Childfree
 

I can't remember the last time I started a topic here.

Anyway, I wondered if there are any "childfree" Ledgies. Not people who don't currently have kids but might want them someday, or people who can't have kids but want them, but people who actively do not want children - ever.

It seems to be a bit of a movement, and some CF folks are more, um...adamant than others. I've been to a couple of CF websites, where people vent about being scolded about it, or looked down on. I haven't experienced much of that, but as a gay man, it's not really expected that I'll have kids.

Yes I am one of those people!! I am 33 now and have never wanted kids. People have told me since I was younger that I would want them someday but I have no desire to have them. I am too selfish and I like my free time and my money. I think its amazing that people have them and want them but for me its just not something I think about. What is annoying is people telling you how selfish you are for not having them. That part I dont get. Who says we have to have kids? Also I always get people trying to convince me to have them which is even more strange. My family used to always bug me about it but I think they are done with that now. Thank goodness!! I do get weird looks from people I just meet when I tell them I dont have kids.

Right here. I love kids...but one of my own.....I'll pass. Luckily my Wife feels the same way...So Life's good:thumbsup: Hopefully she won't change her mind.

Mick

I'm 17 and I know that I don't want kids. Lots and lots of people have said to me "I didn't want them when I was your age but I changed my mind." Like kak125, I'm selfish too. Also, if I get the career I'm aiming and studying for, there will be little enough time in my life for a dog let alone kids.

Can't deal with mess, don't cope well with human excretions be them from the booty, mouth, eyes or nose and do not want to see food I've cooked wasted because they "don't liiiiiiike it".

I do dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, reptiles and anything else with fur or scales :lol:

The world is already an overcrowded place. Children are like pets; if you want one, adopt one. The world is not going to be a better place just because you have added to the gene pool.

yeah i felt the same way you did when i was 18 and havent changed my mind. yeah its so hard to juggle a career let alone adding kids to the mix. i personally dont know how people are able to do it. i have 2 cats and sometimes they feel like having kids, ha ha! thats about as much responsibility as i can handle. i love animals though so much more so then kids. i dont know why but you wont catch me saying look at how cute that baby is and things like that but i tend to go nuts when i see a cat or a dog, lol!!

And who needs the extra stress. The worlds stressful enough. I've got my stuffed bears and that's all I need:lol:

Mick

in my teens & 20's i swore that i would never have kids~ meh, i changed my mind when i turned 30~ i have 1 son & i was lucky to blessed w/ an easy going sweet child~ i don't want anymore tho~ my son is almost 12 & i love just having him~

i hear ya! i dont know how people can deal with it all. just about all my friends have kids and all they do is complain about how they never get 2 minutes to themselves. they are always sick because the kids are sick and they never get to go out or do anything. they also cant sleep in because the kids are up early and they are always poor. that does not sound like fun at all!! i guess i am just amazed that people would want kids so much to be able to put up with all that stuff.

I don't care either way...
 

to be honest.

Before Debbie passed away we talked about it, and if we had a child fine...if not fine.

Since we didn't go out of our way to try to because of 'other matters' at the time (bka Debbie's successful battle against cancer), we were happy with our cats (All healthy & fixed) and didn't care about everyone else's opinion of "You need to have children...It's God's gift to you two...blahblahblabbityblah".

The world isn't going to collapse into an event horizon because I'm not a 'Father'. :thumbsup:

I know I would make a GOOD FATHER if I were to become one...I know that for a FACT.

Well, it's a bit more complex than that. Hopefully you were being facetious.

I think it's incredibly UNselfish to decide against having children if you don't want them. Really, kids don't need parents that don't want them. Trust me on this one. :)

Ha- it's not always like that, though. Raising my daughter is the easiest, most fun thing I've ever done. I get up before she does in the morning and I can't wait for her to get going so I can see her. I hate going to work (even though I love my job) because I miss her. I make the most of every minute with her; we play, laugh, dance, cry, cuddle, and talk. I can have all the time I want to myself, thanks to a husband who loves being a parent as much as I do. See how different it all sounds coming from this point of view? :woohoo:

That depends on who you are. Good job Mr and Mrs Lennon / Zimmerman / Nicks (!) etc didn't listen to that kind of comment.

For every person who didn't want kids at 20 and never changes their mind, there's someone who turns 35 or 40 and realises that maybe they did want kids after all, and then it's more difficult. Everyone's different - for many people, money and "stuff" are meaningless, and free time can get pretty dull after a while.

I'm usually facetious. I can understand why people want to see blood of their own. But, really, isn't the capacity to love unconditionally extended to those not of your making as well? :shrug: Why is it more complex?

aww thats nice! i guess i never hear anybody talk like that about their kids. i know they love them and have fun with them but all i ever hear is the complaining and whining about how lucky i am that i can go out and do stuff. i think if thats what you want to do in life that's awesome!

John Lennon was adopted.

amen to that jannie, i adore every moment w/ my son & even tho he is almost 12, i still get teary eyed watching him sleep~ having him has made me a much better, caring, loving, woman~

No, he wasn't :shrug:

I don't see myself ever having children for the simple reason that I don't have the patience for them. I'd rather not be a parent than be a poor one. There's more than enough of those to go around.:nod:

And? He wasn't adopted - it doesn't even say he was adopted in that link. He was raised by his aunt and uncle from the age of five, which, I'm sure you'll appreciate, isn't the same thing. As I said originally, good job Mr and Mrs Lennon didn't listen to comments like your original one.

That's for sure...
 

I'd rather not be a parent unless I could be a great one (Which I know I could easily do...My nieces & nephews helped ease my 'uneasiness' around children...along with my ex-fiancee's daughter, who I call 'lovingly' my daughter)

Debbie used to come home and 'decompress' from her work at the hospital's "OB" ward by telling me (I'm a better listener than talker) about the children being born to parents who didn't even want the child, which bothered Debbie alot (Because of what is written below this paragraph)...It bothered her moreso when a child was born to a young person (I remember she told of a 12 year old girl had given birth on her shift, I was like "WTHOAF???!!!") or to someone who was a drug addict.

I clearly remember when Deb was battling cancer her oncologist told me "If you decide to have children while she is battling this cancer, you are going to have to make a hard choice between losing a child or losing your wife...or both" - Common sense prevailed to that statement.

We talked about adoption...But...the OBVIOUS happened and derailed those plans.

He was adopted- whether in the technical or functional sense. Indeed, it was probably his adopted family that nurtured him into becoming the Beatle we all know and love.

http://www.indyposted.com/19929/top-...were-adopted/#

Hard to imagine you being wronger about that. His aunt refused to allow a record player into the house. He saw his mother practically every day, she bought him his first guitar and taught him how to play it, bought him his first records and he used to go down the road to her house to play them while they danced around her kitchen. Shortly before she died, she was one of The Quarrymen's biggest fans, while Mimi disapproved of the whole music idea, like most people of her generation. Mimi Smith had nothing whatsoever to do with Lennon becoming a musician, and she never liked McCartney or Harrison. She and her husband put a roof over his head, fed him and sent him to school, and they were a decent, loving couple - but without his mother, John would've been an accountant or something.

And you're either adopted, or you're not. Either you do the legal process or you don't. Mimi and George Smith were guardians, not adoptive parents.

As an adoptive mother, I agree wholeheartedly with the bolded statement. The whole "just adopt!" attitude is what I was referring to as being "complex". Babies aren't just dropping from the skies.

Just be warned, that you might change. I just learned yesterday, that my 26yo cousin is expecting. And she always used to tell me that she that she never wanted kids. But her opinion had changed, in the past couple of years. Tick, tick, tick..... Maybe it's a way out for her....she hates being a teacher, and her husband makes big bucks, and wants her to be a stay at home Mom.....

As for me, in my 20's, I always thought I wanted a kid or two. By my mid 30's, though, I changed my mind. I love to travel, frequently, and love spending my money on me. IF I'd ever manage to get married(not looking good, at this point:lol: ), and my partner wanted a child, well, .......I guess I'd consider it. But it probably wouldn't be my first choice.
And yes, we are over-populated, already. ADOPTION!

Pretend for the moment that you want to adopt a child. Do the research and report back to everyone how easy it is to adopt! I'm saying this with a smile, not a scowl- I just don't think many realize what it takes to adopt.

As an adopted child, I agree completely. Wanna know something sh*tty.....after my Mom passed, my aunt said to me, "I hope you know that you're still welcome, at all of our get togethers".
While that could be taken nicely, am I the only one, who sees the implication, that "you really weren't hers, so you're really not one of us, but we still want to see you, anyway"?
I thought it was a sh*tty thing to say. I mean, I was adopted at birth....it's not like I didn't come along until I was 15, or something.... Bitch!:lol:

http://www.instantkarma.com/johnbio.html

Well, other accounts seem to consider "Mimi" to be the grounding influence in John's life. Besides, no matter how much he visited his mother, he was not raised by her. They were more like buddies... and he had a decidedly unhealthy preoccupation with her. :eek:

I know it is a time-consuming, expensive proposition. But so is childbirth! My hats off to you for making the effort and giving someone needy a loving home and family.

wow who says something like that? to me that sounds really ****ty! you should have said thanks but no thanks biatch!!

My oldest...
 

brother always had an issue with Dad, being Dad was not his biological Father - but he raised him equally with his two sons (My older brother Geary & myself) and all my oldest brother can do is bitch about "Why didn't Geary adopt me?" (The f**ker ALWAYS refers to Dad by his first name)...I had enough and chimed in "It wasn't like we had MONEY back then so he could LEGALLY adopt your ass..."

Debbie and I looked into adoption and saw alot we would had HAVE to accomplish to be able to adopt - so I understand your point, it takes ALOT to adopt.

OMG. That is just about the worst thing to say to someone who just lost his mother. I could understand her saying that if she was your aunt-in-law, but she is one of your close relatives. Geez... :distress:

My mother commented once on my daughter's height and said something along the lines of, "well, she must get it from my side of the family." :shocked: We ALL tend to forget that Laney didn't come from my body. She is so much a part of us, it's ridiculous. I think that was a ****ty thing for your aunt to say.

Certainly, the Smiths were a middle-class couple, and John picked up his more middle-class traits from them. Mimi even tried to make John lose his Liverpudlian accent because it was working class, and she tried to stop him playing at the Cavern because it was so dreadful - "We'll have to stop this!" she said... "Grounding influence"? What does that even mean? His life wasn't that of someone with his feet on the ground. He became the John Lennon we know despite any grounding influence.

The stories of him being obsessed with his mother in unhealthy ways seem totally unfounded - they were very close and she was killed in his street when he was 17, of course it affected him deeply. More than most of us can imagine.

The point is that baby John wasn't found under a bush - his parents brought him into the world and the world is a much better place for them adding to the gene pool, which I think is where we came in.

On another message board I frequent, a woman posted that someone told her that she wasn't really a mother because she'd had a C-section. !!!

So, since I was born via C-section, does that mean I'm not a real person, since my mother didn't "really give birth"? lol

People have lots of strange ideas about children/parenting. The "you'll change your mind" thing drives CF people up a wall - it seems to be only directed at women. There still seems to be this idea that a woman's primary function is to give birth, and if you go against that, you're some kind of freak.

Also, part of it seems to be that people feel like you're passing judgment on them if you're not doing things they way they're doing them. So the constant refrains of "you'll change your mind," "it's different when they're your own," and "who'll take care of you when you get old?" are just plain old defensiveness.

But it's annoying, and it's rude. Being a man, I don't get any of it. And being gay, it would take a very concerted effort on my part to have a child; there's no risk of it happening "by accident," unless my penis "accidentally" falls into a vagina. lol

Well, I believe "never say never," but I really do not think I want children for numerous reasons. I do not feel I need children to be fulfilled. :shrug: I also don't think everyone is meant to be a parent.

Okay this REALLY made me laugh! :lol:

This made me laugh alot :). We have a complicated set up - I have two stepsons, a daughter with my wife, and last year we adopted two very young children. Both are African American (my wife and I are white - me British and my wife Italian/ American). My adopted 4 year old son has a bit to say for himself (which I like) and I remember being in a Chicago restaurant with lots of people around and my mother-in-law said something like - ' that boy has to have the last word doesn't he - he's just like his father!' - meaning me! Everyone laughed but they do become just part of the family. They really do.

I'm still 15, but I know I want children.
And those who say that children are 'pets' - weren't you a child once? Weren't you a pet one day?