Well, technically I think it was a pile-on of one, consisting of me, and I did apologize and all. Please everyone carry on and don’t mind me. I feel embarrassed now.
Just the other day we had a thread in which the OP left his son with his mother for the weekend so that he could go on a date. He was flamed for that because he shouldn’t be allowed to have any sort of fun whatsoever. Either that or he should be taking his son to dates in bars. Hey, he made the choice to make a baby, he has to live with his decision.
That’s a choice I haven’t made. So far, my life still belongs to me.
since when is HAVING children the default decision? seems to me that you shouldn’t have children unless you specifically want them, not the other way around.
Both of my female cousins and myself had pretty bad childhoods. None of us would want to make our kids as miserable as our mothers made us.
Some of my mother’s worst mistakes came from the desire to compensate for her own bad childhood. Her parents fought constantly, so she never even expressed disagreement with Dad or with any authority figure in front of us. Therefore, until recently I was terrified that if I ever became a mother and tried to “do better than Mom” I’d manage to just swing things into some other pit of Hell.
I got less scared of motherhood recently (after all, I have been able to become better at some aspects of my work life by observing those who suck and those who excel at them), but at 40yo and living on the road, I don’t imagine I’ll be meeting me a mate soon. I just don’t want a kid (who could be sick or simply the opposite of me… or too much like me) so much that I’ll have one on my own.
When I turned 27, the Grandma from Hell told me “Mom had me at 27, I had your Mom at 27, she had you at 27. You have three… no, make that four… months to get preggers.” I pointed out that, while studs are easy to find (just don’t ask “your rubber or mine?” next time some guy in a club felt frisky), fathers aren’t.
It’s a hot button topic for a lot of people. I’ve spent many years defending myself on something that needs no defending, and that from the closest loved ones in my life. A lot of guilt was piled onto that, and mostly from my father. And then I got even more pressure from women I was dating.
When the topic comes up, so does my defense shield. It has become automatic.
On top of that, sometimes you get accused of being selfish for not bringing new lives into the world. I don’t quite get the logic. You want me to do very specific things with my reproductive system (and to a much larger extent, someone else’s, someone you have never met) so that you can squee over baby pictures for three minutes, and I’m the selfish one?
Sorry. I’m enjoying a quiet moment of RO here. 
I understand that, but I object to the implication that not having a reason isn’t good enough.
With the said, then… indian, I have no particular reason. In fact, I could probably handle being a father just fine. I might even enjoy it. The idea of having a teenage daughter kinda scares me, but apart from that, 
whatever.
Peg Bracken once wrote that, while childless people are always being asked “Why don’t you have children?” most of them would never ask someone with a child “Why did you want to produce a creature like that?” There are many reasons for not having children: biological, psychological, economical, sociological, and just plain personal.
Just never wanted to. And there’s not exactly a shortage of humans.
I don’t know how it is in India but from an economic standpoint having children in the U.S. is becoming a HUGE financial decision.
The days where a male head of household can comfortably maintain a job and purchase a nice house in a nice neighborhood and support a stay at home wife and a couple kids on his salary alone are getting more and more rare.
The “American Dream” is getting damn expensive and is no longer the simple default thing to do.
Having kids nowdays requires a lot of sacrifices and compromises both monetarily and lifestyle wise.
Seems to me that you’ve got it backwards. If someone is “meh” about having a kid, they shouldn’t have one. It’s a pretty damn big decision to make if you’re not sure about it.
Frankly, I agree with you, Athena, and I think that’s actually what I told her, but what she remembered me telling her worked for her. 
Hampshire, in India it can be enormous as well. Girls specially are perceived as a drain, since their dowries can be ridiculously huge and completely out of proportion with the family’s economy. This has lead to things like making it illegal to use ultrasounds to determine a fetus’ gender (abortion because the fetus is female is illegal), which hasn’t really worked; the gender-skew towards males is already noticeable, in some regions more than others.
Just this week there was a news bit in El Mundo about the Indian government creating a fund for families that have daughters, to be implemented first in those regions with the sharpest imbalance. The families will get money at different points, based on how well they’re taking care of the daughters.
I never felt a burning desire to have kids. I am now in my 40s and still unattached. I could be a good mom but I don’t want the job.
Et cetera.
Don’t be embarrassed. I think a lot of us have had to defend our decisions to such a degree that when yet another person asks us, we go into aggressive mode. I can sympathize with your reaction.
My thoughts are right in line with this.
I’m 28 and I still feel like a “child” myself. I don’t have the money to feed or clothe myself beyond the bare necessities. How on earth could I ever afford a kid? I’m way to financially responsible (meaning cheap) to see any financial happiness for me + 1.
I have a dog. She is my baby. I am absolutely devoted to her. People say I would make a great mom because I am so good with my dog. But I feel like I am a horrible “parent” to my dog. I sit here and work all day and ignore her. I put off doctor appointments for her. I ship her off to my parents when I go out. She’s basically here for my own comfort and amusement when I want her. Now, being that she’s a dog she’s perfectly happy with that. But you could never treat a child like that yet that’s exactly how I feel I would be as a parent. Of course if I HAD a child I would have to make sacrifices so that I did NOT treat my child like that but I am obviously not interested in making such a lifestyle change. Lucky for me, I have a choice.
Ditto for me, substitute dad for mom. Further, as someone with chronic depression and allied issues, I feel I have more than enough to work on in my own life.
My boyfriend and I are each other’s first priority. And even if this particular relationship doesn’t work out, that’s what I want from any relationship I’m in.
I’m selfish enough that I don’t want to make my own wants/desires/whims secondary to a child’s. I like quiet; I like “me time;” I like my things to be clean and unbroken; I like being impulsive; I like being decadent sometimes. These seem to be things that are sacrificed when you have a child.
Yeah, that’s pretty much me. I never played with baby dolls, never babysat, never daydreamed about having my own. I like older kids but I don’t think babies are particularly cute. I have no doubt that if I were born in earlier time where getting married and having children was the only way to survive, I would have been fine but I firmly believe that today, with all the options and choices available to us, you should have kids because you want to have them, not just because you feel you should.
I don’t like kids. I’ve never liked kids, especially toddlers and young children, though I don’t mind them quite as much once they get to be 10 or so. I’d prefer not to be around them. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever (what nurturing instinct I have is completely focused on my cats–the thought of doing it for a kid is enough to make me shudder). I’m an androgynous sort of person (straight and happily married, but in many ways very masculine in my habits, thought processes, and behaviors) and the thought of being someone’s mother hits me about the same way as the thought that I might suddenly grow wings and take off for the moon–in other words (pardon the pun) inconceivable. It’s just not something that even enters my mind. The thought of being pregnant is just too absurd to comprehend.
I have known this and been rock-solid sure of it since I was a very young child myself. People have told me “you’ll change your mind when you get older,” but I’m 43 now and I can honestly say I have never once had anything even approximating a second thought. I’m happy with my life, my spouse is happy (he doesn’t want kids either, and as far as I know he’s never had a second thought either) and we don’t get defensive when people try to question us about it (which they don’t do much anymore–I think we’ve convinced them). These days we tend to get amused, if anything.
I think it’s wonderful that there are so many committed, dedicated parents out there who are raising the next generation. I have great respect for them. I’m just not one of them.
I’ve liked a few kids I’ve come across, but mostly I find them to be obnoxious. I never wanted to be one of those moms who can’t have an adult conversation without mentioning her diaper genie. Yes I realize not all parents are like that, but not the ones where I work, lol.