So what *is* the right reason to have children?

[emkana]

Everybody seems to agree what the wrong reasons are - don't have them to fix a relationship, don't have them just because your friends are all having a baby...
But what is the right reason? I decided to have children because the time seemed right, our relationship had reached the point where it seemed the obvious next step, and also I really really wanted someone who would love me like nobody else and whom I would love like nobody else.
So were those the right or the wrong reasons?

beansmum really admire you what with being at uni and stuff.

ditto about the useless with contraception!

I had my dd because it was 'that time', I was early thirties, had been with dp for 7 years, we both knew we wanted children.

I must say that I had no idea how amazing it would be - my longing for a second child (now pregnant!) was far stronger than my desire to get pregnant first time round. I know now what having a child means - that I would give my life for hers, and that she makes my life complete. There's no way you can really appreciate that till you are a parent.

I don't think there is any right reason. I think we all have children, essentially, for selfish biological reasons. Including the children we may assure ourselves we are only having to provide existing ones with siblings. There are no 'good' reasons.

I had never wanted children, never felt the need to reproduce, felt complete in myself and in my relationship with dh - then was let down by the Pill and found I was pregnant with dd. So the decisions about when, how and why didn't come into it, I was pregnant and that was it. Planned or not, I considered that the baby had been created from love and there was therefore no way on earth that I wasn't going to have her. She has enriched my life in a way that I would never have felt possible, and turned me into a better person for it.

So, to answer the question - there's no such thing as the "right" reason; where a child is born and loved, any reasons for having had him or her is valid, no matter how trivial or selfish they may seem.