BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Changing your mind...

Just to follow up on a question raised in another forum that sort of got lost.
Just curious to know how many people found their CF friends and family changing their minds about children as they got into their mid 30s and beyond.
I found many, many friends and colleagues ended up having at least one child after years of saying they didn't want children.
Have other people experienced the same thing?

I don't know of any (yet) but I am 34 in less than a month and I am more childfree now than ever before!

I keep hearing from people with children that I will change my mind!

All of my peers who have had children have always wanted them. I'm 33 in 2 weeks time and haven't wanted them (since I was about 11 or 12 I made the decision). Some of my friends were later in having children, not from changing their mind but more from the fact that they weren't in the right situation before...

Deborah, I've read quite a few of your posts, are you happy with your CF status? Or is it just the fact that your DH doesn't want them and you are reluctantly going along with the idea? Although I'm CF I think that people who want children should have them, but those that don't shouldn't...

Hope you're getting the real support you need

I just found out that my sister's friend is CF. I had been suspecting for a while because she just has this vibe ... so yesterday I had a chance to say something along the lines of, "and that's just one more reason why I don't want kids!" And she said, "oh my gosh, I don't want kids EITHER!"

Her husband wants them, just like mine does, and she also thought that she was the only one who didn't want kids, so I said we'd have to talk more some time.

But, in our brief chat, she was saying that people always tell her "you'll change your mind." She's 32 and she says she's never wanted kids, even though she loves kids, so she doesn't ever see her changing her mind.

I should give her a Bingo card for Christmas. :-)

She is my nephew's godmother and she loves him to pieces, just like me, so someone FINALLY understands how I love my nephew SO much, but don't want my own.

Nope, not at all. I have a few CF friends, and it seems the older we get, the more steadfast in our decision we get.

One couple that DH and I hang out with kind of wanted kids at one time early in their marriage (first she kind of did, then he kind of did...but they never wanted them at the same time, and it wasn't a very strong desire). Now that they are in their 40's, they are so grateful that kids never came into the picture.

Another CF couple that I'm friends with just hit the big 5-0. She as so worried that she would feel that she was missing something when she got older...NOPE! Her life is so full and busy that kids are the last thing she thinks of. Her husband was always ambivalent, but with age became steadfastly CF.

Speaking for us, DH and I just turned 37. We treasure our lives the way they are....very full, happy, satisfying. There's never a time when we say, "gee, wouldn't a kid make it even better?!"

Hi Purplegirl1974,
Yes, I'm happily CF - I never wanted children (not even a fence sitter) although I did go through a final panic in my late 30s that I doubt I will ever fully understand. I now know however, that it's actually pretty common.
My husband and immediate family have always been supportive - most of my friends have either been supportive or at least, accepting. Like most CF people I have received my fair share of flack and rudeness over the years - but I think that's probably to be expected when you don't "fall in with the herd". (so to speak)

I had one, but I hadn't been friends with her for very long. She told me she was going to schedule a vasectomy for her husband which I discouraged, saying it was his body and his decision. She then avoided me until recently, after having a baby. This baby is now "the best decision she ever made." Mmmmkay.

Oddly enough, all of my close childhood friends are still very CF.

I just plain don't know many CF people in real life Deborah. The few people I have met and gotten to know well enough to ask without being rude always answered with a variation of "Oh, I wish I had, but I was never in the right situation for it to happen." Even the people who were infertile that I knew either went to great lengths to make it happen eventually, or adopted.

I've told this story here b4, but it was awhile ago...the one person I knew who adamantly complained about how the role of motherhood changed people and how annoying that was to her...went on to make a surprise move, switched husbands, and had a baby late in life....and now she's devout mother!

So, I don't have a very good answer to your question, but this is why I'm here /

I have a friend who I suspect is CF in that this was a conscience choice rather then something that was against their desires. I have wanted to ask her if her and her husband had made that decision but I didn't want to put her on the spot.

Her Mother is one of those Mothers that you would contemplate slitting your wrists so you could stop the pestering and interfereing. Now her Mother is dying of Cancer and she has her hands full with that.

I would love to talk to her about it but at a later time. We went to grade school together and while I call her my friend, I have not laid eyes on her for like 20 years. She has lead an interesting life, living abroad in Moscow, working for the church we were raised in, smuggling her husband out and marrying him here.

I know her brothers have children that she is close to. I am affraid to bring it up for fear that there is a reason that they were not able to have children. I don't want to open up any wounds. She has had a hard enough time as it is.

I have two close friends that are CF. One is now 50, recently remarried, no regrets, no worries. She has nephews, but they're fair little brats and she was never keen on having much to do with them. I remember one Christmas where one of them (about 7 or 8 at the time) bowled up to her and said to her face "I hate you". To which she replied "Good, because I hate you too. Now p**s off before I kick your a$$". The kid looked dumbfounded, and I've never laughed so hard.

The other is 35-36? somewhere around there, and is back at school completing a degree in design. She never wanted kids, her other half did, she said when they got married that maybe she'd give him one, but wait and see how things turned out. She's since confided to me that she thought she might change her mind, but hasn't. She's expecting a bit of grief from DH when she finishes school next year, but as she says, what's the point of spending 4 years and lots of $$ on a degree, to then turn around and have a kid? I can't see it happening.

It's soooooo good to have friends who "get it". I laughed and laughed when I emailed the news about my breakup to my friends earlier this year, and friend #1's reply was "damn kids! they screw up everyhting, even when you don't have them!!"