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Do you want to raise children?


Do you want to raise children?  

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1 hour ago, Simowl said:

Oh man, I've always found that kind of unsettling. Little girls only a few years old are already being given baby dolls and having to act like mothers? It's creepy, the way from such a young age people are already teaching them to grow up and take care of kids because that's what girls are for, apparently?

Part of it is social conditioning, obviously. But I've seen my cousin's daughter put her brother's toy car to sleep once, so at least some of it is instinct and/or natural inclination. The old "nurture vs nature" argument.

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2 hours ago, Simowl said:

Oh man, I've always found that kind of unsettling. Little girls only a few years old are already being given baby dolls and having to act like mothers? It's creepy, the way from such a young age people are already teaching them to grow up and take care of kids because that's what girls are for, apparently?

I think my sister and I plotted the deaths and torture of our dolls as often as we 'mothered' them xD (we might have been slightly weird kids). Kids playing by caring for others doesn't bother me, I mean if you think about caring for pets is the same thing. It's when that's the only option when it seems creepy.

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I'd like having children, although the more time goes by and the unlikelier it is, for various reasons. But I'm OK with it, as I consider having children a privilege rather than a right.

I never felt like there is a connection with being aromantic. I rather think that it's simply because our society has become more individualistic and people are more attached to their freedom. Which is even more true for the youngest of course. Desire to remain child-free is a wide scale phenomenon in the western civilization.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/13/2016 at 8:03 PM, PerformativeSurprise said:

Absolutely not. I have zero desire to have children.  Being aro ace could be effecting things, but I honestly don't think so.  I don't think my personality or temperament are suited to raising children.  I'm not good at relationships in general, and I think that would have a very negative effect on any potential children.  I would feel very irresponsible raising kids, even if I wanted them, since I feel like I would make a bad parent.  I don't think that would be fair to the child at all. 

 

It's all true in my case too :ph34r: (except maybe aroaceness).

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I've always hated children except for a rare few who fit my very picky criteria for a "tolerable child" so I feel like having children is a bad idea cause unless they happen to be perfect, we're both going to have a very bad time.

 

Also I really don't want to be a single parent (my mum is and I've seen how it's affected her) but I also super duper don't want to get married.

 

So I never wanted to have children, but once I realised I was aro ace I realised how difficult it would be even if I wanted to.

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I don't want kids because for me it's either "YES YES YES I'M 1000% SURE I WANT KIDS AND EVERYTHING INVOLVED WITH BEING A PARENT" or nothing. I think you can go from not wanting kids to wanting and having them, or you can decide you want them, get pregnant, and have an abortion, but if you decide you want kids and you have them you can't change your mind without fucking up the kid for life.

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Not too sure, and being aromantic has some effect.

 

I don't really think that I can be responsible for romantic relationships such as marriage. And I think, "Then why can I be responsible for raising a child?" And being single might make it hard to raise a child even if I had one.

 

And I'm not totally sure if I wanted my parents to have had me in the first place. So I'm not sure if my hypothetical child would ever want to be given birth to either. And I feel it's kind of irresponsible to give birth to a child without making sure if they want to be born at all.

 

 I also feel that there's already too many people on the globe. And society doesn't seem to have gotten improved enough for everyone to feel comfortable. Once society got better enough, I might be okay to have children but not yet.

 

But then I kind of think adopting might be okay since orphans are already born and have to be taken care of anyway.

 

I can't even make sure if raising children is a kind of activity that would make me happy even if I want to be selfish and pursue my own happiness not my baby's. Too many people say it's an awesome experience without enough logical reasons, and that makes me suspect that the decent amount of them are actually lying in order to make them look normal.

 

So basically no way Jose, but not entirely sure yet.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't want children!  Don't get me wrong, kids can be fun, but I'd much rather be a cool aunt to my brother's kids than be a mom on my own.  I guess my orientation has a little bit to do with this though, because as an aromantic asexual, the idea of finding a husband and becoming pregnant sounds really unappealing to me.

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On 16 June 2016 at 9:50 PM, deltaX said:

I don't want children!  Don't get me wrong, kids can be fun, but I'd much rather be a cool aunt to my brother's kids than be a mom on my own.  I guess my orientation has a little bit to do with this though, because as an aromantic asexual, the idea of finding a husband and becoming pregnant sounds really unappealing to me.

Cool aunts FTW!! :) 

 

I'm not actually sure if my siblings want children but I've already sworn up and down that I'm going to be the aunt to my friends' children. The one that spoils kids and teaches them cool stuff and is their surrogate mother is anything happens.

Also pregnancy in general is really unappealing. 9 months carrying a kid? Morning sickness? Birthing? Yeah no.

 

I'm definitely not having kids. Absolutely refuse to raise tiny humans. This is less to do with my orientation and more to do with my self-esteem/being responsible. 

 

As in, I'm irresponsible enough and ruining my own life. No way am I going to bring a kid and a husband through this and ruin their lives too. I swear I'll probably forget to feed the baby for three days and end up going on trial for child neglect or something. Also, discipline is kind of hard when you're not even willing to speak?

 

I also think I'll not be able to raise a child in today's society. As a parent, my responsibility is definitely to calibrate my child's moral compass and since I'm a total fucking failure and dealing with moral situations, any offspring of mine may not fare any better.

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I never liked children. Even as a child I didn't like children, who were drastically younger then me. My grandma told me, that I once took a children's buggy and rolled it out of the door. I was very careful as not to disturb or harm the baby, but I did close the door on it. So no way, Jose!

 

I don't think my romantic orientation has anything to do with this, though. If anything, I'd rather say my gender identity plays a larger part here. At least if we speak about giving birth to a child instead of adoption. I already have plenty trouble with some other markers of my biological gender. The image of me being pregnant feels like a scene ripped from a horror movie or a nightmare xD" I'd rather not think about that to much....

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I can barely stand being around other peoples children when I go to the store to buy groceries. I can tolerate them for brief periods of time, but actually raising one, no thanks. I think my aromanticism may have a tiny bit to do with it, but I know several romantics who feel the same way, so I don't feel like it is the main reason. The main reason is that I don't want to have to sacrifice 18+ years taking care of someone else. 

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Up till I was 27, I never in a million years wanted kids. Being an aunt to 3 nieces and 2 nephews was more than enough, and I always used to say "perfect birth-control" whenever they start to cry or scream at stuff.

 

But right after turning 27 , I changed my mind. Now I have a deep urge to have a kid. So I made my "3-year plan". If I hadn't found love (didn't know yet I'm aromantic), by the time i'm 30, I would go to Denmark and get inseminated with donorsperm. So that's still the plan. Being aromantic kind of makes this choice easier, since my family now knows I will never find love in that way. Next year, if everything goes well, I'm getting my "baby juice" from a spermbank and getting it put in at a clinic. Where I live, it's a very controversial choice, and only my closest family and best friend know about my plans. And now I guess you guys... I know being a single mom will be tough and life will be hard at times, but I can't wait. :D

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Count me as another one who disliked kids even when they happened to be one.  I saw nursery school, elementary school, high school, and uni as forced incarceration with an alien species that made no sense, was randomly violent, noisy, irritating, and all around horrible.  Of course, I was an autistic kid (whose parents hadn't told me I was autistic - gee, thanks, Mum and Dad!  Really!) with major sensory issues I didn't really understand, relentlessly bullied for being 'weird', and often too blunt and outspoken... so make of that what you will. 

 

I've never wanted kids.  Even as a small child, I knew I'd never be a parent. 

I had to fight for almost 10 years to surgically end my fertility, despite major medical problems that having that fertility caused.  My GP/family doctor was unfortunately afflicted with baby-rabies and, despite being female and a doctor herself, seemed to fully believe that a woman's only purpose was in being a walking baby factory.  Ick.  I dealt with major problems for almost 10 years, that were finally diagnosed as a combination of endometriosis, fibroids, a cyst on one ovary, and *cancer*.  Of course, I finally had to have a screaming fit in her office in order to force her to refer me on to the OB/GYN who discovered all that and removed my uterus and one ovary less than 6 weeks later.  I've been happily uterus-free now for 14 years.  Best decision I ever made!

 

Pregnancy and birth has always grossed me out beyond belief.  I used to work in a hospital, and sometimes a bedside computer terminal would fail in one of the Labour and Delivery rooms right when a patient was in there giving birth.  Since I was the only female (well, female-bodied agender, though I didn't know there was a word for someone like me back then) computer tech, I was the one forced to deal with fixing or replacing it, while the patient was right there beside me, giving birth.  Those situations were the absolute *worst* for me.  I dreaded them!  I even preferred having to enter the morgue during autopsies or entering surgical suites during major surgeries to having to enter an L&D room during a birth!  After having to handle that, I would be a shaking wreck for the rest of the day, repeatedly Purell-ing myself and dosing with my emergency Ativan tablet just to get through it.  I am so glad I no longer work in a hospital!

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My answer to this is a resounding no. I don't know if it's because romance and children are so often associated with each other or what, but the idea of it makes me nauseous. I love being an aunt: I have two nephews, but I get to send them home at the end of the day for their parents to deal with :D

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Aw hell no hahaha. I'm naturally maternal and I like nearly all kinds of kids because they're cool, but one of my best friends (who really knows how to handle kids) tells me I can't communicate with them to save my life (strangely enough, I get along with neurodivergent kids a lot more). Some kids I've gotten to know adore me, but I think that's mostly because I treat them like they aren't really kids... they dig that kind of thing, don't they. 

 

So when it really comes down to it, I think raising a child would be torture since I'm not sure when to get sensitive and nice and not angry unless I'm drunk off my mind.

 

But if raising a dog counts as raising a child, then I'm all for it.

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I definitely never want kids, and I've known that for a while. It is in part due to my orientations - my transness rears it's head every now and then, and I'm unlikely to end up in a partnership where we both feel like we want to raise spawn - but I've been determinedly childfree long before I started questioning my orientations. I'm also tokophobic, as I found out after a wonderful nightmare a couple of years ago - the thought of giving birth makes me start to sweat, nauseous, and cry 0u0

 

I would occasionally feel guilty or conflicted over it, but a little while back I saw a good summary of my feelings on it that was approximately: "there are only two answers to the question 'do you want children?' and that is 'FUCK YES' or 'not at all', because a child is a person not an object, and you're making the choice to bring that person into the world." I feel like my general distaste of child rearing SHOULD disqualify me from parenthood, and it isn't something that should be actively pursued unless you're one hundred percent, so unless I somehow reach a point where I am one hundred percent certain about it, I shouldn't feel conflicted over it! That said, I think most people here who are 'unsure' aren't actively pursuing parenthood so it doesn't really apply here 0u0

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Absolotutely definitely no. I've never liked the idea of having kids, and a thought of having kids just feels outright impossible. I just feel that I wouldn't get any kind of fulfilment from kids. They would definitely degrade my life quality in many aspects, but I wouldn't get anything in return. Luckily I don't get much pressure from my family to have kids. I don't think that neither my romantic nor sexual orientation have much to do with this.

 

EDIT: And while I don't want kids and don't even like them, I think every kid should be treated well and every child deserves loving and caring parents. And that's the reason I think it'd be outright wrong for me to have kids: I know I couldn't be that kind of parent.

 

 

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I'm not sure if I want children, but I can't imagine a scenario where it would fit with my life. If I'm on my own, that would mean they would have to go to daycare whenever I'm working, and I just don't know if that's the kind of childhood I would want for my kids. 

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