Should I have kids?

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I'm curious to see if anybody has an idea how to tell if one should have kids or not? My lady wants them real bad and she will leave me or become bitter if I don't supply them. I myself am wary of having kids because i strongly value my free time and I don't know if I could handle the stress. Sometimes I feel like I'd like to have kids around when they are older, other times I imagine I'd be happier without kids at all. If I had kids I imagine I would not be able work due to stress. I also fear being perpetually broke. I would prefer holding on to my lady also even though we are both depressed a lot. I imagine I'd be more depressed without her.

Sorry if that is a big rambling jumble!

Wow, Supernew, this is such a huge, complicated and very personal decision. I would talk about it among your family and friends, not on a huge internet forum. If you don't have many people who can mentor you, I'd try to find a counselor for the two of you. Having kids just to save your relationship (as you sound like you are not married) is not good reasoning, IMHO, but you don't know me an I don't know you.

Do you want, like, or enjoy kids?

Because those are the only viable reasons to have kids.

Unless you spoil them rotten, the are not that costly. We have 4 on a net income around $50K; we are not always broke. But then we are also not materialistic by US standards (!).

They are only stressful if you choose to stress over them. There is the whole social expectation of parents thing (my main stressor) but your mate being female will bear the brunt of that.

Anyway-- having kids to save a relationship if you don't otherwise want them is a really bad idea.

Have as in reproduce! Heh

Thanks for the tips so far. Talking to family probably would be good for most but I've never been comfortable talking to any of them. I may have to seek professional help, but I will likely need to wait a year or more on a waiting list for that

50k for four kids sounds cheaper than I would've guessed possible! Although I have been considering becoming more self sufficient by growing food and raising animals!

I do a lot of that. Garden, bake, buy meat seasonally in bulk and cut it up myself. Cuts down the grocery bill considerably. These are not difficult things to learn, but one has to have the motivation.

I also buy almost all our clothing and toys secondhand. DH is the only one that gets new clothes, and only because he needs to know they are new to feel confident. Cuts that cost by 50 to 80 percent.

Used cars, driven until the doors fall off. One small TV, one-step-above-basic cable (at least until I get mad enough to cut the cable altogether). Not a whole lot of eating out. There is a f*****g swimming pool in the back yard; the previous occupants put it in. If it had not been pre-existing (and if Hubby hadn't lobbied long and hard to keep it), it would absolutely not be there.

Our domicile is a somewhat beat-up doublewide trailer, basically sound but in need of a little TLC. Why?? Because we could afford to buy it and the acre of ground it sits on outright (hint-- I think the land cost more than the structure). That's been HUGE. No mortgage, no car payment, student loans were attacked aggressively until they were GONE. That's pretty much the how of us managing to have disposable income.

Then there are the lifestyle choices that not everyone would be comfortable with. I do the SAHM thing-- if we had to pay for daycare, it would be unworkable. Even after-school care would take another $300-$500 out of the budget. I don't sign them up for a lot of activities-- DD11 plays soccer for the first time this year; I am thinking of putting DS5 in the Cub Scouts.

DD3 and DD11mo spend their days being kids. No classes, no lessons, none of that stuff. If I want them to be taught something, I teach it.

My neighbors, on the other hand (two incomes, two kids) have their 3-year-old and going-on-2-year-old in a different lesson every day. Music, dance, gymnastics-- you name it, these little kids are doing it. That seems to be the norm these days; plenty of people think my kids are "impoverished" because they dance to classical music on NPR and bang on beat-up drum sets and turn flips on a swing set in the back yard and learn to swim in Moraine Lake with Mommy and learn their letters and numbers and phonics and maths with crayons and paper and loose change at the dining table instead of getting professional instruction in these things.

So a lot of what makes it possible is a choice to reject a lot of modern values and modern parenting behaviors. I think we are doing the right thing, certainly it is right for us. When I read stats about the increase in anxiety disorders and the decline of indepentent thinking in children, I sort of see our lifestyle as a bulwark against modern social pathologies. But I also know that we pay quite a price in social criticism for that choice-- it even gets to me, the socially indifferent Aspie, and I second-guess myself and think we must conform for the kids' sake-- and it is definitely not for everyone.

If we were paying for professional childcare, professional lessons, professional tutors, and wanting to live in a pretty house and drive sleek new cars, we would be up to our eyeballs in debt and broke two days after the paycheck hit the bank.

This is very encouraging to me. I recently bought a fairly inexpensive home that came with several acres of land. The house/property is just fantastic but in dire need of some key upgrades. I have moved from the house now though with my lady to save up money to jumpstart things financially as we both have a lot of debt. It's likely that if we had kids I would stay home with them, and teach them. I find it disturbing how few older kids have any real world knowledge at all beyond tv and computers, I'd want to ensure my kids wouldn't die if they had to spend a night in the woods! Heh

I guess I would address the practical concerns first.

1. Are you capable of financially supporting a wife while she is pregnant and afterwards and young children?
2. Do you have sufficient social support systems in place that would be able to support you, your wife and the children? (Grandparents who are willing to be actively involved in helping out, aunts and uncles, friends, other family members and other members of your local community?)
3. Do you have the emotional support necessary and people who can help mentor your through the first parts of parenting? (While a lot of it will be experience, it helps to have people who have been there before and done it to ask questions to them)
4. Is you job or career going to be badly or dramatically impacted by having children? Will your wife's job or career be impacted? If so, are you ok with this, can you find a way to compensate for this, or do you have a back up plan?

Apart from that, personally:
Do you want children? Regardless of your wife, do you actually want children?
Are you going to be able to handle the sensory issues that are going to come with it?
Are you going to be able having more responsibility and less time for your own things?
Are you confident that you will be able to cope in general with family life?

I can work and make good money, but I can only expect to do so while living in a different province sadly. If I stayed home I might be able to make a little money.

I have lots of family, most of which would be happy to help. Granted I'd never talk to them about personal problems though.

I pretty much won't be able to work in my field of instrumentation near home, but the Missus has a good job lined up for when we move home!

Sometimes I feel like I want kids, other times I can't imagine cutting down on me time and also forgoing "young fun". I never actually got to have much of that and I desperately want to catch up before I'm old.

I'm very concerned about noise; I can't handle loud noise very well at all.

As for general family life I'm not sure, some things seem pleasant while others seem abhorrent. My lady is great though, she is good at helping me through through things.

Some good questions/ideas there!

Having kids to hang onto a relationship is never a good idea. In a relationship, you have to come to an equal agreement on things - if your "lady" (wife? girlfriend?) wants kids more than she wants the relationship, she should be free to go. Likewise, if you want the relationship but no kids, then you should expect that she might go.

My husband wasn't sure about the kids idea, but we talked about it a lot; I was willing to let it go if he really didn't want them - but I think he just didn't know what it would mean. Since I had fertility issues, we had a lot of time to plan - and at one point, he'd said yes but I realized he hadn't actually thought it through, so we waited until a year later when I felt like he actually meant the yes. It was important - because while being a parent is rewarding, it is very hard and you do give up all kinds of freedom.

That being said - I remember when I just got married and we had no intention of having kids at least for a while, I was with a co-worker who was a father. I'd told him that I didn't want kids because I liked our marriage and didn't want things to change. He looked at me like I had six heads, and burst out with "Yes...it will be different - but that doesn't mean it will be worse." I guess it took me some time to come around to the idea, too.

My point is, the issue may not be do you want kids ever, but do you want them now. If GF won't wait until you know for sure one way or the other (you sound like you are ambivalent based on not having enough information) then I think your relationship might need re-thinking. OTOH, if she's willing to wait, you need to make a good-faith effort to answer this question - get to know some kids, get a dog (it isn't like parenting, but it is a commitment of time and energy) babysit as a couple, make moves into a more stable life etc.

I have a cat, also we had a rabbit which we trained into an ideal pet!

Sometimes I think I should just do it and have the kid because I don't ever actually do anything fun anyway. I'll be waiting until I'm too old to have a kid and never have the fun.


Maybe I will lay down my own ultimatum. i will be free to persue my fun and she gets a baby.

She has said in the past I can do what I want but I feel guilty.

She's just a GF but we've been together for nearly 5 years. We own a house and will likely wed.

I feel I should say I'm not opposed to kids really. Just very anxious. I tend to take years to make big decisions!

I will say that especially if you are to be the one to stay at home with a baby, that you will have to deal with noise. Some babies (and children) are quieter than others but all the little ones communicate mainly by crying. When they get older, they will make noises when they play. If you have an NT or even a social Aspie they will have friends over and be loud, then too. My son is not social but he is loud when he is having fun and when he melts down.

I am not telling you this to discourage you, but to be honest. The noise was hard for me, it still is sometimes, even though I am more desensitized to it than I was, and even though my son's meltdowns (at home) are less.

I have heard from my mother that I practically never cried, always slept, and always ate my food easily as an infant. I didn't even speak until I could do so with a full sentence.
It makes me a little guilty to hope for the same in my child given that it would mean the kid would probably be autistic. That brings up another sore point; the Missus says she will blame and not forgive me if our kid is autistic. I feel I should add I am certain she will love the kid either way, but still that's pretty harsh!