I'm 35 this year, no urge for children. It seems to have passed me by and thought it would be better not to come my way. I often think that I am depriving my parents of grandchildren, they would love to have them and have made no secret of how they feel. They have all their hopes on me(my sister and two brothers are all single) so I feel so much pressure and not just from them but other family members too. I have always thought that if it happens it happens if not then not much can be done about it. My partner is the more practical one in the relationship he has said that before children are even planned he wants to be in a decent house, with enough money to look after them. I do see the years going by and wondering whether it will ever come to me, I know I don't have that long left to decide in all honesty.
I do feel sometimes that I am a freak as I don't go all gooey over babies, in fact this one woman at work, when another colleague bought her baby in, made a point of moving the baby away from me as if I was some evil witch. She couldn't have been anymore obvious if she tried. I don't hate babies I just don't have the urge to be a mother. I looked after my little brother when he was younger when my Mum worked. I took him to school, picked him up, made his tea, helped him with his homework, went to his sportsday to take pictures for my parents who were both at work. It was the downside of being 9 years older than him and being an adult when he was still in junior school
That woman sounds awful! To be honest I don't go all gooey over babies and children either, although I do want some of my own. Well, I do on the inside, but I'd feel like a right twit if I started oohing and aaahing like some women do. It's just not my style. I smile, ask a few questions (how old's the baby, what's the name etc) and say that they're cute.
I think that is the problem at my age. My partner and i are very settled in our jobs and routines. Sometimes i like the idea of having a baby, but then wonder how i would cope with the practicalities of it all - child minding for one (family not close enough to baby sit). We would both have to work and my partner already works 6 days a week in a tiring job.
I think i would be excited if i was pregnant, but i'm past that age where i can be carefree about it all - i'm too practical to think "sod it!" and enjoy it! We're also about to buy our first home soon and the worry of having to meet mortgage repayments whilst raising a young family is a worry. I expected to be a home owner much sooner than this and be more settled in life, but in London especially, it's tough enough to do all this by your mid 30s.
There will never be a right time- there will always be something that will hold you back. But if you want a child you just have to go for it and things will fall into place somehow- they say where there's a will there's a way.
Hell, my mum had me in an ex-eastern block country, just after the Soviet regime fell down and the shops were literally empty for months- and there was no such thing as child benefit. Everything turned out fine in the end. You'll be OK in London.
when i hit 37 i thought to myself "i suppose i should try for a baby now before it is too late" when nothing happend after 2 years i went to the fertility clinic and she said for my husband to bring a sample of sperm into to be tested and it has to be fresh, thats the moment i knew i did not really want kids.It was too much effort to get poked and prodded,so the urge was not that strong for me.imagine all the people who have kids and had them because of what they thought was expected of them and not what they really wanted.
'RIGHT,I'm ready to be a dad, time to find 'the' one and do the deed!'
Unfortunately, I was so ready to be a dad and focused on that I had kids with the wrong woman and it went pear shaped!
I'm now with the love of my life, at the age of 43 I have four children. One Step daughter (10) from my partners previous marriage, a son (9),adaughter (6) and my youngest son (2) who I had with my partner.
Yes I got the urge or more commonly pronounced, 'the Urgh'!:D
I'm another who never had the urge. For a long time I vaguely thought that at some point I would but that point never arrived. I can think of various psychological explanations or maybe it was just a perfectly normal lack of maternal instinct.
No regrets.....well, no regrets about not having had children. But what I do regret is not experiencing such an important aspect of life. So I suppose the regret relates to the kind of person I am, not to the decision not to have children which I'm convinced was the right one.
I think an issue nowadays is that there are so many more options available for couples as a whole other than having children - you can have all sorts of luxuries which you may not have had in past years, so having children can easily be seen as something that limits and restricts your life in a way it wasn't before.
Travel and entertainment are the main things I'm thinking of here - people have a much easier time prusuing leisure acitivites, and although people in the past weren't in bed every night by 8pm, the options people have in life are far more of a sacrifice nowadays.
I'm 23, and a few weeks ago my uni friends visited - all they would talk about were marriage and babies. I sat there thinking - how much more to life is there?
You've made a very good point here. People's lives were much more restricted in past generations and frankly if you lived in a small place there wasn't much to do.
People of your age should be thinking about careers, travelling the world and other ambitions you might have. There are more options now and the world is pretty full up already.
My advice would be to live your life a bit before thinking of having children. That way you won't regret giving up you wild weekends.
Yes it does exist. I feel you pain.
8 years of trying. 10 ovualtion induction, 4 iui 1 fresh ivf and 1 frozen ivf. 2 misscarriages later and it still hurts like hell. Am starting another frozen cycle on Tuesday.
I've only read up to your post on this thread but want to wish you good luck and all the best MrsOggy.
For me it did. I'll start by saying I've never been particularly gooey over other people's kids. The closest kids in my life are my nieces and nephews. I'm the youngest of three by nine years so my brothers really had a head start on me in that regard. I met my partner around 3 1/2 years ago, I've just (yesterday in fact) turned 28. I'd say I started to feel something around Oct/Nov last year. Other people's kids just suddenly seemed so much cuter. I'd find myself cooing over babies in supermarkets. I think my partner was quite confused at first. We both had already said we'd wanted kids. We met via online dating where that kind of thing is out in the open from day one. We even had a number, three kids! As women we're constantly reminded that pregnancy over 35 can be difficult and for some it might even be too late. I don't know why but I just couldn't get this out of my head. I was working out that if we wanted three by 35 we really needed to talk about it and sooner rather than later. At first I got a lot of "we're not ready" from my partner. His reasons were really to do with money. Now we don't have a lot of money but we are not stretched by any means. The debt we have is reasonably small and all I could think was how much my parents struggled when we were kids, I didn't feel like having kids should be easy. I think the reason he finally decided he wanted to try sooner rather than later was he had often told me that he never knew his grandparents, because his parents had their kids quite late on. He wanted to make sure his kids knew his parents. Which I understood totally, despite having been lucky enough to have had three of my four grandparents growing up. So at Christmas we decided to have a go and see what happened. I spent the next month taking my temps in the morning and getting ovulation sticks to see when our best time to try was. We got the good news in February that we're expecting our first. It happened so fast, so fast that two weeks after the news I even began questioning myself "what was I thinking and how would we cope". I found this fear pretty much evaporated once we were able to tell our families and friends. My partner, whilst excited, wasn't exactly jumping up and down. I think it's different for men. However at our 14 week scan that all changed. He's absolutely taken with the photo we got of our little one turning around in there. It's sat on top of the fireplace and every time I see him walk past he has another little look at it. Now he spends most evenings feeling my tummy and trying to pat the baby. He tells anyone who will listen how the baby is measuring 8cm already! It's lovely to watch.
I'm very lucky that I'm with a man who is fantastic with kids. He has lots of young cousins who absolutely love him - as do my nieces and nephews. I know he'll be a fantastic father. That said if I had waited for him to come to me and say the time was right I'm sure it would have passed us by. It's so easy to find reasons why we shouldn't have kids and everyone I spoke to told me that if we were waiting for the "right" time it would never come. Life doesn't work like that for most people sadly.
I've had a lot of time to think about why I felt that sudden urge and how I knew to listen to it. The conclusion I've come to is when I imagine my life in ten years I want what my parents had. I want a family and those Christmas mornings watching kids open up their presents. I want to teach my kids to ride and bike and climb trees and all those things I remember so fondly. I don't think for one minute any of those things will come easily but the life I imagine without those things seems very empty to me. It just wasn't what I wanted from my future.
Kids aren't for everyone just try and focus on how you see your life ten years from now. It might not help but it helped me.
For me it did. I'll start by saying I've never been particularly gooey over other people's kids. The closest kids in my life are my nieces and nephews. I'm the youngest of three by nine years so my brothers really had a head start on me in that regard. I met my partner around 3 1/2 years ago, I've just (yesterday in fact) turned 28. I'd say I started to feel something around Oct/Nov last year. Other people's kids just suddenly seemed so much cuter. I'd find myself cooing over babies in supermarkets. I think my partner was quite confused at first. We both had already said we'd wanted kids. We met via online dating where that kind of thing is out in the open from day one. We even had a number, three kids! As women we're constantly reminded that pregnancy over 35 can be difficult and for some it might even be too late. I don't know why but I just couldn't get this out of my head. I was working out that if we wanted three by 35 we really needed to talk about it and sooner rather than later. At first I got a lot of "we're not ready" from my partner. His reasons were really to do with money. Now we don't have a lot of money but we are not stretched by any means. The debt we have is reasonably small and all I could think was how much my parents struggled when we were kids, I didn't feel like having kids should be easy. I think the reason he finally decided he wanted to try sooner rather than later was he had often told me that he never knew his grandparents, because his parents had their kids quite late on. He wanted to make sure his kids knew his parents. Which I understood totally, despite having been lucky enough to have had three of my four grandparents growing up. So at Christmas we decided to have a go and see what happened. I spent the next month taking my temps in the morning and getting ovulation sticks to see when our best time to try was. We got the good news in February that we're expecting our first. It happened so fast, so fast that two weeks after the news I even began questioning myself "what was I thinking and how would we cope". I found this fear pretty much evaporated once we were able to tell our families and friends. My partner, whilst excited, wasn't exactly jumping up and down. I think it's different for men. However at our 14 week scan that all changed. He's absolutely taken with the photo we got of our little one turning around in there. It's sat on top of the fireplace and every time I see him walk past he has another little look at it. Now he spends most evenings feeling my tummy and trying to pat the baby. He tells anyone who will listen how the baby is measuring 8cm already! It's lovely to watch.
I'm very lucky that I'm with a man who is fantastic with kids. He has lots of young cousins who absolutely love him - as do my nieces and nephews. I know he'll be a fantastic father. That said if I had waited for him to come to me and say the time was right I'm sure it would have passed us by. It's so easy to find reasons why we shouldn't have kids and everyone I spoke to told me that if we were waiting for the "right" time it would never come. Life doesn't work like that for most people sadly.
I've had a lot of time to think about why I felt that sudden urge and how I knew to listen to it. The conclusion I've come to is when I imagine my life in ten years I want what my parents had. I want a family and those Christmas mornings watching kids open up their presents. I want to teach my kids to ride and bike and climb trees and all those things I remember so fondly. I don't think for one minute any of those things will come easily but the life I imagine without those things seems very empty to me. It just wasn't what I wanted from my future.
Kids aren't for everyone just try and focus on how you see your life ten years from now. It might not help but it helped me.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
You've brought a tear to my eye! Congratulations on your pregnancy. I love the story of your husband always stopping to look at the scan picture
I have children but I am always puzzled by people saying 'we can't afford one yet' or 'now is not the right time'. If you want one - have one in my opinion. Two of mine weren't even planned!
i never liked kids and never wanted any till one day at 29 i said to my partner at the time should we try for a baby, came right out of left field for me
however from the moment i was pregnant i loved my child and having him was amazing the best thing ever and i wish i had started years ago so i could have 4 or 5 lol
i am now a single mother of 2 my children are my life all i want is the best for them and hope i am around for a long time to see who and what they become
I always wanted to have kids, and loved it when I did. Now I'm a grannie and I love looking after my grandson:) & there's another one on the way any day now. I still get a bit broody when I see people with babies in town even though I'm 68, stupid, I know :rolleyes:
I have a very dear friend though who never wanted to have children and so didn't have them. She's been told all sort of horrible things like, 'she's not natural' and 'she's wicked'. !!! she lives in Ireland which is predominantly chatholic, (she's not religious at all) I tell her to take no notice, she would only be 'wicked' if she were to have had children even though she didn't want them. Some people are ridiculous.
I had the urge and was broody in my late teens early twenties then disaster struck and my world collapsed. I am 28 and suffer serious severe depression because of what happened to me. If my life improves and I meet someone I would like a family with I would only do so if I knew it was right for my relationship and that I could provide the best life possible to the child.
My family would be unhappy if I dont have children because my surname will die with me. As I have said before my real name isn't Gregory Richards its a weird unique surname.
Only have a child if you are sure and don't have serious doubts about it.
Comments
That woman sounds awful! To be honest I don't go all gooey over babies and children either, although I do want some of my own. Well, I do on the inside, but I'd feel like a right twit if I started oohing and aaahing like some women do. It's just not my style. I smile, ask a few questions (how old's the baby, what's the name etc) and say that they're cute.
There will never be a right time- there will always be something that will hold you back. But if you want a child you just have to go for it and things will fall into place somehow- they say where there's a will there's a way.
Hell, my mum had me in an ex-eastern block country, just after the Soviet regime fell down and the shops were literally empty for months- and there was no such thing as child benefit. Everything turned out fine in the end. You'll be OK in London.
'RIGHT,I'm ready to be a dad, time to find 'the' one and do the deed!'
Unfortunately, I was so ready to be a dad and focused on that I had kids with the wrong woman and it went pear shaped!
I'm now with the love of my life, at the age of 43 I have four children. One Step daughter (10) from my partners previous marriage, a son (9),adaughter (6) and my youngest son (2) who I had with my partner.
Yes I got the urge or more commonly pronounced, 'the Urgh'!:D
No regrets.....well, no regrets about not having had children. But what I do regret is not experiencing such an important aspect of life. So I suppose the regret relates to the kind of person I am, not to the decision not to have children which I'm convinced was the right one.
You've made a very good point here. People's lives were much more restricted in past generations and frankly if you lived in a small place there wasn't much to do.
People of your age should be thinking about careers, travelling the world and other ambitions you might have. There are more options now and the world is pretty full up already.
My advice would be to live your life a bit before thinking of having children. That way you won't regret giving up you wild weekends.
I've only read up to your post on this thread but want to wish you good luck and all the best MrsOggy.
I'm very lucky that I'm with a man who is fantastic with kids. He has lots of young cousins who absolutely love him - as do my nieces and nephews. I know he'll be a fantastic father. That said if I had waited for him to come to me and say the time was right I'm sure it would have passed us by. It's so easy to find reasons why we shouldn't have kids and everyone I spoke to told me that if we were waiting for the "right" time it would never come. Life doesn't work like that for most people sadly.
I've had a lot of time to think about why I felt that sudden urge and how I knew to listen to it. The conclusion I've come to is when I imagine my life in ten years I want what my parents had. I want a family and those Christmas mornings watching kids open up their presents. I want to teach my kids to ride and bike and climb trees and all those things I remember so fondly. I don't think for one minute any of those things will come easily but the life I imagine without those things seems very empty to me. It just wasn't what I wanted from my future.
Kids aren't for everyone just try and focus on how you see your life ten years from now. It might not help but it helped me.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
You've brought a tear to my eye! Congratulations on your pregnancy. I love the story of your husband always stopping to look at the scan picture
I have children but I am always puzzled by people saying 'we can't afford one yet' or 'now is not the right time'. If you want one - have one in my opinion. Two of mine weren't even planned!
OP - have we helped you decide?
however from the moment i was pregnant i loved my child and having him was amazing the best thing ever and i wish i had started years ago so i could have 4 or 5 lol
i am now a single mother of 2 my children are my life all i want is the best for them and hope i am around for a long time to see who and what they become
I have a very dear friend though who never wanted to have children and so didn't have them. She's been told all sort of horrible things like, 'she's not natural' and 'she's wicked'. !!! she lives in Ireland which is predominantly chatholic, (she's not religious at all) I tell her to take no notice, she would only be 'wicked' if she were to have had children even though she didn't want them. Some people are ridiculous.
Each to their own, I say.
My family would be unhappy if I dont have children because my surname will die with me. As I have said before my real name isn't Gregory Richards its a weird unique surname.
Only have a child if you are sure and don't have serious doubts about it.