Do you want to have children?
 

I was giving it some serious thought recently after a pregnancy scare with my SLF. I have only been around a baby for a total of 10-15 hours my entire life. I think that they are cute, but I am not capable of playing or talking to them. Making baby noises seems to come naturally to most people, but I could never do it. I don't find little kids very interesting and I can't see myself being one of those parents who decides to stop living their own life to dedicate it to Disney cartoons and diaper cleaning because "Isn't the baby so perfect and special!" I think human beings have a responsibility to pursue intellectual outlets and raising a child is pretty much the opposite. "Dad you only care about running your billion dollar corporation, not my third grade science project!" However, I know that having children is important to my SLF, so I feel obligated to comply in the future. The times I was around kids, I pretty much had to fake liking them and being interested in them to make their parents feel good. It would kind of suck if I had to fake liking my own child, so hopefully its different. Now that I think about, my father never seemed very interested in me. So maybe that is why I feel a lack of paternal instincts.

I am curious if anyone felt similarly and how it turned out after you had children?

Many of you are going to say that I shouldn't have children, but that doesn't seem realistic. You make commitments to people and sometimes you have to suck it up and do stuff you don't want to do.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I don't have children so take it for it's worth; I don't think you can know what the child being "yours" will do to those feelings, chances are it would change your outlook.

I figure I'm too selfish to have kids. I'd rather have the 18-25 years alone with whoever I'd want to have the kids with than share them with someone else.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Other peoples children generally suck, and I'd love to kick most of them across a room.

I'll be having my first in <2 weeks. She was not expected. I felt the way you did 9 months ago. Whether or not you're a selfish person before, and I certainly was, knowing you're going to have a kid changes you. I expect actually having one will be an even greater change. Life is much more fulfilling when you're taking care of more than just yourself.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

No. Kids are very unDude.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I cant play with them either. I just dont find them interesting before they talk/walk. However my brother has a 4 year old which is fun. I play soccer with him and some simple nitendo games. I never let him win. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

No desire to have kids.

I don't relate to kids. So I can't see what they would bring to the table. I'm also successful so have no need to find my purpose via having children. I just can't think of one positive for the for side.

Now on the anti-child side I can think of many reasons why I would not want one. When I think of things that I enjoy doing all of them can't be done with children. If I had a child then I'd need a live in nanny.

Most people say you'll want children as you get older. I'm 34 and my Gf is 25 and we both are 100% sure we do not want any. I don't see this changing as we age.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I do. My wife wants them now, but i think we've agreed its best for her to get tenure first and the we can start. But i guess we will see. FYI, I am 26 she is 23.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I'm 34 and my Gf is 25 and we both are 100% sure we do not want any. I don't see this changing as we age.

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This is pretty funny.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I don't follow the reasoning behind: "Children don't interest me." Do people interest you? Because here's a shocker, children are...wait for it...people!

Anyways, considering how few people grow up in a stimulating, empowering environment, I think it's a pretty solid feat to provide that for a child.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Eventually.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Vasectomy FTW.

I'm 29 and have never wanted kids. I have been dating a girl with a kid for just over two years. He's 4 now and I love him to death. I have to admit, when he was 2 it wasn't terribly fun to have him around--he'd fuss, throw tantrums, wake up at inconvenient times, and the language barrier was incredibly frustrating. Over the past two years, though, it's been amazing to watch him grow and learn and change. When we met, he had a vocabulary that consisted of one word--No! Now he's talkative, curious, often funny, and usually a pleasure to be around.

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I think human beings have a responsibility to pursue intellectual outlets and raising a child is pretty much the opposite.

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Keeping a child alive isn't exactly an intellectual pursuit, but figuring out how to best raise a child and actually pulling that off may be more intellectually challenging than you think.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I don't follow the reasoning behind: "Children don't interest me." Do people interest you? Because here's a shocker, children are...wait for it...people!

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People are not a homogeneous group. Some people interest me but most don't. Children are a sub-category of people that simply don't interest me in any way.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Only motive I can think of is to propogate your genes and maybe even your mindset. Eventually we will all die, so at that point it would be nice to know that your genes are winning at least.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I can't imagine possibly having kids, but I always thought this was something that changed when you grew older. I think it's likely I'll eventually want (and have) kids.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Id love to have a son

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

yeah, i want kids eventually. boys, preferably. i think having girls would make me crazy and paranoid.

i am not crazy about most kids, a lot of them irritate me to be honest. so i can't really explain why i want them, but i definitely do. probably a mixture of perverse narcissism and social conditioning i guess.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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You make commitments to people and sometimes you have to suck it up and do stuff you don't want to do.

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Yea, like going out to a movie/show/restaurant/... that you have no desire to go to or like traveling cross country to spend a week with her family and go to her sister's wedding.

Not like fathering a child. Having a kid to satisfy your significant other when you have no desire to be a father is (1) prob not going to see the relationship make it much longer anyway, and worse yet, (2) probably gonna work out pretty badly for the kid.

I want to have a couple of kids, I'm not crazy about the silly noises or diapers either (I secretly like the Disney movies), but I very much like the idea of being a family man, and I can think of few things as potentially rewarding, though the loss of freedom is pretty terrifying.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

yes, i want to have kids, if only so that i know that i'll have someone to play golf with for the rest of my life.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I'm 34 and my Gf is 25 and we both are 100% sure we do not want any. I don't see this changing as we age.

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This is pretty funny.

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Yeah, I had a chuckle at this.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I'm 23. Can't picture having kids anytime in next 5-7 years, but I definitely want to and I better have sons so that i can train them to become athletic multilingual genius artist musicians.

Agreed that babies don't do it for him and I don't like interacting with them, but I like kids once they hit walking and talking age, and I'm sure this will change when they are mine.



Also, I'm predominantly Irish, but have a little Finnish and Portuguese mixed in there. My gf is 100% italian. It bothers me that if I had kids with her, they would have the largest percentage background of something I'm not.

Does this make me strange?

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Having children is like signing up to an MLM, the amount of initial work you have to put in is not worth the minute benefits you'll reap in the future.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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Having children is like signing up to an MLM, the amount of initial work you have to put in is not worth the minute benefits you'll reap in the future.

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Projecting much?

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I'd be interested if someone could name specific benefits of having children.

So far I've seen an argument about my genes but that doesn't really matter to me.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I'd be interested if someone could name specific benefits of having children.

So far I've seen an argument about my genes but that doesn't really matter to me.

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Benefit: They mow the lawn
Benefit: Some become rich rappers and hook you up

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I'd be interested if someone could name specific benefits of having children.

So far I've seen an argument about my genes but that doesn't really matter to me.

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I have some good friends who are in their early sixties. They are both wealthy profesionals who chose their lifestyle over having children. They now admit that it was the biggest mistake of their lives and that they could not have foreseen how it would effect them in later life.

I myself have always been opposed to the idea of having children, but for different reasons. I'm 36 and have seen my friends from school marry unwisely, have children and then lose them. The most important factor for me in deciding to have children is my future partner. I need somebody whom I know that I can trust and who will be a good mother for my children.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I have some good friends who are in their early sixties. They are both wealthy profesionals who chose their lifestyle over having children. They now admit that it was the biggest mistake of their lives and that they could not have foreseen how it would effect them in later life.

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Why do they regret their decision? Specifically why do they feel their life is worse because of the choice they made?

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I'm 22 and find myself thinking about this topic off and on, so far I think that a gene pool packed full of heart problems/diabetes/mental disorders.
+ the desire not to have to work until I'm too old to make good use of my time. = no kids.

Not to mention how terrible kids and people in general seem to be getting, so by the time I'm ready to have one the odds of public school turning my kid into a hellraiser could be pretty high. I'm in a pessimistic phase lately though, I expect my mind to change about it as I get older and more settled, I've considered the benefits but I doubt you can really understand them unless you actually go through having a kid.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Being 30, I think about this a lot. On one hand, I have no desire at all to turn my life into a day care. I have no desire to be around babies. On the other hand, I would like to teach and watch them grow and learn. So far the no kids side is winning....by quite a lot :-P We'll see.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

weird. as far back as i can remember the most important thing to me in terms of what i wanted from the future was to have children and to bring them up well. i'm nowhere near ready yet but it's basically what i'm working towards in my life in general.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I've always known that I wanted to have kids even when I was 18 or 20 or whatever. But the timing was never right.
Now I'm 37 and my feelings are pretty much the same. Want them mostly as much as I did 15-20 years ago but it still feels weirdly like I'm not ready or I'm too young or something.

GF and I will continue traveling around for a year or two and will probably have a kid after that. I'll probably be 40 and she'll be 33.
I already feel weird about being a first-time Dad at 40 and I guess my greatest concern is whether I'll have the energy for it.
I like my sleep and get cranky when I don't get enough of it.

Chances are that it might end up being just a little bit easier though as we'll probably be living near by parents and her parents will also likely be moving to the area so I think we might end up wrestling with 4 different doting grandparents just to get any amount of time with the little bugger.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

i would like kids eventually. i'm 23 now and could see it happening in five or six years, though i wouldn't really want any before that. (the wife would probably be ready in the next year or two, but i would like a few years to work my way out of insolvency--thanks, law school). i would not want any more than two

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I like having kids and think being old and having kids and grandkids will be much better than not. However, having kids is a lot of work and if you don't think you'll really like it a lot, then it probably won't be worth it. I always liked kids a lot and knew I wanted to have them.

There are too many people in the world anyway, so if you don't ever have kids - thank you.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

My wife and I just had our second child on Thursday. We both knew that we wanted kids and are very happy with our choice.

As for the "I don't like babies" crowd, I was completely with you. I thought I would like being a dad for older kids but I never had any interest in other people's babies. I still don't. Except for my own, babies are cute for a minute, then it passes. I'm still surprised at how much I liked being a dad for a newborn, and it just keeps getting better (my oldest is 2 years old).

My life is so completely different that it is almost unrecognizable, but I wouldn't want to go back. If you never have kids, then you really won't know what you are missing. I don't mean that in a negative way. You just won't know, because there is no other experience that can compare to or can prepare you for being a parent.

The benefits of having kids are pretty limited if you want to tally them up. You can come up with many better reasons not to have them. My parents have some friends that don't have kids and as they get older, they are starting to feel like something is missing. Watching your friends kids grow up, graduate, get married and have grandkids seems like it can become a lonely proposition.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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If you never have kids, then you really won't know what you are missing. I don't mean that in a negative way. You just won't know, because there is no other experience that can compare to or can prepare you for being a parent.


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Yeah, but you'll never know what it would have been like had you not had kids. I'm just saying, both sides make choices and will never fully understand the other.

I do have that desire to have children. Can't explain it, but there it is, and I'll have a few someday. But I never want to convince others who don't feel that way that they are wrong or that they just have to do it anyway and their minds will change. That seems really weird to me.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I do have that desire to have children. Can't explain it, but there it is, and I'll have a few someday. But I never want to convince others who don't feel that way that they are wrong or that they just have to do it anyway and their minds will change. That seems really weird to me.

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I don't want children but I agree that it should be a personal choice. I was surprised to find that there is actually a pretty militant anti-having children movement.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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I've always known that I wanted to have kids even when I was 18 or 20 or whatever. But the timing was never right.
Now I'm 37 and my feelings are pretty much the same. Want them mostly as much as I did 15-20 years ago but it still feels weirdly like I'm not ready or I'm too young or something.

GF and I will continue traveling around for a year or two and will probably have a kid after that. I'll probably be 40 and she'll be 33.
I already feel weird about being a first-time Dad at 40 and I guess my greatest concern is whether I'll have the energy for it.
I like my sleep and get cranky when I don't get enough of it.

Chances are that it might end up being just a little bit easier though as we'll probably be living near by parents and her parents will also likely be moving to the area so I think we might end up wrestling with 4 different doting grandparents just to get any amount of time with the little bugger.

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I think that an older parent can bring a lot of positives to raising a child. What you lack in energy, you will make up for in maturity, experience and stability.

Definitely in your hands to be a good parent.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

Plus, if you dont have children, who will be morally obligated to love you and put up with all of your mind-numbingly boring stories, geezer farts, and all around crazy-person attitude once you're 75+?

Dont deny it, you're going to be just as ridiculous when you're old. Everybody is.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I've always wanted to have a daughter would probably be great till she becomes a teenager then ill want to kill myself

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

I feel about the same as OP. I like kids, but I don't know if I'm ready for the responsibility full time. I also don't fell like I have the "instinct".

That said, I'm sure it turns when you have one. I've seen it happen with friends.

For myself (an only child), I've decided I either want zero or two after knowing what it's like to care for an aging parent alone after the other has died. I don't want to burden one person with my "old man BS".

At this point, if my woman wants kids and we have one, there will be two. However, if I wind up with someone who is more career driven or otherwise doesn't want/can't have them, it won't kill me.

Re: Do you want to have children?
 

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(I secretly like the Disney movies)

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best reason to have a kid imo