Re: Why did you have children?

Mick. I know the joys of grandchildren too. They are a priceless treasure.

Re: Why did you have children?

If you didn't want children then obviously you wouldn't want grandchildren either. I'm afraid all young children are an irritance to me. Give me animals any time.

Re: Why did you have children?

Well you have what you want. But I find it very strange that you cannot communicate with humans.

Re: Why did you have children?

I have always loved children, so does the wife and that's why we had them, I was over the moon when my daughter was born, two years later came the icing on the cake, a baby boy. We would have liked another child but sadly there were medical factors that made it too risky for my wife.
After reading the posts in this thread so far things seem to balance out well, those who don't want children haven't got any and those who wanted them have them and that's fair enough, spare a thought for the child who's born and not wanted through no fault of it's own.

Re: Why did you have children?

Good question nobaggage, I cared for my sisters from new born, loved it and always wanted children to love as my mum didn't.

I achieved that by becoming pregnant at 16yrs,accidently, (just prior to pill) and gave birth to 2 with first husband and a nos. 3 with my second husband.
All three are beautiful, to me and I know them well. I have no regrets, would have had more if that had been right for me.

During my first pregnancy I decided to be a midwife. Now that took years of study, training (nurse first) and when qualified I studied even more to attain other qualifications.

It is from this perspective that I so value and admire anyone who says that they do not want a child. It is the hardest job we ever do; care for a child and I have seen and heard of so many terrible acts against children and spoken to parents who.....well.....I can't say anymore.

Re: Why did you have children?

Oh how I can relate to the OP. I never even considered having children, and luckily my husband felt the same way. He had a vasectomy quite early on and that was fine with me. Partly I was terrified of the prospect of giving birth, but also didn't want to give up our good and, yes, selfish life of holidays, cars and the little things that our pals with small children didn't have. We had a lot of criticism and snide remarks (this was the 1960s/70s) and my mother in law found it really strange too. Having said that, I can appreciate the fun and joy that children can bring - but often all I see is screaming, demanding and ill behaved nuisances taking up all their parents' time and money and running the household.

Now I'm older I sometimes think it would be great to have a grown up daughter to go shopping with and share things with, but of course there's no guarantee they would live nearby or even get on with you, particularly once they marry. I'm not close to my only nephew and have little contact with anyone else's children or grandchildren, and that's OK with me too. Each to their own, I say, but seeing Jeremy Kyle's dysfunctional parents and messed up kids I can see a strong case for sterilisation for some ....

Re: Why did you have children?

Are we not all humans ? Communicating with humans is very different to having children to raise, I had a very strong maternal instinct as have others in this thread but many women don't. Or they channel it into other areas like animals, along side the children we parented we always had dogs and the kids would tell you they all had equal status and time in our house were often referred to as brothers and sisters of the dogs. And now they have moved out the dogs have centre stage, certainly wouldn't want any more children as the dogs are now our babies.

Better to admit a person doesn't want children than have several they don't connect with or want.

I admire women who can say it, the world has often been quite hostile to women who say they don't want children and they face a lot of questioning and comments.

Re: Why did you have children?

I couldn't wait to have children - now I wish I had waited. If I had my time again, I would do things very differently and I'm not 100% sure children would figure in that; I found that the sacrfice of career and time turned out to be not worth it in my case - I rarely see my daughter (but that has its own blessings) and see my son once a week most of the time but always feel he sees it as something he has to do rather than wants to do and, in a way, I can understand that. Shame really, we were a very close family at one time.

I often think that if I'd had my head screwed on properly - I'd have had grandchildren first - they're much more fun

Re: Why did you have children?

When we were teenagers we discussed our game plan for our marriage. We decided to have three children of our own, and adopt a child too. We had three birth daughters, of whom we are very proud. We also adopted two boys with special needs.

Re: Why did you have children?

I too admire women who choose not to have children but some are extremely hostile towards them, and have gone out of their way to say so on more than one occasion. It must make live miserable for them because you cannot avoid children, they are everywhere, thankfully. And children are small humans.