# Will my Biological Clock tick? Want Kids? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 3, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739 "2016-05-03T00:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/101 "2016-05-06T18:25:44Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > I remember years ago in family circle or one of those type of mags someone posted an article on how the couple adopted a kid she didn’t want and pretty much didn’t care about one way or the other now > > I didn’t read the article but they printed the letters in response (and even made the note that there was tons more that were so violently written they couldn’t print them) and **they excoriated the woman pretty badly** I guess it was a anon "my experience one page essay type of things Yeah, that wouldn’t happen here on the Dope. Here it’s socially acceptable to dislike your own children and you’re welcome to join the mob of people shouting down the loving parents. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/102 "2016-05-06T18:42:18Z")
> [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Yeah, that wouldn’t happen here on the Dope. Here it’s socially acceptable to dislike your own children and you’re welcome to join the mob of people shouting down the loving parents. 😃 I don’t think anyone is shouting down the loving parents. I am a loving parent of 2 amazing teenagers. They get excellent grades, are responsible, polite & loving and they are by far the best things that have ever happened to me and my husband. I would do it all over again in a second. But not everyone has that experience. Toddlers are ALL cute and adorable and impossible not to love. But teenagers are another story. I know parents of teens who are pulling their hair out with difficult teens who get addicted to drugs, ditch school, stay out all night, etc. Some of these parents may well say that if they could go back in time, they _wouldn’t_ do it all over. That does not mean they hate their children or are mentally ill. That is the point people here are trying to get across to you. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/103 "2016-05-06T18:50:07Z")
> [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Yeah, that wouldn’t happen here on the Dope. Here it’s socially acceptable to dislike your own children and you’re welcome to join the mob of people shouting down the loving parents. 😃 Once again, I do not dislike my children. I do not regret having children. I just don’t know if I’d do it again if I had to do it over. It is a hella lotta work, there is a lot of stress, there is a lot of joy, but also worry and disappointment (what do you mean a C; you are capable of much better!). They take a lot of money (college is very expensive - and financial aid for middle class people means parental loans. And we just put $600 into baseball and drama for the Spring - plus our insurance has gone up $3000 a year. Vacation means four plane tickets and feeding a seventeen year old boy. And here I will say that we are some of the very few people who can actually afford our children - I have two private school educations funded - for us there has been no financial burden). And all that is assuming you have fairly normal trouble free kids - not perfect ones that get into Harvard and never give you a moments worry - but normal ones. If you have a kid who is special needs, if you have twins or triplets, if you have a kid who gets pregnant at sixteen, or needs rehab, or is suicidal, or fails out of high school, or is prone to violence - now the stress/worry/ money is even harder (although if they fail out of high school, you won’t need the money you saved for college.) And it assumes that your relationship stays in place. If your partner leaves you or dies - add more. Those are the sorts of things most people don’t think of when they are so far our and you are just “on the fence” about even doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/104 "2016-05-06T21:42:54Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > So strange that someone so young is so manipulative! Does he take after someone in the family? You are walking a line with the personal insults. Leave it out of this thread and forum. > [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Not wanting kids is one thing. **Having living, breathing kids and wishing they never existed sounds like a symptom of your mental health issues.** Best wishes that it gets better for you. > [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > On a semi-related note, today is my son’s second birthday! 🙂 He started his day by noticing his birthday cupcakes and asking for a bite, then luring me into spending some time playing with him before my shower with promises of a smooch (which are always withdrawn once I’m within about 5 feet of him). Little manipulator! I love every moment with the little bug. > [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Yeah, that wouldn’t happen here on the Dope. **Here it’s socially acceptable to dislike your own children** and you’re welcome to join the mob of people shouting down the loving parents. 😃 (Bolding mine.) This is starting to look a lot like trolling to me. I’m not sure if you’re deliberately misreading what is being said in this thread, but it needs to stop. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/105 "2016-05-07T00:35:56Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > This is somewhat depressing to hear. I’ve read how women do more housework ([here’s a cite for those interested](http://www.thenation.com/article/why-it-matters-women-do-most-housework/)) but that stinks that even with both of you aware of it and fighting it, it’s still deeply ingrained. Do you and your husband have any specific ways that you try to get things more balanced? For whatever it’s worth, I don’t do much housekeeping–he does that. It’s the childcare that seems to end up mostly my responsibility whenever I am home. We do a lot of things to keep it more balanced–I go out to happy hour every couple of weeks, meet friends for lunch, that sort of thing, and he never, ever complains. I also leave sometimes on Sunday afternoon to sit in a coffee shop and read. The other thing we figured out is that it’s okay for me to just go to bed. One of the reasons I tend to end up the primary parent is that I am by nature a morning person–pre-kid, I went to bed at 9 and slept till 4:30-5:00. Our son tends to keep basically the same hours, so I never catch a break. It took him a long time to realize (and me a long time to realize he didn’t realize) that there are a lot of nights that I really wanted to go to bed at 8:30 but felt like I had to stay up for bedtime because bedtime was my job. Now if I am wiped out by a long day, I just go to bed and let him handle it. But it’s still really hard for me to kick the idea that after he’s had the kid all day, it’s totally my job to take over and give him a break. I feel like I have to justify not doing so, and I don’t think my dad ever felt that way when my mom was a SAHM. ---
**Author:** ![XaMcQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f9ae1b/32.png) [@XaMcQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XaMcQ)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739/106 "2016-05-07T02:30:31Z")
Your attitude towards having kids sounds a lot like mine. I knew from around age twelve that there were too many people around already, and that if I ever did develop the urge to be a parent, there were thousands of kids who would be needing a home. I married a man who didn’t want kids either, due to an unhappy childhood. There was a point in our twenties when we had cause to question our decision, but we wound up sticking to the plan, and neither of us regrets it. I am a little sorry that my parents didn’t get to be grandparents, since that would have made them very happy, but there’s no way I would have ever done it for just that reason. There have been a few times when I had idle daydreams of what our lives might have been like with kids (VERY DIFFERENT) but I have never developed the ‘ticking biological clock’, or regretted the way our lives have turned out. Only you can decide what’s right for you, but imo, if you have a kid, that kid becomes the priority in your life. Parenting comes before your job, before your hobbies, before your marriage even. You say your potential partner wants kinds more than you, but there is no guarantee that the relationship will work out, or that he will not die unexpectedly, leaving you a single parent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-biological-clock-tick-want-kids/753739.md?page=5)