BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids people and their obnoxious questions

It has always amazed me that people actually insist that you "should" have kids, even when you have expressed your desire not to have any.

Honestly, why would people want someone who doesn't want to be a parent to have a child anyway?

This is nonsensical to me, and yet we are faced with this argument all the time!

Somebody explain it to me!!!!

Kim
MNK Editor

For a lot of people, it is difficult to understand a lifestyle or thought process that isn't familiar to them. Our society in this country places a great emphasis on family and the family they have in mind includes 2.5 kids. It shouldn't be an *argument*. After they ask their question, state your answer. End of story, right?

I have a friend that said she was too selfish to have kids. I agree with her. It's not her cup of tea. I don't personalize it or take offense because my life, different than hers, required having children to be complete. Different strokes for different folks.

I have another friend that was NEVER going to have kids. She ended up getting pregnant while on the pill. Single and happy as a mother now. We have lots of conversations about how things worked out. Her life wouldn't be the same without her son in it and she wouldn't be the person she is today. Life made that choice for her and she was the better for it.

Being child free would not have been a choice for me. I went through infertility to combat that, in fact. So for me, it is hard to understand why anyone would make that choice, but it's theirs to make and not mine to understand.

Does that help?

For most people having children is a means of becoming immortal. We cannot live forever that is why we produce offspring that will carry our genes, and consequently will look and behave like we do. Children are our miniatures, later when they grow up, they become us. And so we are immortal, in a way.
When people urge their friends or family to have children, they do it because they pity such a childless person whose genes will be lost, and he/she will never become "immortal." It especially pertains to parents who insist on their own children to give then grandchildren so that the family line does not disappear.

Kim, I think it's simply because people are thoughtless, inconsiderate, and/or narrow-minded. Thankfully I have not had to deal with it as much as some people on these boards have. I have a supportive family, and whatever my in-laws may think they've kept to themselves. I think they're busy enough with the four that my hubby's sisters have popped out. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I think it's just a matter of not understanding and not wanting to understand our choices.

We're bucking society by not having the "typical" family. But people don't seem to understand that there is no such thing as a "typical" family any more. "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver" are no longer even close to what a family is now.

Most people don't like change or anything that may make them think in a different manner, and that's what people who chose not to have children are making them do. So, they fight it and try to force us to think different, so that they don't have to!

I hear you there. When people find out I don't want kids the INSIST that I will change my mind. And when I tell them my man got a vasectomy in October they like to tell me how it is reversible. If I we were worried about it bein reverible he wouldn't have gotten it. I try to explain to people that just as they can't comprehend why anyone would not want kids I can't comprehend why anyone would. However how hard I try to convince them that children are not for me no one ever understands. I am just glad there are both men and women out there who feel the same as I do.
One thing that irks me though is how easy it was for my guy to get a vasectomy when no doctor would consider sterilization for me.

I know we live in a child-centered universe, and that MOST people don't feel the way I do about having kids.

What I don't get, is how people keep insisting that you should, even when you have already explained that you don't want to.

If I said I really didn't like snakes, would the average person keep trying to convince me I would make a great snake owner? Or if I really hated broccoli, how many people would insist that I eat it?

Most people don't comprehend that an invasive question about wanting kids is really a question about your sex life, and should be off limits to even the closest of friends!

And no, it shouldn't be an argument, but you'd be surprised how people keep pushing you on this topic.

If you have kids or if you want kids, then you can't even imagine the things people say to those of us who have chosen to remain child free. There usually is no such thing as "end of story" with most of these people!! And I have found that it is strangers and casual aquaintances who are the WORST when it comes to this stuff -- not my friends and family.

Kim
MNK Editor

My husband and I have yet to make it official we are not having kids. He is still warming up to the idea himself. My main concern is how will he combat all those questions when deep down he would want a kid. His parents have no clue this is what we are thinking and I am not looking forward to the can of worms that will open or the fact they will be feeding him stuff to change my/our mind.

my husband and i haven't made it official either. we have only told certain people that we knew would understand or at least respect our decision. i think my parents have some idea but we haven't said anything official yet. a large reason for that is because i'm an only child and i know in their hearts they want grandchildren. i have felt so badly about this that i even went to see a therapist. i know in my mind that i'm not obligated to have a grandchild for them but it's stil hard for me not to feel bad about it.
last year when my grandma died i was at her wake and people were coming up to my husband and i and asking about having a child. talk about inappropriate!i was so [censored] off .i couldn't believe people could be that insensitive but as keep reading other people's posts i guess i can. i'm glad there are people out there who think like i do. it makes me feel less alone.
indigo

I live surrounded by people asking my husband and I to have children or telling us to have children. It's embarrassing becasue it's none of their business.

My family adopted two boys when I was in college. One was returned to his crack addict mother who eventually died in front of him and now we cannot find him. When we went to St. Joseph's to "pick them out" I was mortified by how many boys were abandoned in that home and it was only for boys. My brother was the product of a heroine addict mother who left him in an alley when her husband was sent to jail for life for murder. We got my bother when he was the age of 5.

I am proud to say my brother is 18 now and graduating HS. He has traveled the US playing classical piano and is joining the US Navy this summer. I will miss him.

So my point is. I don't care to have children of my own, my family line will continue in my cousins, neices and nephews. If I get the urge to have a child and I stress IF, there are homes full of children whose own parents didn't or couldn't take care of and I would gladly go and love as my own. Just as I love my brother as if my own mother had him.

The people that bug me about wanting my OWN --well I just really don't care. Maybe I am selfish, but I would adopt a child no question. Maybe that makes me weird. But that is just me.