Am I a bad person for feeling this way about kids?

[monacgogo88]

Ok this is probably pretty bad to write here, I don’t have kids yet but am currently feeling pressured to have them a bit my parents would love grandchildren, its expected, I’m not getting any younger, what if I regret not having them etc. I have limited experience with babies and children and am somewhat ill at ease with them, I don’t like the way they stare at me, I always feel like I am supposed to fuss over children and the expectation annoys me. I don’t dislike children and babies are interesting to watch as they learn and develop but they are boring and time demanding. I guess to me I don’t see what is so special about them; they are not precious little angels but just people, little people … big deal!
I know I’d probably feel different about my own kids that hormones would kick in and I’d love my baby but I think I’d be changed forever into a Mum and I worry that change would snowball away from me and that I would become someone else without my consent or even my knowledge. I just don’t know if I can make that choice to alter my life for another person if I don’t have to. So many women seem to see babies as almost magical but to me they are just people (very demanding people), they will grow up to be as messed up and as happy and unhappy as everyone else but they aren’t special. I don’t know if I am envious of the way other women see babies and children I listen to them say things like “but it would be someone to love and who would love me” or “wouldn’t you be so proud of them if they became a doctor or a ballet dancer?” Well no, I don’t have any career aspirations for my unborn children and while I am sure I would love my baby I don’t pine for its love.
I don’t much care for animals either; I mean I do like them in the wild but I find people loving and being loved by animals in their own home slightly weird. I am not cold or unfeeling, I am very loving and affectionate with my partner and that is the one thing that makes me seriously think about babies that I think he would like to have a child.
Am I some kind of heartless aberration, sometimes I think I am just realistic and would be as good a mum as anyone but it always comes down to do I want to make a baby that will alter who I am in unknown ways and be my priority forever more?

Why would that make you heartless?
Far better to care, and to not have them if that's not what you want, than to have unwanted children.

I guess because having children is still a possability, I don't know. I had a lovely childhood but the maternal instinct just never kicked in but then I see my partner with his nephew and I feel bad that he might never be a father because of me. He says he is ok either way but he has always liked kids more than I do.

If 88 is your birth year, you have plenty of time to have babies. No hurry to decide.

Y.Y chipping.

oh grow up x

nice, helpful comment there, baby.

88 not my year of birth, in last chance saloon for a baby if I want one.

I just feel like wanting a baby is the norm, most women I know all have or want children, in fact all of them do. I don't have any urge to have a baby so I look at it more logically and its difficult to see and upside especially for women.

I've never wanted children and think that if you don't really want a child or are lukewarm towards the idea it's not a good idea to have them. Don't have children to suit someone else or just because everyone else does it; only do it if you really want them and know you would really love them.
Some women are born with the maternal instinct and others aren't and this is perfectly natural in my opinion.

I was going to post something but aeon456 has summed up the situation perfectly! That's exactly how I feel!

I worry what it means about me, like I said I am very loving and affectionate to my partner but I am not affectionate with others even those I love very much. I love books and art and am a bit of a loner. My mother says having a baby would be the making of me. I don't know what she means, that it would make me into a mother like her? I'm sure it would be fine if it happened and that I would be happy but what would happen to who I am now?

Honestly it doesn't say anything about you except that you know how you feel and are not prepared to have a child just because of outside pressure. I have always felt like that, I'm now 44 so have finally got passed the 'it will be the making of you' or 'you will change your mind when you are older' comments!

Your concerns are very valid and in fact more or less describe what happened to me when I became a mother, in terms of losing myself and morphing into another being. You are not an aberration, and you are being realistic.

However, by definition given you haven't had any, you are also unaware of the upsides, and perhaps that is what your DM is alluding to. Children can change your life from black and white to technicolor. It's how I describe it to my friends - everything is the same, just more so. Yes, the lows can be low, but the highs are also far greater and more profound than anything else. People tend not to talk about this much, other than in glib terms - after all, procreation is the most mundane thing in the world. It's only our crazy society that builds parenthood into an experience!

Don't read into your ambivalence that motherhood is not for you. You are loving and affectionate to the closest person in your life. Your child would be even closer to you, and could also deepen your love for your partner (it certainly has mine).

If you don't want any, don't have any. It really is that simple. All your examples are of having kids to please other people (mum, partner, etc) but not you.

Please don't have a child for someone else's sake. My mother didn't have a maternal instinct and I grew up without a mother's love and care.

My dm was a loner, single child, needed her own space, did not show affection, just resentment, put herself first and got depressed with all the demands of motherhood.

I thought it was normal for mums to despise their dc and it's only now that I have my own dc that I realise it's not!

My dm never sees her gc and made it v clear beforehand never to expect any babysitting.

Is my dm a wicked witch for being made this way? I don't think so but equally juat because you are female doesn't mean you are going to be a brilliant mum.

Being able to procreate will make you a mother but I would put the emphasis on whether or not you want to be the best possible mother for your child and go from there.

I always did have a strong maternal instinct, loved animals etc and yet was heavily influenced by dm's dislike of dc...until I had my own.

You have to be selfless, patient and have a strong maternal instinct to be a good mother.

op i'll be 36 in a few months.....and i STILL don't want children. i knew how i felt about it in my teens and that hasn't changed. i don't think it makes you or i weird/odd/selfish/unfeeling etc at all....it just means our 'biological clock' ticks differently compared to some other people.

it is actually completely NORMAL to feel non-maternal/broody in that aspect. Luckily we live in an age and country where we have the CHOICE to decide whether we want to have kids or not. i can tolerate other people's children and get on with them, and i enjoy knowing and spending time with my nephews and neices...... but i wouldn't want that full time for myself. i don't see the point in it when i feel no DESIRE to be a mother/mum. i'm perfectly happy being the 'cool/favourite' aunty

i've been called 'selfish/silly' for wanting to concentrate on enjoying my own life and doing all the things i want to do instead of doing my 'duty' as a woman and procreating - as though that is the only thing that gives my life/existence any validity or meaning I think it's offensive, insulting and patronising when people say things like 'kids will change your life for the better/make you love people better/you don't know what joy is unless you've had kids/don't know what you're missing out on' etc....i am already very happy with my life and it's already joyful, i find my 'childfree' life very fulfilling and successful already, i am already capable of truly loving another person deeply.......i don't NEED to have a baby to fill some imaginary 'hole' in my life, in my sense of self worth or my identity. i am already a complete person

you can tell other people this but don't expect many of them to actually understand it - esp your parents/family. mine have given up asking/expecting me to have kids, if anyone does ask i just tell them straight 'i'm not interested in having kids'. most people are actually respectful of that, on the odd occasion i'll come across someone who thinks i've committed some heinous sin against womanhood.

my advice to you would be FEEL NO GUILT over your decision/how you feel and don't feel like you have to justify your decision to your parents.

At the moment everyone around me seems to be having babies, my cousins, friends are either having them or wanting them soon. I do feel an external pressure for sure. I know family members are beginning to wonder about me. I'm pleased my cousins are happy to be mothers and fathers but I struggle to muster up any real interest in their babies, do they read that as sour grapes, it seems unkind to say to their faces very nice but babies don't interest me. Its incomprehensible to them I'm not desperate to be a mother myself. On christmas day my cousin brought her new born round and my parents were holding her, and loving it. I felt so sad that they will probably never get to be grandparents, I feel like I am letting them down and I feel like people must see me as a very cold fish when I am not at all. I get annoyed at friends and family with children not really because I resent their kids or happiness but in how in their number and attitude they imply it is the right thing to do, that you can't really know life or love without being a parent. I agree its different but they will never know who they would or could be if they had not dedicated decades to child rearing. My family largely subscribe to the whole work hard, get a house, get married, have kids, have a career in nursing, social work or teaching (helping people) be a pillar of the community. I work in the arts and am not that interested in helping people I want to do my creative work and express myself and to have time to read and think. It would be easiler for me to be ok with my reluctance to have children I had siblings with children but I am an only child, my mum wanted more but failed to have another successful pregnancy after me.

There are way too many people on the planet, so not having kids is a very thoughtful, unselfish act,

However, I agree with BrockAuLit about the Technicolor

35! i'm going to be 35!

being an only child makes it so much tougher in a sense. i'm wondering if it might help to have an open and honest conversation with them? It can't be easy for them to accept that they will never be grandparents....but at the same time it isn't easy for you to have this expectation placed upon you. i feel like it might help to have certain boundaries in place so they don't keep bringing it up.

majority of my-age friends are in the same boat as yours. even the younger in age ones! i never say this to them because they are obviously coming from a different place but each time i hear of someone getting pregnant i think to myself "oh for gods sake! another one?! have they got nothing else/better to do?" There are only a few friends left who are childfree and even fewer who are childfree by choice.

i have noticed with a lot of people though how it's considered 'normal' to have conversations about having children but if you try talking- or even mention during their conversation- about not wanting children or the childfree life - either their eyes glaze over, they change subject or it becomes a who's right/wrong argument. i feel there is still some residual 'taboo' perception/attitude when it comes to people being as open and comfortable with talking about wanting/being childfree - like it's not normal or acceptable or something.

there are only two friends in real life who i can have a normal conversation with on this topic, one is also childfree by choice and the other has just had a baby girl via donor egg after 10 years of trying. i am genuinely absolutely over the moon for her, she's the only one who's pregnancy announcement made me react with an overexcited crazy dance on the spot with shouts of YES! YES! YES!

Don't have children just because other people want you to! But equally, don't rule it out just because you're not enchanted by babies and worried that you'll lose yourself if you become a mum. You can still be you with a child. I have a son, and I was never interested in babies - found them irritating, boring and all dribbly. My son was all of those things, and I didn't enjoy the baby years, but I still loved him, and when he started to become a little person that I could converse with, we fell in love so deeply that I never even knew it would be possible. He is wonderful and I adore him. But I'm still 'me with a child' rather than 'a mum', because f* that.

Never wanted children, never tried for them, then it turned out it would have been very unlikely anyway. Then I got sterilised just to be sure. Obviously, I think I am more certain than you, that's not surprising - everyone's different. Don't do it for other people - whatever you choose, choose it for you and your life.

Of course no one should have children because of the following reason but you may end up totally alone.
My DH's DM is in Hospital and has multiple things wrong with her. There are other old ladies on the ward and they have NO visitors because they have NO ONE. They have no one to look out for them or stick up for them and protect them from groomers or unkindness. Their friends are old like them and their relatives have died.

Without us my MIL could not have remained in her own home for as long as she has. She can no longer cope with the paperwork involved with daily living. Ah ... Yes I hear you say... She can pay someone.... But that involves strangers and they just can't be trusted. There would be such temptation with cash lying around and a confused elderly person....

Having children is a blessing. They are wonderful and amusing and although I hadn't got a shred of Maternal instinct and would have said that I didn't like children at all before I had them, I am so glad that I did.

At Christmas with all my children, their partners, granchildren sitting around me, and my DH, it felt really magical.

I didn't realise when I was young what a comfort my children would be.

I DONT expect them to look after me as I am making provision for my old age. It is certainly not why I had them either but it is good to know that they will help me when the time comes.
They are your closest blood relatives. Yes, I know that you can't even trust blood relatives but I have treated my children with respect. I feel extremly confidant that they will help us.
Just a thought.

It doesn't made you a bad person if you don't want children. It doesn't make you a good person if you do want them. It's a biological imperative, not a moral choice.

An effort to smile and be nice about other peoples' babies is appropriate, but nothing in the Great Book About Good and Bad People says that bad people don't want babies and good people do.

it's far wiser to stick to your own desires here monac. No one shoudl be pressured into having a baby. You don't know how you will react to motherhood. You might find you take to it or you might find you hate it - which would be awful for the child. You just don't know but you do know your feelings now. I think that's all you can do, make your own decision based on your best assessment and your own desire or lack of it for a child.

I'm afraid that your parents will have to face and accept the disappointment if you choose not to have a baby. They have done the best they could to persuade you, but it has to be YOUR decision not theirs. It has to be yours because you would be the one going through the preg and (with your partner) bringing the baby up. I say this with compassion, but they may have to face that their hopes for a new baby and the continuation of the family may not come to pass.

It's almost impossible to judge what life would be like with children until you have children. Other people's children are not a fair comparison at all IME. (Neither are cats and dogs in spite of what some deluded types will tell you). So it's something of a leap of faith to have them in the first place, the outcome is a total lottery and, when you've got them, you've really no way of knowing if life would have been better or worse without them.... and by then it's too late anyway :)

Hope you find peace of mind.