kittykat wrote:

I just don't have that maternal instinct or whatever it is. And it's impossible to get me to change my mind 

But that is kind of an antagonism. A maternal instinct is called exactly that because it's an instinct - and instincts can't really be influenced by a decision you make. You can't change your mind about your maternal instinct. But your maternal instinct can change. I'm not saying it will, I'm in my late thirties and never had one and I'm pretty sure that won't change anymore. But the thing is that you just don't know what will happen to your maternal instinct during the next ten or so years. It's an instinct.

kittykat wrote:

Saying that I'll change my mind because I'm still young? Yeah, I read about that one XD

I hear what you're saying, but there's pretty much no point in trying to change my mind  

I don't see anyone trying to change your mind, or saying that your decision will change because of your age.

All you seem to have done is put a subject up for discussion with the proviso that you have a closed mind on the subject. Like the rest of us you have no idea what the future will bring and how that future may impact your life. Why close your mind on any matter? 
 

SpiralStaircase wrote:

I know several people who didn't want children, accidently fell pregnant, and are now quite happy with motherhood. You never know what's around the corner. For me though, I've always known that I'll never have children. Just like I know I'll never skydive!!

I'm 100% sure that I don't want any. And I'm not one to change my mind that often...

SpiralStaircase wrote:

kittykat wrote:

SpiralStaircase wrote:

I know several people who didn't want children, accidently fell pregnant, and are now quite happy with motherhood. You never know what's around the corner. For me though, I've always known that I'll never have children. Just like I know I'll never skydive!!

I'm 100% sure that I don't want any. And I'm not one to change my mind that often...

Well, only you know your own mind. Try not to stress about it. Just enjoy each day as it comes. Life's too short to worry. *hugs*
 

I certainly do  *hugs back*
 

Funny 'test' to see if you are 'ready' for children:

Follow these 15 simple tests before you decide to have children.

Test 1

To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.

Go to local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2

Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3

To discover how the nights will feel . . .

1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.

2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am

4. Set the alarm for 3am.

5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.

6. Go to bed at 2.45am.

7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off

8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.

9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off

10. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Test 4

Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.

1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

Test 5

Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family Cars don't look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.

2. Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.

3. Take a family size package of chocolate biscuits, mash them into the back seat.

4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . perfect!

Test 6

Get ready to go out.

1. Wait

2. Go out the front door.

3. Come in again.

4. Go out.

5. Come back in.

6. Go out again.

7. Walk down the front path/driveway.

8. Walk back up it.

9. Walk down it again.

10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.

11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.

12. Retrace your steps.

13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.

14. Give up and go back into the house.

15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8

Go the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9

Hollow out a melon.

1. Make a small hole in the side.

2. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side

3. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane.

4. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.

5. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.

You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old child.

Test 10

Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Test 11

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?

Test 12

Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting "Mummy" repeatedly.

Important: No more than a four second delay between each "Mummy " -occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the "Mummy" Tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14

Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:

1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.

2. Stir.

3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.

4. Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.

5. Do NOT change. You have no time.

6. Go directly to work.

Test 15

Go for a drive, but first...

1. Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.

2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.

3. Put the pit bulls in the front seat of your car.

4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into the child seat.

5. For the really adventurous...... Run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.

You are now ready to have kids.

Last edited by sj4iy (February 10, 2014 8:01 pm)

sj4iy, Spiral. Thank you . Next time someone asks me why I don't have/want kids, I' refer them to this .

SpiralStaircase wrote:

LOL
I don't have kids, but this is exactly what visiting my sibling's house is like -- especially trying to leave the house.
 

Haha, it is really like this - was was I thinking when I got myself twins.  Especially the "good luck" before going to bed, we say that every night..

My husband and I didn't have kids. For us it was a good decision. I have lots of nieces and nephs. When they were little I got to make cute clothes for them and knit them mittens, sweaters, etc. They grew up to be nice people whose company I enjoy. But I'm glad I didn't have the expense and worry of raising kids of my own.

That reminds me of what people kept telling me a couple years ago. I got married at 22 (i'm 30) and got my son at 26. I hadn't even been married for six months that people started asking me "So, is there a baby on the way?" and when time passed by and there still was no baby, they were like "You have fertility problems, right?". Argh, it annoyed me so much! As if there were a law saying that when you get married you have to become pregnant in the following months...

Anyway, I didn't want children. It's not that I don't like them (well, alright, I don't like babies...), it's not that I really didn't want them, it's just that I didn't trust myself to be a "good mother". The only idea of being pregnant and giving birth scared me to hell, and I thought I wouldn't be able to look after a kid. I admit I also wanted time for myself. Having a baby was like losing my freedom to me.  

But my husband really wanted children (he already had a son when I met him) and ended up putting constant pressure on me, every day, and to use emotional blackmail like "If you don't want to make a baby, then I'll sue for divorce" and I finally gave in.

(don't start on me with that. I met my husband at the age of 19 and he moved in with me after 5 days -ahem- and always made emotional blackmail, amongs other things, I was used to it, I didn't know anything else, i had no comparison... So I kinda accepted it as if it was a normal thing... My husband has later been diagnosed with Kretshmer personality --a paranoiac illness he apparently had developed during his childhood-- , it got worse and worse, and he ended up killing himself in 2012)

I became pregnant and all I could think of was "I don't want that baby". I know, it's a horrible thought but that was it. I remember the night I had my waters break, I was yelling "No, it can't be! He's not supposed to arrive before at least 15 days. He just can't get out now, I don't want to!" etc.

And when the midwife placed him in my arms and that he looks at me, it was like "self-evident". I was instantly filled with a kind of love I wasn't even aware of, something I have no words to describe,  I'd never thought I could felt a love so strong and I realised what I would have missed if I'd never had a baby... It's unique.

Well, don't get me wrong, I still wasn't fond of the "baby era": the nappies and all, plus my son had health problems and I spent most of his first year between hospitals and medical appointments, it was quite a nightmare, really. And I much prefer the relation I have with my son now (much more "interactions") But I regret nothing.

Today, I sometimes think my life would be much simpler if I hadn't my son, mostly because apart from work (and I hate my job) and him, I have no life. I never get out, never have time for myself, because my family lives far away and can't look after him (ie for an evening) and I can't resort to a babysitter because he has been so traumatised by his father's death that he truly needs points of reference and would be lost if I left him with a "stranger". I don't want to see someone so soon after my husband's death, I'm not even sure I'd want to see someone again one day (to be honest, I'm quite solitary. I miss the sex, that's all, lol. And things were SO complicated with my husband that I'm not ready to be in a relationship again) but even if I wanted to, that obviously couldn't be before at least a couple of years (like 10 years or something)

But then again, I couldn't imagine my life without him. He brings me so much. SO MUCH. He's funny, kind, loving, wise... and he's actually the only person that can bring a smile back to my face when I feel down. If I hadn't had him, I would have sunk completely.

Anyway, I'm not saying all this to make you change your mind. I respect your choice and I think no one should criticize it, I'm just saying that the love you can have for a child (your child, that is) is impossible to imagine as long as you actually don't have children.

I have acquaintances (those in their 40's, I'm not talking about the younger ones) that don't have children, well, some because they can't so it's not a choice, but others who simply never wanted them, and I have no problem with that.

My brother is 41. He's been in a relationship for 15 years (married for 10 years). He's never wanted children so far, he just couldn't think of himself as a dad, and more over, he loves to travel. But you know, taking a bag with a few clothes, going to Mongolia with no plans, going hiking in the plains, meeting locals, becoming friends with them (even if you don't understand a thing they say!), spent a week living with them in their yurt; going to Tanzania, meeting Maasai people and obeying their traditions (including drinking the blood of a freshly sacrificed goat), going hiking in the darkest depths of Nepal... Well, see, that kind of travels, which you can't really do with a kid...

I've always respected his choice, because as long as he is happy, I can't see where the problem is. Still, lately, I was surprised to see that the idea of being a father didn't seem to drive him away anymore. I don't know if they're planning to have a baby, but maybe they've changed their mind, after all.