BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Why aren't parents honest about their experience?

I didn't say it quite so strongly when I was a kid, but I did wonder about it a lot, and felt like that when I did become a mother that would be the end of the good life. Wasn't exactly something I've looked forward to.

The crazy part is, if you express that to anyone when you're a kid, people out and out tell you you're wrong, your mind will change when you grow up, you'll see it in a different light...yada yada. I don't think anyone EVER said to me, "You might want to consider not having a kid...it's not that great." It's just not acceptable to say, and very few people I ever met even felt that way, or even thought about it enough to feel that way! No one has any objective perspective. In addition to all that, then they proceed to talk badly about CF people, about how they never mature, and they're selfish, and they're missing out on the full experience of being a woman. You get the message from so many different sources and in different ways.

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People have also told me that I think to much and try to analyze things to death. But, the more my husband and I talked about whether or not to have children, the more we realized that we really don't want them. Talking things out has prevented us from following the crowd and doing something we don't really want to do; it has basically prevented us from making a HUGE mistake. [/quote]

That's one of the mistakes many people make: They don't talk about so many things and they do things without thinking...

following the crowd: That's one of the "favourite" arguments of my husband!!! He always says, that he was always different... and he doesn't like to change this fact!

It is really fascinating for me to read your thoughts... they are similar to mine... altough there are thousands of miles between us, different language,... but I have to admit, that it's a bit hard for me to write in english (so please ignore my "german-english" )

Juli

I never thought of it as deciding not to have children, but more as not deciding TO have children. But I feel it should be a decision, not a reflex because "it's what you do" or "everyone else is doing it". But I am lucky I grew up with parents that didn't present childbearing as an expectation. Now my brother is providing them with a grandchild, so any possible "pressure" on me is even further diminished. Whew!

Cindy

I wish the pressure on my husband and I would decrease. With every pregnancy in the family, the questioning increases.

It didn't help matters when his little sister got pregnant either (totally unplanned, she is only 19). Sadly, she had an early miscarriage so the baby talk in the immediate family has stopped for now.

I don't want kids. Period. I've thought about it long and hard. When people tell me things like "you'll change your mind" it seems like a slap in the face to me. Like I'm not smart enough to realize it yet.

I also think that when people say "but don't you want to have a little you" or something similar, I want to scream. It's like, I don't want them. YOU'RE not going to convince me. And I'm not going to get pregnant to "find out" if I'll change my mind. I'm not going to do something I don't want to do only to regret it later.

So NO KIDS. Period.

I guess what I am saying is that it never occurred to me to want to have children. I guess I didn't really rule it out when I was younger, but I never had that mothering instinct, ever. I didn't feel strongly about being childfree until my mid thirties, and that might have had something to do with my husband's friends all having kids, and us not being married yet and still getting the baby pressure (which I felt was inappropriate, given the situation, but oh well)! But I never did feel like "Oh, I will want kids someday when the time is right and I'm married." Nope, didn't happen. But I made darn sure there would be no accidents, either!

Cindy

"..So I do NOT bring in pics of my nephews to bore the people at work!.."
Yeah, I REALLY don't GET this one.
On one hand I have a REALLY cute nephew on hubby's side in Egypt he's gorgeous and the other three are good looking as well AND we have a photo of the twins on our bedroom wall (plus other family photos.)
BUT I DON'T take photos of them to work (I showed my colleague ONE photo cos she was always showing me ones of her granddaughter but that was it and I only showed ONE colleague.)
And I LOVE LOVE LOVE travel AND photography and I think some of my travel photos kick [censored] BUT
I DON'T take THEM to work and show them to everyone EITHER!
(They're lucky I DON'T, I have 10 photo albums or maybe even 15!)
I don't have ANY problems with being shown baby photos (and mum gives me quite a few!) but I don't share this desire to show them (or any OTHER photos) off to people. I show one of hubby but ONLY if asked!
Again, please don't think I'm saying there's anything WRONG with people showing their colleagues photos of kids, travel or WHATEVER (within reason!) I'm just saying, oddly enough for someone who loves taking photos, I don't share that urge to share them with my colleagues.

And what's worse - don't show them to me when you KNOW I'm not interested. There is no kid on the planet cute enough to make me change my mind. Get over it already.

And I hate it when people who know how I feel about kids bait me, too. Our sales manager had his kid in the office yesterday (not that I mind the kid, he's pretty cute, and well behaved, but he's still a kid). As he was leaving he saw me out the front, smirked and said "Can you watch this guy for me for a while?"

I didn't even bat an eye - I just said "Sure, if you don't need him back in one piece." I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn't sure if I was serious or not. Interesting how they're being smart when they say stuff, but it's not kosher to be smart back ...

Oooh. That bugs me. Especially when they say it right in front of the kid, so he has to hear your response. Even as someone who likes kids in general, I really don't like having them forced upon me for free babysitting. And when they say, "It's practice to help you figure out whether you want kids," then how does that work if it's different when it's your own??!! Especially if your own turns out to have special needs and their kids are healthy!!

Personally, if someone wants me to babysit a baby before it can walk I would love it, but at that point the parents are not usually so eager to let go of them...have you noticed? "Oh, no touching, you might have germs!" It's only when they reach the annoying toddler stage and are into everything that the parents start trying to foist them on other people!!

Gee, I don't have any issues about this or anything. Ha ha! Rant over.

I never did either. I've never been even remotely interested in being a mother, although I definitely enjoy being around my nephew a lot. I think that's just nature. Some people want them or have an urge to have them, some people don't. But I wonder how many people have them even though they don't have a tug or a pool to be a mother. It's like this forced norm.

At one point when I was in college, EVERYONE was majoring in physical therapy. It's a good paying line of work, and it was like the it career, but it didn't interest me at all. Some people can do that, though. They pick a "sensible" career and study and follow that path b/c it's a sure thing. But I could never do that - spend four years studying something that doesn't really interest me. I think a lot of people do, though.