I am of the age to have kids, some of my friends have them, but I have mixed feelings about it, just wondering about other people’s experiences.
I have them, they are great. Here are a few obvious things I’ve learned that I didn’t appreciate beforehand:
The complexity of the endeavor rises exponentially with the number of kids. That is to say, 3 is a much bigger leap from 2 than 2 was from 1.
They get dramatically more expensive and complicated as they get older. All that exhausting baby activity is the easy part. As you start to figure out how to do it, the rules shift and you have to get learning again.
I never imagined how much of adult life as a parent revolves around the literal management of shit. Between kids, pets, and aging parents, I just never expected to be so preoccupied with the logistics of excrement. I guess I was living in some kind of Disneyland in the before times. You sort of get used to it though. Sort of.
No and no. I don’t think I’d want to subject my kids to where the world is headed. Also, too much of a long-term commitment that would significantly reduce my opportunities to do what I want, travel etc.
As to the latter, I’m roughly satisfied in the department of things that kids would preclude.
As to the former, that’s part of the reason I want kids. I care about the people who will live in the future. I want a better life for them.
I can do what I can to improve the world in my life, but someone needs to carry the torch. Kids are an opportunity to teach some subset of the future population my values. I want to learn from my parents’ mistakes and my own life to make better kids that become better parents, who make better kids who become better parents, so on and so forth ad infinitum.
The intro to Idiocracy can be generalized: the world will be populated by the children of those who have children. If only the worst people reproduce, the future will be worse. Unless the ethical people reproduce and pass on their values, those values will die out. If we want the future to be better, we have to have kids, teach them to be better, and teach them to teach their kids to be better.
As for the travel argument, kids are so much fun to travel with! Experiencing new places through a child’s eyes!? They ask some great questions, and you get to hone in your own opinions as you decide the best way to explain life to them. Travel is the best way to raise tolerant and knowledgeable children. If you’re concerned about more… hedonistic travel just realize that you only get 18 to 20 years with them in your daily life, those designations will still be there. If you’re afraid that’s a long time then you likely haven’t had your 20th high school reunion yet.
I would love to have kids. It seems like my biggest wish in the world. People keep telling me that having children was the most beautiful thing that happened to them. Still no baby after 9 fertility treatments, only a couple of miscarriages. I am 40 now and I have almost no time left. I feel broken by Al the treatments. Lost my work. Adoption is impossible in my country.
I would love to know how other people learn to live with this feeling.
I’ve got a few friends in similar situations.
- One couple it ended up working out for a single embryo on the second to last attempt.
- Another couple went the adoption route, ended up with two boys about the same age (one they adopted when he was a baby, the other was I think 5 or 6?). Both boys graduated college in the past few years actually! Great kids.
- A third couple opted to just not have kids. They got a dog about a year after the last attempt, which became like a stand in for a child to them. They both kept working and financially are quite well off, traveling and exploring passion projects. It took some time and therapy, wasn’t easy, but they are quite happy with where they are now.
Thank you! It is good to know what others have been doing and how they have been dealing with it. Adoption in my country is not possible, unfortunately. I am probably not allowed to be a foster mom, as I have CPTSD. They are extremely strict with that here. Although there might be a very small chance that they will accept me if I can get a letter from my psychologist that I am stable and if I do well on all the tests. I am not counting on it though.
Maybe traveling or something like that would be nice sometime in the future. It is good to hear that they are still happy. That gives a bit of hope.
7 years of trying for us. Still no luck. Doctors haven’t been able to tell us why. It’s rough some days. But one way we cope is to try to be the best aunt & uncle possible to our nieces.
Is surrogacy an option? We’re a same-sex couple, so we are in a similar boat.
The problem has likely to do with the quality of my egg cells. They are not certain about this, but it is the most likely explanation. This means that surrogacy would not solve that problem. An egg cell donation might. However, in my country it is quite difficult to have access to that. There are large sperms banks, but not large banks for egg cells. So, we would need to find someone in our environment to donate an egg cell to me.
Are you a male or female couple (biologically I mean for making the child)? What happens here is that there are some women who do not have a partner, but still want a child. They often get a child together with a male gay couple and they raise the child with the three of them. I think government is even working on it to be possible for a child to have three parents legally. This is how my uncles got their twins. I am not sure whether this works the same with female couples. I see them often at the fertility treatment center, so I believe that they probably use the sperm bank.
Aww, sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can find an egg donor. We are two men, so we aren’t quite as fortunate that way. Finding another couple or woman who was interested in having children together would be very lucky. We’re hopeful, but it seems fairly unlikely. Surrogacy might be our best option.
In my country adoption from other countries is impossible as there have been several cases in which children were taken away from the parents illegally. They cannot check for that informing countries, so now adoption is not allowed anymore. Adoption within my country also is almost impossible. It is believed that children are best off with the biological parents. If they cannot live there, everything is focused on creating better circumstances so they can go back. The goal for children who cannot live at home is always to go back to the biological parents, so adoption almost never happens.
There is foster care and in soms cases children are in foster care for a very long time. Although the idea is still to get them back with the biological parents once the situation is safe, in practice that might not happen. You can just never be certain about that. However, I was abused by my parents and I got CPTSD from that. While my psychologist believes I would be able to be a foster mom, maybe even better because my experiences allow me to understand these children better, it is a really big obstacle to becoming one. The foster care organisations in general believe that if you have trauma in your past that you are not well-suited to take care of a child. They already told me it is not impossible for me to be a foster mom, but not to count on it because of the CPTSD.
Mid 30s here. When i was younger i never wanted kids. I would always tell my parents i never wanted any as well. Fast forward about 15-20 years, people would tell me im great with kids and i should have some. The problem with this is that i am great with kids for about 2-3 hours and then im like…get this thing away from me. People have also told me that its different when they are your own.
Well one day i booked an appointment to get a vasectomy and havent looked back yet. I also got married to someone who shares the same feelings as me towards having no kids. Life is great and havent thought of any regrets.
People have told me that I’m good with kids too. But here’s the thing…it’s actually super easy to give a child attention and follow them around for several hours. I’m not sure why people praise me for it. I guess because some people don’t care enough to give the kids the time of day or something?
But the not easy part is the taking care of them eternally thing. Parenting through meltdowns…always being there 24/7/365 with no breaks…having to always feed and clean them…etc. The list goes on.
I know it’s dark to say, but one of the things I fear I’d do is end up with one of those parents who is driven crazy and inadvertently kills their child from shaken baby syndrome.
My husband once said to me, “this is a terrible thing to say, and I don’t want you to feel bad, but you do seem like the type who might shake a baby” - I was sterilized by then so it was funny vs insulting.
No to all. I get to spend all my time and money with my wife. We can travel, watch concerts, and do any activity without having to worry about babysitting, getting home early, etc.
There’s definitely some talk on my wife’s side of the family, since her extended family has tons of kids, so they just expect anyone who gets married to have kids. We just tune it out. It also helps that we moved away so they can’t really bother much. My side doesn’t really care, or at least doesn’t care enough to ask or talk about it.
