Did you always know you wanted kids?

[rainplace]

Cluckin'Along :

Hello Everyone!

I am going through a rough bit of soul searching and relationship woes, and was looking for some broader insight... Kids or not, is a major dividing issue with myself and my SO, he wants nothing to do with kids. We are trying to decide if our lives will work together (major 4yr rocky road to this point)

In my experience, problems that continue from the beginning of a relationship, never go away. You said, "major rocky road." I'd say time to walk away... you gave it your best

and I just can't write kids out of the picture and I feel it is selfish to try to convince him otherwise. I am just lost, I thought for a while that I did not want children, but as I get older I think about it more, and wonder if I am even fit to be a parent? I am not planning to jump right in, but I am trying to plan a future(like that ever works

). So my questions to y'all are;
Did you always want kids?
Did you discover after being married/committed that you wanted kids? Or is it something that developed with the marriage/relationship?
Or, did you decide early on that you never wanted kids but changed you mind later in life?
On the flipside, why didn't you want kids?
I am an only child, so I don't have any brother or sisters to ask this of, and I think my parents are a little biased on the subject..

... so Y'all get to be stand in family!

I am generally looking for insight and how you came about deciding, or not, to have kids! Thank you to everyone for anything you can tell me!

-Z

I always wanted kids and had three. I shouldn't have. I am too selfish for children, and I wish I had known that before putting my children through a life with a mother who is a bit nuts and has to plan ahead to not be selfish. My youngest is lucky because now I see my faults and can adjust accordingly.​

 

[elijahboy]

You also said that you have had a rocky relationship. I am guessing that the two of you have broken up before. Remember this your past is THE PAST for a reason. I struggled with this for 3 years. Deciding if I should take my ex back or not. I finally realized that if I was last on his list first when we were together theres nothing that is going to put me on his list first EVER. His job and friends came first then and they will always come first. If he does not listen to in the sense that you want children then is he listening to anything that you want because thats an important part of a womans life. Seems kinda self centered.

 

[agnes_day]

i always wanted children, but i seriously wish that my husband and i wouldve gotten married and started our family when we were older. (we were 17 and 18 when we married, and a year after that started having kids.)
i also used to crack jokes to my husband about how we were going to have 7 kids like his grandparents..i never wouldve guessed that we would also have 7!

 

[AkTomboy]

Cluckin'Along :

1. Did you always want kids?
2. Did you discover after being married/committed that you wanted kids?
3. Is it something that developed with the marriage/relationship?
4. Did you decide early on that you never wanted kids but changed you mind later in life?
5. Why didn't you want kids?


-Z

1. No I never wanted kids ever a day in my life

2. My husband is the oldest of 36 grandchildren and loves kids. He knew right off the bat I didnt want any and was okay with it. He is a firefighter so the Dept always has litters of kids to play with.

3. After we were married I got super super sick and went to the hospital and they told me I was prego! Talk about a shock I was even on B.C. and had no signs.

4. & 5. As 1 says I never wanted kids, I had never even held a kid be for I have my crib midget. Still to this day I have only held one other. I just never had the will power to deal with kids. I was much younger than my two brothers so I always hung around older people and kids just annoyed me to tell the truth. So I figured I would do us both a favor and not have kids being I didnt see myself being good with them. I now have a now two year old crib midget and love him to death! Would I go back and change things....some days I wonder. I have been lucky to have a great kid who has always been easy, no colic, always on a schedual that type of thing. There isnt anything I wouldnt do for him. With all that said I did take care of the "have another baby" parts just two months after the crib midget was born.

My two pennies is that only you can decide what you really want, and what will make you happy. I wish you all best.​

 

[cjeanean]

I don't have any of my own, but somehow life gave me 3: a stepson (to whom I am the only mother he had ever known) and my niece and nephew who I obtained through a family tragedy (lol, "obtained"). When I first got married almost 4 years go I was obsessed with having kids, but for some reason I didn't get pregnant. I thought maybe God was punishing me for walking away from Him, or just that the infertility was a consequence of some VERY stupid choices I made despite knowing better (I now know I have hypothyroidism, so maybe, just maybe....). I realize though that God had other plans for me, and that having my niece and nephew added to our family would have taken a dramatic toll on us if I had gotten pregnant during the past years.

To get back on topic, I don't really know where I stand. I think I would LOVE to have the experience of having a baby, but I realize that babies grow into children (who'da thunk it?). At this point I don't know if I could handle it, but when I think about it I can't help wanting to leave the door open. Until I figure out what's going on with my body I don't even know if it's possible, but I most definately wouldn't rule it out. My reasons? Selfishness, I think. I would like to see a little face that I can see myself in, to have a bond with my husband even deeper than the one I already have. I would like to have the experience of raising a baby from day 1, to know what it feels like to love a child "as my own". At this point I can only speculate on the maternal bond, I have no way of knowing if I love the kids I have like a mother would, cause I'm not a mother in the literal sense of the word. If that makes any sense.

Of course, my having kids is not set in stone. My husband is okay with it if it happens, and okay with it if it doesn't. I think I'd be a little disappointed if it doesn't, but at this point I can understand it and live with it. Many men don't want kids, then when their SO gets pregnant and has the baby everything changes. Having kids is a big deal, and I don't think it's fair for the man or woman to say absolutely not if their SO might want kids. If you're dead set on having kids then you MUST be with someone who also wants them, otherwise you're gonna have some serious problems. But if neither one of you are 100% for or against, then you must both be in agreement that if it happens then you're both okay with it. Not one of those, "We'll cross that bridge when we get there", it's gotta be predetermined before you get married. Having/not having kids is a major marital stressor, and trust me, when you get married you need as few things to argue/be stressed about as possible.

Good luck!!!

 

[saddina]

Did you always want kids?
Did you discover after being married/committed that you wanted kids? Or is it something that developed with the marriage/relationship?
Or, did you decide early on that you never wanted kids but changed you mind later in life?
On the flipside, why didn't you want kids?

I have wanted kids since my early teens.

Well now I'm on my 3rd husband, 1st one we didn't concieve and didn't last (he had a girl last year with IVF). Second husband wanted kids so bad he married me for my age and repoductive abilities, no kids. Third husband was worried he'd be an awful parent (he had miserable parents), but knew I wanted to be a mother more than I needed him. Second we found out we were expecting he was an ideal daddy, and has been for 10 years, his guiding rule is to do nothing like his father did.

Now my aunt is 40 with no kids. 2 months before thier wedding her fiancee was in a motorcycle accident and is a quadraplegic, she decided to stay with him, and give up having kids. She would be a wonderful mother, and is an excellent aunt.

My sister swears she'll not have kids and I agree with that. She's utterly self-absorbed and selfish (not saying all childless people are, but this specific girl is) she has zero interest in putting another person before her, and understands that motherhood is about putting the kids first.

In general a baby does not make a relationship better, and it certainly doesn't work well to "keep" a man around (not saying that's your thing, but in general).

My second husband was a diabetic, and was ambivilent about having genetic kids of his own. 10 years later they divorced because he realized he did want kids, and she was 40 and a grandmother by then. A year later he married a 20 yr old with the idea of being a father by the end of the year.

 

[BarkerChickens]

One thing I would like to add is....What if you two stay together and you decide to not have kids, but you get pregnant? When both do not want kids, it seems that both take the extra initiative to not have any. But, if one is "iffy" while the other doesn't want any at all, then there is a higher chance of "oops". The reason I ask is...well, things happen. Would he step up to the plate or would you be a single mom? Maybe it won't be an issue, but it also reflects on what type of hubby he would be too. As I said previously, DH and I don't want kids; however, I has known from day 1 that if something happened, we're keeping the child. I am not fixed (and will not consider getting fixed either) and, while it is very low, there is a chance that a vasectomy can reverse itself, so we discussed all possibilities before hand.

Also...rocky roads don't smooth themselves out. They usually get bumpier the further you go. I've been down that road...and luckily made a U-turn before it was too late.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

I'm twenty-one and I don't want kids at all, and I am very certain on that decision. I actually have a phobia of babies and pregnant women (no offense to anyone, it's just how I am!), and have a number of moral reasons that lead me to never want to bring children on to this planet (I am extremely anti-population growth). I hope to be sterilized sometime in the near future, but it's very difficult to find doctors who are willing to do the operation on women who have no children, especially younger women.

For me, it's definitely not about being selfish, after all I spend a lot of my free time on animal rescue and helping out charities, but simply that I don't like children to a fairly extremely degree and disagree with the way humanity treats the earth and especially other species... I would never want to add to that, and especially because so many children in third-world countries starve to death every day and to me taking resources away from those children by having more children in affluent countries is just utterly against my morals. Also, the more people on the planet, the more animals suffer in factory farms, become extinct, and so on. I'm more of an animal person than a human person, as much as I like a lot of individual people.

If anything at all, I would maybe consider adopting an older child someday, but even then... I'd really prefer to give my time and resources to other species that need the help. I've always been that way--I spend my summers raising wild baby animals and releasing them back into the wild, and helping out dog and cat rescue groups.

Please note I am NOT trying to argue with anyone or badmouth anyone else's decisions, just saying the reasons for mine!

 

[Cluckin'Along]

Thank You All So much for all of your kind responses!! These are exactly thing experiences I was looking for. To answer the age question, I am 28, the SO is 27. I think the Biological is tickin, but I'm not sure I want to hit the snooze button. Thank You Again!!

 

[mom'sfolly]

I wanted to add that I had my first kid at 34 and my second at 38. I was not ready for children during my 20s. Many of my friends, who were married at the same time I was, have children who are entering college, and my youngest is still in elementary.

If this relationship is rocky, more time may be all you need. Time to see where the relationship is going, and what you really want. At 27, you should have plenty of time.

I've never been one of those women who always has to hold the newborns, and in general babies don't like me and I don't like them. I kinda like kids, but not so much the babies. I also would not have been devastated if I could not have had children; I only would have been disappointed. Not having children would not have shaken my world. For some people the desire for children is stronger than anything else. If I could not have gotten pregnant, I wouldn't have ever resorted to fertility treatments or IVF; but that is just me.