Why should I have children???

Lily-Rose_3

dirty_magic wrote: »

I agree with you Lily Rose. A lot of child free people use the 'the world is full' thing to explain why they don't want children. I think it's a way of justifying it to themselves. If you don't want kids that's fine, but it's not selfish to want to reproduce, it's nature!

I'm not very maternal myself, but I understand why people are. A lot of people don't understand people that aren't though! I've been told I'll be a sad lonely old woman and that I'm selfish for not wanting kids. I don't know why everything has to turn into an 'us against them', just live and let live!

:T Good post.

I for one have NEVER had a go at people for not having kids, but I had plenty of child-free people attacking me as a mother, (when I first had our daughter, and up until she was about 4 or 5.) They would tell me all the reasons why they have not had children, like they needed to justify it, and they'd claim that I was 'sad' and a bit of a loser and 'wrong' to have children, and that I will now have no life, no money, no holidays, no nothing.

Our money situation has been no different with having our daughter (now 20) to what it would have been without her.

We have had holidays abroad, we have been homeowners, we have had nice cars, and more or less anything when we wanted it over the years. We have money problems sometimes sure, but no more than we did when we were child-free. (We had our daughter in our early 30s.)

If anything, 18 years of being homeowners robbed us of a ton more money than having a child ever did, with all the multiple 10s of 1000s we had to pay out in repairs and maintenance!

We didn't even want kids when we met at around 21, and at around 29/30, luckily, we both changed our minds at roughly the same time.

Once we had our daughter, our child free friends were vile to us. 4 or 5 couples we knew, no longer bothered with us, as we had 'let the side down.' We made many new friends who also had kids, and later on (when our daughter was about 3 or 4,) we made new child free friends. It was the ones who were child- free and knew US as child free who were nasty when we had a baby. Some comments from them were actually quite evil and spiteful. I never understood it because I was never mean to people with kids when *I* was child-free.

As I said though, saying people are selfish for having children is a ridiculous comment.

And as you say, dirty magic, I do not understand why there is such vitriol between child-free folk and parents.

EssexExile

Married 38 years, neither of us wanted kids so we never had any. I've no idea if we could. When we were young all our friends were starting families so we obviously discussed it but it seemed the only reason we'd have them was because everyone else was. It didn't seem a very good reason. One half wanting & the other half not - now that's a hard one.

We're are really happy with our decision. We have friends with children & friends without but have had no problems with them. Going back a long time, we didn't want kids at our wedding so we didn't invite any. Two of my cousins took umbrage & didn't speak to us for years. Now when we meet at funerals (we're at that time of life now) there's no mention of it & we all get on. We probably wouldn't have seen much of them anyway, you choose friends but you're stuck with relatives.

supersaver2

I have a large circle of friends, some with children, some without and one couple going through hell to have a child. It's an entirely personal choice to have them and if you raise them correctly it is the most selfless things you will ever do. I dislike this new trend to refer to parents as 'selfish' and 'breeders' as mentioned on this thread and many others. We have an ageing population and need the offspring of these 'selfish breeders' to become future tax payers, carers, nurses etc to look after us all in our old age.

fairy_lights

I agree that having children is selfish, but then so is being child free out of choice. I don't think selfishness is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to such major life choices - it would be terrible to have children you don't want (or not have children you do want) just because you think it is the right thing to do or what's best for society. Decisions about having kids need to be based primarily on what you want out of life, so have to be selfish, and that's ok.

catkins

Having children is selfish really because someone only has a child because they want one not for any good for the country/world or whatever.


I have actually had people tell me they had a child to:


save their relationship
look after them when they are older
get their boyfriend to marry them


Of course not everyone has them for those sort of pathetic reasons but I don't see it as an unselfish thing to do. It also saddens me how many people have children but regret it which could also be classed as selfish.


I don't really see how not having children is selfish. Me and OH chose not to have any but not so we would have more money or more holidays or anything like that

catkins

fizz wrote: »

Yes I agree as I never thought/wanted/desired children but then the tick-tock started and I could hear it ALL the time:rotfl:

She turned me from a totally selfish person...I was all me.me.me...into a person who put someone else's needs above mine. That was the strangest experience.

If you don't have the tick-tock...don't have kids:D

So having a child turned you into a saint did it? I doubt it.


You either want children or you don't - the tick tock thing is ridiculous

Lily-Rose wrote: »

And I can't believe what I am reading from some posters on here, including the OP. Having children is selfish? I have read some bizarre posts on here, but this takes the biscuit!

That comment simply does not make sense, and is clearly a very feeble attempt by the child-free, to try to discredit people who have children.

Not a feeble attempt by the child free to discredit people. I have no problem with others having children but it certainly is a selfish choice

dirty_magic wrote: »

I agree with you Lily Rose. A lot of child free people use the 'the world is full' thing to explain why they don't want children. I think it's a way of justifying it to themselves. If you don't want kids that's fine, but it's not selfish to want to reproduce, it's nature!

I'm not very maternal myself, but I understand why people are. A lot of people don't understand people that aren't though! I've been told I'll be a sad lonely old woman and that I'm selfish for not wanting kids. I don't know why everything has to turn into an 'us against them', just live and let live!

Why would the child free have to "justify" it to themselves? Me and OH chose not to have children and have never regretted despite so many people desperate to tell us we would. Been very happily married for over 30 years (unlike just about all our friends with children).


The planet and this country IS full whether you like it or not and that was JUST ONE reason we chose not to have children. What reason is there for having children other than I/we WANT one?

Lily-Rose_3

Literally shaking my head in disbelief at the 2 posts above ^^^

What worries me Catkins, is that I do believe that you are actually being serious.

For the record, I have never met ONE SINGLE PERSON who 'regrets' having children.

I think you just want to believe that people do.

Gloomendoom

Hmmm... I don't have children and a couple of people have confided in me that, given their time again, they would not have had them either.

Other people having children doesn't bother me at all. As somebody else said, live and let live.

BritAbroad

I've certainly met people who've regretted having children, and who've confided that if they had their time again they would choose not to have kids. I think they've felt more comfortable confiding in a child-free person rather than in another parent, as it seems to be a taboo.

I don't feel the need to justify my choice to be child-free, but equally I don't feel I should have to hide or gloss over my choice either. If my choice in how to live my life makes other people uncomfortable, that's tough. It's not something I make I thing of, but if someone asks me if I have children I will say 'no, I'm child-free'. I don't consider the question offensive, neither is the answer, but some people seem to see it as a challenge.

I've had a lot of people give me the 'you'll change your mind/it's different when they're your own/who'll look after you when you're old/etc etc'. For a long time I used to just laugh it off, until one day when someone (with a toddler) wouldn't leave it alone. I snapped and told her 'you'll change your mind'. It was absolutely the right thing to do, and it actually put our friendship back on a much more equal footing.

Interesting that some parents feel their child-free friends aren't interested any more, because as a child-free person I feel the same way! I've been dropped completely by people when they become parents. It's very hurtful. They only want to socialise with other parents and when they resurface a few years later they're annoyed that I've moved on. Or there's the parents who want to keep in touch but their sole topic of conversation is their child. They show no interest in what's happening in my life and it all becomes very one-sided. I tend to let those friendships slide quietly.

seven-day-weekend

TBH, I never ask people why they don't (or do) have children. It's none of my business and it's personal and private (and sometimes very upsetting) to them. If they want me to know they will tell me.

I have been queried as to why we only have one child. I don't think that is anyone's business either.

We intended to be child-free, but at about thirty felt differently and had our son. We never had the urge strongly enough again and I had problems with the pregnancy which would have occurred again, so decided one was enough.

He's now almost 35. He's an only child, his partner is an only child. My husband is an only child and my two sisters were so much older than me that I was in the position of an only child. I personally liked it.

I don't think not having children or having them is selfish, if the decision is made as to what is right for the couple concerned.