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Joined: Feb 2003
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Jilly Offline OP
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I noticed something funny about myself: when people ask me if I have kids, I always feel a little bemused by it. I mean I always feel inside that I am not old enough to have kids. So i almost feel like laughing or something. I don't know - i just get this feeling inside that I have no real words to describe.

The really funny thing is that I am NOT young. I mean, jeez, I am 40. But I still feel like I am too young to have kids. There is also the huge thing about my not wanting them in any way.And I guess at this point i am not going to grow up and change my mind. lol

Does anyone else feel this way?

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I wouldn't say I feel bemused ... or amused ... or anything except exasperation. Here we go again ...

However, I do feel like I'm too young to have children. Not in an immature kind of way, but in a "I haven't done 90% of what I want to do yet" kind of way.

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I know what you mean Jilly!

I used to get really angry, but these days I just laugh it off and say something about how my cats keep me busy enough, or something like that. And change the subject.

I've come to see it in a bit of a different light -- people aren't always being critical of me. Most of the time, in fact, they are just "making conversation." Just like people ask, "So, what do you do?" It is just one of those things that is culturally ingrained to ask when you first mean someone. And you can't really spend time getting all upset every time it happens.

I meet a lot of people in my work, and only ONCE in the past 10 years has someone actually pursued it further. It was a man, and I was pretty surprised. He asked if had kids. I just simply said no, and then he said "Well, do you want any?" Considering I had just met this guy a few minutes before, I thought it was strange. But he wasn't being antagonistic -- more just curious. I just said something like, "Actually, no." And he dropped it.

I come at it with the idea that I may be the very first person they've ever encountered who doesn't want kids, particularly among the older people I meet because of my job. Back in their youth, a woman who didn't have kids was someone everyone felt sorry for because she probably COULDN'T have kids. I like to feel that I am teaching them a little bit about this "new generation" of women who make choices. I am relatively young (33) and successful, and I don't think I fit their pre-conceived notion of what a "childless woman" is. (Which is why we don't call it childless, but child free in the first place!)

I kind of laugh inside a little too, because they are interested in that part of my life, when I'm not interested in it myself!

It's better to greet the world with a little bemusement than to be angry and looking for a fight all the time. That kind of attitude is nothing but draining and a colossal waste of energy. I think it has more to do with whether you look at life as "half full" or "half empty."

Kim

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Kim, you truly are an incredible writer.

I agree with what you are saying. It has taken me a long time to realize that people are not "attacking" me with the question of rather I have children or not.

People are just making conversation when they ask this question. It would be very self-centered of me to think that every time people ask me if I have children or not that my answer of not having children would impact their lives in any way.

I just simply say no and people leave the subject alone. People have their own lives to live and are not really that interested in the fact of I having children or not.

Giselle

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Jilly Offline OP
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I totally don't get mad. I agree with the posts above. No one is trying to be rude. smile

That said, I still get a humorous twist in my tummy about the thought of me being old/mature enough to have kids. Does anyone else feel like this?

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Yes I totally get what you mean. I am 25 and suddenly noticed that so many younger than me have children. Being married 4 years and no children surprises people too.

Suddenly it seems its not weird that people will ask me about kids.


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