Curious about baby fever and asexuality

[sesaikanzli]

I was talking with some friends, and they mentioned getting baby fever sometimes (like, seeing babies or young children being cute and feeling an urge to have children or an urge to take care of them, regardless of whether you actually want children or not). I've never experienced this, and it got me wondering if it might be related to being (very) asexual. Like, if I don't naturally have sexual attraction, it could mean I don't have the urge to reproduce, or that sort of instinctual want to have children? So I wanted to ask here, do other ace people experience baby fever?

 

(Edit: I should clarify that I'm not talking about whether someone wants to have kids, likes the idea of having kids, or would choose to have kids. Ace people can want to have kids, or be open to having kids, or be disgusted by the whole concept, just like anyone else can! I don't think that's related to orientation at all. I'm just curious about what some people have described as an (involuntary) desire or instinct, or feeling a sudden maternal instinct – whether you actually like babies or not. I've heard people who definitely never want to have children talk about experiencing it. I guess there are different meanings of the term baby fever, though.)

Edited February 2, 2023 by sesaikanzli

[Solri]

I don't experience "baby fever" but I imagine it's like seeing a cute animal and wanting to pet it. I'm not trying to compare babies to animals, but that's what came to mind.

Overall, I don't think being asexual has to do with wanting/not wanting children. Some asexuals, maybe due to some connections to asexuality (doing the act or something else), don't want to have children, but there's also many aces that do want to have children. 

[everywhere and nowhere]

There are asexuals who want to have children and those who don't, although it's not like there's no correlation: asexuals who don't want to have children definitely seem to be the majority group.

I personally decided that I don't want to have children at the age of five, after reading (personally, not "having read to me aloud") two books explaining reproduction in a child-accessible way. The whole process felt so terrifying to me that I decided: no way I'd subject my poor body to such things. I don't actively dislike children, but I'm also immune to "baby fever" in the sense that I don't snivel over babies. I don't really find pre-kindergarten human children cute. However, I have trace amounts of maternal instinct, but it's activated by babies of different species - particularly little big cats (I'm a tigermaniac since the age of two). I nevertheless don't have any pets - I'm allergic to a lot of animals and honestly, I just wouldn't want to take this kind of responsibility. But I would be delighted to have an opportunity to pet a tiger cub.

 

Linguistic rant: I hate the commonly seen phrase "baby cub" since it's a pleonasm!! "Tiger/lion/... cub" expresses the same content as "baby tiger/lion/...", so "baby cub" is fully redundant. "Buttery butter" (original: masło maślane), as pleonasms are jokingly called in Polish.

[Philip027]

Not really.  Ace people can greatly desire kids; sexual people can be vehemently opposed to them.  (Hell, contraceptives were created specifically so that sexual people can be sexual without the babymaking happening.)   They're both common enough that I wouldn't say not experiencing "baby fever" is indicative of anything in particular other than... probably not desiring kids.

 

Additionally, if an ace wanted a kid but is terrified at the prospect of sex, there's potential workarounds for that kind of thing nowadays.  Science is neat.

[AavaMeri]

I'd love to see statistics on correlation of sexuality and desire to have children! To see if there is any correlation. Certainly there is no 100% correlation tho as there are asexual people desiring children and sexual people not desiring children. However, there may be again that thing "LGBTQ+ people are already questioning societal norms", which may skew LGBTQ+ people to be less aligned to follow to norm and, in case of fence-sitters, lean more towards not wanting kids.

I'm an asexual who doesn't want to have kid. I looked into myself and figured that I have no innate desire to do that (I also don't want a partner and I have mental health challenges, which makes the combination even less appealing for having kids). I like chilling with kids on occasion, but taking care of one every day for several years sounds like something I don't want to do. I rather help my family and friends to occasionally look after their kids, so they can have a breather --> slightly improved life quality of a parent --> slightly improved life quality of a kid.

[Luftschlosseule]

A hetero friend of mine definetly doesn't and has been trying to get herself steriled but medical professionals are like "but what if you change your mind?".
We see each other mostly once a week and most often when we encounter children she's like "well that's one problem I won't have to deal with".

[Eutierria]

4 hours ago, sesaikanzli said:

baby fever sometimes (like, seeing babies or young children being cute and feeling an urge to have children or an urge to take care of them, regardless of whether you actually want children or not)

 

4 hours ago, sesaikanzli said:

So I wanted to ask here, do other ace people experience baby fever?

I did when I was partnered until I realised any children I did have would not be able to choose their own father. The safety & wellbeing of any potential children came first for me. I have friends who could potentially be good fathers but I don't want to put myself through a mixed allo-ace relationship again. I'm a lot more careful choosing a partner now & would rather be single & child free. 

 

I've always had a maternal instinct but I've tried to shake off as it affected other parts of my life & meant I gave people far too many chances.

 

Part of me still experiences the occasional wish to be a mother but I'm also OK if it never happens. I'm hetero-romantic so my partner would need to be a man/masc in order for me to develop the romantic attraction. Without that immediate support network, I don't know if I would be able to do it alone & I had previously considered adoption as a single parent. 

 

Have helped with childcare with cousins as I was growing up & have also worked with a lot of children so I have a sense of how much sustained energy it requires & I don't know if I can do that anymore. 

 

I've been on a plane with a crying baby a couple of aisles away, my maternal instinct kicked in & I went into 'poor bubba' mode. That's when I realised other people had very different reactions - my sibling's response was "Omg, stfu". If anyone reading this is a parent who flies with a baby, please don't assume everyone is like my sibling. I like to think most of us can empathise that flying can be an uncomfortable experience, especially with the changes in altitudes. 

 

I'm fortunate to have found a career that I love. It would be cool if I could do both well, simultaneously. I'm also aware that these are potentially limiting options & other options may open up in the future which would be exciting to be a part of. 

[Philip027]

Yeah... I'm definitely more with the sibling in that regard

 

My beef is less with the baby and more with its caretakers though, who usually seem to be just fine with letting the kid wail incessantly.  It's fine if you've gotten used / desensitized to it back at home, but please don't subject a plane to it, most of whom are probably trying to get some sleep.  That's just discourteous as fuck

[marieatsplants]

6 hours ago, everywhere and nowhere said:

I don't really find pre-kindergarten human children cute.

same here, but recently have noticed myself "awwing" a bit more frequently (ie, 0% of the time moving up to like 10% of the time) at children ages 5-10 ish as I've grown a bit. But especially until a child can stand up on their own, they freak me out and I don't want them near me, and I don't see that changing haha

[uhtred]

2 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Yeah... I'm definitely more with the sibling in that regard

 

My beef is less with the baby and more with its caretakers though, who usually seem to be just fine with letting the kid wail incessantly.  It's fine if you've gotten used / desensitized to it back at home, but please don't subject a plane to it, most of whom are probably trying to get some sleep.  That's just discourteous as fuck

Unfortunately children don't have off buttons.  Parents have remarkably little control over their children  - one of the many reasons I never wanted children.

[Eutierria]

2 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Yeah... I'm definitely more with the sibling in that regard

🤣🤣🤣

[Eutierria]

31 minutes ago, uhtred said:

Unfortunately children don't have off buttons. 

☝️This is what worries me the most - I'd be worried that I wouldn't have the energy to be a good mother. 

 

31 minutes ago, uhtred said:

Parents have remarkably little control over their children  - one of the many reasons I never wanted children.

It would be less frightening to have some stability but 50% of me is also curious as to what life lessons I may end up learning. 

[RoseGoesToYale]

-inhales-

 

There is no such thing as the "biological clock". The term was coined by a male journalist in the 1970s and has no scientific or medical basis. There is no hormone that can a person want children. The only two hormones associated explicitly with pregnancy, estetrol and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), are only present in the body after a person becomes pregnant.

 

Instinct for procreation also has no scientific basis as it cannot be observed in the wild. Humans are the only species on earth demonstrated to understand that engaging in (heterosexual) sexual activity results in offspring. No other species is intelligent enough to connect the act of sex with the result of pregnancy. As such, when other species feel a desire to mate, that desire stems from sex drive alone, not a desire for offspring. Sex drive is what nature uses to trick species into procreating, not the other way around, otherwise there's a strong chance, given intelligence and ability to communicate, that species would barely or never do it, or want birth control of their own. (especially the hyena... please don't look up why, it's horrific) In the wild, all offspring are accidents. Further, instinct is something that ensures one's own survival... the instinct to drink water or eat food or sleep in a covered place. Procreating not only doesn't ensure one's own survival, but many species die after giving birth/laying eggs/splitting/whatever, AND any species can go without having sex and survive.

 

In humans, desire for procreation is a social construct. If it wasn't, every single person who was capable of procreating would endeavor to do so. We, especially AFAB people, are exposed to messages about the "inherent" value of procreation from the very beginning, from the first minute a baby doll finds its way into a girl's hands. Even the act of finding babies cute has to do with our social experiences with them and whether we've accepted or rejected the messages about them. A number of systems exist to encourage and reward procreation, such as religious righteousness, social conformity/acceptance and tax breaks, as well as punish lack of desire to procreate, such as with prejudice and discrimination, social ostracization, or, in certain authoritarian societies, medical torture, jail or death. The terms "biological clock" and "baby fever" continue to be used in patriarchal fashion to keep females subordinate to males by suggesting that females are slaves to their biology and certain "mystical and inevitable forces" that rule it, thus removing their personal agency in making reproductive decisions. The decision to have a child is always a conscious and informed (however good or bad that information might be) choice.

 

-exhale-

[Hurta]

Oh, I definitely do get the baby fever, and do want kids. I don't experience it as often as some female friends, though.

[Picklethewickle]

I've noticed that men can want kids, but never used the term "suffering from baby fever". They also aren't pressed about when they are going to have kids, or why they don't have kids yet, or if they are really sure they will be a good parent to the kids they have. Men just have kids or don't have kids, and no one questions their decisions.

 

I've noticed a lot of the comments regarding kids or no kids on this site have involved women talking about if their body could handle the strain. I was going to muse on if there were any differences between female asexuals wanting kids versus male asexuals verses genderdiverse asexuals, but RoseGoesToYale actually sorted it out much better.

[Geekykitty]

14 hours ago, sesaikanzli said:

was talking with some friends, and they mentioned getting baby fever sometimes (like, seeing babies or young children being cute and feeling an urge to have children or an urge to take care of them, regardless of whether you actually want children or not)

I've never felt this, baby's to me just seem kinda annoying 😝 I think I do get "cat fever" though. I love cats and if I ever see a cat I just want to cuddle it and be friends with it 😻 But I have my own cat at home to love so I'm good.

I know some sexual people who don't want kids, and I have heard some asexuals on here who do. Dont think being asexual correlates with not wanting kids. But I do wonder if a higher % of asexuals don't want kids compared to sexuals. Maybe its because the whole process of having children involves doing something - sex - which is unappealing to us, maybe even disgusting to some. And then the whole pregnancy part. Its very invasive to our bodies and maybe something many asexual people don't want to put themselves through.

 

 

3 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

The terms "biological clock" and "baby fever" continue to be used in patriarchal fashion to keep females subordinate to males by suggesting that females are slaves to their biology and certain "mystical and inevitable forces" that rule it, thus removing their personal agency in making reproductive decisions. The decision to have a child is always a conscious and informed (however good or bad that information might be) choice

Yeah agreed I hate these terms. It annoys me when people assume that all women just automatically want children and its programmed into us and thats our main goal in life. Men don't get talked about that way yet many of them want children. I have a male colleague at work who is always talking about wanting children and how he hopes him and his wife will have one soon. And if a man doesnt want children thats fine, he isn't considered a cold hearted weirdo. 

[Philip027]

7 hours ago, uhtred said:

Unfortunately children don't have off buttons.  Parents have remarkably little control over their children  - one of the many reasons I never wanted children.

They have control; they just won't exert it, or simply don't care.

[sesaikanzli]

Oh wow, thank you for all the replies! I guess it wasn't clear enough, so I should clarify that I'm not talking about whether someone wants to have kids, likes the idea of having kids, or would choose to have kids. Ace people can want to have kids, or be open to having kids, or be disgusted by the whole concept, just like anyone else can! I don't think that's related to orientation at all.

 

I'm just curious about what some people have described as an (involuntary) desire or instinct, or like @Eutierria mentioned, feeling a sudden maternal instinct, whether you actually like babies or not. I've heard people who definitely never want to have children talk about experiencing it. I guess there are different meanings of the term baby fever, though.

[sesaikanzli]

5 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

-inhales-

 

There is no such thing as the "biological clock". The term was coined by a male journalist in the 1970s and has no scientific or medical basis. There is no hormone that can a person want children. The only two hormones associated explicitly with pregnancy, estetrol and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), are only present in the body after a person becomes pregnant.

 

Instinct for procreation also has no scientific basis as it cannot be observed in the wild. Humans are the only species on earth demonstrated to understand that engaging in (heterosexual) sexual activity results in offspring. No other species is intelligent enough to connect the act of sex with the result of pregnancy. As such, when other species feel a desire to mate, that desire stems from sex drive alone, not a desire for offspring. Sex drive is what nature uses to trick species into procreating, not the other way around, otherwise there's a strong chance, given intelligence and ability to communicate, that species would barely or never do it, or want birth control of their own. (especially the hyena... please don't look up why, it's horrific) In the wild, all offspring are accidents. Further, instinct is something that ensures one's own survival... the instinct to drink water or eat food or sleep in a covered place. Procreating not only doesn't ensure one's own survival, but many species die after giving birth/laying eggs/splitting/whatever, AND any species can go without having sex and survive.

 

In humans, desire for procreation is a social construct. If it wasn't, every single person who was capable of procreating would endeavor to do so. We, especially AFAB people, are exposed to messages about the "inherent" value of procreation from the very beginning, from the first minute a baby doll finds its way into a girl's hands. Even the act of finding babies cute has to do with our social experiences with them and whether we've accepted or rejected the messages about them. A number of systems exist to encourage and reward procreation, such as religious righteousness, social conformity/acceptance and tax breaks, as well as punish lack of desire to procreate, such as with prejudice and discrimination, social ostracization, or, in certain authoritarian societies, medical torture, jail or death. The terms "biological clock" and "baby fever" continue to be used in patriarchal fashion to keep females subordinate to males by suggesting that females are slaves to their biology and certain "mystical and inevitable forces" that rule it, thus removing their personal agency in making reproductive decisions. The decision to have a child is always a conscious and informed (however good or bad that information might be) choice.

 

-exhale-

I agree there's definitely a lot of sexism and fucked up societal programming going on surrounding this stuff. But people still experience something, even people who actively reject societal roles and expectations about having kids. How much of that feeling is learned vs really there, I don't know, I've never felt anything like that myself, but I don't want to invalidate the experiences my friends and family have described and say it's not real, just because of that. (Although I feel like you're maybe arguing against a different thing than I was trying to express, so I think we're mostly still in agreement? I think 'biological clock' is bullshit too, haha. And I think you're using a more specific meaning of the word instinct than I am, I'm only using that because I don't know a better word to describe it.)

 

Sorry, I'm just bad with words and figuring out how to describe things in general, so I think everyone thought I was talking about something other than what I meant.

[Thujaplicata]

I mean, there are some things you can do to control a child, but when my six month old sister screamed her little head off? There was nothing to do while we sat in that taxi and the driver broke some laws to get us out of his car ASAP. We tried. She was beside herself. What were we supposed to do? Smother her?

 

I was a bit creeped out by how everyone was acting with my nephew a year or two ago. He was less than a year old and an objectively happy and subjectively cute baby. I wanted to hold him because he's my nephew and I want to be a good aunt, even if he was kinda disgusting - slobbery and a bit gross. Everyone else was going "BABY!!!" Maybe it should, but it just does not inspire confidence in me to hear someone announce they love babies. I feel like that's not someone I'd want near a kid of mine - is this even an important person to them or just another doll?

I'm looking forward to when he's old enough to be more of a person I can interact with...

 

Personally, I was always able to imagine myself with kids approximately my sisters' ages because I definitely did some of the raising of them. A husband? Absolutely not. 

 

Baby things - kittens especially - are adorable and I want to coo. Human babies drool so very much though. And diapers and...nope. I don't need an infant. If I ever have a kid I'll almost certainly adopt an older child. I'm very much not straight, I hate the idea of being pregnant, I don't like infants much... Nope. 

[uhtred]

3 hours ago, Philip027 said:

They have control; they just won't exert it, or simply don't care.

How do you stop a 2 year old from screaming?

[R_1]

Yes, there are times when I do feel like I want to reproduce and have kids. @RoseGoesToYale may be surprised to read this. It feels like a instinct. I have no wants to have sex though. Rather strange, but I do think it exist at the hypothalamus level. It's a lot like hunger.

 

What makes it stranger is that logically, I don't want to raise kids. But, instincts aren't always logical.

[Sally]

23 hours ago, sesaikanzli said:

an (involuntary) desire or instinct, or feeling a sudden maternal instinct – whether you actually like babies or not.

It's hard for me to imagine someone having that almost physiological/physical desire to have a baby without actually liking babies as such.  I doubt if not having that feeling has anything to do with being asexual, but I would think physically wanting to bear a child and liking babies would go together.