Am I the only one...

[lovechild27]

It seems all my friends want kids. Im in my early 20's..some of my friends barely out of their teens. They are all trying to have kids.

I really have no desire to have kids at all, for at least the next 10 years.

I get told all the time I have no maternal instinct...that there may be somethign wrong with me somewhere because I dont want to be a stay at home mommy. I want a career, not a baby to take care of. People seem to think this is bizarre and foreign. I love kids and babies...I just dont want one. Im tired of feeling weird when people ask me when I will have kids and I tell them not for a long time.

Are there any other females out there who feel the same?

 

[warrior queen]

hey - i'm with you sis!

ok, ok, i know there's going to be people crying 'foul' because i already have 3 kids, but i am not a baby person, nor do i have any particularly strong maternal instincts - my kids just kinda 'happened'.

if i could do it over again, i would wait till i was at least 30, if ever.

actually, now that i think about it, if i could have the time over, i probably would not have any kids at all.

(that's not to say i don't love my kids....... i just think my life would have had an entirely different, and probably easier, direction if i hadn't had them.)

 

[logan ross]

i'm right there with you girls. my friends and family are always asking when i'm going to get married and have kids. they dont understand that i have no desire for that type of lifestyle. i still have alot to do in my life and marriage and kids are not part of my plan.
stick to your guns lovechild. dont let anyone convince you to do something your not ready for.

 

[Guest]

Just a guy here with his opinion, I agree do not let anyone push you into something you are not ready for. Tell your friends that in due time kids will be part of my life but not until you have reached your goals for yourself. Some day your friends will look at you and wished they had done the same.

Good luck.

 

[Missingmeds]

Just a guy here with his opinion, I agree do not let anyone push you into something you are not ready for. Tell your friends that in due time kids will be part of my life but not until you have reached your goals for yourself. Some day your friends will look at you and wished they had done the same.

Good luck.

Wolfgar, with that insight you hit the nail on the head. I agree with what he said lovechild. I have many friends that now have their kids raised and in college or the kids are on their own. Now they are wishing that they had waited or just not had kids at all.

It isn't that they don't love their children, or that they don't have any maternal instinct, it is just that they haven't done half of what they wanted to do with their lives before now.

 

[Guest]

Wolfgar, with that insight you hit the nail on the head. I agree with what he said lovechild. I have many friends that now have their kids raised and in college or the kids are on their own. Now they are wishing that they had waited or just not had kids at all.

It isn't that they don't love their children, or that they don't have any maternal instinct, it is just that they haven't done half of what they wanted to do with their lives before now.

Amen to that Missingmeds. Voice of experience speaking here.

 

[Lady Legs]

Don't want children EVER, but I'm only 26 so no doctor will take any suggestion that I want to never have children seirously I decided when I was 14 and people kept telling me 'oh when you get older you'll change your mind' but I haven't in fact I've got even stronger convictions about not having children.

I love my Husband very much but I just don't want children - it's a personal choice.

 

[phoenix1224]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to wait to have kids... I have friends who started having kids in their late teens, and I know for a fact that if they had the chance to do things differently, they would...

I, myself, decided not to start a family until I was at least thirty... But, now that I'm going to be celebrating my thirtieth later this year, the urge to be a husband and father is getting quite strong...

Us guys have a biological clock too... Who wants to be teaching a kid to play ball when their middle-aged?

 

[Bobmi357]

So you don't want kids now? Whats the big deal about that? I have two kids with my ex wife, have a wife thats 13 yrs younger than I and neither of us want kids. She's certainly young enough to have kids, but we don't want them.

Personally I see nothing wrong with not wanting kids ever. There's no law saying you must have kids. My in-laws have hinted on several occasions about grandkids and we've told them only if they are going to pay for them. Kids are expensive to have, expensive to raise, both financially and emotionally.

If you don't want kids, good for you. That doesn't make you evil or wrong.

 

[dollface007]

I'm in my twenties. I don't want kids yet either. my friends are still in the marrying stage and not having kids yet either. Hell, i'm not even at THAT stage.

I spent a week this spring taking care of my bro's kid who was under 6 months old. The kid is really damn cute, but ALOT of work. It just reaffirmed that i don't have the patience for kids yet.

 

[lovechild27]

I decided when I was 14 and people kept telling me 'oh when you get older you'll change your mind' but I haven't in fact I've got even stronger convictions about not having children.

hehehe thats exactly what everyone told me too Im just tired of being looked at as bitchy or cold or heartless because Im not raring to pop out kids.

Ya Im stickin to my guns...no way in hell Im conforming to this pressure...lol.

For those of you who are married, do you think your marriage is better because you dont have kids?

 

[fsumusic1981]

tell your friends and family that there are people all over the world starving, and that by you not having children, you are saving another's life. That might shut them up.

If not, take everyone else's advice, because it's right on. Do it when you are ready, never before. Kids are a lifelong commitment. You'll never not be a mother again.

And as for wanting to have a career. Tell your friends you will consider having children when your career is doing well enough that your husband can stay home with the kids.

-Peace

 

[la mariposita]

Having children (or in this case not) should always be a personal choice. Everyone is different, of course. When I was a teenager I had no desire to ever have children. I told most of my family they will never have any nieces/ nephews or grandkids from me. My mother was not pleased. lol

Now I'm in my early twenties. I'm starting to have this strong desire to start a family. I can't explain it because logically I'm definitely not ready for it (financially, emotionally, etc.). The only explanation I can give you about your friends is: it's instinct. They can't help it as much as you can't help your indifference to it. Naturally we are made to reproduce when we first menstrate. Logically it doesn't make sense in present day society, but that was how things were for centuries.

Now I wouldn't drop everything and follow my instincts. I can't. I want to be able to provide for my family whenever I decide to settle down and that kind of stability takes years. So...until 30 it is.

 

[College_geek]

It seems all my friends want kids. Im in my early 20's..some of my friends barely out of their teens. They are all trying to have kids.

I really have no desire to have kids at all, for at least the next 10 years.

I get told all the time I have no maternal instinct...that there may be somethign wrong with me somewhere because I dont want to be a stay at home mommy. I want a career, not a baby to take care of. People seem to think this is bizarre and foreign. I love kids and babies...I just dont want one. Im tired of feeling weird when people ask me when I will have kids and I tell them not for a long time.

Are there any other females out there who feel the same?

I want to have kids some day, but when I do, I'll be in my early thirties. I don't even see myself getting married until my late twenties, early thirties as it is. The main reason is that I want to go to medical school and I don't need a husband or children and all the problems that come with them to tie me down during that.

By telling you that you have no maternal instinct, that's probably their way of making themselves feel better because they think that they have it. Who cares whether or not you have children, besides yourself and whomever you choose to spend your life with (married or not). It ticks me off when people act like that. They sound like the same people who flipped out on me when I didn't have a first-choice college, or when I wasn't applying to the school they thought I should go to.

 

[SXCRgirl]

It's not strange. I felt the same way in my 20's. I didn't want kids THEN. I felt like I had so much to do and children require a lot of attention. I wanted to accomplish a lot of things before I had children so that I wouldn't have some buried resentment on not having done what I wanted to do.

I was married at the time and I figured that we would both grow as individuals and when the time was right, we would have kids. Deep down inside, I knew my ex-husband was not going to be a good father. He wasn't abusive, he didn't drink, he didn't do all those bad father traits, but he was immature. He was selfish and I couldn't see us raising kids together because he too was still a child.

We got divorced and I got involved with someone else that lit that fire within me. Suddenly, I want kids. The maternal instinct in my just awakened. When I spend time with my niece and my 1 year old nephew, I feel it. It's there.

I'm in my mid 30s now. I still have that hope that someday, I'll find someone that I can have kids with. If it doesn't happen, it wasn't meant to be.

Good luck!

 

[BlueSugar]

I have the instincts, and strong urges to care and craddle and nest and all that women stuff...

but I wouldn't want children till I get a career up and runnnig. If it happens or plans change, then fine... I'm not going to go out of my way to insure things to happen a certain way ... but not yet. No thank you .

 

[blondie74]

My husband and I have been married for almost a year and a half now, and everyone keeps asking us when we're going to have kids. Truthfully, they didn't even bother to wait till the wedding reception was over, which I found a bit on the tasteless side. A friend of ours, after his wife had their first child, actually had the nerve to tell me that I'm not getting any younger, and that we had better get busy. I was so offended!

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever have kids. My husband is younger than I am, and I know that he is definitely not in a kids kind of place right now, and really, I'm not sure he ever will be. I enjoy kids, but don't know that I want any of my own.

It's almost as if we're being judged by whether or not we have kids. I hate it, and I'm right there with you!

 

[sheath]

I'm on the flip-side, I suppose...I always wanted to have children. From the time I was a teenager and helping my mother raise my siblings, I wanted to have kids of my own.

My ex-husband and I began trying as soon as we were married, and it took years to have the first, my son. I was 22 when I finally got pregnant. My daughter came along soon afterward. Now they are five and four, respectively, and I'm 28.

In the meantime, we somehow managed to get degrees and build up successful careers. How we handled it all, I still have no idea. Though my ex-husband and I are divorced now, neither of us has ever regretted those children or having them so soon in our lives.

It can be done...you CAN do it all. The schooling, the career, the children at the same time...but it does take one hell of a lot of work. It's been very hard to balance, especially now that I'm a single mother and the children are no longer 'easy to handle' toddlers. They are growing into their own independent directions, and parenting is hard. No matter what, it's hard.

But would I trade any minute of it? Not for the world. My choices were absolutely right for me.

S.

 

[midwestyankee]

There is never a perfect time to do anything. There is just a time that seems right after due consideration.

Much like falling in love, chances are, when (or if) you are ready to have children you will know it when it comes to you.

I know many who decided not to have children. They don't seem to be any less happy than others who did. So long as you believe in your choices in life, you have no reasons to apologize to anyone.

 

[SexyChele]

When I was in my 20s I didn't feel any urges to have children either. Nor to get married. I was having too much fun being single.

In my 30s, when I had thought I would finally settle down and do the kid thing, I discovered there suddenly wasn't the easy availability of men that there was when I was 25.

Now, I just turned 44. I've never been married, never had kids. Yeah, I've done the career thing. Yeah, I did the travel thing. Yeah, I did my own thing for many years. Now? It looks as though I'll be single all my life. It gets harder as time goes on - at least for a lot of us.

And now? I wished I would have had kids when I was able to have them safely. At my age it isn't safe, not for a first pregnancy. Also, I'm facing menopause squarely in the face and it ain't pretty. I look at my cousins and friends who I laughed at in my 20s when they were struggling with raising kids. Now their kids are grown and gone and a few are starting into early grandparenthood. They have family. I'm an only child whose father has already passed and whose mother will be 70 this year. When my mother passes, I have no family. Friends? Yes, I have friends. But friends are not family. It isn't the same as watching children grow and become their own individuals. And the real bitch? My friends and cousins are now doing all the stuff I did in my 20s but without the kids. They managed to have it all in the end. Not me. The price of selfishness is high.

If you feel no urge to be a mother, so be it. It is your decision and no one has the right to attempt to change your mind. However, it isn't always a wise thing to count on the future. It has a way of deceiving you when you least expect it.

 

[BTK51]

Another Guys' Perspective

Glad to hear that you are not bending to pressure. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting kids. One of my biggest rants is that there are way too many parents out there that should never have had kids. This is a problem for the kids and society. Too many couples just think that’s the next logical step so they start a family. Maybe they give in to that pressure. Anyone with children knows that in order to do it properly it requires a lot of work, effort, patience and sacrifice. It is tremendously rewarding if you are willing to put that in but if you’re not, it will make your life miserable. It’s something that you got to really want in order to put in what is needed.

From day one, my wife and I wanted to have a family. My wife never really wanted a career in anything other than being a homemaker. I had my first child just short of being married nine months right after turning 22. The master plan was to wait 6-7 years at least before having kids because there was a lot of stuff we wanted to do together first. I had my second 2 years later. After 4 boys we decided that was enough and I had a vasectomy. Did I lose my fraternal instinct at that point? Did my wife lose her maternal instinct? Not in the least! We just knew that having more children at that point would have hurt our relationship and decreased our effectiveness as parents.

I’m not putting medals on my chest (well, yeah I guess I am) but we have a great family. We talk with each other almost daily even though we’re spread along the East Coast. We get together and socialize together at least one a month. We go to ballgames, plays, museums and concerts together many times throughout the year. It takes work and a commitment on everyone’s part but it is well worth it.

We did give up a lot consciously and willingly to make this happen. My wife and I are not as financially secure as we should be. I don’t have as many toys as I would like. My wife never got that Art Degree that she wanted. There are a lot of places we haven’t gotten to yet and a lot of things we never got to do. But what-the-hell we got what was most important to both of us. That’s the only thing that you have to base your decision on. Doing it for the wrong reason

Having children was VERY important to both of us. We almost certainly would have adopted if we couldn’t have them. It made our marriage stronger because it was what we both wanted. We (that’s we as in my wife) made sure that we also took time to build our relationship and made our kids understand its importance to the family (as well as their life and limb). I often wonder what would have happened if we couldn’t have kids and couldn’t adopt for some reason. While it “fulfilled’ our life, it is not going to do that for everyone. IMHO having children can hurt or destroy a relationship a lot more easily than it can help one. It all depends on what a couple values the most.

 

[lovechild27]

Sheath- its great you guys managed to handle all that. Im not saying I couldnt...I just dont want to at all. I realize that a lot of couples out there manage things this way and I think thats awesome. Its just not for me.

SexyChele- I have thought about this too....being older and not having the family. If the urge ever hits Id like to adopt a child or become a foster parent. You can do that even after your clock has stopped ticking.

College geek- hehehe...your probably right. I hate being made to feel like Im inadequate though because I dont feel like popping out puppies. I plan on centering my career around children...like that isnt enough? lol


Blondie- That is way tasteless....lol. Its sorta annoying that having kids is your only option after being married....


thanks for all the interesting insights. I def feel better now

 

[Needssome]

I always said I didn't want kids in high school, that I wanted to focus on a career and do things like travel and not worry about having to drag kids along. I also said I didn't want to get married until I was 30...now I'm 23 and I've met an incredible guy that I hadn't "planned" on meeting until I was few years older and all I want to do is marry him. I'm still going to be in school for another four years and I'm not ready to have kids (it takes 9 years of university to get my Ph.D. and I'm half way through, I don't want anything to prolong the process).

However, as time goes by I realize that yes, I want to have kids. Partly because I have this great guy who I know would be a good father and would make some great looking babies, but also because as my grandmothers get older they need more and more assistance from my parents, and their siblings. I don't want to be like the old man at my grandmother's retirement residence who is a life-long bachelor who only has his siblings and nieces and nephews visit him a few times a year. I'm somewhat selfish - I want to have someone there who can help take care of me if I get to the point where I can't take care of myself on my own.

Of course, I'm scared to have kids. The world is an incredibly scary place but only time will tell what I end up deciding.

 

[Angel_Diva]

It seems all my friends want kids. Im in my early 20's..some of my friends barely out of their teens. They are all trying to have kids.

I really have no desire to have kids at all, for at least the next 10 years.

I get told all the time I have no maternal instinct...that there may be somethign wrong with me somewhere because I dont want to be a stay at home mommy. I want a career, not a baby to take care of. People seem to think this is bizarre and foreign. I love kids and babies...I just dont want one. Im tired of feeling weird when people ask me when I will have kids and I tell them not for a long time.

Are there any other females out there who feel the same?

I'm with you... I plan to have all my fun and career and what not before i have my kids. I'm in my 20's right now and I DON'T plan to have kids till i'm 30 or so..... i just want to take my time to get to know people, to grow, to learn.

I don't know why your friends are in such a rush, they have their whole life ahead of them they should at least wait till they know they are settled financially and emotionally to have children without brining them to a world of the unknown.

 

[warrior queen]

just a few statistics you may be unaware of -

chances of concieving within a year:
age 30 - 95%
age 36 - 80%
age 42+ - 10%

chances of miscarriage:
age 20-34 - 9%
age 35-39 - 20%
age 39-41 - 50%
age 42+ - 65%

chances of having a baby with a chromosomal deformity (Downs Syndrome, etc)
age 30 - 1 in 895
age 36 - 1 in 356
age 42+ - 1 in 41

you are at your most fertile between the ages of 17 and 25, and it goes sharply downhill from there.

these are from the fertility association of australia.

so don't be fooled into thinking you can have kids whatever age (celebs are having them at increasingly older ages, but you hardly ever hear about the many who don't manage it - only the few who do).
if you DO want a family, then it's wise to know the figures before you delay too long.