I’m feeling an overwhelming pressure to have kids?
I don’t know when the hell I went from being praised for not getting myself pregnant young to people asking me when I’m going to have babies and honestly? I DONT WANT CHILDREN whoever said your 20s are the greatest time of your life is a liar because it seems like ever since I hit mine people have been putting pressure on me to do things I don’t want to do it’s not that I don’t like kids I just don’t want any of my own and whenever I say that they think i said something horrible I feel like I’m a bad person for not wanting kids :,(
Do most people have kids because of social pressure?
No, not at all. What childless people don’t realize is that once they have a child they will flip a switch in their brain and become very attached to that kid—it will give motivation and purpose to their life. Until the switch flips people don’t realize it is there.Most people have kids because they realize their life is very brief and they will soon be gone, and without kids no one will remember they ever existed or care that they existed or remember their lives. Children is a form of immortality.I have a family tree, that is pretty extensive going back to 1717, but the only names on it are people who had kids. Otherwise you are the end of the line and no one is going to connect to your ancestry, and you wont be any sort of ancestor.I personally believe we are watching evolution in action. Nature gave most people a sex drive and assumed that would get you to the switch flipping part of parental nurture. Then along comes science and breaks that progression with birth control. Now you have to want kids. So we are having a massive die off of people who don’t have the desire to reproduce per se, and going into the next few generations will be only those people who want kids, along with those too stupid to use birth control. This sort of evolutionary pressure usually only happens during natural disasters and is as seismic as the Neanderthal die off of yore. That is probably a little unfortunate as we will lose some highly intelligent people who aren’t very emotional, but it will all work out after a few generations and people alive will know they want kids.
How do you resist the pressure to have kids from your family if you choose to be child-free for life?
You’ve made your decision, and it’s the right one for you. That’s all that needs to be said.But I will also add that it would be a terrible thing to have children solely or even in part to appease someone else. No child deserves that. Every child deserves to be born to a family that wholeheartedly and unconditionally welcomes her/him.I’ll also add that if the pressure is coming from one or the other’s parents, it would be kind to acknowledge that your decision might cause them to go through a grieving process, for the loss of their dreams of grandchildren. They’ll get over it, but it’s natural for them to feel sad. Many people look forward to having grandkids, even making plans in their mind for the activities and trips they’ll share with them. So they need to work through this to get to the place where they acknowledge that their dreams don’t trump your right to have the life you want.If the pressure’s coming from a brother or sister, uncle, aunt, etc., then at some point you may need to explain firmly that your choice isn’t their business and if they can’t stop talking about it, you’ll have to stop talking to them.
My mother keeps pressuring me to have children?
You don't have to do anything, your an adult. Tell her you and Erik do not want children and to stop asking you, have him ring her and tell her if she still believes he does. Tell her that her asking you all of the time is stopping you spending any time together or with your grandfather. She needs to learn that her own desires are not the same as your own desires, some parents get confused with this and see their children as extentions of themselves rather than individuals. If you live alone who is cooking your food and doing your laundry? Those are life skills that everyone should know, I agree that if you do not know how to wash clothes or cook food you should not have children. 23, is very young. Not just 'quite young' People seem to be surrounded by teenage pregnancies so consider over a certain age to be 'old' its not old. Women are having natural healthy children in their 40's, the risk of miscarriage,down's syndrome and still birth increases but out of everyone I've known who has had a child between 30-45 only one of them experienced problems and the person still has one healthy child that they had. You can always adopt like you mention. I wanted children as a teenager, the feeling passed as I got older though and I woke up to the reality of the responsibilities of having children, I was blinded when I was younger to the fun side. I'm in my late twenties and will just adopt older if I lose my fertility. The world is not exactly lacking in people, there is no dire need to increase the population. Having children when the world already has so many needing homes in my opinion is quite an irresponsible, self serving act, so many think they are doing some wonderful act for the world yet do not care to think about the kind of world they are bringing and leaving their children in.
Why does society pressure couples to have children?
I don't think that our society puts that much pressure on couples. The Church doesn't butt in like it once did, requesting women to have tons of children. Our cultural background doesn't make it so that a woman who does not conceive is a shame. Our lifestyle, for most of us, allows us to choose whether or not we should have kids, instead of popping out dozens of them to work for us in the family farm. A woman can have a career, and thus a purpose outside of being a stay-at-home mother. So I think you might be slightly overreacting, especially if you take the time to look at nativity charts over the decades... So you and your wife do not want kids. It's a good call: nobody should be forced to have any. However, you seem to wonder about why people would want kids in general, and why they would think everyone should have them. Here's how I see it: kids represent both stability and unpredictable fun. Every where, you can hear about couples breaking up, parents skipping town, monoparental moms and dads and recomposed families, abusive parents or spouses... I don't think it's that big a wonder that a couple would want to have a family and be able to create a sense of security and love that they may or may not have experienced beforehand. For a lot of people, when you've reached a zone of trust and comfort with your significant other and like to contemplate the future, having children is simply the next logical step towards a happy home. It's also fun, a kid. It changes your life. It's a living, breathing, loving person that is part of you and that you can help develop into an amazing human being. I read your arguments against having any, and they sound logical. However, the thing is, most parents I know do not have 'money', 'career' and 'my figure' on the top of their priority list. That's why, if you ask a mother or a father if she would give back any of her children against large sums of money, an incredibile boost in career and getting back their younger body, they would say probably say no. Because parenthood isn't the burden you make it out to be, and they don't regret it. See, I'm not anyone's mother yet but, in general, the families I know do not seem bitter when a woman gets pregnant, and the parents I talk with seem happy to be working if it means providing a decent future for their child. Perhaps that's part of the reason why.