Kids or No Kids?

[Jopo1980]

OK, the question this time is: Do you want children? and Do children bring happiness?

 

Personally I am not in a position to make that choice as I have no girlfriend or a wife and even if I did have one I wouldn´t want any kids under the present circumstances and those circumstances are unlikely to change, so NO KIDS for me.

 

More questions: Why do you want children? Does money affect your decision on having children?

 

Personally money IS the reason why I don´t want children. I simply cannot afford them. Besides I do not know if having children would make me happier or not, for all I know it could be miserable.

 

More questions: What do you miss without children? What if the children become total failures in life, would you still be proud of them or ashamed of them? If children bring only misery to you, wouldn´t it be better to be without them? Should a person working with children/youngsters have children of his/her own?

 

So, what do you think?

[bben46]

Children, and even more so, grandchildren are the meaning of life. Being able to afford them is really moot, as when you have them you WILL find a way to afford them as billions of people have done throughout history. What you really are saying is you want your hedonistic lifestyle with the freedom to spend what you do have on yourself and not on others. No wonder you don't have a girlfriend. :rolleyes: Hopefully that changes soon. :thumbsup:

 

I have seen this exact sentiment from dozens of young men in their late teens through late twenties, most of them eventually married and have children now. It is a natural human drive to have children, it seems to be somewhat stronger in women, but men have it also. It just kicks in a little later. :tongue:

 

In your teens and twenties you probably won't miss them and may suppress the biological need as something that would just slow you down and take the money you need want for your other activities. But when you start slowing down in your thirties you will start to see how much joy children bring to your ex friends. In your 50s, you will regret not having raised children, and, in your 60s you will be a bitter lonely person with no children or grandchildren to carry on after you are gone. :confused:

 

Some studies show that the suicide rate in older people is much higher for those who do not have children. Other studies show that most young people with this attitude change their minds later and do have children. :happy:

[Jopo1980]

@bben46: "Children, and even more so, grandchildren are the meaning of life. Being able to afford them is really moot, as when you have them you WILL find a way to afford them as billions of people have done throughout history."

I was expecting someone to raise that up, children are at least evolutionarily speaking the meaning of our lives, we live, we procreate and we die, that is our evolutionary mission and if you will our DUTY to mankind. What would happen if everyone decided not to have children anymore? We would go extinct in short order, same as with suicide, if we all did it. So mankind is lucky that most will eventually follow that path in their lives and have children.

 

As for my monetary situation, I am unable to afford children because I am unemployed and a student living on welfare. Social security gives me enough to survive (not much for fun and games), but not enough to pay for the bills of a family and THAT is the reason I have no girlfriend I suspect, because no woman would take a man who cannot provide for the future family the woman probably plans for.

 

But that is not all, even if I were to graduate tomorrow and find a steady job as a teacher, I still could not afford a family, not by my own standards. I know that 99.99% of people support their families at similar wages than that of an average teacher or even lower, but that´s not enough for me. In order to have a family I would require a fortune of a millionaire, to buy a house and to provide the family with a lifestyle I wish them to have, I will not settle for less. If I am unable to acquire that fortune and odds are against it as we all know, I will not have a family. To add to that further is the fact that most women DO want children and if the man is not forthcoming, then they simply switch the man, a simple deal. So, if I am not willing to have children, I will most likely stay alone and studies show that things are generally worse off for single men, although I quite like the freedom, no one to boss me around in my own flat. Regular sex however is something that you miss, not being in a relationship, but that loses importance with age it seems.

 

I see others of roughly my age (31) going along on their paths and having children, buying houses and cars etc. and I suspect many of them are happy with their children, but that average path is not for me, I want it all or nothing and the odds are nothing is exactly what I will get, but sometimes you have to challenge the odds.

[Lisnpuppy]

If you really men that...go do the right thing and have a vasectomy so some young woman does not have to raise a child without a Father's help.

 

My baby's Daddy (ha ha) NEVER wanted children. When I beat the 98% effective birth control lottery and had my daughter I was truly worried. 13 years and some change later....he and my daughter are like peas and carrots. He loves her and would turn the world over to make her safe and happy.

 

So...never say never....:thumbsup:

 

Though I am totally for not having children until you think you are ready and have means to take care of them..those means are not always the same. And the level of income a parent has does not dictate happiness and whole well-being of the child.

 

Now...what would I miss without my daughter....well....everything...absolutely everything.

[Flintlockecole]

I personally don't, my time for that ended. Why would I want to bring children into this messed up world.

[draconix]

bben: The meaning of life is not kids, the meaning of life is 42. But in all seriousness, I feel bad for anybody who really believes this. And even worse for the people who are incapable of having children who believe this.

 

Many people in life seek some form of immortality in life. Of course the literal sense is completely impossible at this point in time. However, some people can find ways of preserving themselves in the future through other means. Some people build lasting empires, some people want to be famous, some people want to raise children who will carry on a piece of themselves.. And in that sense I can see some people might think that the meaning of life is success, or rearing children. But the truth is that your life is your own, and the point of it all is to do what you want to with it. It's not your obligation to have children: You do have a choice.

 

Thankfully, my wife and I were able to "snap out of it," the idea that once we were married, the next thing that followed had to be children. This was especially a revelation for my wife, who being female, was practically brainwashed growing up that she was going to have children. Discussions were always "When you have children," never "if." At a young age little girls are given baby dolls, strollers and rockers... Little girls are inundated with baby imagery ad nauseam.

 

Children are great if you want them, but so many people never realize that children are a choice. For all too many people, children actually aren't. For some terrible reason, some schools try to teach abstinence exclusively as a means of birth control, who's students statistically has the highest rates of teen pregnancy. Other people are restricted by their religions who prohibit the use of birth control, or abortions. Having children at that age will prevent most people from being able to go to college, mothers and fathers, because the financial burden is too hard on young people who cannot get well paying jobs. But that's just teen pregnancy, which we all can agree is bad enough.

 

For two people who court for 5 years, get married the old fashioned way, and have children, circumstances are a bit different. But the financial burden of having children is still there. Children become roots which will hold you in place and prevent you from taking risks. Having children will ravage your bodies and consume your identity.

 

Allow me to explain: If you and your life partner decide to try to move across the country, if you don't have kids, you can do it. You just pack your things and go. If you hit hard times because of the move, you can eat cold ramen for a few months and be just fine because it was a risk the two of you accepted. But if you have children, you can't risk like that. A child can't eat cold ramen, or sleep on the floor, and that child did not have a choice, so by taking that risk, you would probably be a bad parent.

 

In addition, Having children also physically deforms the skeletal structure of women. It's not so noticeable after the first child, but after the 2nd or 3rd it becomes more noticeable, not to mention the baby weight that comes with each child. If that's not enough to affect your sex life, just wait until your privacy and alone time together pretty much gone. Of course you still love each other, hopefully, if your children haven't driven you two apart by this point, so you might still be able to make a spark together.

 

The above are all reasons one might reconsider children, but my reservation is actually the fact that parenthood becomes your identity when you are a parent. I don't know anywhere that this is quite so noticeable as an online class in the introductions. It never fails, people always introduce themselves by name, and go on to talk about their children. "Hi my name is Becky and I'm a single parent of three beautiful children," it never fails. You are no longer "Bob the architect," you're "Dad" and your lovely wife, "Mom" helps you raise the kids when you come home from work. People go absolutely bonkers for their children, they cherish them like pokemon. http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/laugh.gif People will actually revolve their lives around their children, taking them from activity to activity, paying megabucks for each activity all the while.

 

Now of course all of my discussion so far has probably sounded pretty selfish so far, and that's a fair enough assertion. My response? If that's selfish, then hell yes, my wife and I are selfish as hell. All the more reason we should not have kids. When we come home from work, we want to kick off our shoes, take a nap, watch TV, go out to dinner, come home and make love, stay up late playing video games, then sleep in the next morning. We like to enjoy the money we're not spending on kids by spending it on each other. Like I said above, the point of life is to live it for yourself, to have as much enjoyment in life as possible. I don't like the idea of a 20 year commitment to raising someone I've never met. And of course there's always the chance that the child could grow up to be a loser. People always assume that the child they have will be a bucket of sunshine. Clearly, that's not always the case.

 

Suppose some time down the road we decide we want children, there's nothing to stop us from adopting a kid who's already been potty trained, and just needs a leg up in life. I'm not that heartless. My wife and I just love each other so much that we don't want to lose each other to children.

[Jopo1980]

@Flintlockecole: You are 19, a year younger than I was when I met my first girlfriend. She was already at that age ready to have a baby, but I wasn´t and I told her that, how could I take care of a child without even a profession or a degree? That relationship ended after six months. Later she moved to Sweden, met a man there and now has a family she wanted, I´m happy for her. Your time for having children hasn´t even started yet. First you must get a profession or a degree of some sort, then a job and after that you can consider a family, without too much worry. That is my advice to you. Besides, this world may be screwed up, but future generations will hopefully make it better, so there´s a reason to have kids.

 

@Lisnpuppy: No I am not quite ready to have my nuts cut off, for as I have explained things may change although the odds of that happening are very slim. In the meantime I´ll definetely use birth control and currently I´m using the most effective kind, not having sex at all (actually I have been using that method all my life so far), and the odds of that situation changing are very slim aswell (these university ladies at Joensuu know their own worth and won´t settle for a fat, unathletic, poor, loser like me.). But still, sterilisation is much like suicide, it is a permanent solution and I´m not quite ready for that.

I know at least one man who said he never wanted children and now he is a father and for all I know a happy one. It seems that us men have a magical switch that goes "click" after we become fathers and suddenly we become model parents. :biggrin: It must be something in the evolution that made a man care about a child, or something of that sort.

 

My younger sister and her boyfriend who both have graduated, have jobs and just recently bought a house are considering of having a child, so my parents dream of having grandchildren will likely be realized regardless of my actions or attitudes, destiny (or whatever) has seen to that, but likelihood is that from me their hopes may very well be dashed.

 

Why are women around me all telling me "never say never" ?? My mind is jolly well made up and it´s not going to change by a magic touch of love or something. No woman could ever wield enough influence over me to change my mind on that matter and although miracles do happen as Lisnpuppy so worryingly stated, in 98% of the cases the birth control is effective, more so if you use TWO methods, just to make sure.

 

Needless to say, an "accident" would be disastrous in my current condition. If it happened I would go for abortion, but that´s the woman´s choice, not mine. When a child is conceived the law automatically jumps to the mothers side, obliging the man to pay his part in its upkeep. Some accept the situation and become good fathers, but I suspect I would have a tough time loving a child I did not originally want. Besides, how do you explain to the child when he/she is older and questions you about his/her beginnings, that you did not actually want him/her?? Originally my mother did not want any children, but luckily for me and my sister she changed her mind or I would not be here writing this (is that a good or a bad thing?).

 

Also, children are not something you can control. They may turn out just fine or they might shower you with disappointments A boy might turn out to be a loser and kill himself and the girl might marry the wrong type of man. Lady Fortuna laughs and plays dice with our lives and those of our children, although parents always hope for the best for their children.

[Balagor]

Me and my wife (for 35 years) are some of those folks who can find other things to do than just having children. True, the basic meaning of life is eat, sleep and have children. But we are human beings, and can fill our lifes with what we see fit, with what we see as a meaning to us.

For some it is children, and that is very ok, remember we can choose ourselfes. It is not that I dislike children, on the contrary. But with my unstable life as Bipolar, we didn´t want any children. Now many think that this must have been a terrible disaster of a life. No. We have done so many things in life that everybody else either cannot do, or have to wait to do.

As for seeking "immortallity", that´s rubbish. When I die, I die the same as every body else, whether I got children, got a statue, build the pyramids. When it´s my turn, I go.

[draconix]

Me and my wife (for 35 years) are some of those folks who can find other things to do than just having children. True, the basic meaning of life is eat, sleep and have children. But we are human beings, and can fill our lifes with what we see fit, with what we see as a meaning to us.

For some it is children, and that is very ok, remember we can choose ourselfes. It is not that I dislike children, on the contrary. But with my unstable life as Bipolar, we didn´t want any children. Now many think that this must have been a terrible disaster of a life. No. We have done so many things in life that everybody else either cannot do, or have to wait to do.

As for seeking "immortallity", that´s rubbish. When I die, I die the same as every body else, whether I got children, got a statue, build the pyramids. When it´s my turn, I go.

 

I agree. I never subscribed to the idea of striving for immortality through children or wealth. If I'd want immortality, I'd be going for the real deal. I was just stating that those are some of the things that drive people, like the meaning of their life is avoiding death by trying to attain some means of immortality as I described above. When I die, life's over, but while this crazy crazy phenomenon "life" exists, I want to enjoy it to the best of my ability.

[SpellAndShield]

Reproduction is our only purpose on earth, like any other animal. Wanting children, I suppose but I would be happiest donating to a sperm bank and knowing that my DNA is out there.