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Anyone else not want children?

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Comments

  • #632
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,954 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    Personally I don't get why people think its so hard and so difficult to raise kids , its not really at all ,

    The fact we are all here 200 thousand years later kind of confirms that ,

    Before ye all start , I know I know there's a housing crisis

    Has anyone noticed young in Dublin people now all wear designer clothes , jackets worth a grand , t-shirts worth 250 euro , runner worth 300 euro , New mobiles worth a grand , its endless, then complain about rent and housing (which I know is bad but you have to laugh at some of them )

    My parent generations in there 70's now all lived happy life's with a roof over there head food on the table and clothes on there back, you'd be wearing hand me downs from your older brother till you had your own job, No holidays abroad every year , no credit cards or car debts , only money they would dare own was there mortgage. Just happy with what they could actually afford,


    Times have changed


  • #633
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    If a comment like that is enough to set you off, I would think some counselling would be in order.
    And that's OTT too! It's hardly a sign they need counselling.

    People are always going off on one here - for lesser things. Why single this guy out?

    Yeah likely just an off the cuff remark (and very tasteless) but the other guy is still only voicing his opinion, not controlling anyone or in need of counselling.

    And I don't think the guy who said he would prefer to have only six months to live needs counselling either.


  • #634
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    Personally I don't get why people think its so hard and so difficult to raise kids , its not really at all ,

    The fact we are all here 200 thousand years later kind of confirms that ,

    You are comparing something at an individual level to something at a population level.

    And from a past that had unreliable contraception and more narrowly defined roles for men and women.

    Even just one generation ago my mother didnt want to have kids but she had no other choices available to her in life except to get married and have kids.

    So just because people were having kids, doesnt mean they wanted to or didnt find it difficult.

    I dont want kids, never did. I am the first in a long line of women who can actually make the choice not to and have the contraception available to do so.


  • #635
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    TheBoyConor wrote: »
    I'm not trying to control your opinion. Have whatever the fúk opinion you like. Just know that if you have an unpopular opinion you might get called out on it. And I'm calling you out on your immature and insensitive comparisons and your even more immature defence of the indefencible.

    I don't give a crap whether you have kids or not but it is not cool to make quips and jokes about terminal illnesses.

    You know, with views like yours it is probably for the best that you do not have a child. You'd be an unfit parent.

    You must be very young.

    Look that poster is probably exaggerating it but it's really that much of a fear for people. I mean, we've had people take their own life over an unwanted pregnancy, it's a huge burden. I love my kids to bits but if I found out I was pregnant it would feel like the end of the world, it would be the end of life as I know it. I'm not surprised it has such a visceral reaction from some people. At least we now have options and choices, something previous generations were denied.


  • #636
    DrPhilG
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,234 ✭✭✭✭DrPhilG


    pgj2015 wrote: »
    I am 35 and am definitely never having kids. I couldn't cope with the fact i would be responsible for another human being for 18 years.

    I would rather be told i have 6 months to live than to be told i was going to become a dad.

    Fair play to you for being honest. And pay no heed to the arrogant posters who have since diagnosed you as inept and in need of counselling.

    Personally I would put up with rearing a child rather than dying in 6 months, but I have stated before that I would find a positive pregnancy test as devastating to me as a major health condition diagnosis.

    I am not inept, not in need of counselling, not messed up in the head and not dead inside.

    We just have no desire whatsoever to have children and would be absolutely devastated to discover that we were to have one, so we take care not to.

    If you can't understand or accept that some people are perfectly healthy and sane, but don't want kids, then maybe you are completely inept and in need of counselling...


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  • #637
    Milana Melodic Sandstone
    Posts: 577 ✭✭✭ Milana Melodic Sandstone


    I think lack of fertility in western countries is down to women developing a career, and putting off family plans until their thirties. Its actually much safer and healthier for women to have children in their twenties. Personally I think you need to be in a stable relationship before having children, because its much healthier for children to grow up with both parents. As women age in their thirties I think its less likely that they will fulfill their plans in having children. In the mean time we get more and more immigrants to fill the gap...


  • #638
    Yer Da sells Avon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,736 ✭✭✭Yer Da sells Avon


    I used to like the idea of having kids, but the older I get and the more I ponder the reality of it, the less it appeals to me. And I'm a very careful man, Father. A very careful man. Especially when it comes to taking precautions in the bedroom.

    I'd prefer to get a dog, tbh. A nice big Golden Retriever.


  • #639
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    DrPhilG wrote: »
    Fair play to you for being honest. And pay no heed to the arrogant posters who have since diagnosed you as inept and in need of counselling.

    Personally I would put up with rearing a child rather than dying in 6 months, but I have stated before that I would find a positive pregnancy test as devastating to me as a major health condition diagnosis.

    I am not inept, not in need of counselling, not messed up in the head and not dead inside.

    We just have no desire whatsoever to have children and would be absolutely devastated to discover that we were to have one, so we take care not to.

    If you can't understand or accept that some people are perfectly healthy and sane, but don't want kids, then maybe you are completely inept and in need of counselling...
    Isn't it more the way he said he would rather find out he's dying that people take issue with rather than his not wanting children. Not sure it's necessary to say that in order to show honesty here. Numerous others have said they don't wish to have children.
    Milana Melodic Sandstone wrote: »
    I think lack of fertility in western countries is down to women developing a career, and putting off family plans until their thirties. Its actually much safer and healthier for women to have children in their twenties. Personally I think you need to be in a stable relationship before having children, because its much healthier for children to grow up with both parents. As women age in their thirties I think its less likely that they will fulfill their plans in having children. In the mean time we get more and more immigrants to fill the gap...
    Many many women (most I'd say) are continuing to have children - and in their 30s with no bother at all.

    Which is more ideal - a married or coupled woman with an education and work experience behind her having two or three children when she is between 32 and 36, or a woman with just some secondary education, not in a steady relationship, hardly any work experience, and five children between the ages of 18 and 25? I mean the second one has had children at the healthiest time to have them hasn't she?

    (I know those aren't the only two possible scenarios).


  • #640
    foxy farmer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,194 ✭✭✭foxy farmer


    My mother had a saying.
    If the man had the first child and the woman had the second child, there wouldn't be a third one.


  • #641
    Milana Melodic Sandstone
    Posts: 577 ✭✭✭ Milana Melodic Sandstone


    Samira Shrilling Waistband wrote: »
    Many many women (most I'd say) are continuing to have children - and in their 30s with no bother at all.


    Yes but fertility declines after 30 and rapidly declines after 35. Yes still their having children but the chances of complications increases.

    Samira Shrilling Waistband wrote: »
    Which is more ideal - a married or coupled woman with an education and work experience behind her having two or three children when she is between 32 and 36, or a woman with just some secondary education, not in a steady relationship, hardly any work experience, and five children between the ages of 18 and 25? I mean the second one has had children at the healthiest time to have them hasn't she?

    (I know those aren't the only two possible scenarios).
    Of course the second scenario is more ideal. But my point was that with the mindset of waiting till 30s to have children and settle down, that it would be less likely to happen as its a smaller window, might not be able to find a partner, might hot have the desire anymore. Where as if women had that mindset in their twenties, its more likely to happen, more likely to find a like minded partner. Something that can happen with age (as from previous posts here) is that people lose interest in that idea, as they get older. They want to continue living with the freedom they had in their twenties.


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  • #642
    DEFTLEFTHAND
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,499 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    I was early 20s when it happened to me.

    I didn't want kids, she didn't want kids but it happened.


    I went to my Dad and he told me to get my arse in gear . Get your life in order.


    I feared it for 9 months but when the day came it was magic.


    My partner was in the bed and my mum was holding the baby when I entered the hospital room.




    When she gave me that child to hold the tears rolled down my face, my boy, it was the proudest moment of my life.


  • #643
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 21,290 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I’m 58, never wanted kids, and glad I didn’t have them-for their own sakes as much as mine! If I had been a pRent I would have been an absolute misery of a parent ear hung over and stifling my kids development... rather like the way my anxiety-ridden Dad did.


  • #644
    AllForIt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,765 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    Never had a desire as a gay man to have kids. And certainly not adopted or surrogate ones. That's more a reflection of my personal desires than anything against any of those routes to parenthood.

    I get that women have a natural desire to have children. I've met some woman in my life one who a number of years ago left their job in Ireland to go back to their home eastern European country to find a partner (because she couldn't find one here) and start a family. From her Facebook posts she did that fairly rapidly and I'm happy he got what she desired.

    I'm glad I don't have that desire. I don't think when I'm old I need offspring or grandchildren around me. I plan to support myself to the end not just financially but emotionally as well. I've never felt needy in that way. I find the whole 'desiring offspring' thing 'genetic' which is quite obviously true. It's interesting that we don't recognize it but I suppose it's because of our high mined ideas of ourself that we're somehow higher indeed totally different from animals when in fact we are exactly the same in the nature of our procreational instincts.

    Men instinctively clearly have less physical desire to have kids. In a recent 80th Birthday party of my mothers my parents were asked 'when did it all go wrong' and my dad quipped - when we started to have kids!... to much laughter. Interesting that it was my Dad who said that rather than my mom.

    So clearly there are those who do and those that don't. What I don't like in this feeling I get which is that those who do treat ppl who don't as if there is something strange or 'wrong' with them. Wouldn't you think what is most wrong is ppl feeling pressurised to have kids who don't really want them?


  • #645
    Rubberchikken
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,303 ✭✭✭Rubberchikken


    i always thought i didnt want kids. never even owned a doll apparently. as a teen got on grand with kids but could walk away ifkwim.
    my own kids id do anything for. the change to wanting them came out of nowhere. once they were a possibility nothing on this earth would have changed my mind.

    the love i had for them as kids has grown as they've grown. i absolutely love their company and am so proud of them it sometimes surprises even me.
    but at the same time i under stand and respect those who choose not to have kids. the key word is 'choice'.


  • #646
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    Milana Melodic Sandstone wrote: »
    Yes but fertility declines after 30 and rapidly declines after 35. Yes still their having children but the chances of complications increases.
    Yes but:
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109847262&postcount=321
    Of course the second scenario is more ideal. But my point was that with the mindset of waiting till 30s to have children and settle down, that it would be less likely to happen as its a smaller window, might not be able to find a partner, might hot have the desire anymore. Where as if women had that mindset in their twenties, its more likely to happen, more likely to find a like minded partner. Something that can happen with age (as from previous posts here) is that people lose interest in that idea, as they get older. They want to continue living with the freedom they had in their twenties.
    That is true but I don't think people generally choose to wait until their 30s to meet someone serious. It mostly happens whenever it happens. Waiting to have children is more of a choice And the emphasis tends to be on the women when this comes up, whereas I'd have thought the woman is more likely to be the one who wants to settle down. There's this conflicting narrative about these overly choosy career obsessed gold digging child eschewing she devils who want to trap men into marriage! :D

    The stats from the U.S. about far fewer folk under 35 being in relationships now struck me as a bit alarming all right though. I think that's because of online taking over reality however - I don't think they don't want relationships.


  • #647
    ToddyDoody
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,417 ✭✭✭ToddyDoody


    Do sperm banks do postal delivery?

    "Your sperm is in the post"


  • #648
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,954 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    ....... wrote: »
    You are comparing something at an individual level to something at a population level.

    And from a past that had unreliable contraception and more narrowly defined roles for men and women.

    Even just one generation ago my mother didnt want to have kids but she had no other choices available to her in life except to get married and have kids.

    So just because people were having kids, doesnt mean they wanted to or didnt find it difficult.

    I dont want kids, never did. I am the first in a long line of women who can actually make the choice not to and have the contraception available to do so.

    I never said anything about women wanting them or not that's up to yourself none of my business at all ,

    Iv no say in anything you want or don't want and I'm fine with that,


  • #649
    Anteayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 875 ✭✭✭Anteayer


    I’d say I’ve given up on the idea at this stage. I’m male, bi and in my 30s and I just don’t see it happening anymore. It doesn’t bother me though either.


  • #650
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    I never said anything about women wanting them or not that's up to yourself none of my business at all ,

    Iv no say in anything you want or don't want and I'm fine with that,

    You claimed that its not difficult to raise kids because we are all here from past generations raising kids.

    I pointed out that women had little or no other choice in the past but to have kids - whether they wanted them or not.

    Personally I think that was a bad thing and must have resulted in many many deeply unhappy people forced to have kids they didnt want.


  • #651
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,954 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    I pointed out that women had little or no other choice in the past but to have kids - whether they wanted them or not.

    Personally I think that was a bad thing and must have resulted in many many deeply unhappy people forced to have kids they didnt want.[/QUOTE]


    Are you trying to say if women had a choice we wouldn't be here ?

    I'm sure million's upon million's of women where delighted to have kids , Of course some didn't want them that's just life,

    Unfortunately the world is far from perfect so some women will have kids who do not want them , but the vast majority of mothers are delighted to have there children

    If you don't want kids that's fine , do what you want with your own life, its no one else's business


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  • #652
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 21,740 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    I pointed out that women had little or no other choice in the past but to have kids - whether they wanted them or not.

    Personally I think that was a bad thing and must have resulted in many many deeply unhappy people forced to have kids they didnt want.


    Are you trying to say if women had a choice we wouldn't be here ?

    I'm sure million's upon million's of women where delighted to have kids , Of course some didn't want them that's just life,

    Unfortunately the world is far from perfect so some women will have kids who do not want them , but the vast majority of mothers are delighted to have there children

    If you don't want kids that's fine , do what you want with your own life, its no one else's business[/quote]

    I think ...... is trying to say that SOME women had children because they had no choice in the matter, not that given the choice they would ALL decline :)


  • #653
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    Are you trying to say if women had a choice we wouldn't be here ?

    I'm sure million's upon million's of women where delighted to have kids , Of course some didn't want them that's just life,

    Unfortunately the world is far from perfect so some women will have kids who do not want them , but the vast majority of mothers are delighted to have there children

    If you don't want kids that's fine , do what you want with your own life, its no one else's business

    No. Thats not what I said at all.

    You claimed it isnt that difficult to raise children, I pointed out that there were no other choices in the past. AS AN ASIDE I also pointed out that that must have resulted in some deeply unhappy people.

    Sure, some people want kids and some dont. But in the past (which is what you referred to), no one had any choices anyway. So it didnt matter if it was difficult to raise them or not.

    i.e., just because we are all here doesnt mean it wasnt difficult to raise kids.


  • #654
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,954 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    ....... wrote: »
    No. Thats not what I said at all.

    You claimed it isnt that difficult to raise children, I pointed out that there were no other choices in the past. AS AN ASIDE I also pointed out that that must have resulted in some deeply unhappy people.

    Sure, some people want kids and some dont. But in the past (which is what you referred to), no one had any choices anyway. So it didnt matter if it was difficult to raise them or not.

    i.e., just because we are all here doesnt mean it wasnt difficult to raise kids.

    Choice's or not aside all through history and horrific circumstances people where able to raise children , even as you said kids they had no choice in having ,

    But in the year 2019 in the most pampered time in human history people claim its difficult, If you want raise kids its not difficult ,

    Lets be clear we live in a first world country , its people own choices that make it difficult.

    I understand there as certainty situation its difficult like if you made poor choice trough your life and don't have a job , or had an injury or born with a disability ,or have fertility issues these sort of things will make if difficult ,but for your average working Irish person if YOU Make the right decisions its not difficult to raise a child,

    Again if you don't want kids then that's fair enough your own choice


  • #655
    highly1111
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 960 ✭✭✭highly1111


    What 25 year old bloke DOES want kids???


  • #656
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    Choice's or not aside all through history and horrific circumstances people where able to raise children

    But that doesnt prove it wasnt difficult.

    It just means that it happened. And the reason it happened is because people couldnt stop it from happening. And it was largely a numbers game - the infant mortality rate used to be really high, people used to have dozens of children but then only end up raising a few.

    History will be interesting in 500 years time when the impact of people being able to reliably choose not to have children is visible on a large scale.

    You seem to be arguing that it is easier today to raise children than ever before - which I generally agree with - but mostly because life is easier for most of us today than at any other point in history when we were less civilised and didnt have antibiotics etc...

    But modern living brings a different set of difficulties to the table as regards having children and perhaps in modern times, other issues that didnt exist in the past are now present which makes it more difficult for some people?


  • #657
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,954 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    You seem to be arguing that it is easier today to raise children than ever before - which I generally agree with -

    Sound sorted so :D


  • #658
    .......
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,048 ✭✭✭.......


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    You seem to be arguing that it is easier today to raise children than ever before - which I generally agree with -

    Sound sorted so :D

    I think Im saying its easier in some ways but not in others.

    But so many factors influence it its hard to know if we are comparing like with like.


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