Why do people want children?

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It seems to me most parents suffer from some sort of of Stockholm's syndrome.

This is a summary of what people say:

"having children is so stressful, so expensive, will ruin your relationship with your partner, you get no time to do your own thing and the children eventually grow older and don't need you anymore so bye bye, thanks for raising me.

BUT

it makes your life SO meaningful and few parents regrets having children. "


to me it just sounds like stockholm syndrome or a form of denial. Everyone I talked to about this tell me to enjoy my freedom as much as possible. do you think i am dumb, I will never have biological kids. Firstly, I think it's selfish to enforce life (especially HUMAN life which is parasitic and generally crap on the planet). Secondly, I want to live freely and without stress and i don't need that extra baggage. I don't understand the appeal, the motivation the sheer insanity that leads people into reproducing.

Didn't you post this subject already?

Most people didn't want their children. The kids were accidents because the parents did stupid things like think that the mother couldn't get pregnant first time they did it, or she lied about being on the pill, or they were drunk or high on drugs.

My brother and I have been on our own for quite a few years now, however, and our parents still say they love us. Can Stockholm syndrome still affect parents who are no longer held prisoner?

Children are a joy.
Not stressful - fun.
Expensive? Not really, unless you're sending them to private schools and buying them designer clothes and the latest iPhone.
Relationship not only survived, but happily so, and the kids are our best friends.
Don't regret reproducing one iota.

I don't want to be cynical about this at all.

I had a difficult relationship with my parents, both of whom are now dead, but I'm hugely grateful to them for bringing me into the world and wish I'd been better able to show my appreciation to them.

All the same I was never really able to understand the whole business, and still struggle to do so.

When I was a child, my mother used to say things like "When you get married and have children, you'll realize how difficult it can all be..." or similar. Even as a twelve year old, my reaction was to think "Why on earth would I want to get married and have children?" I never really progressed beyond that in all probability.

When I was about 18, my father told me "People have children as a sort of investment". Still don't know what he meant by that.

Last edited by DeepHour on 04 Sep 2018, 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

not this thread, i probably complained about something similar in a passing comment. the desire to procreate itself is confusing to me. I don't understand it at all.

Last edited by Gallia on 04 Sep 2018, 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yes. it's about making sense of their own decisions. My mother didn't choose any of us. She sometimes complains but not that much. I know for a fact she would have had a more fun and stress free existence without us.

see, my thought is, why not get a pet? what do children add to your life that animals/ friends don't already?

or if you rly want children why not adopt? why the need for a biological replica of your genes, it seems so... narcissistic.

Last edited by Gallia on 04 Sep 2018, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not. I wish I were not born. Life hasn't been bad to me but still I am terrified of ageing, dying and the changes the come alongside that. life is a death sentence.

Kids are wonderful but lots of people here prefer to get a cat.

^-^ yup. i'm gonna have a farm house ahah

^ Seconded, thirded.. giving life to my children and watching their lives unfold is the best of what I have achieved and they have enriched my life beyond description, despite the hills and valleys in their lives, the hard times pass, the joy doesn't. I feel blessed, and looking back, if asked what I would do again - from my current perspective of advanced age - the answer is obvious.

I also became a cat parent from a very early age. It wasn't either/or. They also enriched my life in indescribable ways.

i just don't have any maternal instict towards my own specie and so for me it is impossible to relate to the feeling people describe when talking about wanting kids. I am also 26 so all my female friends are sort of in the "let's get married and have babies" stage and i'm like "i wanna go to Ghibli world" so I feel alienated from my peers' aspirations.

and there is also that self hatred as a human and desire to protect the environment against us. i have saved flies and spiders and all kinds of creepy bugs in my time. so that's me being maternal. if i were God i would decrease the number of humans to restore more habitat to other species.

I respect women's choices concerning motherhood. We are not all carbon copies. (Meet one woman and you've met one woman..!)

I grew up in the 1950s were women were denied choice. The struggle we went through to achieve choices for women was arduous and hardfought. So I would be the last to prescribe my choice as right for other women, though it was right for me.

The 1980s were not an easy time either to balance parenting, the deaths of loved ones, cats, dogs, career and political activities. But somehow I managed, though the strain was overwhelming at times. It did give me a stronger perspective in later decades, though, as in "if I could survive all that, then nothing new is going to defeat me".

It's more fun making your own.

Indeed Raleigh! And children are not biological clones of their parents, they are individuals with their own mix of inherited genes and not just from their parents.

Adoption is fraught with difficulties and challenges, and sadly, adopted children are more likely to be abused and far more likely to commit suicide. The research on this has been around for a long time, though it is kept in the background in some countries where adoption is very lucrative for the intermediaries who are often involved in the shady side of "finding" children in spurious ways including purchasing them from countries who ignore international conventions on this (unfortunately the USA has not ratified treaties for the protection of children from exploitative practices, unlike most of the world's countries).

No-one is forcing you to have children and I can understand that you don't want to, Gallia, and respect your choice. But that doesn't entitle you to judge those who do. Both choices are valid ways to live your life.