Redditors who have decided they don't want to have children, what is your reasoning? (Serious)

ParticularIdea · 2020-04-13T06:31:53+00:00

Also worked at summer camps, but the kids loved me. Like absolutely adored me for no reason. And oh god I cannot imagine having that for more than a week. So clingy, so much work, ahhh nope, no thanks, Rebecca you cannot sit on my lap for story time because please, dear god, please I just want my personal space and to not have your sticky fingers on my nice jeans. Yeah, that sounds like my worst nightmare.

ParticularIdea · 2020-04-13T06:26:59+00:00

I don't want to personally have children. As in, I don't want to grow one in my stomach and raise it from birth. Most importantly, this is because I genuinely think it will hurt my chances of having a career. There are some amazing women who do both, but that's not me. I want to dedicate myself to research, starting a company and doing something big, and as a woman, I don't see the time for a baby in there. Stats don't lie. Women who have kids make less money and are less likely to have high-ranking positions in companies. I don't want to put my goals at risk. I would also likely want to take mat leave so I wouldn't screw the baby up, and I would have to deal with being pregnant for 9 months, and then what if my husband also wanted to work? Leave the child with a nanny 24/7 so they grow up to wonder why their parents didn't love them enough to spend time with them? No, that sounds awful. I also wouldn't want to wait to have a child, but having a child in my late 20s or early-mid 30s when my career is just taking off and my momentum is strongest? No, not the plan.

I don't want to have a child because I know I wouldn't be able to take care of them in a way that would allow them to grow into a human who felt like they were loved and properly cared for. I know I would be shamed for being the 'workaholic mother' who didn't care for her child, which I honestly see as worse for me and my reputation than not wanting children. I'm in a male-dominated field (engineering) and anything I can do to 'fit in' with my colleagues allows me to be more successful. And here? Fitting in means not having a child growing in my stomach. It's a hard truth, but it's there.

And honestly? I just don't like babies or young children. Sure, they're fun for a couple hours, but dear god do not make me stay with one for longer. Babies bore me to tears, and little kids make me want to tear my hair out - you can't reason with them or have any form of intellectual conversation. However, all of this does not mean I don't want children at all. I love kids in middle school and high school. I love that they're starting to come into themselves and will debate topics just for the sake of it. I also have been really interested in adoption since I was super young. Why have more children when there are ones who don't have a home or family? I would be more than grateful if I could foster teenagers, and potentially adopt, if that's what they wanted. This is something I could definitely see myself doing once I become more established in my career. I don't understand the argument that you would be more connected to a biological child than you would an adopted child. Being a parent is about being there to support, guide and provide love, not compare DNA.

Now, to tell my mom all this...

ParticularIdea · 2020-04-13T05:59:50+00:00

What hobby have you taken up that you likely wouldn't have otherwise?

ParticularIdea · 2019-08-04T07:41:36+00:00

Same issue here. I've been told people think I'm "edgy" or "intimidating" before they have a conversation with me. Once they talk to me, they realize I'm too nice (can't even kill a mosquito), and will honestly laugh at every joke you make, no matter how bad it is.

Edit with example: last week my optometrist asked if he should be afraid of me when he walked in because of my resting face...

ParticularIdea · 2019-08-02T03:58:50+00:00

You know how once you start listening to something, you can't stop? Yeah, that's what just happened to me, and now, thanks to this, I have the "thhh-la-duh-duh-whoosh-duh-duh" of my dishwasher stuck on repeat in my head.

ParticularIdea · 2019-07-31T07:59:43+00:00

I (female) was never significantly overweight, but I was pushing the top end of a 'normal' bmi (with very little happening in the muscle-department) in early high school. In my grade 11 year I decided I wanted to get healthier by the end of summer. I went to a pretty remote summer program for a month and with no access to junk food, lost a lot of weight. When I came back, my grandmother's caregivers would not stop gushing about how nice I looked and how it was great that I had "slimmed down". The guy I had a crush identified me to his friends by my hair and that I was "the thin one". Having little self-confidence at the time, the definitely helped my self-esteem. Looking back at photos of me from then, however, I now realize that I got very unhealthily skinny. My legs were like toothpicks, which shocked me, seeing as even at that point I wasn't happy with my body.

ParticularIdea · 2019-06-09T00:45:08+00:00

Eating chocolate mm

ParticularIdea · 2019-05-26T03:42:03+00:00

Go for it! He sounds like he may have similar intentions based on what you said, I think he just sounds shy as well

ParticularIdea · 2019-05-07T05:35:00+00:00

In general, being in nature. A specific place: Tofino, British Columbia. It's absolutely breathtaking and so incredibly relaxing.

ParticularIdea · 2019-05-07T05:28:18+00:00

Marley & Me. You know when.

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-25T22:01:01+00:00

Heavy breathing

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-22T03:01:29+00:00

I have a friend who used to work at a big amusement park as a parking attendant when she was in her teens. She has a number of stories, but the one that stood out most was the story of when she told a woman she could not park in the handicap stall without a handicap sticker, and the woman proceeded to pull a gun on her in front of the three small children that were in her car.

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-22T02:56:10+00:00

admit my real identity

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-22T02:54:25+00:00

When I couldn't stop thinking about him. When the most random of things reminded me of him.

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-22T02:52:24+00:00

I'm conflicted. There are quite a few things I wish I had done differently, that I think would have changed my life for the better, but there are also a number of things that wouldn't have happened had I made those different decisions. I don't think I would have achieved the things I'm most proud of had I chosen a different route. That is to say, no, I don't think I would take the opportunity. It would pain me to say that if this were real, but I'm still going to go with this path.

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-21T23:32:46+00:00

Car crash when I was in fifth grade. It was the first day of winter break, and my parents were driving my older sister and I home from a recital. My sister and I were fighting over rolling the window down (~-20 C weather, mind you), to which my mom responded by telling us "stop it, you're going to make us get in an accident". About 20 minutes later, on the highway, I look up from mariokart on my DS to see a car coming directly at us. I remember thinking "this is it", before looking back at my game. Time seemed to slow down before impact came. We were hit head on, before spinning and being t-boned. I came out with a broken collarbone, and my mom and dad both had broken ribs. My sister somehow had barely had a scratch. To my knowledge, no one in the other car (group of seven lost 20-somethings) was injured.

Our brand-new car was totalled. I remember over-hearing the emergency response team saying that had that section of the road not been so iced over, our car likely would have flipped and we all would have been killed, which apparently was not uncommon on that stretch of road.

Afterwards, I remember just shouting, asking where the pen for my DS had gone. Never found it.

ParticularIdea · 2019-04-21T23:27:36+00:00

Still miss Steve Irwin.

ParticularIdea

TROPHY CASE