1 day Ago By Emma Specter
“Should I stop my birth control? ’Cause my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all...
” Charli XCX sings on “I Think About It All the Time,” a track from her hit album Brat . While my thought process isn't identical to hers, I can’t help admitting how seen I felt by those lyrics. The question of whether I’ll become a mom or remain childfree always seems to lead to a torrent of others, leaving me more confused than I started.
Will childbirth be as bad as people say it is? Am I emotionally prepared for the potential hurdles associated with adoption or fostering? Where will we live? Who will watch my kid while I work? If I stopped buying vintage coasters online, would that translate into the kind of savings that can feed and house and educate a child? I normally turn to my various group chats for advice on all things life-choice-related, but this topic felt too big to be handled by just a small subset of pals. So I opened up the question of how you know you want or don’t want kids to a wider group, and found that I was far from the only one wrestling with “the whole baby thing,” as a friend recently dubbed it. Below, find answers from 17 people about how they made (or are still making) this deeply personal decision.
And if you’re struggling with this topic or with related issues of infertility or pregnancy loss , take heart; as another friend recently reminded me, “Everything will probably be okay regardless.” “That was the turning point for me ..
.”: Parents on when they knew they were ready to have kids Emily, 39, mom of a three-year-old : I always knew that I wanted a kid or kids. When I started dating my now-husband at 23, I made it clear that it was important to me and if he didn’t want them, that would be an issue for me.
We got married, and then there was a decade of me telling myself I wasn’t ready, followed by two years of him telling me he wasn’t ready. By the time we started trying, I was 35, and like a true millennial, I assumed having a baby would be like pressing a button to order a Lyft or a sandwich. But it was not, and we had to do IVF (which, mercifully, was successful our first round).
Laura, 31, parent of an eight-month-old : Call it heteronormative Christian upbringing or call it knowing, but I always wanted a family. Could I ever see myself walking down the aisle in a white dress? No. Could I envision a swollen pregnant belly? Not really.
I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was a young teen and at the time the doctor said it may be hard to have children. After that, I thought adoption would be my parenthood journey, which I’m still open to. But it really wasn’t until I fell in love with a woman and came out of the closet in my early twenties that I really felt any real pathway to parenthood.
It “clicked,” so to say. I knew I was going to have my traditional AF ideal of family fulfilled with another woman. I don’t necessarily subscribe to those past traditional views of marriage, monogamy, gender, etc etc yet I kind of ticked all the white picket fence boxes as I drew closer with my now wife.
We got married, found stability moving near family, and were both ready to start a family. Kat, 39, mom of a three-year-old and a one-year-old : I was ambivalent about having kids until I was in my late 20s. Whenever I thought about it, it seemed impossible, largely because I did not feel like I was capable of taking care of even myself.
At that time I was struggling financially, overwhelmed with work and addicted to cigarettes. I had started smoking socially but ended up smoking a pack a day, often while I was working. I tried a few times to quit unsuccessfully.
At some point I realized that if I did not quit smoking, I could never have children, and I found that was very motivating. I started using a nicotine patch and quit soon after that. I was surprised by how motivating that was.
I was reassured that I had been able to care for myself and my own body and health by quitting, even when it was very, very difficult. That was the turning point for me in realizing that I wanted to have kids, and that I was capable of it. Janelle, 41, mom of a 13-year-old daughter : I decided in my early 20’s that I wanted to have a parent relationship—have a child—and raise her and be a mom.
I used to talk to her spirit and imagine her being here a few years before I was even pregnant. I didn’t think about a father or a marriage I just knew I wanted to be a Mom. I love our relationship and watching her grow.
I was adopted and had and have a complicated relationship with family and parents. I wanted to change that too. I feel that I am.
Something to be proud of. Natalia, 36, mom of a two-year-old : I don't think I ever “knew”; I just made a decision. I was hoping to “know,” but it never really happened that way.
I was in a good place in my relationship, with a stable job with insurance, and I thought the pandemic was coming to an end (right before Omicron). I also have PCOS and was told I would have fertility issues so that was always a looming threat. With my partner we decided: let's try for a bit (6 months) and if it doesn't happen we will stop wondering.
It happened right away, my first cycle. I still think I would have been okay without kids and I'm okay with my kid. “I’ve always lived under the assumption that I would have kids”: The aspiring parents Jamie, 34 : I think I’ve always lived under the assumption that I would have kids because I was socialized to believe that it’s what you do when you “grow up.
” Then I found myself in a long term relationship with a person who has shared values and a love of family. It was easy to envision being a parent with her and the joyful memories we could create, while also fully aware of the stress it would put on our relationship. We are a same sex couple, and I had some fears around it feeling forced or clinical, and questioning if my desire to have kids was coming from wanting to fit into heteronormative standards that my straight friends were living under.
We decided to take steps toward finding a known donor who is in the queer community and would want to be a part of our future child’s life, not knowing if we would find that. But we did, and now things seem to be falling into place in a way that doesn’t feel forced but feels exciting and beautiful. Tom, 35 : I knew I wanted kids when I met my gay friends’ babies.
It made an idea real in my mind, a vague dream immediately tangible. As their kids get older I think of them as future friends. I'm starting the fertility process next month.
Marcelle, 35 : I always knew I wanted to be a mother. But I’m also bisexual, so I spent my 20s and early 30s in queer relationships. I didn’t think being a bi mom was impossible, it just felt harder to find a partner who was willing to design their life around starting a family.
(Yes, even among cis guys.) I eventually landed in a loving partnership with a bisexual cis guy, and we were on what felt like a marriage track. We both dated around before, so it didn’t feel like we were missing out by being monogamous.
But lately, when we talk about starting a family—and I have to start in the next few years, given my biological clock—he gets panicked by the prospect of living a traditionally hetero life. When we’re in queer company together, we do feel this unspoken tension around how we’re both perceived. And though it’s alienating to him.
.. I just don’t care! I have a great community.
And I want a baby more than I want to be “queer enough,” or sexually available to others. Terrence, 43 : There was a point in my career about four years ago when I gave up on following flawed paternal leaders and started working on becoming a better leader myself. After doing a little therapeutic digging, it dawned on me that I’d transitioned from being someone’s child to preparing to become someone’s strong, caring, and supportive father.
Jane, 33 : I’m an only child and have always hated children and still do, to be honest, but feel like I’m growing out of (some) selfishness and want to have a child (girls only ofc) because I have older women friends with teen girls and I LOVE these children and feel suddenly able to conceive of having one. I'm also feeling free to move into my “I want a kid” era because I have admitted to myself, my family, and my partner I am not meant to bear or birth children. I'm feeling excited about adoption and being the mom to raise a child while also maintaining a relationship with the “belly mama.
” I might even consider surrogacy? I don’t really care to see my DNA passed on, but my husband is dying to. Jen, 36 : I want kids and am currently doing IVF with my spouse (we’re almost three years into trying). I’ve wanted kids for a long time but the process of struggling with fertility has put it into a whole new light re: my identity.
My sister (who has never wanted kids) and I talked a lot about it growing up, but starting to try and having so much trouble with fertility was a real moment of: “Oh my gosh, I knew I wanted kids, but this is actually core to who I am as a person, despite any financial or most rational considerations." “I’m 45 and I regret nothing”: The childfree-and-happy set: Elizabeth, 33 : I think I was about 20 when I knew I never wanted to carry a pregnancy. I realized the idea of being pregnant, of carrying and growing a human IN MY BODY was intensely horrifying and revolting to me.
Like, it makes my skin crawl to even think about being pregnant. Other people being pregnant, great, beautiful, if they love it, I love it for them. Me being pregnant? Might throw up just thinking about it.
I was maybe 26 when I realized I also never wanted to raise a person. The responsibility of it is simply so huge, it's staggering, I absolutely don't want it. And I also need a lot of space physically and emotionally to be happy and mentally healthy and, like.
..you can't have that if you have a kid! Being around another person even a couple hours a day is extremely bad for my emotional regulation.
And I know exactly how non-ideal having a parent who struggles with emotional regulation is. Andrea, 28 : I decided I didn’t want kids when I was diagnosed with cancer and realized I didn’t really want to go through freezing my eggs. Someone had told me that kids change your life so much you should want to go to the ends of the earth to have them, because if you don’t want it that much it will be too hard, and I listened.
In that moment at the doctor I realized that I really didn’t want to try very hard to have kids and it wasn’t that important to me. It took years and therapy to see it with the clarity I have now, but looking back, that was the moment, and it was one of the best decisions I made for myself. Jessica, 45 : I was always “meh” on kids, I was raised an only child in a small family so I just wasn’t around them much.
People always said I’d change my mind when I got older and met the right person, but I wasn’t sure. The moment I was certain was in law school, a professor’s daughter came to talk to our class about her career as a lawyer, when she’d been involved in immigration and family court and helped hundreds of kids navigate complicated legal systems. Then she had a special needs child of her own, and she quit her job so she could be her advocate full time.
It was supposed to be a heartwarming story of love and sacrifice, but I was enraged. How dare she deprive children in need of access to the help they could have had? Why would you choose to add one more person to this overcrowded hellscape instead of helping the ones already here? At that moment I knew I never wanted, or would be able, to give that much of myself to another person without resentment for what was lost. I don’t have such a humanitarian job, but I felt (and still feel) that having kids would have snuffed out my own light, made it impossible for me to pursue my own joy.
I’m 45 and I regret nothing. Samantha, 29 : I realized I didn't want kids after studying abroad and doing a bunch of solo travel and realizing there’s so much more to life than just being a giver. I get to do exactly what I want to do! Lauren, 39 : In my 20s and even my early 30s, I could very clearly see myself having a few children.
In fact, I desperately wanted children. I have come to realize over the last several years that I am 1) super sleep-dependent, 2) very dependent on my antidepressants and unwilling to stop taking even the ones that would harm a fetus. Then, my dad died.
He was my person, and at the time the doctors gave him five to six years, but by June 2020 I knew that wasn’t gonna be the case. I could feel it in my bones that he wouldn’t survive that long. I had always imagined that my dad would do daycare and he would be the best best grandpa to my children because he was such a great grandpa to my nieces and nephews.
I simply could not imagine raising my babies without him. And layered on top of it all is George Floyd’s murder . I could not imagine raising a Black child here and without my dad.
Now, I just really love being an aunty and going home and not dealing with a puking five year old at 3 a.m., LOL.
Helen, 42 : I froze my eggs at 30 years old because I was unsure if I wanted kids and followed the suggestion of my doctor at the time. Earlier this year, as I got a notice to renew my annual subscription for storage of my 12 eggs at the cryobank, I decided to discard my eggs as medical waste. I had spent $12,000 over the past 12 years to store my eggs and had never developed the desire to have children.
I saw my friends and many women my age decide to have children, but I never yearned for it at all. I didn’t feel what they had experienced by having children to be a joyful rewarding experience for me. I also never felt that anything was missing in my life by not having children.
It was exactly the opposite. I felt free and and excited by the possibilities of not having children in my future. I become 100% sure in 2020 during pandemic that I didn’t want to have kids and felt really empowered and excited having come to that that conclusion.
The last step was discarding my frozen eggs..
