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Original poster

If you had to pick between having a child or having a partner?

205 replies

Verynice44 · 24/02/2025 23:10

I’m not asking you to pick between your actual child or partner, as of course everyone would (or should) pick their children.
but hypothetically, if you had to pick one or other for your life, and forgo the other, which would you choose?
I would pick having a child and forgo a relationship.

edited to add- please say if you have kids when you answer or are child free

OP posts:
Original poster
Verynice44 · 25/02/2025 14:34

jsku · 25/02/2025 14:32

Well - in that case - why are you asking a question of choice between baby and a partner?
Do you think having one more child will change your chances of having a relationship?

Maybe it will. Maybe not. As you say - you currently don’t have a partner. 🤷🏻‍♀️

If you want another child - then it’s not really q choice you put in the Op. It’s more - does it make sense to have another child - given my age, financial situation and the impact on my existing kids… Then - i’d also ask myself - why am I earning for another child - is it because the fertility ending? Or you like the little child phase - (don't we all).

You say nothing about your existing kids - how WILL their life change if there is a baby? Isnt that also important?

Show quote history

My question isn’t really to help me work out if I’m going to have another child. I have been thinking about what I want in life and what’s important to me and it made me wonder what way others view that.
i have thought a lot about those things you mention but the question wasn’t asking for advice

OP posts:
jsku · 25/02/2025 14:39

Verynice44 · 25/02/2025 14:34

My question isn’t really to help me work out if I’m going to have another child. I have been thinking about what I want in life and what’s important to me and it made me wonder what way others view that.
i have thought a lot about those things you mention but the question wasn’t asking for advice

Show quote history

There is rarely one clear answer to the sort of question you put in your OP - as you can see from the range of posts.
And that is because the answer depends on too many variables. And becomes useless
if it is made too wide/general.

Good luck with your musing. It is not ways easy to get to a place where you know what you want from life. I went through a lot of twists and turns before I got a a place where I got clarity…

Nonstopnoise · 25/02/2025 15:24

But I pick a partner first - I would not chose to have a child without a partner - so a question of which one would always be a partner. And they have to be bloody good to want to have a child without them. Becoming a single parent is a big no for me - it’s too hard.

TheCastleDoesNotReply · 26/02/2025 03:18

Unless you have been in the position of having to make the choice, perhaps it's because the decision isn't quite as easy as you think.

I struggled with it for a long time. For some of us these hypotheticals are our actual lives.

Nope. I chose them and I choose them every day.

I find it incredibly sad that anybody would choose a man over their children. My mother did that. She is now a very bitter and old lonely woman who has three children who she hasn't seen on decades and two grandchildren she has never and will never meet. You reap what you sow, I guess.

Romantic relationships are a shadow compared to the love of a parent/ children relationship (except for narcissists like my mother).

Cinno · 26/02/2025 10:32

This thread is about if you could start again, not whether you would choose living children over a partner

Disturbia81 · 26/02/2025 11:12

Definitely choose child, and then just date/sex when I want it.
No more relationships and compromising/expectations for me.

PaintDecisions · 26/02/2025 11:56

TheCastleDoesNotReply · 26/02/2025 03:18

Unless you have been in the position of having to make the choice, perhaps it's because the decision isn't quite as easy as you think.

I struggled with it for a long time. For some of us these hypotheticals are our actual lives.

Nope. I chose them and I choose them every day.

I find it incredibly sad that anybody would choose a man over their children. My mother did that. She is now a very bitter and old lonely woman who has three children who she hasn't seen on decades and two grandchildren she has never and will never meet. You reap what you sow, I guess.

Romantic relationships are a shadow compared to the love of a parent/ children relationship (except for narcissists like my mother).

You're missing the point. We couldn't have kids. I haven't abandoned any children.

Read it again.

HelenCurlyBrown · 26/02/2025 12:00

I’d choose to have a partner through life. Children are lovely, but they’re only on loan.

Strawberrycheesecake7 · 26/02/2025 12:10

I would 100% pick having a child. I’ve always wanted a child more than anything and it’s infinitely more important to me than having a partner. I love having a partner but I feel that I could be happy single, but I would never be completely happy without a child. We do have a little boy now so obviously I’d choose him but even before he was born I would have chosen having a child over my husband. I wouldn’t have started the relationship with my husband in the first place if he didn’t want children. I would also have left him immediately if he’d suddenly changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to have a child and he knew this.

Ferrazzuoli · 26/02/2025 12:12

Until very recently I'd have said kids without a doubt, and I'm pretty sure I still would. But now that DS1 is 19 and living away at uni and calls home occasionally, I'm hesitating slightly. I adore my kids, but after they all move out and are living their own lives it would be quite lonely without DH (or any other partner).

Mumlaplomb · 26/02/2025 12:33

I would chose to have a child/children over a partner. I am married with kids so have both, but I know which one I could live without (no offense husband lol)

Yellow2024 · 26/02/2025 12:38

I would choose partner.

I am married with 3 children and always wanted children. And it goes without saying I love them unimaginably.

I think I'm very lucky though that my partner is the other half of me and gives me so much joy but also support and someone to lean on. I would for go children to just have a happy fulfilled marriage.

MightyGoldBear · 26/02/2025 13:06

Cats is the absolute easiest answer.
But failing that, partner.

I am married with young children. One with additional needs. I have no friends or family. The thought of raising particularly my additional needs child alone is too much. This world isn't set up to support children or parents, particularly ones that need a higher level of support. Everything feels like a fight just to scrape by.

Where as partner you get freedom,choice,hopefully another supportive adult. If that partner isn't right then I'd happily be on my own.

Even with a partner, I have sacrificed and gave up so much for my children who will hopefully one day fly the nest to start their own lives or family. But as I had my first at 22 I've chose them everyday since. Unfortunately that has meant not really being able to "choose me" so in another world where I got to re start over I think I'd choose me.

Perhaps if I lived a different reality where having children has been easier and less compromising on my own life I might of chose child 🤷🏼‍♀️

ClareBlue · 26/02/2025 13:28

There are at least hundreds of people who under the right circumstances and the right time could be our partner. That's why so many people meet at work etc. It's not that the only partner in the whole world for you just happens to work in the same place out of all the work places in the world, it's that if you spend enough time with any set of people with a common interest there are plenty that you could then form a partnership with. So partners are not that special in the scheme of things, even if your one actually is special to you. Whereas your children are completely unique to you. But only if you wanted children. So it children for me because I wanted them, but that doesn't mean my partner is any less special. I don't have to make that choice, thankfully.

jolota · 26/02/2025 13:58

Having had a child, I would always pick my child over my partner but also having had a child, I would rather have no child than a child with a really terrible partner.
But I'd also not choose the partner in that scenario so I guess my answer would still be a child.

Fuuuuuckit · 26/02/2025 14:10

Hmmm

If I had my time again I'd probably pick partner. My kids are my life and I love them unreservedly but I picked the wrong man to be their dad and parenting (and pregnancy, post-partum, lots of their younger life) was far more challenging than I could ever imagine, emotionally and physically (and continues to be as young adults!)

Current partner was/is a far better dad than my ex ever could be and I think things would have been very different with the right support - if he was my kids dad I don't think I'd be able to choose. Unless I had to use him as a human shield of course then he'd be gone

Tardigrade001 · 26/02/2025 15:05

Child 100% (I'm separated with 3 kids)
Having a child is an accomplishment. Having a partner isn't really.

TheCastleDoesNotReply · 26/02/2025 17:01

You're missing the point. We couldn't have kids. I haven't abandoned any children.

Read it again.

That is very sad, I'm sorry to hear that.

However, you responded to my post. I hadn't made any comment about your situation, I don't know who you are.

TheCastleDoesNotReply · 26/02/2025 17:03

If you can't have children obviously it isn't a choice available to you, which I can imagine must be heartbreaking.

Theresyoursalad · 26/02/2025 18:10

Ferrazzuoli · 26/02/2025 12:12

Until very recently I'd have said kids without a doubt, and I'm pretty sure I still would. But now that DS1 is 19 and living away at uni and calls home occasionally, I'm hesitating slightly. I adore my kids, but after they all move out and are living their own lives it would be quite lonely without DH (or any other partner).

This

5128gap · 26/02/2025 18:27

3 adult children and I'd definitely choose children. However, I'm very fortunate in that my children have not gone very far. Two in the same post code, one in the same house, and we see each other several times a week, holiday together and are very close. If it was a choice between a partner and children who flew the nest at 18, settled miles away and visited a few times a year, then I think a partner would probably make for a happier life.

Moglet4 · 26/02/2025 18:30

Child. Without question. I’ve got 4 of them though!

NorthernGirl1981 · 26/02/2025 18:32

My friend is a single mother to a 9 year old boy and her life is HARD.

She would never be without him now, but I guarantee, if she had the power of hindsight she would rather be in a happy and loving relationship (without a child) than have the life she does now.

HaPPy8 · 26/02/2025 18:37

Child.

LividBoop · 26/02/2025 18:49

Child, no question, not hypothetical.

I tried for many years to become a mother (with donor IVF) when the right man hadn't come along at the right time. I met many, many solo mums by choice and they were all raising calm and contented children.

My path didn't actually work out that way in the end, because life is bonkers, but now I have an ex-h and a miracle naturally-conceived child I can assure you that for me, partners are transient and men aren't to be trusted, sure someone somewhere has a great one but I've never met him .

The desperation I felt to be a mum was all-consuming and I love my kid so hard it physically hurts. I'd be perfectly happy for my virginity to grow back, because my kid is everything to me.

I can't get my head around women who choose otherwise. Non comprendez. Some people don't ever want kids and I can respect that choice, but to have them and still say you'd choose a partner? Honestly it's bordering psycho territory for me. I just can't fathom it.