I'm gonna love it when lewoods is 38, that biological clock has kicked in, and she starts the adoption process because she had herself snipped in her "I AM SO SMARTER THAN EVERYONE" youth.

It's awesome when everyone thinks that it only happens to other people.

11/10/2008 6:23:22 PM

Quote :

"I'm sure that he has made sacrifices to be with her, but what is going on now is something that won't go away. If he refuses to compromise on the topic she will grow to resent him and it may ultimately be the demise of the relationship."

There's no compromising about having kids. Either you do or you don't.

I just turned 29 (today as a matter of fact) and still have no desire to either wed or have children. It's a personal choice that frankly, I don't think anyone else can really help you decide, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

If you don't think you're prepared either financially or are ready to give a substantial portion of the next 2 decades of your life over to the care and guidance of another human being don't do it. If you are prepared to do this then by all means do so, I've heard that it can be an incredibly rewarding experience.

I think it's probably important to hear from folks who have chosen not to have kids, people who have and love it, and people who have and are now incredibly resentful towards their children and hated it (and oh yes, those people do exist).

11/10/2008 6:41:59 PM

Quote :

"Everyone keeps saying "You will want kids! You're only 25 23!!!" I mean, that may be true, but I don't want any now and I don't see it changing anytime soon."

11/10/2008 7:36:52 PM

Why do you guys feed lewoods?

11/10/2008 7:51:12 PM

Quote :

"a child without a healthy male influence is a sad one."

I disagree. I was raised by my mother and my paternal grandmother. I never lacked for anything and I feel that they taught me everything that I needed to know. And the only time that I regretted not having my father around was Father's Day, when all the other kids were with their dads.

It is ideal to have a "healthy male influence," but I don't think that it is necessary or even required to have a happy childhood.

This may sound cold, but I am probably better off because my father died. He was an alcoholic who made my mother miserable. He also could not be trusted to take care of his children because he could not stay sober. He took off with me as a kid more than one time while drunk and it is amazing that nothing awful happened to me. And it was only by the grace of God that I was not in the car when he killed himself driving drunk.

So, yeah. A perfect mom and dad are ideal, but no one has an ideal family.

11/11/2008 3:17:19 PM

Quote :

"who is going to care for you and your wife in your twilight years? I"

Welcome to the 21st century.

11/11/2008 3:23:45 PM

^^ Just because your dad was a bad person doesn't mean that kids don't need fathers. I am sure there are thousands out there who were raised only by their fathers and are better off because their horrible mothers were not around. This is not about individual experiences, but about what's natural.

Humans come in 2 varieties: male, and female. A growing child should have one of each type around to raise it and teach it about being human.

11/11/2008 6:10:40 PM

I enjoy the hell out being a father, although I unfortunately miss out on most of it. That really bothers me that, unless I can manage to get custody of my daughter, she'll grow up without her dad being there with her day-to-day. There isn't really anything I can do about it, though.

Having a kid is absolutely awesome (and I say that as a person who never really had any real desire to have kids, even in the future, before my daughter came along. I still don't have any ambitions to ever have any more, though.) However, if you think you don't want kids, I think it's a terrible idea to intentionally have one anyway.

11/11/2008 6:25:40 PM

Quote :

"unless I can manage to get custody of my daughter, she'll grow up without her dad being there with her day-to-day. There isn't really anything I can do about it, though."

i thought you were deployed or going to be deployed? how does that work into day-to-day

11/11/2008 6:27:35 PM

Quote :

"This is not about individual experiences, but about what's natural. Humans come in 2 varieties: male, and female. A growing child should have one of each type around to raise it and teach it about being human."

If you won't accept anyone's experience as evidence, then you should know that they've done a number of studies on same-sex couples with children and haven't found the kids more maladjusted in those cases. What you think a kid needs is subjective, really.

11/11/2008 6:33:33 PM

I'm deployed right now in Iraq.

What I mean is that my daughter lives in FL with her mother. I believe the visitation agreement for while I'm stationed in NC allows me one week per month (WA was 2 weeks every 2 months). Once she starts school, though, my contact with her will be even less.

I'd like to get custody of her...partially to see her more, partially because I think I'd be a better parent than her mother, partially to get rid of my ridiculous child support burden, and partially because I would be much more into pushing for both her mother and I to be as involved as possible in everything concerning out daughter, rather than hoarding her and being a control freak about her. While I might could make a pretty good case for custody, I don't know that I could ever win that battle as long as I'm an active duty Marine, due to deployments, training dets, etc.

11/11/2008 6:38:29 PM

Quote :

"This is not about individual experiences, but about what's natural. Humans come in 2 varieties: male, and female. A growing child should have one of each type around to raise it and teach it about being human."

There are plenty of cultures out there where mothers and/or fathers aren't around very much and the kids still get through life fine.

I have some students who haven't seen their father in years, and it's not because he skipped town. Other men can have a profound influence on the lives of children, such as teachers, neighbors, etc. Most of my students depend on/look up to their teachers more than their parents. I personally find that kind of depressing but it's considered normal here.

11/11/2008 8:17:34 PM

Quote :

"There are plenty of cultures out there where mothers and/or fathers aren't around very much and the kids still get through life fine."

Fair enough, but I never said that a single-parent child can't get through life fine, or that a single-parent child is bound to have problems.

I am just stating what is the best thing, or the ideal. ASSUMING the parents are good, a normal two-parent family is better for a child (esp a growing one) than a single-parent family or a same-sex couple family. That's what I believe. And that's what makes sense from the point of view of nature/evolution/religion/logic/whatever.

11/12/2008 5:45:13 AM

Quote :

""There are plenty of cultures out there where mothers and/or fathers aren't around very much and the kids still get through life fine.""

Okay...

Can you give an example? All I can think of is "African-Americans" but that's contrary to your point.

11/12/2008 7:53:11 AM

Quote :

"I don't know a single man who had a second of regret after holding their child for the first time (speaking of married couples, not oops babies)."

My dad would be one. It took a while, but I finally got my dad to admit that he resented my brother and I for most of our existence. He hadn't wanted babies in the first place and once we came along, he didn't really want us around and it showed. I can think of literally zero things that my dad taught me.

Now we've come to terms about this, I hold no resentment (he still busted his ass to provide for us) and there isn't any bad blood between us, but he is still more or less the man who lives with my mom and a good person to go to about finances.

So if you don't want kids, don't have them. Don't let anyone in this thread talk you into it or go off and take the plunge just because someone else feels like you're supposed to. Just because you're biologically programmed to have children doesn't mean you should.

11/12/2008 9:05:17 AM

^^ I was thinking Japan specifically.

And if I remember correctly from anthropology class it's common in the Philippines for children to be left to other older children to be raised of while the parents are off working/doing whatever. I might be confusing the country though (it was somewhere in SE Asia for sure) so don't quote me on that

11/12/2008 9:25:15 AM

I know what you're talking about, I think it was rural China, where older kids watched after little kids all day, they were called "charges". The parents came home though...

11/12/2008 10:40:37 AM

I'm 28, and I've got a 4 month old. He's great. Some of your reasons for not wanting a kid are definitely reservations I had.

Quote :

" On the flip side, however, I absolutely cannot stand the sound of a whining or screaming child. Plus, I really like having my wife's undivided attention, which I know would never happen if we had a kid (yes I know that is selfish, but it is the truth.) And perhaps most of all, I am an absolute neat/organizational freak, which after seeing other houses, seems to be impossible."

the sound of a screaming baby is truly terrible, but it is possible to get over it. With an infant, at least, it's their main way of communicating. When you get past "omg make it stop" and to "what does that cry tell me?" and it's much easier. On the other hand when it's bigger kids, well, I think that parents who let their kids be instantly gratified wind up training their kids to whine and cry to get what they want.

As to your wife's attention, well you won't be the center of attention, but my wife and I are definitely closer because of the baby. It's like a really elaborate and long team building exercise.

neat freak is not impossible, my wife is and she's managing.

Quote :

"Everyone who I talk to says nobody is ever "ready" to have kids but when you have them, they are the best thing in the world. My mom and my dad (and step-mom and step-dad) and my grandparents and in-laws are ALWAYS hinting around that we need to have children. I just don't know if I am ready, or if I will ever be. Plus, a kid is something you can't undo. So, the whole point of me posting is to see if there are any other guys on here who might have had feelings like mine but had kids anyway, and how it turned out. "

yes, yes, don't listen to relatives, I know the feeling, and yep. For me I knew I eventually wanted kids but it was more of an abstract concept than a plan.

11/12/2008 11:08:32 AM

Quote :

" If you won't accept anyone's experience as evidence, then you should know that they've done a number of studies on same-sex couples with children and haven't found the kids more maladjusted in those cases. What you think a kid needs is subjective, really."

thing is, in those same-sex relationships, there is usually a butch and a fem. so other than lacking the sex organs, it's like having a male/female relationship, except that everyone thinks you have two mothers.

11/12/2008 12:40:20 PM