does this happen to anyone else?

[MaryWeather]

For some reason I always seem to get asked by people whether I want kids or not. I personally do not, and everyone always seems to tell me I'll change my mind. That and I'm going to be lonely when I die because I won't have any kids. Does anyone else get asked this and get the same sort of response?

[NumberOneWhovian]

YES I DO GET THAT!

My mother insists that I'll find the love of my life someday, that we'll get married and have kids, and I'll magically become "sexual."

Some people just don't understand that that's NOT the way it works! Just because we don't want kids doesn't mean we'll die lonely!

I think most people think we'll die lonely because they realize THEY would be lonely without a significant other and a family. They just don't understand us.

​ Frustrating, isn't is?

[Tinkerbell_112]

No one can feel lonely when family is around, plus if we find our soulmates and have kids through a clinic everyone should be happy?! ^_^

[I-Love-Birds]

Yes... I was told by someone in my year, at school, that because his cousin [i think it was his cousin] didn't want children before he had them, but then loved them when he did have them; that I would be the same...

Then he, and some other pricks in the same class, started making ridiculous jokes/insults about the fact that I don't want to have sex... ¬_¬

[poindexter]

I have no idea what my family wants - I don't think my mother minds whether I have children or not, ultimately it's my choice and she'd support me whatever I choose. She's been known on multiple occasions to be against having children, because they're more hassle than they're worth, but perhaps she was just dropping hints to me and my sisters, hehe.

My eldest sister on the other hand, ergh... she suggested that I "might as well join a monastery" if I'm not going to have children. Because you know, life is meaningless if you don't procreate right?

[Palovana]

Yeah, yeah, I've heard it a lot before. It's obnoxious as hell. I remember being 14 and people telling me I'd change my mind in a few years. Uh, I'm 22 now and I still feel the same way, if not even more opposed to having children.

[ratonhnhaké:ton]

I've only gotten the lonely excuse once. People seem so surprised when I say I don't want children. I guess they assume that because I'm a woman, I automatically want kids. The most popular response, of course, is that I'll change my mind.

[Guest Jigger77]

About 10 years ago, I had to really defend myself against one of my dad's friends who just couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I didn't want to get married and have kids. It was actually a pretty tough conversation to take b/c I got everything thrown at me...that something must have happened (ie. the sexual abuse angle) to who's going to take care of me when I get old b/c I shouldn't put that pressure on my brother. Like having to rely on a non-blood relative is any more or less appropriate.

That was the only time. My parents and other family members, hell, even the people I work with, have been really cool about it. They all know I'm really emotionally independent so they don't push. That being said, I know my mom would love a grandchild so the pressure is really on my brother!

[Ayra]

Same thing here Belle. My parents told me that I will certainly want a child later when I was still a teenager. Now I'm 24, still don't want children. I love children, I worked with children for 6 years in summer camps ages 5 -15. Doesn't change my opinion a bit.

[TheKindredSoul]

Uh, yes. More than one person in fact. Why are people so surprised that there are actually people who do not want children? I wish they would keep "their little bundles of joy" to themselves.

Alright, not everyone is a heterosexual first of all. I am not. I find it a little offending when people automatically just have to assume I am heterosexual. I really want nothing to do with men nor woman in a sexual/romantic way, therefore, having children would be impossible unless I get one from the sperm donor (which I am not doing that either. A little gross). I also do not want to have all those troubles with pregnancy. I also like my alone time and personal space. Some people are just not meant to have children, but to most, it seems like a new opinion that has just been born (no pun intended there). Sex also does not appeal to me at all. I do not want to go anywhere near sex. I am often told that I am too young to know, but what if I do know? There is a possibility that my asexuality could change, but there is a chance that it will stay until I die also. Asexuality is not something that goes away with time, just like heterosexuality, but sexuality can be fluid also. Mine has not changed at all. It might never change.

The world will never know until time comes to tell.

[Eilera]

I get this all the time as well.

I also had the whole "you'll change your mind when you're older" when I was younger. I am 23 now and still don't want children. I don't even like children. I'm certain the feeling is mutual.

I know it bothers my mother, but luckily my sister has stated she'd like to have several children. So there is no guilt on my part. Still, it is frustrating to have people tell you that you don't even know your own feelings.

[Uhh]

I get the same sorts of responses. From a young age I've always said that I'm never getting married. Relatives would say things like, when you're older and married... and I'd say, "I'm never getting married." At age 23 I still have no desire to get married. I also have no desire to have kids. A big part of it is the not being interested in sex in the first place thing, but also the idea of having another organism growing inside of me freaks me out. I don't think I could handle it. Top all that off with the cost of raising kids and all the things in the world today that I wouldn't want to put up with... the fact that toddlers play with ipads and stuff like that. It just bothers me. I have younger cousins and nieces and the things they ask their parents to buy them... I have enough debt as it is, thanks.

But I've gotten similar responses to what's been posted. "You'll change your mind one day." "Watch, I bet you'll be the first out of all of us to have a little baby." "One day you'll meet someone right and then you'll be wanting to have kids."

It's annoying, but it's just the culture. That's the fairytale life, the American dream... a nice house with a picket fence and two kids. It's reinforced in everything we see and watch, so people just think it's normal and that's what we're supposed to want.

[Timothy P.]

I thought that i didnt want kids for a long time but then my family started watching a little baby and it changed me mind about them being really annoying which they still are but they are much better

[Silmaril]

For some reason I always seem to get asked by people whether I want kids or not. I personally do not, and everyone always seems to tell me I'll change my mind. That and I'm going to be lonely when I die because I won't have any kids. Does anyone else get asked this and get the same sort of response?

Sure, this sort of response is extremely common. However, it's a foolish argument as it's very easily demolished. One only needs to visit the nearest old folks' home and count how many of the residents have had children and yet are living lonely lives in a care facility. Furthermore, do those who make this argument ever stop to consider how incredibly selfish it is to bring a child into the world purely as an insurance policy for when one gets older and needs care?

[crime_fighting_kitten]

I used to be polite about it when asked (all the freaking time!) when I was 16, 18, 21 and now I'm 23 I think "Fuck it." and people get the truthful answer. I couldn't believe it one day (think I was about 19) and I was volunteering at a hospital (elderly ward) and we were have a tea break with a cleaner and she kept pushing it "Are you with someone? No? Nevermind, it'll happen soon, you're still young." Like I'm waiting every single day for a man to find me and knock me up. "You don't want kids? But what are going to do after you graduate?" *shrugs* get another a degree? "You'd rather stay in academics and research than have children and raise a family? What do you poor parents think?" Yes, I would and am. What do my parents think? Probably 'Thank God the ace one has graduated not once but twice, is on her third degree and isn't marinating in wine somewhere with no job like the normal sexual one is (my brother)."

I want to scream when someone assumes the sum capability and desires of a female is to procreate and make house. I can't believe that in this day and age my idiot brother who has no future, failed at Uni, drinks too much, had more gap years than educational ones and is a general pain in the backside with no job is seen as "Boys will be boys" because at least he'll reproduce one day. And yet, I don't want to have kids and I'm the one letting my parents and myself down?

I'm really blunt now. Someone will ask me and they'll get "I couldn't imagine something I'd rather do less for 9 months." then shudder in disgust. It freaks me out to imagine being pregnant.

[Dara_Effe']

I never wanted children or to get married. I used to hear people tell me I'd change my mind on both. Well, I never changed my mind, but I've done both. I love my son to death and wouldn't go back and change anything, but I still never wanted children or to get married. Then they said I'd want another child for my current one to play with. BULL!! Now they say, I'll want to marry again. Well, they never knew the reason I married in the first place. It wasn't for love. I married for financial reasons and that would be the only reason I would marry again. I would never marry for love.

Don't listen to them. They don't know you or what they're talking about.

[fuzzipueo]

While I've never had anyone ask if I wanted kids or whether I wanted to be married, I have been insulted by a pair of proselytizers (two men, dressed in their Sunday best, who insisted on sharing their version of the "good word") who made the automatic assumption that I was an unmarried mother with a snot nosed brat running around in the house somewhere. I was not amused.

Me: I don't have any children

Them: But most women your age have children and are in need of assistance [they both made it sound like I was running around, having unprotected sex and a bunch of fatherless children].

Needless to say, I no longer open my door to these people.

[Silmaril]

While I've never had anyone ask if I wanted kids or whether I wanted to be married, I have been insulted by a pair of proselytizers (two men, dressed in their Sunday best, who insisted on sharing their version of the "good word") who made the automatic assumption that I was an unmarried mother with a snot nosed brat running around in the house somewhere.

I presume those two were peddling some version of Christianity and I must say as a Christian I find their behaviour rude and repellent.

For starters, what business is it of theirs whether you have children and how is it even relevant to the situation? And how dare they make totally uninformed assumptions and then speak to you in such a judgemental fashion? Clearly they forgot that part in their Bible that says "in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself".

[Guest]

Only remember ever having that happen once to me (unless I've forgotten the other times, but I doubt that). By a psychotherapist I was consulting at the time, no less.

(It's the same psych I've mentioned in a previous post... the guy I'm not too fond of even ten years after I stopped seeing him. <_< )

[Lia]

Mom: When are you getting married?
Lia: Day after the end of the world.

Mom: You don't want to get married?

Lia: HELL NO!

Mom: But what about kids?
Lia: I have 2.

Mom: The non-furry kind.

Lia: That's all you're getting.

Also, when I was 18-ish, I worked as a dental assistant (worst 6 months of my LIFE), and it was one of my jobs to bring the patient back into the room and put their paper bib on and make small talk. Almost always I would get "do you have kids?" and they would be SURPRISED to hear that, at 18/19, I did not have children. What the hell? O_o Since when did being a TEEN parent become the standard norm? And how sad is it that it is?

I think, though, that most of my family has come to terms with the fact that I just do not want children (hell, I've been telling them that I don't want children for the past 26 years of my life...since I could talk), and I'm grateful for that. They're still disappointed that I don't date more, though.

[RoL34]

My problem is I want kids but I don't want to get married, and nobody can figure that one out.

[fuzzipueo]

While I've never had anyone ask if I wanted kids or whether I wanted to be married, I have been insulted by a pair of proselytizers (two men, dressed in their Sunday best, who insisted on sharing their version of the "good word") who made the automatic assumption that I was an unmarried mother with a snot nosed brat running around in the house somewhere.

I presume those two were peddling some version of Christianity and I must say as a Christian I find their behaviour rude and repellent.

For starters, what business is it of theirs whether you have children and how is it even relevant to the situation? And how dare they make totally uninformed assumptions and then speak to you in such a judgemental fashion? Clearly they forgot that part in their Bible that says "in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself".

To this day I would love to go back in time and give them a taste of their own medicine. Really, they insulted not only me, but all women with their attitude.

Mind you this was several years ago now, but the fact that it still bothers me, well, bothers me. Sigh.

[fuzzipueo]

My problem is I want kids but I don't want to get married, and nobody can figure that one out.

Sounds like a sensible idea to me.

[RoL34]

My problem is I want kids but I don't want to get married, and nobody can figure that one out.

Sounds like a sensible idea to me.

Nice to hear someone say that. :)

I love kids, but the whole finding somebody that will be my best friend and not a husband so much and won't pressure me into sex seems like nigh on impossible. And I think I'd rather adopt than have my own kids, there's too many kids out there with no parents.

[fuzzipueo]

My problem is I want kids but I don't want to get married, and nobody can figure that one out.

Sounds like a sensible idea to me.

Nice to hear someone say that. :)

I love kids, but the whole finding somebody that will be my best friend and not a husband so much and won't pressure me into sex seems like nigh on impossible. And I think I'd rather adopt than have my own kids, there's too many kids out there with no parents.

There are plenty of single parent households. I think having some kind of support structure in place (beyond babysitters, etc.) would be a good idea, but there's nothing wrong with you not wanting to get married. :)

[Silmaril]

To this day I would love to go back in time and give them a taste of their own medicine. Really, they insulted not only me, but all women with their attitude.

Agreed. It's ignorant and biased people like these who are responsible for the bad reputation of institutionalised religion. They're so busy trying to control others that they forget Christ taught to remove the plank from one's own eye first before fussing about the speck in another's eye. The trouble is that this minority is often loud and gets the most attention, while ordinary folk who actually live according to their faith tend to go unnoticed.

[r3tr0_gam3r]

I have had this happen to me only once, but I think, as has been stated in this conversation, it is generally women who are seen as 'crazy' or 'odd' if they say they do not want children. About 2 years ago, a friend and I were talking at work and she mentioned that she really would like to have a baby some day and I mentioned that I did not. Of course, this just led to being told that one day I would change my mind and I'm still young so I can't really say what would happen in the future. She wasn't as extreme as it seems some of the other people here have had. I don't see why anyone should think that they should be able to tell someone how they will feel in the future, when to be honest, you can't really know what a person feels now. If someone was to tell me they didn't want children, I'd just take it that that's how they feel and fair enough, it's up to them how they wish to lead their lives.

I have also thought about adopting children, but I know it would not be for a long time if I did go through with it. I remember thining as a child myself that I would like to adopt rather than have a child as I knew there are so many children without parents. I do like children and I work at an Adventure Playground for children aged 6-13, but just don't have plans right now to have any of my own.

[MaryWeather]

I think I get the comment a lot because I'm good at working with kids. I don't mind taking care of kids for a day and playing with them, but I would not be able to be around one all of the time and take care of them. I have nothing against kids. :)

[gallantpotato]

i think i would like to have kids one day. i really like working with them and spending time with my nephew. im just not ready for them yet.

[Guest Scarlet Spider]

I hate kids.

Maybe sometime in the future far from now, but not at all now.