My partner doesn't want children....

JoolzS

Atomised wrote: »

Majority usually means more than half so the word most was correctly used so I think you misread my post
I know women older than you (one is 50 , the other 44) who have decided not to have children so I don't understand your claim that younger people have it easier.

Younger people now have it easier because they are aware at a young age that it is completely acceptable to not have children - they don't have to wonder if they are strange to not have a paternal/maternal desire. At my age it was always assumed that I would have at least one child (I even presumed that I would have to have at least one) - and I will admit to always assuming that everyone I knew would also have children, until I eventually learnt differently.

Young people today know that it is a real choice - and I'm very happy for them.

Younger people also have it easier because contraception is so easily available and there is absolutely no stigma attached (that I know of) to using it. Also, the "having it all" myth for women has been pretty much resoundly beaten back to where it belongs.

It's going to be even better for the current young generation because their parents (if educated) won't be "demanding" grandchildren from their own children. I've lost track of the number of childfree people I know online who still feel guilty because their parents really, really want grandchildren. I got lucky in that my mum is quite happy to never be a grandmother.

Julie

iamanalias

Here's another angle for you. What if you thought your whole life that you didn't want children and built a life based on that, despite people telling you that you "just needed to find the right woman/man".

So you marry and have a brilliant life (without kids). Then someone crosses your path that makes you want their children. But you can't have that person (married). And you don't want children with your wife/husband (they don't mind either way). What should you do?

alyth

If the other person is married then quite frankly you shouldn't be having them anyway! Concentrate on your own marriage/partnership and if that comes to a natural conclusion then look for someone who you could have children with. That way the married person's family doesn't get hurt!

squirrelchops

But what about adopting children if you are too old to biologically have one or is it the whole preganancy and birth thing that is seen as the important factor too? I have never been overly into having children and to be honest I am still not. However, being with a lovely man who wants children has made me think 'ok go on we will'. However, say we split up and i end up single I would go one fo 2 ways if I din't find the right man but decded I wanted a child. I would either go the donor route or adopt. I think nowadays we have choices that people have died for the right for women to be able to make.

However, I still found myself recently at the end of an interrogation by some women who had 4 children each really really aggressively questionning me when i said that I may only want 1 child. I thought 'for f***s sake...what happened to womens lib and being able to choose what happens to our bodies'.

Sorry to go a bit off topic but I get cross when I am told what i can or cannot do!!!

leesa.ere

Hiya,
I have been faced with that emptyness and the rejection that a partner doesnt want that special bond with you, i chose him as i had 2 boys from a previous marriage. It hasnt changed the emptyness, rejection festers inside me and resentment has started to grow.
Thats my experience.

Children are hard work especially if like me you find yourself a lone parent but i wouldnt swop it for the world. Skint, knackered, no free time to myself, get the picture???
Im so proud of my boys and they are mine forever. That unconditional love is priceless.

Good luck for the future x

iamanalias

alyth wrote: »

If the other person is married then quite frankly you shouldn't be having them anyway! Concentrate on your own marriage/partnership and if that comes to a natural conclusion then look for someone who you could have children with. That way the married person's family doesn't get hurt!

Wrong stick dear :rolleyes: There is no affair. This is a work colleague that has made someone (a friend of mine) question whether or not they want children when they have always thought they didn't. Friend is mid 30s and in a spin about it. She's never wanted children with her husband and is now very confused about her feelings about children. She doesn't know whether to try for them with her husband, leave and hope to find someone who reaffirms her desire for children before it's too late, or to continue life with her husband childless.