How do you know if you want kids?

How do you know if you want kids?

I am a few years shy of 40. He is approaching 50. We've been together 8 or 9 years. When we met, he wanted kids and I didn't. Later on, I think I became more open to the idea of kids, but he had decided he didn't want them.

He just came home from a visit with his nieces and nephews and says he wants kids. Multiple. This is the first time he has mentioned this in years.

I have no idea how to process this. I have never had a burning desire to have children. At certain points in my life I have been open to and intrigued by the idea. Now it feels like a 'now or never' point considering my age - and this could be a deal breaker in terms of our relationship.

Well to answer your question: you just know. I always wanted children. I always wanted more than one, that didn't happen. But I still want children, am too old though. Now I want grandchildren.

But yeah. I heard people change their minds but never met no one like that. In my experience you either want Kids or you don't

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I can think of one friend who was a never-have-kids person who changed into a really-want-kids person (and eventually a mother). Her turnaround happened after she found religion.

I don't know. I am very ambivalent. I don't see how people make these kinds of decisions. I can't even decide what kind of car to buy.

I found it incredible how I can become pregnant, give birth, and raise my own baby, I wanted to experience all that. Everyday I see my child and think to myself that this is amazing... I wasn't smart to start a family at that point in my life but I do not regret it. My whole world changed. There's these milestones I think about; travel, school, job, husband, house, and baby was definitely one of them. It could be my biological clock ticking, I learned that fertility declines and I'd be considered high risk at 35, around 24 is an optimal age for quicker recovery and healthy baby- don't mean to offend anyone. still doesn't mean old.

So that's me, I felt something was missing and dang did my child fill up my schedule!

I know you aren't being serious, but desire to have children and other decisions like buying property or cars Etc aren't even in the same category.

But there are plenty of people who don't want kids and there is nothing wrong with that.

Make a list or pro and con and see which one makes more sense

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I figure that buying a car/house is a low risk decision. You can sell it if it turns out you don't like it, and it's not permanent. If I have a hard time making a low risk decision, how can I make a decision like this?

Jan, it sounds like having a baby was always something you wanted?

Hvert, my advice would be for you to think long and hard about it and make a firm decision. It's ok not to have kids if you decide not to. And if you do want to, now is the time. Whatever you decide, be at peace with it.

I have very hard time making decisions in life. But that was just natural thing, but I also was very young, didn't know much.

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I think you just know. I have always known that I want kids. It's never been a question. My sister, on the other hand, has never wanted kids. She just doesn't.

In my experience, the women I know personally who were ambivalent about having kids (or really didn't want them) but had them anyway because either their husbands wanted them or they got pregnant accidentally have struggled with motherhood. I truly believe that not everyone is cut out to be a parent. It's a LOT of work and if you aren't 100% invested, it can be very difficult for the parent and damaging for the child. Kids have an uncanny ability to sense whether they are really wanted and loved (or not).

Take the time to really think about it. If you really want to do it, go ahead! If not, don't do it just because your husband wants to (you really have to want to also!)

I have always loved kids, and gotten along with them great. I was the person who would always become great friends with my friends' younger siblings, and play with them my friend was at the "too cool for little brother/sister" stage. I am the youngest in my family and thus never had any younger siblings, but I always wanted one.

I have very much patience with children and I always melt when I see a cute baby. I can spend an entire bus ride just making funny faces to a child. My friends don't understand this, some of them just find children annoying. They don't have the same feelings I do about this. Some of them are clear they don't want children, others just don't have that instinct kicking in yet, but are open to the idea if they want kids later on.

I am 24 now and even though I want kids, it's still something I see some time in the future, not now. I want to be in a steady relationship and with a steady job, so I guess I might be one of those women who wait until I'm around 30 - which doesn't really bother me, my parents were older when they got me (My dad was 41 and my mother 38) and it has been great having so mature, secure parents who had a stable life situation.

I want to have someone in my life whom I can raise from a baby to a responsible adult, whom I can guide. I want to be the best I can be and have children in my life, watching them grow into mature individuals, with all the mistakes and learning experiences on the way. I have always loved children but it's not until recently I started thinking of how it would impact my entire life, and how I would do my best to raise those children into adults, seeing them live their own lives.

So, I think if you don't really know if you want kids, you probably don't. But you have said you became "open to it" a while back, it's possible you just can't imagine your life with kids. I don't believe that "everyone wants kids, they just don't know it" - it's not true, it's something society teaches us to think, but the simple truth is not everyone wants children. Not everyone should have children, either. It's a big decision and you have to be ready for it: The diapers and sleepless nights, the childhood fights, the rebellious teenage years, the drunkenness and inappropriateness, the economic irresponsibility, all the fights that will inevitably happen as you do your best to help your child make the right choices at the times when they are too immature to understand they're not always right - you have to think through if you are ready, you have to be prepared that your child will make mistakes, get into fights, lose friends, sleep around, skip school, potentially even commit crimes - and you have to know how to deal with it all. In other words, your child will be an individual who is in no ways flawless, and who might disappoint you or make you so incredibly tired and mad. I think a lot of people don't think this through before having children. I am still young and probably my matureness when it comes to this will also change over time, I do not think I am mature enough to have a child. I am still in a part of my life where I like to get drunk with my friends, spend a whole weekend binge watching Netflix, flirt with strangers and spontaneously book a vacation somewhere. I have just finished studying and will now start working full-time, which will probably alter my priorities a bit, and this is a step on the way to becoming mature enough to be a mother. It's a journey and not something I take on easily.

I think this is something a woman just knows.

I also think it would be a bad idea to let someone talk me into having a child if it was not something I wanted to do.

Eh, but what do I know ... I'm just a Pfrog!

Thanks for all the input. I'm still puzzling over this.

Yesterday I was able to talk with a friend who had her first kid at about my age. She had never wanted kids either, but when her husband brought up getting a vasectomy, all of a sudden she realized she might want them!

I am an only child and I never was comfrotable around babies.I never "baby sat". I think puppies and baby animals are cuter than humans....Also, I had a terrible mother and knew i would not want to put any living thing though THAT type of treatment~ I always thought I would be a poor parent...Now that I cannot have children, I wish I had one. I do think I would have been a great Mom, expercially to an only, as I know what it is all about. I would not do well with more than one as I cannot really relate to what having a "sibling" means.

IDK, when I was 30 I thought, "Kirby, get pregnant". I also thought how much I missed my father growing up(he died when I was 11) and how unfair/selfish I was being. I DO feel a solo grown man or woman is capable of raising a child. But I knew i would need help, and a lot of it. I have never been married or committed relationship to have child with another person.

DO I wish i had a child because I see how much enjoyment others have with theirs, Maybe? Is it my loneliness, maybe?

I see people, couples, my own mother...whom should have never had a child. It is a tought call.

I do feel like I am missing parts of life as I have never lived with anyone, been married, or had a child. It makes me very sad.

Wow. I've never wanted kids, but people constantly saying "never say never" has somehow made me believe that this might change. Of course anything in life may change but now I'm in my thirties I guess I am more open to "possibly" having a child if I found the right man who would want that life 100%. But deep down not sure if my gut feeling will ever change... Perhaps this man is now feeling like his legacy must live on.. A male thing.

I've wanted kinds since I was a kid. Some people want it, other people don't. You just know. If you don't know if you want them or not, then don't have them. You may regret it later if it isn't what you really want. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to have kids, everyone is different. You just have to find what works for you.

Yeah, this was sort of how it worked for me. I never wanted kids, but at a certain age, I understood what the biological clock was all about! It's just left me confused - which feeling is right?

Very few people say that they regret having children. Is it because no one wants to admit to it or because something clicks when you have a kid??

It is just hard to imagine how the world would be if she/he/they wouldn't be here? Like if I never wanted kids then my daughter wouldn't be in existence but where would she be? No where? Just not exist? It is hard to imagine. So yeah don't know how one can regret

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I think there are more that regret it than you think but are terrified or embarrassed to say so. The few people I know that have admitted it have gotten soundly trounced for saying such a "horrible" thing. And most that I have talked to it's not the child so much as the timing, the other parent and/or the massive responsibility they regret.

I have known since I was 12 I didn't want kids. I'm 39 and still have not felt this biological clock that people speak of. For me I had to raise my brother and I learned one thing: I truly do not think it's possible for me to love something that craps, pukes, pees and eats all the time while screeching at the top of it's lungs. The nighttime feedings OMG and if the baby is has health issues like my brother

His immune system was compromised so he was sick all the time. The doctors didn't figure out that he was allergic to lactose and needed soybean formula until about a month before he came off his bottle so his tummy always hurt. That kid could cry for HOURS!!! He would literally scream until he turned blue, we'd rush him to the hospital and they'd tell us it's colic and send us home

Also our mom is bipolar and unmedicated. I'm bipolar and so was my sister. I could never take the chance of being like our mom or passing this on. No child should be raised like we were. And I'd love to say I could never be like her but I know for a fact that she said the same thing about my grandmother(ALSO bipolar and unmedicated) and I know how that turned out.

Then when you figure in I can barely take care of me, I'm lazy and I loathe being a caretaker it's no wonder i've never changed my mind and never will. What I really love are those people that tell you "Oh it's the greatest joy you can ever know. When you hold your own child everything changes for you and it's a love you've never known. It's not possible to not love your own child." All I can think is if that's true child abuse wouldn't exist but what do I know?

I think making a pro/con list is a great idea. Be completely honest with yourself about where you are in life, what YOU want out of life, whether you are prepared for the financial burden, how is your support system etc....

Also be very aware of Postpartum depression if you do decide to have a child. I've known 6 different woman that had it and the symptoms were missed because they hid it.

I've known women who just don't have kids, by choice or by circumstances and probably never will.
My mom used to say of me, even when I was a young child, grade school age, that I was like a mother hen, watching out for my friends. Looking back she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders because noone was certain I could after my bike accident and surgery at 6. Because of knowing I had natural instincts most of my life, certainly not a perfect mom is why I knew I wanted children . Seriously, if it wasn't in you this whole time, why take the pressure to accommodate societal expectations. I'm 40 now, can't imagine adding to my brood nor adding to returning back to diapers and car seats. Car seats technically ended in January after 12 straight years. It will test your everything, all your triggers, any guilt, worry, if you react to loud noises. Yes, I wouldn't change becoming a mom. I certainly wouldn't pressure anyone into being a mom. Plus, can affect career. Even if you use daycare, they are strict about fevers, of course...24 hour rule. Surprise calls from nurses, broken limbs, bloody noses, the extra out of school activities. If home with an infant prepare for boredom. If your husband is 50, kiss retirement at 67 goodbye...it's a huge decision.

Have your husband really look at what's pushing this inside him. 50+ year old men, start looking at their future, their legacy, on and on.

I can relate to the whole biological clock thing! I am conflicted. One one hand, it seems nice to look at a little baby in your arms and think with wonder how you created him or her from love. On the other hand it's a huge responsibility that lasts for 18+ years. I can barely handle my own life, let alone be responsible for another.

How does one deal with such conflict?

Lots of interesting stuff in this thread! I still have no idea. It's not something I actively think about - I prefer to avoid it, I guess.

The biological clock I feel is less about 'omg, I want a baby' and more like 'omg, it's now or never. Am I *sure* I don't want kids?'

And why does it seem like I would be more likely to say yes if I thought he wanted kids because he loved kids? As it is, I think he is interested in the legacy, not the kids. That just seems like a bad reason... but is it really any worse than having a kid 'accidentally'?

I always wanted kids and at times that feeling would gnaw away at me and I thought it would destroy me. I don't know what changed but somewhere along the way I realised that I am too unstable to be the mum I want to be and that I wouldn't wish my problems on a child. After that I came to accept that motherhood just isn't for me and accepted the decision even though it went against my instinct. I had to listen to my heart and mind and ignore societal expectations and my body clock to know what was right for me.

I was mid 20s when I had mine and tbh I didn't think it through, I more 'felt' it - my sister had a lovely little girl and we both (me and my husband) enjoyed spending time with her. She was possibly the catalyst, although another factor was my husband had been very ill and recovered against the odds - we were very much 'carpe diem'.

I remember watching my husband with our niece and knowing he would be a good father, and also loving him so much I knew I wanted my baby to look like him. It was definitely a strong feeling in many ways, a decision of the heart rather than the head.

I didn't know I wanted them until after I had them...

My guess is that once you are pregnant you will be very interested in having a child. Being a few years prior to 40, your chances of conceiving and carrying a full-term pregnancy are not great. If you think you might want a child, now is the time.