This is exactly how I feel.
No. Fuck no. I don’t like children.
I don’t want to give up the freedom to do what I want, when I want. The responsibility of caring for little people? No thanks.
My wife feels the same way.
We are in our early 40’s.
Never wanted children, ever. Even when I was young and the other little girls were drawing pictures of their dream weddings and telling each other what they would name their magic fairy princess kids, I drew pictures of a little house all to myself, with as many pets as I wanted, and more books than I could count. The closest thing I have to a ‘biological clock’ is a ‘biological Gameboy’, which compels me to go out and buy another version of Tetris every few years.
Never felt guilty, ever. I did not get along well with children when I was a child, and I wouldn’t be any better now. I’m good with teaching, mostly because I don’t talk to them like they’re stupid, but I would be terrible at handling any of the parts of life where they meltdown or otherwise act like irrational animals. I’m not good at those with adults, and there are lots more options for dealing with them.
I have no idea how my parents feel. This is one thing they’ve never argued with me over; I was very definite when I five, and I’m still definite now that I’m thirty. I’ve no doubt that they would have genuinely loved any grandchildren that came along, but I’ve also no doubt that they would have been just as dysfunctionally crazy as they were with their own children, so overall I think it’s a wash.
My sister may want kids. I’ve no idea. I’ve never asked and she’s never told me. I haven’t talked to any of them for the better part of a year, and I’m still debating whether I’ll ever do so again.
Oddly enough, I do sometimes feel guilty over never really caring if I own a house, a fancy car, etc. It’s that same feeling that society led me to think that one day I’d wake up and decide that renting was for infants and I’d have a burning need to apply for a mortgage and fix my own garbage disposal. It shows no more signs of happening than the baby thing.
I am an only child with no children. No guilt over my own family. My mom was quite vociferous in proclaiming that she’d not be available for babysitting duties (no worries there), but I do feel a tiny bit bad for my MIL, who ended up with two sons who didn’t want kids either. So no little 'uns for her except the neighbor kids. But you really can’t have kids for other people, you have to want 'em for yourself and no more.
I know a guy who got married and stayed childless. He had one sister who has never been married. He got divorced a remarried - the woman he remarried had adult children. So his mother never got grandchildren. Until my two came along - in her late 70s she became a great grandma without ever having been a grandma - the guy is my husband’s stepfather.
I’m glad he didn’t have kids, nice guy - wouldn’t have necessarily been a great dad. And his sister, same…nice woman, not terribly maternal. His mother, however, was delighted with her late in life surprise grandchildren.
She died when they were little, but they were the joy of her final years.
My fiancé is young enough to have children, but I am not. I don’t feel bad about my future MIL; she has another son and might have grandchildren through him. I feel bad for my fiancé, though. My late husband was pretty anti child, but my new guy likes kids. With a different woman, he would probably choose to have kids. He says he is fine with it, but sometimes I feel I am depriving him of something he would love. If I could still have kids, I might offer, but I can’t.
Child- and guilt-free. Completely.
I’m 40 and my sisters 36- I’ve never been on a date and my sister’s never dated seriously, so it’s obvious the lines going to end with us. I feel guilty about that and not giving my mother grandkids. But it was my grandmother that kept trying to pressure me into dating so she could have great-grandkids. Just because you have kids doesn’t mean it’s going to turn out good, my psych nurses kid got drunk and deliberatly ran down some people with his car and got his mom charged as an accessory to first degree murder. (Charges against her were dropped, but still what a mess your kid got you in).
When I met my wife-to-be, we soon learned that neither of us had any desire to be a parent. My wife had felt that way for as long as she could remember; for me, the realization had come in my late teens. Ten months after meeting, we got married. Two years later I had a vasectomy. We’ve now been married 42 years, and have never had any regrets whatever about our decision.
Guilt?? Quite the opposite.
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