Yep, it’s the usual question
We’re very close, and we’re also getting to that age where everyone’s trying to settle in
I think she would be extremely sad if she stayed with me and if we didn’t have kids
But she also says that our relationship is the best she’s ever had and she only wants me
I hate work culture and I don’t want to work until I’m 80 because I have kids, it’s the biggest issue for me. I want to live as frugally as possible. In addition to that I have hobbies and I want my time spent on my hobbies and interests
I don’t know what I’m looking for by posting this, feel free to reply with anything relevant
I was in your position some 18y ago. i was on the fence but wife wanted it. we had one.
i thought that would be it for me. but 4y later wife wanted another one. i was on the fence again but went for it.
both were the best things in my life. without the kids I would devolve into work culture. my life’s a lot better now with them.
Why do these anecdotes always sound like a person giving up and allowing themselves to be assimilated by brain slugs?
“I gave up on my closely held beliefs and drank the hormone poison and now I love the tentacle!”
Man, i can’t deny that you have a valid point, but from a practical standpoint: does it matter, if it makes you happy?
I was never on the fence about wanting kids. I had a shitty childhood and my guiding purpose was always to rectify that by making sure my kids grew up with the support and resources they needed that I didn’t have. And I sacrificed a lot to make that happen - while all my friends were enjoying their 20s, I was grinding my career, hard, to make sure I could pull it off.
I wouldn’t go back and change a single thing. Yeah, the early years sucked. Yeah, it was a huge risk either way for my wife. Yeah, I could have traveled more or used all that money for stuff for ourselves. I think what I got instead was infinitely more valuable.
I’m sorry that we live in a bullshit world where financial constraints even make this a problem for people. Having kids should be a slam dunk easy decision if it weren’t for those implications, and modern medicine has drastically lowered infant and maternal mortality (not enough to trivialize it, but it’s not killing 30% of women like it used to).
They don’t sound like that to me. I gave up lots of things in the thirty years I’ve been with my wife. Not because I am with her, but because I outgrew some things, life happened or whatever. I agree with the person you’re replying to, deciding to have kids is great in hindsight.
That’s a good point. You give up things by being in a relationship but gain other things. Who could possibly know how you’re going to find being a parent… what kind of bond you’ll form. Whether your partner will be a good parent etc without going through it.
If you’re lucky you get to make the decision either way, and don’t have it made for you.
Which is also a good point, if you don’t make a decision, someone will make it for you.
More like “I was wrong about this thing I was convinced to be true, being a parent is actually pretty awesome”
Shout-out to young me who said he’d never eat a brussel sprout!
That’s not OP’s position though. Sounds like you were ambivalent; OP sounds like he actively does not want them. It’s a world of difference.