If there’s one thing I’ve figured out as I’ve grown older it’s that life is full of give-and-take and pros and cons. No matter which path one chooses (provided that one is lucky enough to be able to choose one’s own path) to go down that path is bound to have its ups and downs. The key is being able to cope with them as well as one can and try to stay grounded. Really, that’s about all one can hope for in life, I think. You sound like you’re trying to maintain a more-or-less even keel. Good for you.
My wife has taught me that that very thing you mentioned is a key reason why young women have problems with relationships with men. You are wise to be on the lookout but it’s a tide you’ll have a hard time holding back forever.
Quite frankly, this is one of the big reasons why I’ve never wanted to have kids.
COULDN’T agree more (my wife and I have two pugs. Though there a certain things about them that demand our attention, it’s NOTHING compared to what having kids would’ve been like - as so many posts in this thread have made aBUNdantly clear!)
Well put. Chances are very high that no matter which road your life has gone down that there are going to be things (imagined or real) about “the other road” that you’re going to miss. For most of us it’s a one-way trip to whatever befalls us in the end. To the OP I would say: “Don’t spend so much time regretting what might have been and instead focus on what is.” Doing too much of the other is an almost guaranteed path to unhappiness.
That’s a shame. I don’t think “taking care of one’s elders” is ingrained in our society as much as it is in some others. Sorry you had to bear the brunt of that burden.
Today I took my son out to a movie (I’m homeschooling him this year, we just finished Algebra for the year, this was the celebration) - and driving home we saw an Audi TT. He said “look Mom, your favorite car.”
I said “yep, if I didn’t have children, I’d have an Audi TT.”
“But aren’t they really expensive.”
“So are you.”
Oh EmAnJ. I’m so sorry. It’s wrong and it’s unfair, and I wish there were someone I could beat up for you. I’m struggling right now with the possibility of not being able to have a second child, which I realize is a much much smaller struggle, but I can empathize with mourning the giving up of a dream, the giving up of a future, and to some extent an identity, that you had always planned on and leaned on in your mind.
I know a lot of people who have chosen not to have children (though in many cases they love children, just don’t want their own), and they are able to do creative things that I just wish I could do. For example, a friend has a demanding job and just finished writing a book, which is pretty awesome. She asked me why I didn’t write a book. Well… I like to write, and have carved out some time here and there to do so. But I don’t have enough time, and can’t focus enough, to write a book.
Also, to echo the people who say you would never have to worry about being the subject of therapy, my mother recently learned that my sister went to therapy to try to deal with her feelings about my mom. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and this devastated her. She told me she’d rather not have had kids at all than to feel like she had failed like that. (My mom is also a drama queen, but still.)
A friend recently talked about how her father-in-law (whom I’ve never met, but whom she characterizes as the nicest guy in the world, and who has several children) said to her and her husband when they were expecting, “You never know what true happiness is until you have children…”
“I’ll never forget what he said after that,” my friend said. “He said, ‘…and then it’s too late.’”
Thank you Racepug. I no longer speak with my siblings, and it is really quite nice. No more drama, and I have found some peace. The best thing - I now have my Mom’s loyal dog Ollie. He is a Shih Tsu, and is really, really old. I know he does not have long (even the vet told me), but the time I have with him is so comforting. Me and Ollie have a really strong bond, that most people would not understand.
I feel bad for those who want to have children and can’t. I’ll never know whether I would have had them if things had been different but I do know that we all mourn the life we could have had. Let me add another story of one of my friends. She and her husband are wonderful people who dearly wanted a child. Her pregnancy was difficult but the baby was full-term and appeared healthy. As so often happens nowadays, however, the discovered that their child was autistic when the baby was a little over a year old. They still love their child. However, they now have a child who is about 12 or 13 but mentally less than a year, who will never be able to talk or really even communicate effectively. Their child will likely never be out of diapers. They live in a University town and have taken their child to the top experts and had the most aggressive therapy available. They have sacrificed everything for their child. This is what her life is like now. The marriage has been over for years and both she and her husband know this. However, they cannot divorce because it takes both of them to parent their child. The child currently is taller than and outweighs the mother who is unable to lift him. She cannot take him anywhere because she cannot control him on her own. She and her husband work different schedules so someone can be with her son at all times. Both sets of grandparents also help but they are getting too old and weak to handle the child. They are frightened he will run and they will be unable to catch him or he will strike out and injure one of them. Both my friend and her husband have gone through deep depressions. They are constantly panicked about what will happen if one of them loses a job or is unable to work.They have no time to themselves, and no chance of either one finding another partner. They see no option except to continue towork together to raise their child. This is not the dream either of them wanted or planned for. They have all of the work of child rearing with none of the benefits. They will never get hugs or toddler cuddles or an “I love you”. Forget worrying about who will take care of them in their old age-they worry about what will happen to their son in their old age. So-even for those who can have children and want those children, sometimes they don’t end up with the life they envisioned.
Based on my situation, there is nothing I could say about any benefits that would be helpful. But I did want to send you a hug - it really sucks to not be able to do something you so desperately want, especially when others seem to be able to do so with ease.
I hope your time off the rollercoaster will bring you some peace and the strength to take the next step, whatever it is. There are pros and cons to any path, whether the path is chosen or foisted upon you - but I firmly believe people can choose a happy life of joy and love or choose a sad life of regret. I wish you a happy life, either way 
Forgive me for asking this but part of the reason we have children is out of family obligation. To keep the family line going.
So I have to ask, do you feel any obligations from parents or other older family members to have children and if you do, how are you handling them?
One thng that I’ve noticed about a lot of parents, especially moms, is they always seem kind of pissed off. Maybe it’s the stress of working and being a parent, but a lot of moms in my office seem pretty unhappy. I’m sure it’s just a different kind of happiness, or the timing of when it kicks in might be different, but I don’t think I want to trade with them.
I’m really sorry to hear about it. I can relate.
After we lost our first son, and the second pregnancy was a miscarriage, I talked about this very thing with a good friend, who is a father.
Having children can be very rewarding and meaningful, but so can a lot of other things in life.
We did wind up with kids and I’ve got my horror stories as sleepless nights. I did find that learning how to exclusively mouth breath can prevent the dry heaves when cleaning up the mess.
We’re going through the second stage of the terrible twos (which often hit at 3 1/2). Suddenly every damn shirt and pants are “too big” and result in screaming. Every damn one.
My 5-year-old discovered that rocks and scratch the insides of the windows on the car. Fun.
Remember, insanity is hereditary, you get it from your kids.
Wow. Yeah. So many things in life have risk inherent in them. Having kids is no exception.
Mrs. Homie and I weren’t able to have kids. In retrospect, I think we dodged several bullets.
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We didn’t have to make a decision on vaccinations. Mrs. Homie is dead-set against them; I’m a libertarian who sure as hell doesn’t believe in forced vaccinations, but I sure as hell would have wanted mine vaccinated.
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We didn’t have to stress over school. Neither of us would have wanted our kids in [del]public[/del] government schools, and the cost of private school tuition would have been out of the question for us. That would have left home-schooling as our only option; Mrs. Homie doesn’t feel like she’d have been qualified to do it herself. I, on the other hand, would have just taken a less-is-more approach and let them learn on their own. I guess you could call it “un-schooling;” which likely would have brought up a whole host of issues with the State of Illinois and their child welfare bureaucracies.
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Didn’t have to deal with overbearing grandparents. My brother complains to me pretty frequently about how all up in his business our mom is w/r/t his kids. Glad I dodged that bullet.
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I feel like I am not accountable to anyone for what I watch on the TV, what games I play on the computer (or how often I play them), etc. I can watch Game of Thrones at 2:00 PM on a Saturday afternoon and not have to worry about little Will or little Grace seeing something they shouldn’t.
Psychobunny, my SO’s daughter is in a somewhat similar situation with her eight year-old son. I don’t think he’s in as bad a shape as your friend’s son, but there’s no hope he’ll ever be independent, and will always need care. He also has anger issues. They’re very fortunate that the marriage is stable and they’re well-off financially, but that’s always there-their kid will always have significantly diminished mental capacity, and they’ll have to care for him the rest of their lives. As well as make arrangements for after they’re gone.
It’s such a strange thing because in some ways the kid is brilliant. He can take apart computers and put them back together. He has a photographic memory and can type the text of any of his books on request, but he has almost zero social skills or any ability to care for himself, like brushing his teeth or getting dressed. He just can’t figure out how to do them.
I just wanted to check in because this was such a wonderful response and I really want to express my appreciation. Thank you.
I spent Easter weekend with my family, which includes my 2.5 year old niece and six month old nephew (same mom - one of my two sisters). I also spent some time talking to my sister without children yet, who is also infertile for other reasons and is pursuing private adoption, and my mom. I observed my sister the mom, and how different her life is from mine - in good ways and bad.
I feel like I’m coming around to the idea of not having kids. I mean, I’ve been slowly confronting this possible eventuality for years, but in the beginning, couldn’t do so without crying. Even when I started this thread, I wasn’t where I am now. Today I can think of this possibility without tears and with logic (though this might change around the time I get my period each month and hormones rage). My sister who is a mom has a rough life. Granted, she also has some psychological and financial issues that compound things, but man, her life is busy and sort of sad. She has little time to work on herself and I know that must be very hard on her. However, spending time with my niece was a blast - she’s communicating well and is a hugger and kisser. She loves me and I love her. I could envision being that aunt that provides the life experiences that mom and dad don’t have the time or money to provide. That excites me.
I have come around to the idea that worrying about old age and about my in-laws grandparent status is not something that needs be a big burden on my shoulders. As many of you wrote in this thread, old age can be planned for, and should be, because you never know what kind of kids you’ll end up with. My in-laws will just have to be content with spending time with their sibling’s grandchildren instead (which they already do). Like many of you and my husband said, that’s not my burden to bear.
So thanks, I appreciate all the varied stories and kind words. We’ll likely do our transfer of our two existing frozen embryos once I get this abnormal cell business taken care of because I just can’t dispose of them, but I’ll be ok with the outcome either way, and I think that will probably just be the end of our journey. I know that one day I will look back on this phase of my life and know that things worked out just fine. It’s just a rough ride getting there.
Childless by choice here. I always thought the desire to have kids would eventually come to me, but as I’ve aged, my desire to not have them has only increased.
I think the thread has outlined it well. Money, health, freedom, time, hobbies and your relationship with your spouse can all be better.
You can choose your own friends rather than simply inheriting the parents of your kids’ friends as your friends.