It’s obviously an individual by individual thing, so generalizing is probably not going to work out well. In my own case, I’m not sure I would be able to provide the same level of care and affection for an adopted child as I do my own children. I have issues with personal attachments and especially with other peoples’ children. Even hugging children of my friends feels all kinds of weird and awkward to me. But I have had none of those hangups about my own children. When my first child was born, I was holding him and caring for him in the hospital on day one.

That said, it’s hard to know how we would react until we are in that situation. And people can and do change. When I was younger, I was adamantly against children. At some point that changed and my wife and I had kids. We even discussed the option of adoption when we were trying for kids and while I expressed reservations, I wasn’t completely closed to the idea. It’s possible that, were one of us infertile, we would have ended up adopting and I would have grown past my hangups. Though, as with just about everything in a relationship, communication is important. Talking with a partner about wants, desires and expectations is important. And while it can happen, don’t expect a person to change.