After reading the thread that bernse started about carrying on the family name, I got to thinking (and that’s always dangerous). I had a conversation with DRY the other day about the fact that many of his female board friends do not want children, myself included. It seems from this other thread that there are a lot of guys who feel the same way.
Now, my reasons for not wanting children are many and I won’t list them all here, nor all the unpleasant ways people think about people who don’t want kids. But I just wanted a forum (here between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day) to discuss the feelings of all of us that I’ve laughingly labeled “anti-moms” or “anti-dads”.
I’ll just say that I feel no burning desire to be a parent, I like my lifestyle and my marriage just the way they are, and that I’m not going to have kids just because someone else feels like I should.
I have nothing but respect for those who choose to have children. I’m glad someone wants to do it, 'cause I’d hate for it to be left up to me. So what’s your feelings, folks?
Oh, and happy belated Mother’s Day to all you Moms, and an early happy Father’s Day to the Dads. I think you are all great!
I dig the “I like my lifestyle and marriage just the way they are” thought. My wife and I feel the same way. No kids - just dogs - and we haven’t even gotten around to getting any of those yet.
[hijack}
I can’t say I have nothing but respect for those who choose to have kids. It seems to me the vast majority of people out there have kids because they’re “supposed to” or by accident. These people raise hellish little spawn that scream in restaurants, act like they’re precious little jewels everyone is supposed to admire and suffer WAY over-inflated self-esteem. They all also seem to be named after states or strippers: Dakota, Virginia, Britney, Tiffany, etc.
I don’t hate kids conceptually, but I certainly do detest most of the little demonoids I run into in the course of everyday life. What the heck are parents thinking taking their precious little devil monkey into a restaurant where the average check is more than $30 per person. They just have no business there. Don’t get me started on taking infants to the movies. If you can’t splurge the $15 for a babysitter for three hours, you shouldn’t pop the cash on movie tickets.
Lastly, I am always impressed when I see parents out with well behaved children. You know the ones, they are polite and respectful, talk but don’t bellow and all that. I have nothing against kids acting like kids (hey, I was one and still am in a lot of ways), but there’s a difference between being a child and being a jerk. I always make a point of telling the parents of good children I encounter how well-behaved their child is and thank them for doing a good job.
Basically I am too selfish for children. I like that I can wake up on Saturday morning and say “Hey, I don’t think I want to be here today, I’d prefer to be way the fuck over there” and just get up and go.
I like that I can go see a movie on 3 minutes notice. I like that I have the extra cash that I can eat out every night if the fancy strikes. I like that my wife and I can have sex in any room at any time. I like not having to hide the porn or floggers.I like that I can say “fuck” “shit” and “cocksucker” in the privacy of my living room.
I like not having to know where another person is every damn moment of the day. I like staying up until 5 am and then sleeping until noon. I like the fact that I am not invited to parties for other peoples children. I like that coworkers correctly assume I have no interest in looking at pictures of their own children.
I like being able to ignore Christmas and birthdays. I like being able to select my apartments based on proximity to a good Thai restaurant rather than proximity to a good public school. I like that I will never have to dig a Barbie doll out of a toilet or a Light Bright peg out of a nose.
I like that I get to be me and not Dad. I like kids, I just like the ability to walk away from them more.
One of the things that attracted Spouse and I to each other was our firm resolve NOT to breed – we’d each come to that decision many years before, but for differing reasons.
Mind you, we like kids – well behaved ones, that is. And we love our nieces and nephews (both by blood and by marriage). But we also love our privacy and our freedom.
For me, the age of 30 was the cutoff. After that, the desire was completely eliminated. Luckily, my younger sister had children by that time so my parents weren’t giving me the “When will you produce grandkids, already?” look. And we’ve told our families we will NOT be producing any grandkids – heck, raising each other is hard enough!!
Ditto for me on “I like my lifestyle and marriage the way they are,” and the selfishness thing too. I never had a strong maternal instinct. (For that matter, I never really liked going with the flow, which is partly why I didn’t change my name when I got married.) Also, Mr. Scarlett was 34 when we got married (first time for both of us; I was 23), and as the youngest of seven kids, he’d already spend time helping his mom raise some of his nieces and nephews while his sister was out doing whatever the hell she was doing instead of raising her kids. Plus he knew what it was like to have “old” parents, and he doesn’t want to repeat the process. He’s 45 now, and can barely get himself out of bed some mornings, much less chase a kid around.
Mind you, we like kids – some specific kids. Heck, we like to ACT like kids. But we don’t go ga-ga over babies or kids in general. (However, we do pretty much fall to pieces over just about any type of puppy.) I have a friend who’s a single mom with two pretty neat kids, and it’s fun to play auntie and uncle – get them fun things for Christmas, borrow them for a trip to the waterpark, and so on. For a while we were even “sponsoring” the older one in piano lessons that her mother couldn’t otherwise afford. It takes a village and all that.
Meanwhile, puppydog Phyllis (and her yard-dog buddies) keep us young and silly, without wearing us down like a kid would. We can put her in her crate if she gets TOO crazy!
Yeah, add me to the list. Never wanted kids, ever. I have all the maternal instincts of Joan Crawford on a bad career day. Several reasons why I shall remain childless:
• Too damn old, at this point, anyway.
• Too lazy and selfish and set in my ways.
• Who the hell can afford to bring them up properly? From what I understand, you have to feed them and clothe them and send them to college! I can barely afford to keep MYSELF.
• Just can’t TALK to them. I have nothing against children, but veiled sarcasm and early 20th-century pop culture references seem to be lost on them.
One of my best friends has a six-year-old, though, and I hope to be her Auntie Mame.
I don’t want children. I never have. There has not been one single moment in the entire spectrum of my life where I’ve had what could even remotely be referred to as a spark of maternal instinct. I would sell my uterus on ebay if they’d let me.
What really gets my goat are the people who, upon hearing about my decision to remain childless, get this smug and all-knowing smile on their visage and in exceedingly condescending and patronizing tones, never fail to utter these words: “Oh, you’ll change your mind when you meet the right person.” :rolleyes:
I’m with obfusciatrist on this one. I like my freedom and independence. I like being self-centered. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone except myself. I barely have patience for the cat, let alone some creature that’s going to cling to me for every need for the next 18+ years.
I think that raising children is an enormous task, and it is of the utmost importance. It just happens to be a task that I’m honest with myself enough about to realize that I’m not cut out for. I think that if you choose to bring a child into this world, that child should be your unquestioned number one priority at all times. I had a conversation with a former boss of mine who was trying to become pregnant, and I was aghast when she casually says “I fully intend to get back to work as soon as I can after the baby’s born…I could never be just a Mommy.” My jaw nearly fell to the floor…with an attitude like that, I felt sorry for the children she didn’t even yet have. Yes, I’m aware that not everyone is able to stay home with their kids…it was this woman’s presumption that being “just” a parent would somehow lessen her societal value that was shocking to me. As a sidebar, I might mention that some higher power must have been listening in on that particular conversation…this woman did, in fact, become pregnant about a month after that conversation. She lost the baby a week before her due date. Talk about karma.
I’ve never wanted kids. Just never did. I was an only child and a lot of my parents’ friends didn’t have any kids. I was actually more used to relating to adults as a child than I was to other kids. So maybe that’s why.
My husband doesn’t want kids either (good thing, eh?) but he does like kids and relates to the older ones. He’s a middle school teacher. I think he gets enough of kids during his job!
I’ve never felt the need to apologize to anyone for not wanting children. It’s no one else’s damn business, and the last time I looked there were more than enough people in the world.
Too expensive, too time-consuming, and in a room full of people, they always get all the attention. (Hey, I want all the attention!)
I do like other people’s kids, though, if they are well-behaved. I can hang out with those kids, and when I get tired of hanging, give 'em back to their parents.
It works out fine.
(Plus, I don’t know too many adults who like to make fart jokes or have belching contests, so I kind of have to turn to kids for that kind of entertainment.)
How funny this should appear. I was going to add more in bernse’s thread about this topic, but didn’t think it would be appropriate.
I agree with everyone here. I have absolutely no desire to have any kids. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids…when they are well behaved. Sadly, many kids that I see act like terrorists in training, and their parents appear to not give a crap. Perhaps an offended parent reading this may wonder if I think I can do a better job as a parent. I don’t, and that’s why I don’t have kids.
I was fairly well-behaved as a child, but I also did my share of getting into trouble and breaking stuff. I choose not to deal with that as an adult.
I laugh when I hear people bitching and moaning about their money problems, yet they have 2 or 3 kids, and are looking to have more. Hey, it was your decision to have kids, not mine.
If you musthave kids, can you at least keep it at two? Don’t we have enough people on a planet with limited resources? And if you can barely pay your rent, WTF are you doing having children? Is your “precious seed” so valuable that it must be spread?
I also do not like the fact that it’s perfectly ok for people at work to come in late, or leave early, or even work from home, simply because a child is sick or has some sort of medical appointment. I could never get away with that. And don’t even get me started on the people who bring their kids into work. I’d bring my dog in, but he’s not allowed. At least he’d sleep quietly all day in my cube.
I guess I’m just tired of relatives and friends constantly dropping digs about why I don’t have kids. Like I said in the other thread, unless you plan on raising them for me, shut the hell up. It’s really none of your business.
Nope. No kids. Don’t want any. Although I did have a wistful moment today when I was pondering my life and the lack of accomplishments. At least when one has a child they can say, “Look at what I made,” whether that is a good thing or not. . . .well. . . And I’ll admit that is a rather poor reason to bring a life into the world.
Nah. Still don’t want kids. If I did though, I’m sure my brother would loan me one of his 4 untill the desire passed.
But I have to say that this is just about the most witless, heartless thing I have ever seen posted on this board:
“…I could never be just a Mommy.” My jaw nearly fell to the floor…with an attitude like that, I felt sorry for the children she didn’t even yet have. Yes, I’m aware that not everyone is able to stay home with their kids…it was this woman’s presumption that being “just” a parent would somehow lessen her societal value that was shocking to me. As a sidebar, I might mention that some higher power must have been listening in on that particular conversation…this woman did, in fact, become pregnant about a month after that conversation. She lost the baby a week before her due date. Talk about karma."
Though I may eventually change my mind, I don’t want to have kids. It’s not a whim to say that, I’ve felt like this for three years so far- before that I was too young to even have an inkling of what sort of responsiblity being a parent is.
My problem is that people just don’t get it. They say to me " You working with love kids, how can you not want any of your own?" I do like children, yes. I like preschoolers, and hopefully after my temporary stint as standarized test scorer, I’ll be teaching preschool. However, I don’t like babies, and I’m not terribly fond of older children either. I have no desire to live with a child, or raise one. either. Oh, there are lots of reasons why I don’t see parenthood as a good idea in my case, my own childhood not being the least of them, but they never listen long enough for me to explain. I think it’s odd that even other twentysomethings find one’s desire not to reproduce to be unnatural, given how many of the same ones to express their disbelief are worried about overpopulation…
The best reason to never have kids is that every object in your house will not become coated with that nasty sticky child goo that seems to be present in the house of everybody I’ve ever known with kids.
I, too, have never wanted children, from as young as 14-15 I told my family or anyone if the topic came up that I had no desire to be a parent.
If I had a dollar for everytime I heard, “You’ll change your mind when you’re older” I could retire right now a very wealth woman.
Ok, people, I’m 31 years old. Is that old enough to know my own mind? :rolleyes:
I’ve mentioned in another thread quite sometime ago that I think I’m missing that “maternal gene”. I don’t go all gooey over infants, infact, until they can start walking and talking I don’t really want much to do with children at all.
That may seem heartless, but at least I’m honest with myself and everyone else and don’t have kids anyway. My cousin had kids when neither he, nor his wife, really wanted them. They had three and there isn’t one that doesn’t have severe emotional problems from being neglected their whole lives.
I think that is a far worse “crime” than not having children at all.
I decided a long time ago that I’d just make a lousy dad. I didn’t have all that good a role model, and I didn’t see much room for my overcoming my genetic programming. There’s a lot of the “selfish” thing that obfusciatrist mentioned, too, at work in this decision. I like not having to hide my porn. I like not having to hide my liquor. I like not having to explain, while sober, why the sky is blue.
Realizing my feelings about being a parent were highly unlikely to change with time, I did the only rational thing I could do. I got myself daddy-proofed. Yes, it hurt. But I can tell you this: the pain didn’t last 18 years.
Sorry, Sunshine, but if I’ve got the money to pay 30 bucks a head, I’ll pay for any head I like no matter what the size. Until you can talk the House and the Senate into demonizing parenting like they have smoking, I’ll continue to take my argumentative 6 year old daughter wherever I like, if I’m paying. Don’t like it? Go someplace where they have one of those circle-with-a-line signs with a kid. Don’t like the movies with babies? Don’t go to one before 9:00. Most parents are too tired after that.
Listen, Sparky, just because my wife and I chose to reproduce doesn’t make us second-class citizens. We don’t have the responsibility to you to pay extra to go to dinner or a movie. You don’t like kids? Stay home.
I don’t care if you like kids or not. I don’t care what you think of my kid. You’re in a public place; deal with it or start a business where kids aren’t allowed.
