Conflicted about not having children.

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Hi,

I am just wondering if anyone here can relate to this. I am engaged to a wonderful guy and I will be turning 40 in a few months. I am so fortunate that I found somebody I could relate to and who accepts me for who I am. We have both decided not to have children due to each of us being at a much older age and financial and disability issues. At this point I may not even be able to conceive a child.

However, today I saw a lot of mothers with young children and I am fighting to hold back the tears as I write this. My fiance is also, I believe, on the spectrum. I don't think he would really understand if I told him about how I felt. He did say that he would have had children if we had both been much younger and he was in a position to financially support a wife and children. We will have enough to live on but not enough to support a family in the way he would want to. Plus he is getting close to 50 years old so that is very late to be starting a family.

I know it's for the best that he and I not start a family but I just feel so incredibly empty and disconnected. I do have newphews and a niece but they live in a different state and so I don't get to see them as often as I would like. I have a few friends but I have not been able to make a connection with a family with children. So has anyone else felt a sense of loss or emptiness at not having children?

Well, it's very common for women (and to a lesser extent, men) to have an intense desire to have children, especially as they get older. After all, reproduction is one of our most basic instincts.

Your situation is unfortunate. One solution I could think of is saving money and then adopting an older child. This way you skip some expensive years and your fertility shouldn't be an issue. You may still have trouble financially of course, and not everyone is equally happy to adopt a child versus having one "of their own blood".

Sorry to hear that.

Not sure what to say. Whenever I'm around my nieces and nephews there is a part of me that feels alone and thinks how wonderful it would be to have kids. Then when I actually watch my sister's kids, I realize all the responsibilty put forth. It is indeed a great big responsibility and sacrifice.

Ever thought about venting this frustration of wanting children into other areas, perhaps helping out other children like volunteering at schools or maybe even eventually adopting?

So many kids born into families unwanted or in financial distress, I see so much that could be done already. It really does take a community to raise a child, something even would-be parents don't seem to be aware of.

I relate to that feeling a lot although it's slightly different in my case because I'm only 32 at the moment. I don't have a partner, and never have had one, I also don't seem to experience attraction to other people and can't stand physical or emotional intimacy, as well as having a major phobia of anything medical and major intolerance of other people moving my possessions which is quite a barrier to relationships.

And yet somehow despite the fact that having a baby encompasses all of my worst nightmares, I feel sad and somehow have an ideology that I want kids.

I think that AS is a double-edged sword in that way. Experience tells me that I am at my happiest when I'm on my own but observation of other people gives me some kind of delusion that having kids is the key to happiness.

I'm not sure but the way I feel about it, if you want kids and are capable of having them, maybe you should have one and see what happens? I'm sure it's possible at 40?

All those worries about affording a child are an excuse. Once you have a child, you afford it because that's just part of your life and its not nearly the burden you might expect. I didn't have my daughter until I was in my 30s because of worries like that. Now I'd very much like to have another, age be damned, but I'm single, 50, Autistic and living on Disability. A regular chick magnet.

If you're ever going to change your mind, you'd better change it now. You do still have time. Better to regret what you have done than what you haven't.


Not meaning of course, that I think you would ever regret having a child. Just to clarify.

Last edited by Willard on 07 Apr 2010, 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yip... It's a cliche but that's the exact phrase I had in mind too... I know it doesn't sound particularly ethical but if I wanted to have a kid and felt capable of doing it with the only exception being finance, I would go ahead and have the kid and let the benefits system help me out like so many other people do over here

Perhaps you could be a foster mum?

I had a few moments like that early on in my relationship with my husband. When we got together, we both wanted two girls. He changed his mind about wanting children long before I did and I had a lot of moments where I wondered if we should break up, if I valued him over any future possible child, and whether I was unscrupulous enough to get pregant "accidentally." (No, I'm not.) However, after listening to him and trying to understand, I realized the only reason I wanted a child was that society said I should. I love children; that's why I became a teacher/tutor in the first place. We have decided to be childfree for a number of reasons, but the big one is that's how we're happiest.

If you are really miserable about not being a mother, you need to address this with your fiancee. If he is never going to want children and you feel you always will, that's a problem. Never marry someone hoping they will change their mind! Never have a child unless both partners want it! 40 is not too late to have a child; women in my family tend to marry late and have children late. (I married at 30, and certainly didn't plan on having children quickly.) You may have more trouble with fertility, but if you are healthy and your doctor clears you, there is no reason you could not have a child and be a wonderful mother. (By the way, I think making the decision based on financial reasons is responsible, but understand you may never find a time where you feel you can afford a child. It's like they say, there's never a "right time" to have a child. If you want one, you just have to make things work somehow!)

You are so right. In my case, I think the reason I want a relationship and want kids isn't necessarily because I genuinely believe I would be happier that way, but more because in some twisted way, I kinda believe that it would make me fit in or become 'normal'.

Rose_in_Winter... I think your mature advice is REALLY good! Actually I think working with kids in a way is a good way to enjoy time with kids too, I was thinking that working with kids who have AS might be a good experience if I could do something computer-ish with them

I feel the opposite - I've never had a strong desire to have children, even though I like them. If raising them is out of the question, maybe you could volunteer in a capacity that allows you to work closely with them. I work with kids and can tell you that very strong bonds can be formed that way.

You're young, so I'll be nice about this. But as a 15 and a male, you really need to be respectful of what discussions are not appropriate for you to participate in, and then stay out of them. The last thing anyone, but especially an adult, who comes here to WP with a deep, existential problem like this wants is to be patronized by a child with worthless, thoughtless, pseudo-compassionate platitudes like "it's very common..." and "your situation is unfortunate."

There are number of other forums you can go play here at WP until you grow up, get some perspective and learn not to be patronizing of people who have problems you cannot possibly fathom. I know many Aspie kids seem mature for their age. Yeah well, I was once an Aspie kid once myself and I know that veneer of maturity Aspie kids project really hides a lot of naivety, gullibility, and more often than not, a childish arrogance.

I know the participation of men and boys in the women's forums has been hotly debated, but this is one of the reasons why I've long been against: men and boys like to patronize women. It gives them an ego boost. It gives them a sense of power over women, that they think they can understand us and unravel our otherness. But really, it's a form of bullying and control, and a kind of bullying and control that MANY Aspe and ASD women have had to live with all our lives. And to allow a 15 year old boy come in here and patronize a 40 year old women like this? About something this painful and personal? Inexcusable.

Please read my comment to Michael Stuart about men coming into the women's forum and patronizng women.

I grew up in family who had a lot of money problems. I had PTSD by the time I was 8 because of insecurity and instability caused by my parent's financial problems. Having to move every year so my dad could find work, watching my father sinking into depression, the never-ending anxiety I felt from my mom have anxiety attacks every day over money and over her loveless marriage to a depressed, broken man. Don't be so flippant about money. Money is a big part of providing a child with a secure and happy home, like it or it. It's reality.

I don't think anyone's saying it's right to bring kids into the world when you can't guarantee to be able to afford to fend for them, but from my female point of view, I think that if you want kids, rather than have to live with the regret of not having had them for what could be up to 60 years, I think it's the lesser of the evils to try to make it work.

It's definitely a difficult and personal decision. I think that for female Aspies the decision of whether or not to have kids is a really big thing because there are so many more complicating factors in the decision than there are for NTs. It's not as if we can be confident of making a relationship work or keeping a job or not getting overwhelmed by things that happens. But we are what we are and there are lots of people out there who don't have much money and do manage to successfully bring up kids in a loving environment.

Another thing I was thinking is that maybe it'd be worth speaking to a psychologist or some kind of professional about having kids to really talk through all the permutations of what might happen and to see whether there would be any additional support available from other agencies to help because there's no doubt that it would be difficult

My parents were extremely poor and my dad was a high school drop out. We didn't have a heater until I was 5, so we had to wear coats in the house. We were on food stamps and we had issues with extreme domestic violence, racial discrimination, etc. The list goes on, and probably a lot of people can relate. Still, though, my mother was so happy when she found out she was pregnant and did everything in her power to provide for my needs. I love her very much and though it was hard for them, I was still cared for and loved. Lack of money wouldn't stop me from having a child - if that stopped my family, most of us would never have been born and my life wouldn't be as rich.

I think back to when I was a teenager and how pregnancy was a great fear for so many girls. Looking back, if I had been so lucky to have had a baby then, I would have another person to love who would have shaped my life, I'm sure, for the better, just as all the children in my family have - regardless of the difficulties. My family would have helped me, just like we helped my sister who had a surprise pregnancy. You never know if or when you'll have a child, so when it comes, if ever, it is a blessing. Now, at 35 I'm infertile and who knows if I'll ever have kids.

ok, and hot water, here I come....

Unless WP puts a filter on this forum to prevent males from entering it, they are perfectly entitled to participate. And regarding something like having children - they are the other half of the equation. There are many males, including my husband, who want children desperately - to exclude them from the conversation based solely on their gender is to dismiss them because of sexism. Just because they have penises doesn't mean their opinion is less valuable. I have known many males in my own family who have stepped in as mother figures because certain mothers were unfit or even cruel. I don't think our young friend was trying to be patronizing. He is simply inexperienced. I believe he meant well. We can and should guide him with patience and kindness.

I don't think he was being patronizing or disrespectful either. He made a valid point about adoption, and his comments were simply observations.

Yeah, that comment was nasty, if you were going to be offended by an open discussion you wouldn't post your comment in an open forum.

One of my friends can't have kids and adopted a baby boy from her homeland in Malaysia and you can't even tell he isn't her biological child they love each other so much.

There are so many permutations to consider and that's not even taking into account that it's not easy to tell what you want in the first place.

I think that the 'children' conflict is not dissimilar to the other classic Aspie dichotomy of longing to be alone when with others and yet, when alone, feeling lonely and longing to have relationships.

I think the most important question to try to figure out is, the one right from the beginning...

Do we genuinely want to have kids... or is it just another classic case of the grass always being greener on the other side...?