Fear of having children - serious discussion

This morning, I was standing outside with my youngest tax deduction, waiting on the school bus to pick her up. Sitting on the bench out front, she sat in my lap, laid her head against my chest, and said "love you, dada." You know what, nothing else matters right now. I'm good to go. Dad life is awesome.

...I'll check back this evening when she finds a marker and starts drawing on the walls or something. lol
 
This morning, I was standing outside with my youngest tax deduction, waiting on the school bus to pick her up. Sitting on the bench out front, she sat in my lap, laid her head against my chest, and said "love you, dada." You know what, nothing else matters right now. I'm good to go. Dad life is awesome.

...I'll check back this evening when she finds a marker and starts drawing on the walls or something. lol
My youngest daughter drew on our newish Volvo 855 ca 2000. The car door. With a sharp rock.

There are limits, but you must set and control them.
 
My youngest daughter drew on our newish Volvo 855 ca 2000. The car door. With a sharp rock.

There are limits, but you must set and control them.

Absolutely. She loves to go ham with markers so we have a wall in her room that's blank and have this giant roll of craft paper that we roll out against the wall so she can have at it. She's autistic so setting controls is rather difficult. We do the best we can around her routine. Sometimes, just letting her stim is the best answer.
 
Why would anyone consciously bring a new life to this horrible world?
Because this world is not just horrible, but in many ways, quite amazing and wonderful. I'm now an old man, I don't look back at the past longingly, thinking it was better than today. I do know my life continues to be, and has been filled with, more than enough good.

As my father was dying in the hospital, he had me push his wheelchair to the nurse's store-room, where we figured out the door lock combo and "pilfered" some cookies and milk and other goodies. He was wildly diabetic, and this kind of thing was really off limits. Anyway, dad and I had a blast all through life, even to the bitter end. We laughed like idiots about the cookies and milk. Even at the end, he had fun, he knew how.

Now that I'm older, my wife is in relatively poor health and can't travel with me. I do everything by myself.
 
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Why would anyone consciously bring a new life to this horrible world? Spend all that energy raising them hoping that things don't go wrong in order to end up with kids whose ultimate decision will be which hell-hole nursing home to put you in?
Because the world has always been horrible in some ways. What? We should just quit as a species?

Funky attitude and maybe a source of some of our problems right there. Mankind is doing fine, and yes we will survive. The world is and can be a great place as well.
 
I am 35 years old, and the other day I stopped to think.

I always said I did not want children

I realized that in life I don't want to be a mouse, the one who lives, works and doesn't even know why. Work costs me effort,

I realize that this is not the best reasoning for wanting a child
I'm sure someone has already been through this and maybe can tell me what they think or give me some advice.

1) I have no children, never wanted any, when I turned 50, I realized I had really screwed up.

2) Society encourages the smartest and healthiest women to get an education, put off childbirth and to work. This uses up the best years and is, in my opinion, diabolical in nature.

3) Employers take advantage of the childless, extended hours/weekends/holidays are fair game to them. As the employee does not have to leave for daycare, little league, doctors, school pickup and 100 other activities. Workers are groomed into wage and lifestyle servants. Especially childless ones. My boss would regularly say, you have no kids, you can work the weekend. From 7:30 AM to 11PM, or what ever nonsense he required. I went 16 years with no vacations, one year, only 19 days off. That's 1 day per month, with an insistence on my part to take a few around christmas, had to beg for that. Hahaha insane, that's how they ran it.

4) I'm old, reasonably well off and the proceeds of all my work does not go to my descendants. Instead, it gets frittered away among various well off relatives, or to some charity (I don't trust or want to give wealth to charity).

5) "IF" I could go back in time, to age 22, (I have a wonderful wife but she never wanted kids) I'd marry an intelligent woman that wanted kids and have 3 or 4, or even 5 children, and I'd start early. I'd not care about the risk of divorce, in my mind, it's worth it for good children, it's worth every last penny.

6) I always knew I was a very capable person, I should have trusted my abilities to provide for a family, instead of worrying about money. This country is incredibly prosperous. Nobody starves here.

But again, what does this old man know? I have only one regret in life and it's a big one. No children.
 
I’ll be blunt, if your GF is over 30 years old, you better make up your mind now and act now. Read up on geriatric pregnancies. The risk goes up tremendously.
Biology still rules despite medical advances. Many young people complicate their lives by having children later and later. The medical and pharmaceutical industry is happy though.

Wanting children is natural. We want to pass on our genes.
Before birth control, hormones usually took care of that, even if the realization wasn’t there. Now I guess we can put it off far enough that we actually feel something is missing.
 
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1) I have no children, never wanted any, when I turned 50, I realized I had really screwed up.

2) Society encourages the smartest and healthiest women to get an education, put off childbirth and to work. This uses up the best years and is, in my opinion, diabolical in nature.

3) Employers take advantage of the childless, extended hours/weekends/holidays are fair game to them. As the employee does not have to leave for daycare, little league, doctors, school pickup and 100 other activities. Workers are groomed into wage and lifestyle servants. Especially childless ones. My boss would regularly say, you have no kids, you can work the weekend. From 7:30 AM to 11PM, or what ever nonsense he required. I went 16 years with no vacations, one year, only 19 days off. That's 1 day per month, with an insistence on my part to take a few around christmas, had to beg for that. Hahaha insane, that's how they ran it.

4) I'm old, reasonably well off and the proceeds of all my work does not go to my descendants. Instead, it gets frittered away among various well off relatives, or to some charity (I don't trust or want to give wealth to charity).

5) "IF" I could go back in time, to age 22, (I have a wonderful wife but she never wanted kids) I'd marry an intelligent woman that wanted kids and have 3 or 4, or even 5 children, and I'd start early. I'd not care about the risk of divorce, in my mind, it's worth it for good children, it's worth every last penny.

6) I always knew I was a very capable person, I should have trusted my abilities to provide for a family, instead of worrying about money. This country is incredibly prosperous. Nobody starves here.

But again, what does this old man know? I have only one regret in life and it's a big one. No children.

I think your assessment is 100% spot on.
I got married early at 24, had first child at 26. I have four total and no regrets.

Young people, especially women are being lied to. Corporate career is not at all fulfilling in most cases.
 
Interesting questions you bring up here.

Who do I work for? Well, myself, literally and philosophically. Of course, my wife and children benefit from my work but I still don't look at it as working for them directly. My wife and I made a decision to marry and a consequence of this decision is some of my work effort goes to supporting her. My wife and I made the decision to have three children and as a consequence some of my work effort goes to supporting them. In the grand scheme of things in my mind 100% of my work effort goes towards the life I chose.

As a father, my obligation to my children is simple. Take a little person who is incapable of caring for themselves both physically and emotionally and grow that person up so that they can take care of themselves both physically and emotionally. My wife and I (and children) try and live our best life NOW. Life is short and I'm not making the mistake of living a worker bee life always thinking about the future, not living now, just to die at 50 and never experience life. I feel NO obligation to leave them anything after they are adults when I'm gone and furthermore once they are adults my wife and I will have ZERO problems continuing to use the fruits of my work to live OUR lives the best we can while we're here. If there's anything left over, cool, but I'm not sacrificing my life so my children can get an inheritance. I feel no obligation to leave a legacy beyond my children were loved, well taken care of while minors, and my wife and I taught them how to make their own lives. It is up to THEM to build the life they want and to care for themselves.

As a husband, my obligation is to care for my wife's needs for the rest of her life, even in the event of my early death. Here needs include her current needs which means living life NOW. We go on vacations frequently, not to keep up with Jones' but because we love traveling together. We go on date night several times per month to nice restaurants because we love going out together and great food. We live NOW.

Life is also a balance. We do not go into debt to do these things. I'm still saving sufficiently for my life after working. We could be putting more towards that but then again there's no guarantee either of us will see that time and so while we do sacrifice a little now it is not to the point of decreasing our quality of life now.
 
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I think your assessment is 100% spot on.
I got married early at 24, had first child at 26. I have four total and no regrets.

Young people, especially women are being lied to. Corporate career is not at all fulfilling in most cases.
My wife is a college graduate with a doctoral degree which she used to work for approximately 18 months before deciding she wanted to be a stay-at-home mother. That was 17 years ago. She loves her life and she frequently expresses gratitude for her life. I've never had any problem with her being at home but I'm also glad her education level is similar to mine. She may not use her degrees for work but I love that we can still discuss science, math, history, philosophy, literature, etc. Many of those areas are not my strengths but her strengths. People on average tend to marry people of similar intellect and education and I'm not sure it would be the same if she had stopped her education after high school even if she ended up in the exact same place.

My point is the power-suit corporate career path may not be as fulfilling as women are told but education is about more than getting a job and it still has tremendous value for women.
 
I realize that this is a very serious thread. I can also say things have really changed and the recipe that worked for our parents likely don't work today. Many of us, our parents, our grandparents, etc., had little to no guidance. imho that doesn't work here today in 2022. Errrr, 2023. On the other hand, it seems like the most natural thing in the world, to have a family. Some people have more than 1, seems like they're not slowed down by analyses. We could get crazy in our thinking--if a person is a male, has a wife, then has kids, well, isn't it now possible to have the wife and the kids leave? Then attach financially as well, for many years? Without the kids, isn't the blow of having a wife leave lessened both emotional and financially? Maybe one should not get married based on the statistics? Is this freedom? :ROFLMAO:
 
My wife is a college graduate with a doctoral degree which she used to work for approximately 18 months before deciding she wanted to be a stay-at-home mother. That was 17 years ago. She loves her life and she frequently expresses gratitude for her life. I've never had any problem with her being at home but I'm also glad her education level is similar to mine. She may not use her degrees for work but I love that we can still discuss science, math, history, philosophy, literature, etc. Many of those areas are not my strengths but her strengths. People on average tend to marry people of similar intellect and education and I'm not sure it would be the same if she had stopped her education after high school even if she ended up in the exact same place.

My point is the power-suit corporate career path may not be as fulfilling as women are told but education is about more than getting a job and it still has tremendous value for women.
I think that today education is downplayed, and it should not be. I hope this doesn't make anyone mad, but imho the median person out there cannot even relate to mpgs and how that is determined. Hence the endless posts, "OMG my car got 11 mpg, please help fix!" Need a little more info, don't we? Or the, "Range is never accurate! Car suddenly says only 40 miles left!" I've always wondered, how can a motor vehicle predict the future, i.e. how you're going to be driving for the rest of the tank? Should a person know how many ounces in a quart, half gallon, because these concepts sure don't seem to apply to orange juice and mayonnaise today. So to have a PhD and be a stay at home mom, good for your wife, and good for you that you can provide.

My wife stayed at home from 2013 to Dec 2022, with part-time work in-between. She has a masters degree. The one huge gift she gave me, was health care being shifted to her employer. Sad to say? That's $800/mo., or just about 5 figures, can anyone imagine? And her health care is so cheap and so good, I love punching in cost determinations for fun. Hip replacement, $47,892. Insurance pays $47,792. You pay $100. My old insurance? $1500 deductible, $4000 max out of pocket, and 80% coinsurance--for over $600/mo. $100, vs. $5500. Go figure.

At some point too, imho, in the corporate world (where I landed), there's always the question of how one's own hard work, is an exponential benefit to our employer. And when it is not, apparently people are laid off (have not experienced it yet knock on wood). These are just my .02 :)
 
I realize that this is a very serious thread. I can also say things have really changed well, isn't it now possible to have the wife and the kids leave? Then attach financially as well, for many years?

I've changed my mind on that, as I mentioned above. I kind of feel my life had no meaning. Just work, fun and in the end, I'm gone along with everything about me. Children change that equation. I'd give up every cent I have if I could go back in time and have 3-4 kids. So, if that's the case, why not look at divorce the same way. It's the children that matter, and providing for them = the meaning of life. In either thought experiment, the money's gone.

As it is, when I die, what good was anything I've done?

It is sometimes possible to have children without marriage, and simply provide. The freedom exists for both parties then. The state might not like that they don't get to control you with indentured servitude (alimony) but that's a win in my book.
 
A man's wealth is not measured by his bank account. I am a wealthy man, financially but my greatest asset are my children. I would give up every dime, chew off both arms and both legs for my kids. The joy of watching them grow up and become men or women is priceless. Your bloodline continuing is priceless. Hearing them say dad, I love you is priceless.

I'll be blunt. I don't think you're ready to be a dad, if you were, you'd know it. If you are trying to figure out the dollars and cents of it, please don't bother. Nothing makes sense other than being in love with the woman you want to be the mom and the desire to create little ones.

I had little desire to have kids until I met my kids mother when I was 27. I was more interested in working, making a buck and banging the next chick. As soon as I met my wife, I knew I wanted kids and it changed me to my core. My boys are the best thing that ever happened to me and the best things I have ever created. They are the joy's of my life even though they are grown and have flown the coup, it puts a smile on my face every time they call or visit. I also knew when I was done. I have 2 biological children and 2 step children from another marriage. I love them all dearly and consider myself to be lucky to have my step kids. The little lessons that they have learned and blessed me with the credit for teaching them is priceless.

This should not be a questions of pro's and con's. Who cares about the money, all that says is that you don't have any and until you learn what is worth working for, you never will. I'm not trying to be an ass about it. Money will come and go. As Jimmy Buffet sings, 'I've made enough money to buy Miami and I've pissed it all away'. Take that to heart. No one can take your kids away. Yes death can but I don't even consider that.

Be the best man you can be and if that leads you to it, be the best dad you can be and everything else will work itself out.
 
Reconsidering....yes, being a Dad was the greatest part of my life.

But kids can be used as the most effective weapon possible, and the pain can be incredible.
I wonder if court backed, female viciousness could be mitigated by a non marriage contract. stipulating all aspects clearly, with the teeth to enforce it.
 
I've changed my mind on that, as I mentioned above. I kind of feel my life had no meaning. Just work, fun and in the end, I'm gone along with everything about me. Children change that equation. I'd give up every cent I have if I could go back in time and have 3-4 kids. So, if that's the case, why not look at divorce the same way. It's the children that matter, and providing for them = the meaning of life. In either thought experiment, the money's gone.

As it is, when I die, what good was anything I've done?

It is sometimes possible to have children without marriage, and simply provide. The freedom exists for both parties then. The state might not like that they don't get to control you with indentured servitude (alimony) but that's a win in my book.
Hmmm...my life just has intrinsic value to me. Not because I've successfully passed my genes onto the next generation but because I'm having a really great time learning, thinking, discovering, and just living. So far I've had some accomplishments. I've helped people who were down and out/downtrodden and in need. I generally think I make the lives of those around me better; well certainly not worse. Since I don't believe in the afterlife I'm really trying to milk life for all it's worth.

Even if someone's genes get passed to the next generation, a hundred years from now or 1000 years from now or 1,000,000 years from now their life too will have no real meaning. Put it this way, someone's great grandchildren only share 12.5% of their genes. Great great grandchildren just 6.25%. Great x5 grandchildren 0.78%.

Someone's life really just has meaning to the individual and a small group of people around them for the time they exist and perhaps for the time their memory exists.
 
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I've changed my mind on that, as I mentioned above. I kind of feel my life had no meaning. Just work, fun and in the end, I'm gone along with everything about me. Children change that equation. I'd give up every cent I have if I could go back in time and have 3-4 kids. So, if that's the case, why not look at divorce the same way. It's the children that matter, and providing for them = the meaning of life. In either thought experiment, the money's gone.

As it is, when I die, what good was anything I've done?

It is sometimes possible to have children without marriage, and simply provide. The freedom exists for both parties then. The state might not like that they don't get to control you with indentured servitude (alimony) but that's a win in my book.

Maybe adoption ?
 
A man's wealth is not measured by his bank account. I am a wealthy man, financially but my greatest asset are my children. I would give up every dime, chew off both arms and both legs for my kids. The joy of watching them grow up and become men or women is priceless.
Would I give a kidney, step in front of a bus, or attempt to wrestle a grizzly bear to save my children today? You bet! However, there are circumstances where I would most definitely NOT "do anything" for my children. Here are just a few...

My wife grew up in the same town as Alex Kelly the "Preppy Rapist" whose parents financed him living in Europe for 7 years to avoid prosecution here. If one of my children killed, raped, or maimed someone I would take them to the police myself.

I know people who have cashed in their retirement savings, downsized their house, and/or refinanced their nearly paid-off homes to put kids through college and those kids didn't really take college all that seriously and they are having a hard time with employment. I have three kids to put through college and their mother and I will help biggly but I will not sacrifice my or my wife's future to accomplish this feat. If my kids choose a reasonably priced school or get scholarships they will pay nothing but if they choose an expensive private school that gives no help then that's on them and their choice.

If my children make bad choices as adults I will not sacrifice my/my wife's financial, emotional, physical, or ethical well-being to "bail them out". I will offer help as best I can and I will offer guidance but their mother and I still have a life to live. I have never lived "vicariously" through my children. My accomplishments and failures are my own just as their accomplishments and failures are their own.

There are more but you get the idea...the first paragraph are situations that are no fault of my children but the second, third, and fourth paragraphs are situations that result from the choices my children make. How much I'm willing to sacrifice is most definitely dependent on how much of their problem is the result of their own poor choices. There does come a point, there is a line in the sand, where my kids will have to own and deal with the consequences of the choices they make and mom/dad can't help anymore.
 
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