[thrownaway1337]

Why did you want kids?

I always felt like I should want to get married and that I should want kids, but I just... don't. The desire just isn't there. I'm 29 and have been with my partner for long enough that marriage and likely kids are now the next stops on the what you're supposed to do in life train.

And I guess it's not that I actively don't want it. I just don't feel an inclination toward or away from it. There's just kind of an absent feeling about it... There's not anything internal making me want it (there is external pressure from my partner though who does want to get married and from society who expects us to get married).

Does this feeling change? Or am I just weird? Or should I just do it anyway?

[poulsbohemian]

Getting married and having kids is not for everyone. Rather, I'd say we should do more as a society to encourage people to think very hard about these decisions rather than continue to treat them as standard operating procedure.

I had a crappy homelife as a kid and I believe that caused me to really want to create a contented adulthood, which included children. Actually, from the time I was just a little kid I was called upon as a mentor to other children, by the time I got to high school I was a camp counselor, was teaching in an evening pre-school program for abused children, etc. So from an early age I found myself in a parent-like role. My kids are my world, but I don't believe for a minute that everyone would find the experience as rewarding.

[captain_perl]

Most women in a relationship will emphatically tell you when they want to get engaged, married or have kids.

They also have a biological clock to have kids before they're 35, and most listen to that clock.

Men don't have that clock, so there's different types and levels of motivation.

In my case, I wasn't interested in having kids until my late 40s, when the circumstances were convincing (responsible partner, as late in life as reasonably possible.)

Although I prefer being around adults, I understand that kids are doing their job when they require attention. I find my "clone" to be a plus overall, though expensive.

Career-wise, I vaguely thought having kids would be an advantage somehow, but I was incorrect. In the USA, companies don't care about employees ("at will employment"), and the same is true about your family.

[derekp7]

That last part depends on the type of employer. In my case, as a male, I started to see a huge improvement in promotions and pay increases once I became a "family man" (although in my case, I'm not married to my partner, and she came with kids -- but it was always treated as a family unit).

[captain_perl]

> I started to see a huge improvement

I'd appreciate if you can expand on that a little more. How do co-workers know? How is it acknowledged?

[jd75]

I didn't want kids until I was 14 and my mom had an oopsie-baby. The intense love I felt for my baby sister changed my mind. And I wasn't wrong -- despite many, many, many drawbacks to having children, I love them just the way I'd hoped.

But I think people are so different that I definitely would not try to up-sell kids. At least so far, it's like having a 24/7 job, while I have a full-time job.

(Or as the rest of the comments say, women all want all the kids and all your money that's just science...)