If You Don't Have Kids, And/Or WON'T Have Kids, Post Here

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this Pit thread, beckwall pits people who are nosy and inconsiderate about her not being a parent.

I’d like to open this thread up to the SDMB about the whole issue of nonparenting. Why don’t you have children? How did you come to that decision? Have you encountered any hurtful or nasty reactions to your nonparenthood? Any other thing you’d like to dish about? (I’d be particularly interested in hearing if you are religious people and if you got any grief about how you’re disobeying God or whatever.)

And if you are a parent and disagree with our position (IOW, you feel that parenthood is such a rewarding and joyous thing that you feel everybody should do it, and that those who don’t are selfish, etc.), I’d like to hear from you, too.

Mrs. HeyHomie and I have been told that we have a very low possibility of having kids. I’m planning on having a vasectomy so that the ambiguity will be taken away. Anyway, we found this out about six years into our marriage.

When we were first dating, we talked about kids. We agreed that we’d stop at one; two at the very very most. We also agreed that if we had difficulty conceiving, we would not go through all that fertility treatment stuff.

A few years later we got the news from her gynecologist.

We discussed adoption - briefly. Too expensive and time-consuming, and God help you if you don’t have much income, have a poor credit history, are overweight, etc.

Then a funny thing happened: we realized that we’re actually OK with not having kids. Horror of horrors! We realized that we enjoyed having free time and having money (not that we’re rolling in it, but you get the idea). I have my cooking classes and my other interests to keep me occupied. Leslie (Mrs. HeyHomie) has her arts & crafts. We keep busy.

Leslie’s mother is having a hard time with this. “You could always adopt,” she told us time and time again. We’ve told her several times how adoption isn’t for us and that we’re not going to pursue it. I think she’s just now getting used to the idea and warming up to it.

MY mother, on the other hand, just can’t deal with it. She keeps saying that she’s worried for Leslie because she knew she always wanted kids, and keeps telling me about how such-n-such adopted so easily, or how so-n-so found some Chinese herbalist in St. Louis and they were pregnant within weeks, etc. I asked my mom point-blank once: “Are you really sad for Leslie, or are you really sad for you?” Mom had the decency and the honesty to respond, “Well really for me.” But she still hasn’t let up, even though she has plenty of grandkids from my brothers.

Then there’s my best friend, who keeps reminding my how I’d make such a great father, yada yada yada.

All in all, though, I’d say the experience has been pretty positive. No one has every asked me point-blank “Why don’t you have kids?” With 3 exceptions, everyone in my life has recognized our lifestyle choice and either accepted it, or at least not bothered to tell me that they didn’t accept it.

So what about your experiences?

2

Not only don’t I have or want kids, I don’t even want to get married.

I have been living with my GF for 3 years now, and we have no immediate plans to get married. Mostly don’t see the reason as we dont’ want kids. We both work, workout, enjoy dining and drinking and weekends away. I get home and eat dinner at 9pm most nights, and we like our lifestyles. All this added to the fact I don’t think we could afford children very well.

Finally, I don’t even like kids that much. I tend to just get irritated and frustrated when I am with them, and never have interacted very well with most young childer. I have a very logical, common sense approach to things and can’t really relate to young children who just don’t understand logic (its not thier fault, just conflicts).

We don’t get comments or pressure about having kids, becuase we aren’t married. Instead we get comments and pressure to get married! All of my coworkers and married friends and aquaintences think there is something seriously wrong that we have been together so long and living to together but aren’t married.

3

I have a son from a previous marriage. As much as I love the kid, I’ve no intention of having more. My wife is the same way- she decided about two years ago that she didn’t want to have kids.

I’m going in next Thursday to get a vasectomy.

4

I’m only 19, so it’s possible I’ll change my mind, but I really don’t think so. I have no interest in marrying and/or having sex with a man (or a woman, but you can’t get pregnant that way), so I think it’ll be pretty easy for me to avoid having kids. The main reason I don’t want kids is that I don’t want to be responsible for anyone besides myself. I don’t think I’m going to make very much money, and I’d rather not have other people to support. Besides, I don’t really like kids.

5

• I can’t bear children
• I can’t bear children

6

I’m not terribly fond of kids–they’re okay in small does, when I can hand them back off to the parents when the get cranky–but for some reason they’re all over me. (Ditto with cats and dogs that are generally stand-offish or wary of new people. Strange.) I don’t have any desire to have any, nor opportunity at this point even if I wanted to, and I’d make a lousy father-figure in any case. Fortunately, there isn’t really anyone to nag me about having children (except this annoying busybody at work), so I’m a step ahead of most of the voluntarily-childless in that respect.

Someday I hope to get a dog again. I’m thinking a nice, low maintainence chow breed or mix. That’s about as close as I care for.

Stranger

7

I love my dogs. They’re friendly, they’re inexpensive (when compared to a kid anyway- one set of braces would take care of a dog’s needs for life), they’re always glad to see me, I never have to worry about them using protection (snip snip) or doing drugs or becoming a born-again Republican, etc…

The fact that I’m gay of course makes an indention on my decision not to have kids (though I have been “offered” the opportunity or requested to make a donation towards one of the baby things several times, twice by lesbians and twice by straight women) but I think even if I were straight I’d choose to be a genetic dead end. It may sound incredibly selfish, but I don’t want to have a higher priority than myself and, hopefully one day, a mate, besides which my family has majorly booby trapped genes (mental and physical illnesses) so God knows what I’d sire (thoughts of siring a daughter who’s just like my mother make me wake up screaming).

I remember a Katharine Hepburn interview some years back in which she was asked if she had ever wanted children and after an emphatic “No” she said something to the effect of “I always knew that if I reproduced sooner or later it would disobey me and I’d have had to kill it.”

8

I decided that I didn’t want kids when I was about 19. Many, many people have either told me I would change my mind or tried to change my mind. When I got married at 28, my husband (who I had known for 11 years) knew that I didn’t want kids and that was ok with him. I am 45 now and guess what? I still don’ t want kids. I can’t stand the sound of a baby crying - it irritates me no end especially if there is no way to stop it. I have heard a child of about 7 tell an adult “if you spank me I’ll call the police.” I have read about a father being charged with the murder of his 12 year old daughter and her friend. And I don’t think I have the patience to be a good mother.

I am happy with my decision, but there are 2 regrets: My husband would have made a superior father, and I do regret not bearing a daughter for the Goddess. Both of these understand my decision.

9

I’ve never had the least interest in having kids. (My standard joke is – "Biological clock? They failed to install one at the factory.) At 50, I’ll probably coast out my last few fertile years without incident.

10

Don’t have any and I don’t want any. I was married to a man for 6 years and raised his teenagers for him. (No, not “with” him, “for” him) That’s enough for me, thank you very much.

As an only child this kills my mother but as I’ve told her, “giving me life does not mean you get to choose how I live it” (sounds cold but it was said much more sensitively than it sounds)

I think she’s giving up since she knows it would be quite difficult for my girlfriend and I to have a baby. Lots of money, fertility drugs, turkey basters. Ugh. That’s too much like work. Adoption isn’t exactly the most feasible thing for us queers to partake in either.

I don’t mind sometimes playing with a friend’s child but I love the fact that when I’m sick of junior I can just throw him back to mama and go home. The only kids I really dig are the extrememly well-behaved, very mature for their age, highly intelligent ones and with my luck I’d get some unruly bastard that ends up in prison in spite of my exceptional parenting.

The bottom line is, I think if I had a child I would be a good parent. I would make the necessary sacrifices and then some to make sure my kid had the best chance at turning out to be a wonderful human being. That takes a lot of work and sacrificing and I’m content to live my life without all that. Some call it being selfish and I call it being honest.

What’s selfish are the people who cite as a reason for becoming parents, that they want to carry on their legacy. Talk about being full of themselves. I feel no responsibility to carry on a name or my DNA.

Oh yeah, I can also find better things to do with my vagina use it to thrust into this world a screaming bundle of flesh.

11

Wife and I are 33.

We’ve been married 5.5 years.

We have NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of having kids. There’s just no reason I want one. I like my job and my hobbies. My wife has a budding business that she enjoys running and putting 40+ hours a week into. There are about 10 trips we want to take together. We love living in the city.

I see no reason at all to bring a kid into it. She feels more strongly about than I and as time goes by we feel more and more strongly about it.

12

It is kind of weird knowing that I am the last male in my father’s line, so the name dies with me.

13

We’ve been married 7 years this week, and do not have any children, nor do we plan to have any, ever. My wife doesn’t have that maternal instinct, and I don’t have that paternal instinct. I don’t care much for kids. My wife is a piano teacher, and she gets enough of other peoples’ kids. Some of them are nice, others, she can’t wait for the lesson to be over. For me, the most repellent sound in the world, next to rap music, is a baby crying. It makes me involuntarily wince - on the bus, at the store, anywhere. You don’t know why they’re crying, they can’t tell you, there isn’t anything you can do to make them stop, and you can’t figure out what you could do to make them feel any better. Two helpless people - one screeching.

What if your kid grows up to be a thief? Or a drug abuser? Or a bully? Or antimotivated? Or just plain stupid, by choice? What if you hate your kid? I don’t want to find out about any of that. I only know how my old man dealt with everything: violence. And I am never, ever having any part of that. I think I decided in my teens that with only my father’s example to go by, I was never having kids. I’m convinced that what makes people old is the worrying and lack of sleep and the always being angry. No thanks. None for me.

The major factor is that we can’t afford to have any kids. Even if we wanted them, neither one of us can stop working to stay at home and be a parent. We aren’t out of debt yet for buying the things two people need to set up house, and we don’t own a house yet. If we were having a kid right now, all of that would go right out the window. We might never get our heads above water, never save a dime and never be homeowners.

The only question we’ve ever got about it was one day, not long after we were married, my father-in-law asked “When are you going to make us a grandbaby?” We replied “Not now, maybe never.” That’s been the extent of the questioning.

14

I’m 29 and I don’t want kids.

The major reason is I really think it’s morally wrong to bring a child into this world where there are millions of children starving both literally and for want of love and affection. If I really wanted a kid it stands morally upon me to adopt and not bear my own into an already overburderned world.

The other reason is quite simply because I like having my money in my own pocket, having my time be my own, etc. What was pointed out in that other thread by a very bright person and what often isn’t realized, is you’re not just having kids…eventually you’ll have adults and it’s YOUR responsibility to make sure they are productive members of society. Well, I choose not to take that responsibility.

Grief? Tons of it. The question is eternal, why won’t you have kids? I know his mother kind of thinks we will. My mother…I haven’t talked to her about it, but I don’t think she really expects grandkids. No, the biggest grief comes from friends & even complete strangers.

15

Not interested. Wouldn’t be any good at it, and half the time I feel like a kid myself. I would never want to screw up someone else’s life the way I feel like I’ve screwed mine up, and I’m no kind of role model. Some friends have told me I’d make a good father, but I don’t see it ever happening. This way, I’m doing my part to contribute to zero population growth, and sparing some “possible person” a life of problems.

16

No kids for us, either. Neither of us is interested, for all the reasons given above about time and money. I just can’t imagine turning over my whole life to a child.

Oddly enough, I have never gotten any grief from anyone about this. Maybe people don’t want me to reproduce. :slight_smile:

17

I’ve known since I was a teenager that I don’t want kids, and I’m coming up on 40 this summer. People always tell me that I’ll change my mind, but that just hasn’t happened. As to the why, well, there are several reasons:

[ul]
[li]I dislike kids. A lot. (And no, it wouldn’t be different if they were my own. I have enough nieces and nephews to know that.)[/li][li]6 billion of us is way too many already.[/li][li]I believe that only people who really want to spend 20+ years with children as the central focus of their lives should have them. I don’t want to do that.[/li][/ul]

18

I’m 38 with no kids and I’d love to have a whole gaggle of kids - 4 or more. But I’m a single guy and there’s almost no chance of that changing.

19

It would’ve taken all sorts of money and fertility drugs to get me pregnant.
And I have no interest in producing a litter.
Plus, as getting a new dog or cat has always assuaged my maternal impulse quite nicely, I’m obviously not the best candidate for motherhood.
Don’t me wrong-I like the little buggers-in small doses, that is.

20

I have no kids.
I want no kids.

I also want people to stop telling me that I will change my mind. It is my mind, dammit. I know what is going on in there much better than you. My signature pretty much says it all.