For years, it has beaten inside. A rhythmic throbbing that grew so quickly, so loudly, that it merged seamlessly into me. A dull hum that lay within — a backdrop to life’s scenes.
I’ve known for a long time that I want to be a parent. Not knowing in a conscious way… more an underlying assumption. Having a child was never my life’s aim, nor an all-consuming passion. I wasn’t a girl who played with dolls or developed an impressive collection of miniature infant paraphernalia. I was, in fact, a bookish child — thoughtful, quiet and analytical.
In my teens and early twenties, I envisioned being a parent. I just assumed this was how life unfolded. But I didn’t give the idea more than a passing thought. Motherhood would occasionally flicker across my horizon, or dip briefly into my dreams, but it wasn’t a concrete vision. It was more a pale, wan ghost of a future, a glimpse of a me, somewhere, down some road.
And then, as I rambled through my twenties, collecting a partner, marriage and career, motherhood began to coalesce into a solid shape. A decade of travel, work, marriage, upping sticks, country-moving and general merriment disappeared in dust. And the hum, the constant companion, burst into flames. No longer a gentle, unobtrusive presence, it now insistently tugged at my being. It was a burning need. My baby radar kicked into overdrive, and an alien invasion of maternal feelings settled in for the long haul.
I read obsessively about parenting, devouring books and articles on birth and conception. I planned, in intricate detail, the first year of my fake-child’s life. Staring wide-eyed at pregnant women on the bus (sorry about that, lady in the red coat), I felt a trickle of disappointment as each month bled away. I felt gripped by a wave of unfamiliar fever. I’d never really understood when other women spoke about baby fever, and was chagrined to realize I was seized by it.
I dreamed away several years — the perfect birth, my ideal names, daycare arrangements, finances and a million other over-planned activities. And yet, deep inside, I knew we weren’t yet ready for a baby. It pickled my brain — the feelings flew through me whether I wanted them or not.
At times, I grew tired of being hijacked by these uninvited visitors. Other days, the excitement and dreaminess provided welcome refuge from the mundanity of daily life. And one day they simply vanished. Overnight, my captors snuck out of the house and disappeared, leaving little trace of their previously-constant existence.
Baby piles, irrational fears, and responsibilities: why I don’t want to have a kid
Here's the deal -- I don't want kids, I never have, and I don't think I ever will. For years now I've had TONS of... Read more
I have no idea what happened. One minute, I was boiling with the need to have a baby, staring melty-eyed at little ones in the street. The next, I was cold and empty. The desire had extinguished itself, leaving hollow indifference in its place. I riddled over what force possessed the power to do this. Perhaps it was a particularly difficult babysitting session with a screamy, parent-missing girl. Or maybe a heartfelt conversation about parenting with my partner.
But I’ve barely thought about parenthood. I have however, given a great deal of thought to why I no longer think about parenthood.
Once the puzzlement abated, I reveled in the re-discovery of my old, independent, level-headed self. It was a relief to be freed from the ravages of an all-devouring beast. But that beast, for many months, was a companion. A background friend. Company on a long train journey. A pleasant dream. A happy future. Oddly, I felt a little bereft without it.
After a few days, abandonment panic set in. What if the beast never came back? What if I never wanted children? All those years — 29 of them — of assumptions, of a future laid out, of anticipation: gone. Was I the type to be childless? Was that me? Is there even a childless type? I always, always always assumed that I would be a mother. Eventually, some day… but now I am beginning to think I may not want to be at all.
I was never particularly intersted in having kids. I played “house” as a kid, but always under the premise that I was an older sister taking care of younger siblings. With 30 approaching soon, my partner and I decided in that semi-rational state to “try’ and see what happened. We had decided long ago that if we tried and we couldn’t have kids then it wasn’t meant to be and we’d move on. We both felt particularly strong either way, more of a “meh, let’s see how it goes.”
We got pregnant on our first shot.
I now have a 12 week old baby boy who is an absolute delight. I cannot imagine not being his mother. While it’s not a baby-crack obsession/love, it’s this quiet amazing deep love and joy that I have, where I look back and think, ‘wow, how could i have thought I wouldn’t want this?’
Wow! I totally agree with you. But I still want the kid. Actually I don’t want a baby. I dread the whole process. But I want a family and that’s how they start as screaming infants so I am resigned to it. My coworkers give me a hard time about it, “HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE BABIES? You can’t have a child and feel this way!” This bothers me because I don’t hate babies, I just don’t think they are adorable. They are a huge responsibility, beyond any full time job and not PETS! I think my one coworker thinks her kid is a poodle and not a person. My mom assures me I am not odd just rational. I hope she’s right. But I completely understand the choice to not have kids. But for me I know when I’m older I’ll miss not having the family.
I was kind of surprised when my mother in law told me she didn’t care for babies but liked kids, but I totally get it. The baby time goes by so quickly even though it might feel like forever at the time, and most of their life they’ll be a cool little person, and then big person! So I think you’re better off wanting a KID then wanting BABY! 🙂
You can always adopt/foster a non-baby kid… I think especially if they are young it could be very good for them to stay with one family, and you don’t have to deal with the screaming, hairless poodle…. 🙂
That said, I really know nothing about this, sorry if I lead you down a wrong track. I always felt that I would want to help kids who weren’t just born, because you so rarely see anyone stepping up for them, preferring babies instead.
I had overwhelming baby rabies during the middle part of my 20s, which was made worse by teaching adorable preschoolers. We hit the semi-rational stage (two decent jobs, health insurance, mostly permanent home) when I was 28. I didn’t want to have kids after 32 and I knew I was not going to going to great lengths to get pregnant. My husband and I planned a vacation to Vegas, came home, and I had my IUD out.
I got pregnant pretty much immediately, spent the next 30ish weeks sick, in pain, and on partial bedrest. I lost my job because I was out on disability for so long. After that came a horrible birth experience and severe postnatal depression. Having a baby made it very clear to me that I someone who probably should have chosen not to have kids. I love my daughter to bits, but I’d never do it again.
The upside is when you spill all that, you usually quell any further “Your kid needs a sibling.” business.
I didn’t want kids growing up. But even I, a person who wasn’t that into having a kid of my own, entertained the notion for about a year. I read a ton of books, looked at names, planned rooms, etc. But I also knew that we weren’t ready or really driven. When we as a couple, finally sat down and said “Let’s make a firm decision. Yes or No”. Like flipping a coin, you realize you DO know the answer, and for me it was an emphatic NO! So we didn’t. I’m nearly 40 and zero regrets. If you ever want to bring a child into your life you can adopt or volunteer or spend time with the many kids out their (some probably in your own circle of friends and family) and need it.
I always thought I would have kids someday but devoted most of my growing-up years to childcare. I began babysitting at the age of 9! And worked as a professional nanny for over 12 years. I really enjoyed the children I cared for but never became attached. I actually found it quite easy to jump from family to family because taking care of children was my job, not my life.
I got married at 34 and my husband and I are childfree. We did struggle a bit with our decision but intellectually understand that it would be unfair to bring an innocent life into the world, and into the arms of a babysitter.
What I have to say echoes a lot of what twenty-something had to say, but this is definitely hard-hitting being that I am a couple years into my own “maternal drive.” Right now I am also 2/3 into my 1st year teaching, and this shit is hard. There have been days when those little puppies (29 of them, ages 6-8) really gave me a run for my money. I have felt so hopeless I’ve wanted to cry. When little so-and-so hits another kid for the millionth time, it gets old. When the whining or the fake-sick excuses or the unnecessary screaming make me lose my patience. When they’re rude to each other, or rude to me, or rude to their parents, or rude to someone else’s parent, or rude to the principal . . . But even through all that, I still want a kid! It seems quite irrational of me. Reading your piece really hits home, because I feel like my identity is so wrapped up in wanting to be a parent. Nothing, not even many misbehaving young children in one room with me for hours on end, has seemed to make me “un-want” children. Not yet.
Great article! I really needed to read something like this because for a while now I thought I was losing my mind a little bit, my story is the same as many of the others but basically wanted kids desperatly between 17-23 now at 25 I could not think of anything worse to do to myself and my life, my 39 te old partner wants babies yesterday but I don’t want to give up my awesome job/life/home/whatever, I used to like hearing friends talk about the gory details of raising kids but know I have to tell them to keep it positive because evey story about a sleepless night or a major tantrum puts me off even more, it does not help that I work with some of the most gorgeous children ever created, I would much rather take a few of those ones home instead of having my own…( obviously not in a dodgy kidnapping kind of way though)
I had a long, soul-searching “do I want to have kids ever?” period my freshman year of college. I am not exactly sure why I was thinking about it then; I had never really wanted kids that much, nor really a family of any kind. Maybe it was becuase I was 18 and had never even been on a date, and I felt that my prospects for any kind of future family was basically nil.
But then I met my now-husband, and after our first year together the baby-craze hit. It was a shocking revelation to me, since, again, I had never wanted kids before, but I could easily see myself happy having children with this man in the future (or even right then!), and it was such a nice thing for me to accept that and be happy in it.
But now we’re a year into our marriage, and that baby-craze is gone. We had talked about having kids before we got married, and both agreed we would, and now I feel like such a bad person because I no longer want to. Part of it is that we recently got dogs after only ever having cats, and they seem like so much work and worry and it’s unfair to them that we are gone all of the time and I resent them when I want to play games or read but they need to be walked or fed. I simply know, rationally, that I am not ready to expand our family, and I don’t know that I will ever be or ever want to again.Another big part of it is that I am not perfectly happy and comfortable in my life right now; there is a lot going on (school, work, new house, dogs) and I have never dealt well with stress. But a future with kids seems more depressing and stressful to me, wheras one without seems at least more hopeful.
The other problem is that my husband still wants kids (because his mind hasn’t changed like mine), and the guilt I feel about that makes everything even worse. I can see me agreeing to have kids for him, but I can also see that leading to resentment and depression in me (which I’m already having to fight because of the dogs, stupidly).
Anyway, it’s my life story and I’m sorry it’s so long, but it’s nice to get it out there, and maybe some of you amazing ladies will have something comforting to say.
But it felt so nice to see that my sudden dirth of baby-fever was probably entirely hormonal. Now how to deal with that change within my family.
a) Please tell me your screen name is from “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
b) I, too, fight depression because of my dog. “Ugh, I don’t want to go out, but I don’t want you to poop in the house, either… Maybe I can just stand by the door holding your retractable leash… Then I got outside and you pooped outside…” It’s not stupid, it’s just the Nature of the Beast, so to speak.
c) The depression is just one of many reasons I feel like having kids would be Bad News for me. My husband wants kids while I have made no secret about the fact that I am uncertain. In fact, before we got married, I said to him – more than once, actually – “You need to accept that I am up in the air, and that in the end I may decide I don’t want kids.” He insists that he “could get over” not having kids, and I am not sure if he is minimizing what his disappointment would be, or if he doesn’t fully appreciate how big a decision it is, one way or the other. On the one hand, I do see many great potential outcomes of having a child; on the other, I know that I have limited patience with myself, so how would I be with a kid. Heck, I spent a week and a half babysitting friends’ perfectly normal 3-year old whom I like, and I was losing my mind with boredom and impatience, and she never even had a major tantrum or anything huge to complain about. I worry that I am almost 30 and the “prime breeding time,” to put it crassly, is waning fast, but I feel it’s too important a choice to rush into – despite knowing that sometimes kids “just happen” and it can work out just fine.
tl;dr. You are not alone. It sucks, but we’ll figure it out.
“Motherhood would occasionally flicker across my horizon, or dip briefly into my dreams, but it wasn’t a concrete vision. It was more a pale, wan ghost of a future, a glimpse of a me, somewhere, down some road.”
This was me, only it never became more than that. Eventually I realized the desire to have children was just never going to take hold. I’m okay with that.
Whew—that was quite a read! The writing was self conscious; you analyzed your analyses! I think it’s important to consider that obsession with something–in this case, motherhood–is not the same as a natural desire for it. And the cessation of the obsession has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting a child.
If you can find a way to ease up on yourself (therapy, yoga, meditation), your natural being and authentic self might emerge, with your realer and clearer desires.
Good luck.
I too really wanted children throughout my youth and young-twenties. By my mid-twenties, I had changed my mind and convinced that I was Child-free by choice, for the rest of my life. I planned to travel, and do things, early retirement. To take care of my aging parents. And then I accidentally got pregnant, and here I am with a 10 month old, and trying to conceive another. Go where life takes you and try not to worry too much about it. If you are worried that you will never get the urge to have children again, maybe you are just trying to convince yourself that you don’t want children still. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so upset about it. Sounds to me like a small voice is saying to you, “Yes, I still want to have children, but I’m worried that I will have to give up the life I’ve made for myself that I’m really enjoying right now….”
I want to This all these posts, because they all speak in different ways, but from the heart.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that’s confused. I had a small baby crack moment for 1 year a while ago when a baby was the wrong time. Since then it hasn’t reappeared and both hubby of 2 yrs and me are still unsure. I think he will go along with whatever I want, but I don’t know what that is. Starting to get annoyed with the cryptic “you’ll know”. I’m 35 next, so I know practically that the time should be soon if it’s going to happen. I’ve never been I must have children, or hate them either. What I know at the moment is I am definitely waiting until we have the house that we bought sorted so we can move in. That will put me in 35 land but we’ll see what happens then. Maybe I’ll want to nest, who knows. I have also considered adopting. We are a growing population and there are unloved children that need love. I don’t think we are scared to not have kids but I do have friends who seem to think that we won’t be happy knowing there is no-one after us. I think I’ll be ok with that too if that is our decision. *sigh*
How do you separate out the biological and rational reasons for wanting children? Hormonal birth control! Taking the pill is like making your body think you are already pregnant, so you can’t get pregnant. For me and other people I’ve talked to, the extreme baby craziness doesn’t happen when we’re on the pill. Without the crazy hormonal urges, we can make a rational decision over whether or not we want children. (But also remember that hormonal birth control is not for everyone, and even people who do well with it generally can react differently to different formulations.)
I was really hoping there was some sort of closure at the end of this, because I’m struggling with this exact situation and I’m getting really scared that time is running out now that I’m in my 30s. I could have written this article. I think it was my years of nannying? I went from baby fever to I Hate All Children these days, but what if I regret not having them because I wanted them for so long? Ugh.
Conversely, what if you have children and go back to (or never leave) the I Hate All Children stage? That sounds worse than regretting not having them. Either way, it seems like if you’re not sure (and by “you” I mean anyone in this situation) then whatever you do you’ll have regrets, because there’ll always be “what if…?”.
I wanted to have babies/ be a mother from the time I was a little girl, loving, feeding and changing baby dolls, stuffing faux pregnant bellies under my barbie dolls dresses- and my shirts as a teenager, babysitting/cuddling my nieces and nephews, and even random peoples babies to get a baby fix, making plans for my future children with names and stuff I want to teach them, researching schools and homeschooling stuff, etc. I got married at 18, and have been with my husband (who I adore) for 10 years now, but he kept making me wait to have children because he wasn’t ready yet. Now I’m 28, turning 29 soon (hubbys still not ready yet), and I feel like just a few months ago I still had those really strong urges, but then all of a sudden they disappeared! Now I’m scared that I missed my window. I feel indifferent about having kids all of a sudden, and i feel as though if I got pregnant now, I wouldnt be as ecstatically happy as I would have been for all of those years before. Im starting to think now that I don’t even want kids anymore, which is crazy for me. I’m super upset about it because its all I ever wanted, and I would have made a great mother, but now my mind is like…eh. Like…I should have given my body what it needed back when it was ready for it, and now I surpassed my bodies ideal biological time frame for having children. I’m sure we will have children someday, but I feel I won’t care as much, or want them as much now.
Thank you for this post, and thank you all for the genuinely heartfelt comments. Reading through this was almost like attending a group therapy session! It was helpful to hear that there are others who struggle with this decision, no matter which way you decide. I have always wanted to be a mom, and even though I’m 41 & the hormonal urges may have calmed a bit, the “rational” side still feels that drive. I’m married to an amazing man who is about 7 years younger than me, and he just doesn’t feel the same drive. This was something I knew when we first started dating, but I decided that I wanted to be with him more than I wanted kids. I too wish there was a switch I could turn off to make these feelings go away, but the maternal nurturing instincts are part of who I am. I loved reading what “thirty and not a bio-parent” had to say about redirecting those instincts to help those who are already in your life. I’ll work on finding a way to do that. Thank you all for sharing your stories. Glad to know that I’m not alone here. ❤️
Not sure how old this post is.. but I am in the exact situation. I have been in a biological RAGE for kids for YEARS. Even became a labor and delivery RN to be closer to babies…like insane (I was already a RN and still love my job) Tried to conceive, didn’t work, was devastated.. and WHAM baby fever escaped me.. went through a depression and confusion.. and now several months later I’m still feeling like hmmm maybe I don’t want kids or if I do I want them several years from now.. Such a strange phenomena, sometimes I fear it will smack mean the face again. Glad I’m not alone!
Any updates? I’m in the same boat. I had baby fever in my late 20’s, but the last few years (I’m 33 now) I just haven’t felt that same urge. But we started trying about 2 years ago and have had no luck. I’m at the point where IVF is my next step. I actually called to start the process but canceled because of the sudden feelings I was having of it being a bad idea to become a parent in general. But I’m having a hard time reconciling it since for years I wanted to have a child. Trying naturally doesn’t seem so scary but when you are faced with IVF and the chance of it actually happening it’s another story!
Thank you for bravely sharing your experience with us. I’m relieved to read someone else going through this! I was always maternal and broody from a young age until the age of 24. I was always everyone’s go to babysitter and I worked in a preschool nursery with new born to 6 year olds. Everyone always commented on how I would be an amazing mother, I was brought up where having children was a given. My husband and I spent our first date discussing whether having children was on the cards, we both wanted two children, a boy and a girl and funny enough we both had the same name picked out for a boy! Anyway a few years into trying to conceive I had an emotional breakdown, suffering with terrible depression to the point I actually tried ending my life. I think most of this was down to the fact that we were having fertility issues which included miscarriages into the double figures followed by the passing of my grandmother it all became too much. Anyway once I had gotten through that period in my life and started getting better I realised my urge for children was no more the only thing left was an after thought of my life long dream to be a mother. My maternal instincts had completely left me, I no longer found babies cute and found older kids irritating. What had happened to me to make me feel this way? I know when trying to conceive I shut myself away from parents and children due to the heartbreak, disappointment and jealousy surrounding infertility but why can I no longer stand kids and I can’t visualise a future as a mother any more. Could this be my minds way of cushioning the blow that I’ll never be a parent by defensively making me believe that I don’t want or like children anymore or could I have done a total 360° flip and changed my mind about wanting children? We have been trying to conceive for nearly 7 years, I’ve seen 5 doctors who have all said that because I’ve had pregnancies before which ended in miscarriages that conceiving wasn’t the issue and they weren’t concerned but it’s been about 5 years since my last pregnancy. The past week I’ve started to feel mildly broody again confusing me even further. I have no children, happily married, have our own home and I already own 70% of everything needed for a new born after wanting to prepare absolutely everything when we first started trying to conceive, I just wanted everything to be perfect. I didn’t actually comprehend infertility until I suffered with it myself.