BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids I like kids, but Im not sure I want them help

I have been on the fence about childfree for a long time. Im 29. Recently I had started to feel really confident in my decision to be childfree. My husband have three great dogs (we are adopting a puppy tommorow which will bring us up to 4) and three wonderful cats. We are buying a house. With all this we are a bit strapped for cash now but I look forward to havng enough money to do some traveling in the future. I cant imagine balancing kids with my job (I teach special educaiton) my dogs and my plans to travel. I would have no time. However, I really like kids as you can see from my job. Soemtimes when I see people with kids I get a pang. I worry taht if I dont have kids I will regret it. However, I know I cannot take the plunge if I am unsure motherhood is something you cant go back on and I love my life the way it is now. If I had the money and could stay home (more for me then the kid I know Id go nuts trying to balance work and motherhood) I might have kids but that is just not going to happen. Im only 29 but I feel like my time to make this decision is runnign out everytime I start to feel comfortable with being childfree doubts surface. I almost wish I didnt liek kids so I could feel more confident in my decision to be childfree. Help1

I am in the same boat ... I am on the fence but I am 37 and the clock is already ticking. I have 1 dog and 2 cats and they provide my unconditional love. I just got married last month and my husband is on the fence too. I get anxiety attacks around kids ... they never seem to sit still or stop talking. I have enough stress in my current lifestyle and can't imagine adding to the stress of raising a child .. UGH! I thought I was crazy until I found all these child free websites and now I finally feel at peace. Thanks!!

I think it's pretty normal to get stressed out over the decision to be childfree - we're brainwashed/trained from girlhood to expect that we fall in love with the prince, have a fairytale wedding, raise the perfect family and live happily ever after. That's a lot of years of expectation to undo! Even though things are changing, it still takes a lot of guts to stand up and be one of "those" women, to make decisions based on your heart and not your head, and stand proud about it.

Tubby, you still have plenty of time to let things play out. Revel in your life as you find it ... living for the now has a lot to recommend it :-) and maybe make a commitment to explore the topic once every six months or so. I heard someone else here does that with their DH, and I think that's a great idea...

lj, I'm like you ... when my want-kids ex left a few months ago I tossed around the idea of what it might be like, and every time I thought seriously about it my stomach would knot and my blood pressure rise. There are four kids in my office as I speak, running around, screaming and yabbering and bawling, and I'm hiding in my office wishing they would just LEAVE. Ick. I couldn't do it. Not in a million years ...

I'm probably 90/10 or at least 80/20 with the 80 or 90 being NO WAY! I like kids OK. I wouldn't say I LOVE them HEAPS although I am a teacher and there are some kids in my class I really like!
The idea of extra stress and noise in my life is NOT a good one though! I don't handle stress well and my current job/career, just a teacher but a LOT of paperwork and pressure sometimes in this particular school I'm in. And although I like clubs when they play songs I like and ulp kareoke bars, I'm NOT a big fan of noise - I mean babies cries get on my nerve --- they are like car alarms to me or even like
fingernails on a blackboard to some people.
But yes I'm about 10%-20% sitting on the fence. I very much doubt I'll have kids though, that's not enough of a wanting for me to justify it to myself!

P.S. not all childfree people hate kids! Some love em some like em so tolerate them and some plain can't stand em! And I may have missed some other option out!

My best friend had 3 babies in 3 years and I was in the delivery room with her all 3 times ... that was enough maternity experience for me. Now when I visit her, I get anxiety attacks after 20-30 minutes and am ready to leave. I can't have a decent phone call with her without her constantly saying "no, put that down, pick that up, dont hit her, dont do this, dont do that ..." it drives me absolutely insane!! Then I hang up and look at my quiet calm dog and 2 cats and exhale with relief I realized I prefer infants but hate when they grow up and start running around and talking ... my little animals will stay cute and cuddly forever ... kids wont!!

hi! i'm a CFer who really likes kids(as long as they're not mine!). however, i think the reason i do like them is b/c i'm not around them 24/7 and i know i can give them back. there are many reasons why i don't want kids. too many to list here. i feel that through working with kids and from one of my closest friends having two kids that is more than enough for me. i really enjoy the close relationship with my hubby, having free time with friends and other things, coming home to a quiet home, etc... i am 100% confident about not wanting kids. i'm 36 and have been adamantly cf for about 3 yrs. now. i feel very comfortable in my decision.

the other day my friend asked me if i would be the godmother for her daughter's christening.i am really honored and flattered. however, if she would have asked me to be a guardian or anything like that i would have had to turn her down. as much as i like her daughter and value our friendship i wouldn't want the respons. luckily it's just a religious thing. i'm a very progressive catholic and she's not too religious herself so it works out well.

i agree at 29 you have plenty of time. to me liking kids and wanting to have them is not the same thing. when you have a kid you get a lot of bad with the good. i mean if a kid acts up for me i know that the parent will have to deal with it and that the child will leave soon. to me it's easy to like children b/c i know i'm only around them for a ltd. time.

as for regretting i once read a great comment in the book"Why Don't you Have Kids?" Living a Life Without Parenthood." in it she devotes a whole chapter on regret. she said that it's better to regret not having kids than to regret having them.i totally agree.


indigo

Now, even I have seen some babies that are SO cute that I had to ask to hold the li'l one. But, I could give the baby right back!!!!! I can even muster up enough kindness when the li'l ones wave at you or ask you a question in a store. But, to live day in and out with all of the noise and madness....I don't think that without promise of NO prosecution for giving my hypothetical child some sort of sedative (liquor and xanax)would I even consider parenthood.
Maybe, that is why I am yet to be asked to babysit. I guess one should not make "jokes" about giving babies liquor when they won't go to sleep or recommending that nursing mothers drink heavily to put whiny babies to sleep [in case they can't make themselves give the baby a shot glass of "big boy/girl juice.]"

I really know what you're going through, as I am going to turn 29 this Wednesday and my husband and I have been happily settling into the home we bought 2 years ago. We've been married for nearly 6 years, and we have 6 beautiful, sweet (most of the time), cuddly cats. We've been having the discussions a little more in the last couple of years, and the more we discuss having kids, the less I think I will ever want to do that. We both work, and I just can't see myself working full-time like I do right now, facing the daily commute to and from work, and then coming home to more work of raising a child, with little to no time to play with/hang with the cats, watch TV, workout, play piano/flute, or just relax. My husband and I have developed quite a comfortable lifestyle and I cannot see us giving that up anytime soon. We both like kids, possibly my husband more than me, but I doubt that I have the patience or personality required to raise a child. As you said, it's nice to be able to give them back because they're not yours.

The only drawback I am seeing in this choice is that it's hard to find friends in our area that aren't ready to start popping out lots of kids or haven't already done so. I do like visiting this site/these message boards to communicate with other like-minded people, however.

Hi LJ- my DH and I are also recently married and on the fence. And I'm like you- I absolutely love infants but find older kids baffling and trying. Basically once they can talk, they can talk back. My DH is the opposite; he likes older kids that you can teach. We go back and forth and have recently decided to shelve the issue for a while. It gets exhausting to think about.

And pug- I totally hear you. I was also starting to feel very much CF (like 85-90%) but a few friends are expecting, I'm seeing more kids around, and it gives me a pang every once in a while. I'm probably back at about 60% CF. But until both DH and I are 100% sure we want to have them, we won't- it'd be unfair to any kids we had. And that may never happen.

(If you're not a numbers-oriented person, sorry. I'm a scientist and DH is an engineer, so we're used to thinking in those terms! )