about in your forties and fifties when everyone else is busy raising kids?' and yes, I do worry a bit about that. Not having kids puts you in the minority and reduces your social options. Even if you're an adventurous sort and planning to emigrate or live abroad (as I am), the vast majority of expats or other people who are 40+ will have families. At 36 I'm still young enough that I look generically 'young' and slot in just fine with the 20 and 30-somethings to go to bars and on beach trips and stay up all night. At 40-50, who do you hang out with? I'm not selfish enough to have a child to cure my own loneliness but I'm sure a lot of people do. It's a difficult decision.

Ha!

Whenever I used to say "it's not fair!" I used to get "it's not raining."

Then don't have them! Luckily it is becoming more common for women to opt out of having children, and having them because everyone else is, is always a bad move.
I was like you at your age and decided to give myself 5 years and then try if I wanted them. Five years later I was single after a really horrific divorce and wasn't in a place to have children - still wasn't sure anyway. So kicked the can down the road again.
To cut a long story short I'm now 48 and no regrets. Children are absolutely not for me!

For women born in 1975
18% had no children
17% had one child
37% had two children
28% had 3 or more children

So a sizeable number of women have no children, and my expectation is that the trend for women born later than 1975 will be for an increasing percentage to remain child free.

I agree about the organisation involved. Having a baby/toddler was much easier for me as no clubs, school, uniform, homework, endless emails from school/clubs to fail to read.

Then dont have them
Simple.

I suspect I am similar to you OP. Found it very very tough having kids due to all the reasons you listed. When the kids get to the age of about 7/8 it changes completely and is much better (not necessarily easy). Then again I'm a LP which makes things triply difficult. If you have a supportive partner it will probably be easier for you. Do love my DD though, loads.

You don't have to have children. It's perfectly fine just to say it's not for me.

Most of what you're saying is true, but when they're your own you love them, so you don't notice all the annoying things quite so much.

They also go through different stages, which are easier/harder than others. I personally find primary age children an absolute joy, babies, toddlers and teenagers not so much. Other people love the baby stage.

They aren't actually 'children' for very long though. Most of your complaints are of young primary school children, which only last for 10 years. Then you get another 10 years of them being pre-teens to young adult. Then if you are lucky to live a nice long life you'll get 20-30 years of enjoying them as fully fledged adults.
So you'll know them for 50 years, only around 10 of those years they'll be young kids, 30-40 years they'll be fun and interesting and might even be your best friend!

It's a quarter of your life bringing them up. Over half of your middle adulthood,nearly your entire part of your adulthood at your fittest, most energetic and motivated.

And there's no guarantee they'll even stay in touch often as adults.

I'm reassured by the statistic above that 18% of current 46 year olds don't have kids - in ten years time I'll still have loads of other childfree friends to hang out with.

You like doing what you want to do? (That won't happen with children, it's about them.)
You like disposable income? (Nursery will cost at least a grand if in full time
You like sleeping in? (Babies and toddlers like to wake up early, I was up at half 5 today)
You like spending time with just your partner? (I did too, but now our attention is split between us and our child)
You don't have the patience? ( Try being patient when your child vomits repeatedly, or is ill for the millionth time which requires you to miss a day of work and eat into your leave days)

Don't do it.

Everything you’ve said is true. They are noisy, expensive and exhausting head melters. I love mine and if I lost her now id be gutted but if id never had her I don’t think id be less happy and fulfilled. I would probably have a totally different life and be perfectly content with it.

Great post pixie5121 👍

*For women born in 1975
18% had no children
17% had one child
37% had two children
28% had 3 or more children

So a sizeable number of women have no children, and my expectation is that the trend for women born later than 1975 will be for an increasing percentage to remain child free.*

I see these stats all of the time, but I think if you take out all of the women who are:

• single for their entire adult lives
• meet their partner too late
• have fertility issues
• have been married but get divorced at the 'wrong' time
• are gay and don't want to adopt

...you are left with a tiny minority of women who don't have kids. I say this as someone who is straight, happily married to a lovely man I met at 21, no health issues that we're aware of, financially solvent and so on - and our decision to remain childfree often feels like an highly unusual and lonely one.

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem - Lonely in what way? As in unusual for making an active choice not to have children rather than ending up that way by mistake; unusual for marrying someone in the knowledge it is not for the purposes of creating stability for potential offspring; or as in genuinely lonely, because you feel like the odd ones out to be in a childfree couple and you get left out of social invitations by single friends and also by couple friends who have families, or feel yourself to be viewed negatively by them?

Of course YANBU.

TBH it completely baffles me why women want a large family. I would hate to live the chaotic and noisy life that having loads of children would entail, let alone all the drudgery involved.

Whenever I see posts from mumsnetters asking should they have a third/fourth/yet another child my first thought is why?

I just have one BTW.

I'm not sure I follow the logic. The percentage without kids is the percentage without kids, regardless of the reason for it. It's highly probable that quite a few of the 18% wanted kids but couldn't have them, for any of the reasons you stated, but the fact remains that around 1 in 5 women born in 1975 never had a child, and I think it's highly likely the number will be considerably higher for women born in 1985, especially considering things like the 2008 recession and the pandemic. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ends up being 1 in 4 women from my generation who end up childless at menopause, possibly even 1 in 3.

I know a woman who had five by the time she was 32, all in quick succession. She seems to love being a mother and is a real natural at it. She wasn't particularly competent at work (we were colleagues) or particularly interested in a career and she really couldn't wait to meet a man and have children. That was her life ambition and all she ever really wanted to do. I can't really understand it or identify with it myself but it is definitely true for some.

Not necessarily.

My parents are well into their sixties and still caring for a sibling with ASD and numerous mental health issues.

I think a lot of people assume they'll have a perfect, healthy child who will go off to uni at 18 and then have a lovely life and visit every few weeks. It doesn't always work like that. If you have a disabled child, you could be their carer for life. This is one of the main reasons I am seriously considering not having any kids. I do not want that commitment.

You can learn patience. Parenting is hard work and you really have you work on yourself a lot too. But it's been an opportunity for me - I don't want to be impatient, irritable, distracted... So I put the work in. It's never going to be a good choice for you if you're not okay with changing and trying to be better, kinder, more forgiving etc. You will absolutely have to change yourself or it will be done to you quite forcefully anyway!

You are not in the right place to be even thinking of having a baby. You haven’t given a single positive reason why you should become a mum.

The worst thing you could do right now is get pregnant and hope for the best. Please wait a while until you are ready.

You are wrong about babies and children though. They bring love, happiness and joy into your life in a way you could never imagine.