Help me make sense of this decision

[CockerMum]

I’m fairly sure I don’t want children. I’m in my mid 30’s and aside from a couple of broody months here and there I’ve felt this way since I can remember. I’m married and what most people would call “financially secure” (more on this later) so many people seem to be expecting us to have children soon - the expectation combined with my age means it has been on my mind a lot recently but the more I think about it the less I feel it is what I want, which I know is totally fine but when I tell myself that I then have a sad feeling as well.
I am quite a practical person so I have literally got a list of pros and cons, and it does occur to me that this is not how most people make this decision. Am I overthinking it? Do I really actually want childr n but the practicalities are what is putting me off, when in reality I know people make it work in less than ideal circumstances? I suppose I am worried I will live to regret it and by the time I realise that I will be too old and we will struggle.
In case it matters here is my list of reasons for not wanting children (no offence meant by any of these by the way they are entirely personal to me and not meant to be in any way judgemental at anyone else’s choices):

• The early years appear to be boring, repetitive and hard work
• Although we are financially secure just the two of us, me stopping working for mat leave then either reducing hours or putting the child in nursery when I went back would tip us into a less than comfortable situation
• Risk to my physical and mental wellbeing from the pregnancy, birth and infant rearing time
• Restricting our freedom - which frankly we have gotten used to I.e going wherever we want on holiday etc. The idea of pushing a buggy around a centre parcs or similar makes my heart sink
• Impact on career progression for both of us which is important to us
• We are considering moving overseas in the next five years and a child would make this difficult for various reasons
• Impact on our pets (dog, cat, small animals)

Reading the list you may think “you don’t want kids, don’t do it then” but I can’t make peace with the thought and I really don’t know why. Is it maternal instinct / hormones and will pass? I would just really appreciate people’s thoughts - especially if you’ve had similar debates with yourself at some point in time, however it panned out.

Try writing a pros and cons list? You have the cons already. See which list you’re drawn to the most and which is longer.

My pros list would be:

• experience parenthood and therefore I wouldn’t feel left out as most of my friends are having children now
• shared genetic legacy with my husband
• new experiences with a child that I wouldn’t have without one

I think when you dont want children, it's very hard to navigate past societal expectations. So what you are feeling MAY be a little lingering broodiness but it's as likely to be a niggling feeling of "wrongness" from bucking what people around you consider normal.

I think your cons list is comprehensive and reasonable. Your pros list is honest but arguably, its not exactly a list of compelling reasons.

One thing I will say is if you definitively decide not to have children, then embrace it. Because otherwise there will be lingering regrets or worries. Embrace all those things tou will be able to do ans achieve as a result and know you are living the life you chose and can enjoy.

I had a strong urge to have a child in my early 30s, never felt it before that at all - it just sort of came upon me. We were married a few years with no talk of children but not ruling them out, (did talk about that before tying the knot just in case me and DH-to-be weren’t on the same page). For me it was a desire/feeling, no pro or con list needed after that.

None of your pros list are a good reason to have children and your cons list are very valid reasons. Children are expensive, time consuming, exhausting endless worry pits. It’s perfectly fine not to want them. Does your husband feel the same way? Could you ask him to write a pros/cons list and see if you’re on the same page?

I love my children and wanted them, I’ve always been maternal and could never see my life without kids but sometimes even I yearn to be child free and have the freedom, money and time that comes with it.

Very valid point - I wonder if it is that it feels like there will be a lot of time to fill / a gap left in our “story” without children and therefore need to understand exactly what would fill that.

Husband says he could have a happy life with or without children and says he would never put pressure on me either way as I’m the one who would carry and birth them and probably take on the majority of childcare in the first year

You seem incredibly torn. I don’t think you’d regret having a child but you might regret not having one.

Why do you think I’d not regret having one? Surely if I did then it’s far worse than regretting not having one.

It's a valid choice to remain childless.
Having children because you might miss out isn't really a good reason.
Having children and helping to create rounded happy people requires a lot from you - you can't give lightly.
What isn't on your list though is how much pleasure and fun having kids brings. It's really not the same as being around other people's children. I don't regret having mine at all.
But I suspect most women and men who want children, don't have to pursuade themselves. So maybe it's not for you - and that's ok.

Thank you for this.
what I cannot get my head around is how people “just know” they want kids and “don’t have to persuade themselves”. What does this feel like? As far as I’m concerned it is the biggest life altering decision one could make and therefore surely requires serious consideration and careful thought? Am I missing something?

I'm experiencing the same turmoil at the moment OP.

Another huge con for me is the state of the world at the moment, it really is awful.

This right here is the societal norm and expecting I was talking about. People say ridiculous things like this and we are programmed to agree.

How do you know you won't regret children? Even people who wanted kids desperately often think they made a mistake. A few brave souls have even been in here admitting they regret it.

And even if you don't regret it, you may well mourn the life you missed out on.

It sounds to me like you don't really want children but you have FOMO.

I didn't ever need to make a list of pros and cons because I just knew that I wanted to be a parent.

I read somewhere that we make decisions for emotional reasons and then back them up with practical ones. I don't think your list of cons will matter one bit if you suddenly want a baby!

It can come from no where and no number of nice holidays or lie ins will make the slightest bit of difference. BUT lots of people never have that urge and live very happily.

I do think @Mummame2222 makes a very good point.

I think its a "if you know you know" scenario. I was somewhat indifferent to having dc. But, when dh and I got together and he made it clear he did, I was surprised by how little that idea stressed me out.

My only proviso was that I knew I had fertility problems and I was not willing to do full ivf etc and I made that clear to him in advance. As it was, I found the process if investigations and then clomid really hard so I know if it hadn't worked, we would have stopped the effort there.

There's a lovely article by Janice Turner in the Times yesterday about how the narrative around having children (especially for women, mothers) has shifted from unrealistically sentimental seventy or so years ago to relentlessly negative now (I'm oversimplifying). The article tries to point out what has been lost in this trajectory; the joys of motherhood, in short.
I have no idea whether you should or should not have children, but I wholeheartedly support your right to have as much help and info in making the decision as possible. With that in mind I think you'd gain from reading it. I don't sub to the Times but I've taken this link from JT's x account so I'm hoping it's a working share token, but if not go to x and find her account and you should be able to get it from her own link yesterday.
Best of luck OP.

Why aren’t British women having babies any more? (thetimes.co.uk)

“ I just knew I wanted to be a parent “

But why?

I am talking specifically about OPs post and what she has written herself.

I am not talking about women in general who choose to not have children.

Not everything is a personal attack on you/them or a generalisation.

Of course women can live fulfilled, happy lives without kids, OP just sounds incredibly torn.

I see.
I definitely would not undergo ivf or adopt and some people have told me this means I definitely don’t want kids.

Thank you for this I appreciate it and will give the article a read

Of course it's a big decision that requires careful consideration. But for me, that consideration was always about when and how we wanted to raise our children, how to ensure that we were in the best possible position to parent in the way that we felt best.

I never had to think about whether or not I wanted them because I always had an absolute certainty that I did. It's hard to explain how that felt but I suppose it was less of a rational decision and more just a gut feeling. It simply wasn't a question that I ever needed to ask myself.

Yeah I’ve definitely never had that intense a feeling. I wonder if some of us are just programmed that way and others not?

Perhaps that's where we differ. She doesn't sound torn to me at all. She sounds like a woman who doesn't want children but who is concerned because society tells her she might change her mind.

I dunno. Biological instinct? Social conditioning? Or some combination thereof?

I can't answer the question of "why" because it wasn't a rational decision with a considered list of reasons. It was just a gut feeling or an inner knowing.