Is it OK to stop someone else from being a parent?

[tigermoll]

(first time poster, please be gentle :) )

I have been with my OH for 2.5 years, living together for 1, no children or pets. We are very happy, love each other very much, and I hope that we can stay together for the rest of our lives.

So far, so peachy. The issue is, I have never been very interested in marriage and babies, and throughout my twenties, this ambivalence has hardened into definite dislike. I am now 30, and find it hard to imagine ever getting married or having children. My partner, on the other hand, has always wanted very much to get married and have children. He loves kids, has always assumed he would have a wedding and a wife, and goes all gooey when he sees babies in prams.

We have had several talks where I have been very clear about the marriage/babies thing, and he says he is happy for the r/ship to proceed, knowing that it will mean he misses out on these things.

BUT: the thing is, I know he's not really happy. It breaks my heart to see him holding friends' children, as I can see he is thinking: 'I'll never have one of these'. We have had several 'chats' that have somehow developed an edge over my views on marriage (how 'not everyone thinks like me, and most people see marriage as a good thing', ostensibly in an abstract discussion, but I started to feel like I was somehow being got at)

So my question (which has turned out pretty long, sorry!) is this:

Is it fair of me to proceed with the r/ship, knowing that it will cause my lovely, lovely partner to miss out on a huge part of life, stopping him from being a father (and I'm pretty sure he would be an excellent one) and possibly causing him to resent me? What if, (god forbid) we split up, and then he gave up kids for a r/ship that ended anyway? It seems disingenuous to say 'well, he says he's fine, so even though I know he isn't, I'll just carry on'. Should I wait to see if I change my mind (which is possible) and if so, how long should I wait?

Thanks for listening to me ramble xx

[Crumbletopping]

P.S it's ok, I don't like playing with Duplo either.

[DuelingFanjo]

this thread is so similar to another one which was posted a few weeks ago.

you have ben clear with him, he has to make his own mind up.

when you say "You know when you look at a little baby, and it curls its little fist, and something deep inside you goes' awww' and you long to pick it up? I don't have that."

well... I don't feel that about any other child apart from my own son so I don't think you're alone there.

[Anna1976]

Tigermoll - thank god you've said all that above. It's exactly how i feel too. my throwaway line is "oh I wouldn't be any good at it" - but I totally agree with your comment

"My best friend, when advising me to procreate, said 'just keeping them alive and allowing them to grow gives your life meaning'. That answer chilled me to the bone, but clealry works for her."

My life has meaning while I treat people and investigate scientific questions, it has meaning when I feel I've made someone else's day happier and more fulfilling, it has meaning when I give my salary to the disasters emergency committee, it even has meaning (to some extent) when I interact with my nephews and niece and godson.

Yes i get that many mothers have all those sorts of meaning as wellas the overwhelming feeling about their children. But I absolutely cannot find in myself the desire to throw away all that meaning for years, so I can focus on successfully bringing yet another human into the totally overpopulated world. I have a sense of bewilderment and guilt that other people so clearly understand why they did it, and I just mostly wish I'd never been conceived in the first place, and can't think of anything worse than forcing someone else to go through life.

I think Mumsnet is perhaps the wrong place to be when I feel like this (I get on here because it's mostly people my own age talking about stuff I agree with - like a more relaxed version of work without the social minefield). But at least by being on here i have heard you saying all this - you and I could be the same person (except i'm 5 years older and more hardened in my resolve/ 5 years further into the same kind of ambivalent relationship that hasn't got any clearer).

[Anna1976]

Passionsrunhigh - i think you're speaking some truth there about wanting to be needed being a major reason for people having children (though i am not sure about how far one should generalise it).

I can't think of anything less pleasant. I have absolutely no desire at all to be needed or wanted, and I honestly wish I weren't in the cases where I am. I like making things better for others, but prefer being in situations where if it were not me it would be someone else: I am frankly terrified of dependency on me. I tie myself in knots of guilt about feeling I should do more for my family and simultaneously wishing i had never been born. I think this is why I am not sure I could go ahead with marriage. I know i couldn't cope with the level of dependency of a child. Parents scare me enough.

Do other people feel like this and then get married and become mothers (and hopefully change the way they feel)?

[sunshineandbooks]

I found this paragraph (especially the last sentence) quite moving:

Childhood isn't much fun anyway, I would feel a bit bad about making anyone else go through it. Childhood is a long procession of being told what to do, where to go, have decisions made for you, opinions given to you, truths concealed from you, as you gradually claw out some autonomy for yourself. Finally, you are an adult and things get much better. Why force anyone else to go through all of that? Having to watch your child grow up and learn about pain and shame and betrayal and failure, and be powerless to alleviate their suffering (we all have to learn this, after all) must be unbearable.

I really hope that's a coolly philosophical viewpoint and not one based on personal experience. It's a perfectly valid POV BTW but if it is based on personal experience, it may just be worth examining it a little bit further just to be absolutely sure that fear isn't the motivation behind your desire to not have children. Fear sometimes lessens as you get older and I would hate you to wake up in 20 years time and regret your decision. If your decision is rational, this won't happen.

I am a mother. I never wanted to have DC until I found myself accidentally in the role of foster carer when a friend became to unwell to care for her DD. It totally changed my view on DC and having my own is the best thing I've ever done. But everything you have said about endless domestic drudgery, having to be selfless, etc is absolutely true. While I don't regret for a minute having my DC and I am happy with my life, I know that I could have had an equally fulfilling and happy life without having DC. SGB is right - it's not a fundamental prerequisite to being a normal woman. Living life without marriage and babies is perfectly acceptable and a good thing for some women and, dare-I-say-it, more people should consider it.

I think you sound like you know your own mind. You've made it clear to your DP. I can see why you'd worry but ultimately he's a grown man and capable of making his own decisions. Even if it turns out to be the wrong one, it's his to make, not yours IYSWIM.

[horribledinners]

I wonder if you've explored the possibility of your OH impregnating a willing surrogate and having a hand in bringing his own child up this way? This has been the case in a couple of friends i have who are in a same sex partnership, where one wanted to be a father and his partner didn't. Could you tolerate such a situation? it would be a compromise.

[tigermoll]

Anna1976 - I also say 'Christ, I'd be a rubbish mother' when people ask me why I don't have children/if I want them. I tend not to elaborate on this by going on to say '....because I'd probably horribly emotionally neglect them and be unable to hide the fact that they weren't wanted, which, let's face it, wouldn't do anyone any good.'

sunshineandbooks - Hmmm, I suppose I am slightly talking about my own childhood there. It not like it was an unremittingly awful experience, more just not really that much fun. All the very best bits had to do with growing up and gaining independence. You are on the nail though, - I do have 'issues' surrounding the institution of The Family. For me, it has always been the F word, and any phrase including it makes me shiver (family holiday, family friendly, fun for all the family, - none of those things sound like anything I would want to be a part of).

Horribledinners - I have thought about the idea of my OH becoming a parent with someone else but not brought it up with him. I think I'd be fine with it, apart from the fact there'd be a child in the house from time to time. But I could always just go out.

[WibblyBibble]

Maryz, I'm sorry but I get really sick of all this 'pregnancy is just for 9 months so it's not a big deal and doesn't mean women have more right to have a say over it' nonsense. Maybe you were very lucky in your pregnancies and births (or maybe you haven't had any), but having children permanently affected my body in ways that my male exes get off completely free. I have scars, it is much, much harder for me to reach orgasm (if at all), I have torn muscles which cause continuing back and abdominal pain, I still get pelvic pain from ligament stretching (SPD) (youngest is nearly 2, so it's not going away now), I have various other problems which I'm not even going to mention. Men get NONE of this! [And no, having a baby doesn't mean it's all ok, actually- it's shit and there needs to be a lot more research into helping women recover properly from the physical and often mental trauma of childbearing. I would probably not do it again if I knew beforehand e.g. that someone would hack at my vagina with scissors leaving permanent damage- no one tells you about this before you get pregnant!] Men also don't bear the economic brunt of having children except in a tiny minority of cases, and they certainly don't bear the social stigma of motherhood and resultant blame-for-everything-in-the-world-ever. It is nothing like as serious for a man to want or not want children and for it not to happen as he plans than it is for a woman.

OP, I think you should end your relationship if you want different things. I also think at your age, if you don't want kids, the responsible thing is to not have any and leave the population space for people who definitely do want them- to me, being undecided still by the age of 30 means you don't want them that much even if you get some 'biological clock' thing later. If we all listened to random hormones, it's be ridiculous. However I think you should be prepared that men tend not to be very good at letting people end relationships with them, and he may well go off into some thing about how he loves you so much he doesn't care about children etc (which is again, a good reason for you both not to have them- people who want children have normally done so from quite young, and don't let relationship status affect their wish to nurture care for children- hence teenage parents often actually being very good parents, statistically speaking).

[meltedchocolate]

"hence teenage parents often actually being very good parents"

It is so rare to hear this. I was a teenage mum (oops) and did my best for my son. I stopped partying, going out, anything that I felt was needed for DS but all you ever hear about teenage mums is how bad they are. The majority of the evidence I have seen suggests that we are just as good as older mums (there are crap parents who are 14, and crap parents who are 40)

Also, terrified of someone hacking at me with scissors now I'm sorry you went through that Wibbly