Conflicted about not having children.

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This is how I feel. I feel like I'd just be a host, a receptacle, a baby producing robot. I can't even wrap my mind around why people, if artificial wombs became possible and affordable, wouldn't use them. I like my abs right where they are, not shredded.

Um... anyway, to act like I'm contributing to the topic, you could always think things like this if you wanted to go the "sour grapes" route. Then you could get REALLY bitter and disillusioned and call women who have babies "breeders" and glare at them and their spawn when you're at Wal-mart or something.

But really, wanting kids isn't a bad thing. Wanting to play host is just what I find weird. Let someone else do it and I'll adopt if I completely lose my identity and grow a biological clock.

Yay, good to know I'm not a horrible monster for having those feelings, and that I'm not the only one.

I respect women who do choose to have children. I just feel viscerally disturbed by the idea of having one myself.

I guess people don't want artificial wombs because they want the emotional experience of carrying a child. Maybe they feel it would be less intimate and they'd have less motherly bonding feelings for their kid if they kept them in an artificial incubator..Myself, I'd rather have my adrenal glands taken without anesthesia...

I'm sick in the head, I know. I totally shouldn't say stuff like that.

I feel angry if someone so much as makes a comment like 'When you have kids' or 'You'll probably want to have kids when you're 28 or so.'... I'm like, how dare they associate me with babies and birth? It's utterly irrational, I know, but emotionally I feel like they're saying, Hey, you're only a baby machine, you're not allowed to have an intellect or emotions, you're not allowed to have interests or abilities, you're just an incubator and don't you ever forget it.

For the past year or so I have wanted a child of my own. Before that I wasn't really all that bothered about it, but knew I'd probably really want one at some point in life. For years I've had conflicting feelings about it - I too sometimes thought of pregnant women as hosts to parasites when I saw them, but at the same time I was happy for them, and that I could have one someday.

I'm now pregnant, and starting to get the mood swings. I had an argument with my partner yesterday about eating food because I feel crap most of the time and don't want to eat, and he kept saying "you have to think of the baby" and I kept saying "WHAT ABOUT ME". But then I get over it, eat some food, and move on. I'm sure I'll be better with it once the sickness goes away. And sometimes I do sit there, stroke my tummy, and think there's a little person in there that I'm growing all on my own, and I feel almost proud? I'm not sure of the emotion I feel, but it's a nice one.

It's all well and good discussing the financial, physical, medical and environmental factors of having a child, but something your partner cannot be with you for is the EMOTIONAL factor. After all, his job is done once you get that line. You have to think about whether you're emotionally ready to take care of a completely dependant life form. You have to think about whether you're ready and willing enough to go through the months of sickness, the months of heartburn, the months of intimate appointments, and in the end, the massively stressful delivery. Your partner can be there for you, but he certainly isn't living it himself. And what about post-natal depression? Could your relationship cope with that? Could YOU cope with that? What if you have to have an emergency caesarian? Could your partner cope with looking after the baby until you get back on your feet? All of these things need to be considered.

I started getting all of my gyn care at Planned Parenthood because All of the Ob-Gyns used to have this kind of speculative expression when they looked at me, like, 'how long until I have you on my table?' And directed towards my abdomen. It really gave me the creeps. Now that I'm moving towards the end of fertility (34 years), I get a lot more human contact instead of potential-patient contact.

Yike. That is messed up, but it doesn't surprise me. Remember when there was this drive for women to treat themselves as 'pre-pregnant'? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00875.html)Whether or not they wanted a baby?

I get really upset by the "Oh, you'll change your mind when you get older" types, too. I asked my gynecologist for an endometrial ablasion to stop my periods and she stared at me all horrified and said "But, we'd have to tie your tubes, too."

I just stared back and said "That's... yeah. I know. That's the point."

@LKL, I kind of got the same vibe from her, like an "Oh no! I'm losing a customer!" vibe. Pffffft. Don't worry, lady. I'm not asking you to rip out my vagina.

I didn't have it done because of all of the weird stuff that can happen (look it up some time. It looks spooky), but if I found out I were sterile, I'd probably celebrate.



This has come up in a lot of the really new feminist books I've read. So, instead of women taking care of ourselves, we should just make sure we take folic acid to ensure the health of some man's spawn? Riiiiight. The instant I found out I was pregnant, I'd start thinking about how NOT to be.

Though I have a child, I sympathize a lot... it's becoming very real to me right now that we really never will have another one, and that can be hard to cope with, even though it's by choice. (I feel too stressed and impaired to be a good-enough mother as it is.) I guess it's a choice I wouldn't make if things could be different, and that's why it hurts.

There's a very good book called Sweet Grapes, which I read when I was afraid infertility would keep us from ever having a child and my husband refused to adopt. It's about choosing the attitude of being child-free instead of childless. Though the other options people have suggested here are also worth thinking about. I guess a lot would depend on how strongly your partner feels about kids in your life, or not in your life.

I don't want them at all. I HATE children.

Can someone please clarify why "your situation is unfortunate" is considered patronizing/thoughtless/worthless/etc? While "your situation is unfortunate" wouldn't have been the words I'd have chosen for this particular conversation, I do have a tendency to speak too formally, especially if I am unsure or uncomfortable in a situation. Now I worry that I have been unintentionally patronizing people all along.

It's not patronizing; at least I don't mind if someone talks too formally to me. Rather I'd appreciate that they care.

I think it was just a bad reaction to an otherwise acceptable response. But tbh I don't really give a s**t if people don't like what I say.. mostly because it's, more often than not, right

I think it's about a little bit more than attitude, though. For example, my husband and I are childfree. Although we might be able to procreate, we've decided not to. My friend Ty and her husband are childless; for no reason they or their doctors can find, they are unable to conceive the child they desperately want. They have not chosen their state. People who are childfree have often made the decision not to have a child even though they are biologically capable.

Oh, and when people say things to me along the lines of "But what's wrong with you, why don't you want children, isn't your biological clock ticking," I say, "My biological clock is set to 'dog.'" You could replace dog with something you like very much...cats, or your novel, or whatever comes to mind. My baby is my dog, and he's all the baby I want and IMHO far superior to a human baby.

The point of the book I was mentioning was to change your state of mind from feeling childless -- unable to have children that you want -- to childfree -- happy with your life without children.

I always wanted to have 2 Alsatians instead of 2 children