r/Fencesitter

For women who are fence sitting because of career concerns, do you think women in the workforce are viewed differently after they have children?

This has been on my mind lately. I sometimes wonder if becoming a mother changes how employers, coworkers, or society view a woman’s competence, ambition, or value at work.

It feels like mothers are sometimes assumed to be less committed to their careers, while fathers may not face the same assumptions or may even be viewed more positively.

I’m curious whether other women have noticed this or whether I’m imagining it. Has this concern played any role in your decision to have or not have children?

I’d especially love to hear from women who have experienced this firsthand or who have worked in different cultures. Do you think this perception is real, or not?

Hi, so ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been told “Trust me you don’t want to have kids. It’s exhausting” or me and my grandma jokingly saying to her “yeah I’m never having kids”. I’d always watch supernanny, see the parents struggling, and just think “Yeah absolutely not.”. My parents got divorced what I was just 14-15 years old. I watched my dad leave, and my mom became the one to handle all the parenting herself. I saw her crying, depresssed, trying to keep a straight face knowing she was alone. I’ve always been afraid of children, or more like the responsibility. But I met a guy who seems like he would be an amazing father and partner. He’s always talking to me about how he’d be there through the lows and downs and any struggles that come we’ll work through them together and that I won’t be alone. Which makes me a bit less afraid of having a child and more open to kids with him.

But, when I’m alone I’m more terrified.
I’m afraid of not doing it right, being too gentle of a parent, being too overprotective, experiencing regret, not being loud or stern enough, being exhausted all the time, being judged by others and other parents, not having time for my own life like friends and family and work, and just losing my whole life in general. Not having time for my hobbies as well, or my husband. All these fears, make me so afraid that nausea becomes a thing.

My fear of parenthood I feel blinds me. Everytime I’m afraid I genuinely can never tell if I want kids or not, but when I’m not afraid and see children, I feel like more excited to have that with my boyfriend. I just, I’m so confused as to what’s happening.

Has anyone else experienced this? Because I’m just very confused on whether I want children or not even though I’m a 23-24 year old female.

I was having a nice conversation with my boyfriend. I (kinda) jokingly said that we should get engaged, since it's something I dream of. He said yes, but then he told me that he didn't want kids.

At least for now, he is decided that he does not.

We've been together since we were 14, we are both 19 now. We've been together for almost 5 years and he knows that I want to be a mother one day, because I want to take care of my children the way I wasn't taken care of.

This broke me.
This made me rethink everything.
I don't know what to do.

And, for the cherry on top, he once (2022, when we were 15 and I was really unstable due to *BPD*),** **he told me he didn't ser me as the mother of his kids.

That made me feel sick at that time.

I've reciently been diagnosed with ADHD. And now he said the same thing; "I think I don't want you to be the mother of my kids if you're like this. I do think that in the future (some years) you will change because you'll learn to cope with your problems". It's true! I know I'll be better.

But... why...

Now that we are "older", I really thought we had the same plans, as he knows I want this and we've been making plans for our future. We plan on moving together next year.

I love him, he's my favourite person. He is my real family.
All seems to be falling off a cliff now.
I don't know what to do, and I don't really have someone to speak about this to.

To keep it short, my husband and I have an incredible marriage. We got together in our very early 20s. We both are kinda “meh” about the thought of parenting. I’m much more negative about it than he is because as a woman, we simply have to give up much more. The conversation is being brought up more and more often. I’m wondering if anyone who has been in a happy relationship done egg freezing despite being at the age where you should pull the trigger either way.
I personally would have no issue being an older mom if that meant I’d be mentally in a place where it’s something I yearn for rather than something I dread when thinking of it.
I did an amh test and it came back great. That made me think maybe I should freeze just in case we do try but it gets harder.

I recently posted here about me (31F) and my now-ex (40m) not agreeing on kids. I 100% want them and he would be happy with a life without them, but worries he would be missing out an a valuable experience and didn't want to lose the healthy relationship with me.

We came to a mutual decision to break up and it fucking hurts.

I guess I just want to understand what this fence-sitting actually feels like? Like...a few hours before we had the big relationship-ending chat he was talking about possibly needing more seats (for kids) when he is thinking about getting his next car. Then in the next breath we are having this serious conversation where he said he feels like he is leaning more towards not having kids and he wouldn't know in 6 or even 12 months where he stands and therefore doesn't want to waste my time. His concerns are about losing his life as it is, not being as free to travel, not wanting to spend weekends at play parks and finances (even he is on £100k doing a 9-5 job, and I'm a family medicine doctor with a stable job and a house which is fully paid off).

He kept going back and forth about being okay with a life without kids but then also being worried that he is giving up the option to have kids forever because he is happy with our relationship and if he doesn't want them with someone like me it probably means he is choosing a child-free life generally by us breaking up.

But then at the end of the conversation he said he was going to therapy and asked if he could ever contact me if he "had an epiphany"

It's almost harder to let go because it wasn't a firm "I know I don't want kids". Logically, I am not going to wait around for ambivalence and feel positive about finding someone who is completely on the same page.

I guess I just don't quite understand the not knowing? What does this feel like? Is it really that scary being in the middle and thinking about a life either way? This is not judgemental at all!! I really want to understand what is going round in people's heads when they are on the fence?

Idk if anyone has experienced this but I am 22f and I am deeply contemplating not having kids. I just don’t see the point.

I keep asking my friends why they want to have children and some of them have the most ridiculous answers like “I want to be better than my parents”

I feel like resolving your childhood trauma is not a good reason to have children.

I’ve always contemplated adoption. To me, it is irrational to bring more lives into the world when so many are already in the foster system.

My problem- I have an incredibly loving and very capable future father of a boyfriend. I need to decide before he proposes if children are what I want.

The idea of having children, at least birthing them is truly repulsing. I do not think my body will respond well and loosing that time is not ideal for me. I also don’t want to deal with the mental health problems. I get that is a selfish perspective, but people want children for selfish reasons.

Part of me thinks I don’t want kids bc of my own insecurities. Maybe my husband and I will leave each other bc of the challenges of raising a child and I’ll be all alone,maybe I’ll get fat, maybe I’ll have postpartum depression, maybe I won’t have the career growth I want.

Anyways, my question is, how do you know what you truly want, esp if you have a partner who wants kids?

Hi all

About four years ago I (37F) wrote a post after my husband (39M) and I decided to be childfree. This community was incredibly helpful while we were making that decision.

When we were deciding, I remember desperately searching for updates from people who were a few years ahead of us. They were surprisingly hard to find. Over the years I’ve gotten quite a few messages asking about more ordinary, everyday things, so I figured maybe this could be that post for someone else.

For anyone wondering what ultimately made the decision for us: it wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was realizing there was a difference between wanting to have children and wanting to be parents. Once we separated those two questions, our answer became much clearer.

I go into more detail about our journey in my original post, I would link it here but my technological capabilities peaked in ‘07. I apologize.

Day-to-day stuff

I’m 37 now. Most mornings I get up around 6, journal, make coffee, and sit on the porch before work. If I have time I’ll take the dog for a walk or squeeze in a little creative work.

I work remotely for a nonprofit, so I get to sneak outside into the garden during the day, which is one of my favorite parts of working from home. After work I’ll eat something while doing whatever I feel like. If I don’t have plans, I’m usually in my craft room, reading in the sunroom, or back out on the porch. We live in a vacation town and love walking the boardwalk just to people-watch.

My husband works part-time at our local library. He can walk to work (but usually he doesn’t lol). We have one car, one tiny dog, and a huge flower garden.

This weekend my husband is across the country promoting a film he wrote and produced with his best friend. It won an award at a film festival in LA, which still feels completely surreal to type. I teach a few college courses every year, and the extra income is nice.

Yesterday I accidentally fell down a rabbit hole researching local honey and somehow spent an amount of money on honey that I refuse to discuss.

We’re slowly fixing up our old, crusty house from the late 1800s. One unexpected perk of knowing we won’t have children is that we’ve designed the house around the people who actually live here.

One bedroom became my craft room, office, and reading room, and my husband has his own creative space. Every room feels like it has a purpose.

We still love to travel and love learning new things. Some weekends we’re exploring somewhere new. Other weekends we barely leave the house.

I cannot believe I’m admitting this on the internet, but every once in a while we’ll decide to sleep in the living room for two or three nights because we’ve built ourselves a blanket fort like we’re seven.

When Artemis launched, we rearranged the furniture, threw pizza rolls in the air fryer, built a fort, stayed up watching the launch, and halfway through looked at each other and silently communicated that this was actually f**king awesome.

We have a perfectly good bedroom.

Sometimes we intentionally choose chaos because it’s just the two of us.

We’re not as spontaneous as we used to be, but if we decide on Friday afternoon that we want to spend the weekend somewhere else, we usually can.

Not all childfree couples are gallivanting around on yachts DINK-ing to their hearts’ content. Some are.
Most aren’t.

That said, we do have financial flexibility. We’re able to save, live below our means and still do what we want to do individually and as a family (yes, I say family even though it’s just us two. People have told me this sounds misleading. But I don’t think you need human children to be considered a family).

Our life isn’t glamorous, it’s actually very ordinary. And I genuinely love it.

There are hard parts

Choosing to be childfree wasn’t easy.

There was grief. There still is sometimes.

Not because I think we made the wrong decision, but because every meaningful decision asks you to let go of another possible version of your life.

I grieve the version of me who would’ve become someone’s mom. Someone’s grandmother. I loved her too, and sometimes I wonder what she would’ve been like. Sometimes I feel an unreasonable urge to apologize to my ancestors in the family tree.

I don’t push those thoughts away, but I also don’t mistake them for regret.

I think you can mourn a life you didn’t choose while still being deeply grateful for the one you did.

One thing nobody really talks about is how quietly the world moves toward families with children.

Your friends’ schedules change. Weekend plans change. Nobody is doing anything wrong, you’ve just stopped moving in the same direction.

Sometimes it feels like everyone got on a train and you’re standing on the platform waving as it pulls away.

I also think society quietly assumes adulthood ends with children.

“So… do you have kids?”
“No.”

There’s often this tiny pause.

“Not yet?”
“You can’t?”
“You don’t want to?”

Not always. But often enough that you notice.

One thing that always makes me laugh is when I’m talking with a parent who’s venting about a rough week.

I’ll say something like, “Wow… that sounds like a lot. They’ll laugh and agree.

Then they’ll remember I don’t have kids. Suddenly it’s, “Oh, but don’t get me wrong… it’s the BEST thing I’ve ever done.”

I always find that funny. You don’t have to reassure me. I can see that parenting is incredibly hard, and I can also see how much you love your child. Those things don’t cancel each other out.

I’m sure I say things as a childfree woman that make parents scratch their heads, too.

Something else surprised me. I genuinely believe there is nothing like having a child. I’ve only ever observed that love, but even watching it has brought me to tears.

I still remember the look on my brother’s face when he held his son for the first time.

No one needs to convince me parenting is beautiful.
It absolutely is. It’s just not the only beautiful life available.

Feeling outside the default doesn’t mean you’re outside of a meaningful life.

It just means you have to build more of it yourself.
One thing I’ve learned is that being childfree isn’t simply the absence of children. It’s the presence of a life you’ve built intentionally.

For me that ended up looking like writing, gardening, volunteering, teaching, traveling, creative projects, a marriage that has had room to deepen, and a house we’ve slowly made our own.

The freedom to become deeply interested in wonderfully weird things…Like honey.

Do I ever wonder “what if?”

Sure. I also wonder what would’ve happened if I’d moved across the country. Or bought a farmhouse.
Or changed careers.

Every meaningful decision closes a door.

I don’t really see that as regret. I think that’s just the cost of choosing.

Somewhere along the way, the question stopped being, “Do I want kids?” and became, “What kind of life do I actually want?”

Those turned out to be two very different questions.

The thing that surprised me most wasn’t that I stopped wondering if we’d made the right decision. It was that our life slowly became so full that the question just got quieter.

Questions I’ve Apparently Agreed to Answer for the Rest of My Life

“Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?”

Honestly? No idea. But I also don’t think children are a retirement plan.

They’re people.

They grow up and build lives of their own. Some stay close to their parents. Some move across the world. Some become estranged. Some die before their parents do.

Having children has never guaranteed anyone care in old age.

“What if your partner dies?”

Then I’ll grieve. Just like millions of parents would if their spouse died.

Children don’t prevent loss. Death is a human problem, not a childfree one.

I think the saddest part of questions like these is that they mistake having children for having certainty. Life has never made that promise to anyone.

If you’re still deciding…

Know that you have a choice.

You don’t have to choose the childfree life.

And you don’t have to choose parenthood.

But don’t make either decision out of fear.

Don’t have children because you’re afraid of being lonely someday. Don’t stay childfree because you’re afraid of change.

Choose the life that feels most like yours.

Four years later, I can honestly say this one still feels like mine.

Sometimes I look out at the garden and think about how many people have said “you’ll change your mind” Mannnn that used to bother me.

And maybe they were right, maybe I did change my mind.

I just didn’t change my mind about having children. I changed my mind about what I thought a full life had to look like.

I hope this helped someone :)

TLDR; I had an “ideal” childhood but still ended up being an unhappy and resentful adult who struggles with mental illness. I’m worried that even if I gave my child a childhood like mine, which I probably can’t, they could still wind up being miserable like me.

——

I read a lot on this sub and other subs about how peoples’ negative childhood experiences have landed them on the fence, but is anyone who had an ideal childhood on the fence too?

From the outside looking in, I had an “ideal” childhood. My parents waited until they were in their late 30s/early 40s to have me, so they were financially stable, had job security, owned their own house, etc. I’m an only child so they were able to put all of their time and resources into me. I got to do lots of extracurriculars, went to summer camp, and went on vacation every year. They paid for part of my first car and paid off my second car as a graduation present. They paid for my undergrad and graduate education, minus a few thousand dollars I could chip in here and there. I’m even moving back in with my parents because my long-term relationship ended, and I know that is not an option for a lot of people.

Despite all of this, I am a deeply unhappy adult who is struggling with mental illness. I started showing signs of this when I was around 9 years old, specifically OCD. Twenty years later, I still have crippling OCD and depression. My parents got me treatment when I was young, but nothing ever helped, and even at times in the past when my mental health was more stable, I was still unhappy. My parents are now “stuck” with a barely functioning adult child who they have to financially support, and I’m not sure I’d have the ability to do that if I had a child that turned out like me.

I don’t see myself being able to give my potential child a childhood similar to my own, given inflation, stagnating wages, skyrocketing college costs, home prices, etc. and even if I could, I’d be worried that they’d end up like me - a deeply unhappy and resentful adult who doesn’t even want to exist.

I’m grateful to my parents for everything they’ve done for me, but it has shown me that no matter how much money or time you have to give to a child, things can still go wrong. If I ended up bringing someone into this world who had OCD or depression, I would never forgive myself.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has had a similar thought process, as I haven’t seen many people discuss how their positive childhood is contributing to them being on the fence.

In 2020 I decided to be child-free after extreme pressure from my mom to be married and have kids. I had been a caregiver for my younger siblings and aging family members for my whole life.

After going to therapy and living for myself, I started feeling like I missed out on the chance to have had a family. After that period of regret, I fell in love and got engaged.

Over the past year I’ve started to feel that I might be excited to have one child. However I’m terrified of the potential things that can go wrong, which has always kept me afraid of committing to motherhood.

My fiancé is from a totally different culture than me, we met while studying abroad. We’ve planned for his mom to come stay with us for 6 months in my home country, to care for the future baby.

His mom is planning to retire after we have the baby. She has also offered to bring the baby back to his home country, to be raised with family there for months at a time.

When I first talked about this with my fiancé months ago, I felt like he was crazy. But the truth is, my top fear of motherhood is losing my mental and physical health.

My fiancé and I could save substantially for our child, and rely on his family to help us with childcare. It would allow us to immigrate more easily, and build a life for our small family.

I wonder if being Childfree for 5 years helped me maintain an open mind about childcare and having a village. Nothing is set in stone, and I’m keeping an open mind. Allowing myself to picture a version of motherhood without sacrificing myself completely.

His family is also very stable and have supported our marriage financially as well as education costs. They’ve already offered to help us with the cost of the child and associated transportation and housing for our child.

I feel since they’ve given us such a stable lifestyle that allowed us to plan for a child, they also should have the chance to enjoy the baby as well

I've been having the hardest last few months of my life, ive been struggling with my gender identity for the over a year now which has been causing a lot of strain in our relationship, and ontop of that my mother who is my only parent and basically only family passed away 2 weeks ago. 5 days ago we found out that my girlfriend is pregnant. Im 21 and shes 20, we've been together for a little over 2 years. I have a decent job and shes working on getting a better one, but even working 50 hour weeks in a good job is hardly enough to support us as is, there's no possible chance in hell that we could live comfortably with a child. We already work the majority of the time as is and we almost never see eachother because of it. We're also both quite mentally ill in our own respective ways with no signs of improvement. She essentially has baby fever and wants to keep it. Ive explained my thoughts and how I feel to her, and her family agrees with me, but ultimately we all get that its her body and ultimately her choice, but that doesnt mean that having it if she truly wants it is smart. I dont think I could live with myself in good conscience knowing that I brought a child into this world that I cant give my 100% to. I dont think i could. I just cant. Im so scared.

I’m a 26 F going on 27 this year, and I know that I met my person. The thing is as more as time pass, I am deeply afraid of motherhood but also deeply afraid of not enjoying the rest of my years being childfree as well.

Firstly I have concerns about everything. I’m in school for Medical Lab Science, so I worry about finances and not being able to afford what I desire after the baby is here. Childbirth scares me because maternal mortality is high for black women and that level of pain and being close to death is an uncomfortable reality. I’m socialized as an only child (half siblings through father), with older parents, so I feel like my upbringing has made me feel a little different about motherhood. I think it comes from being alone a lot and it being just us. I’m introverted and showing up when I’m tired, planning events and things to do, and teaching a child is kind of scary to me. Then there’s the world, its future, and the kid possibly being a disappointment to us.

But the other side doesn’t look all that great to me either. I would be cool with having a lot of money to spend on myself for vacations, naps, hobbies, etc. But it seems like something will be missing after that. I don’t think a baby solves that void for everyone, but it does for most. I’m hoping time will tell and this will be easier to figure out by 35 lol.

Tldr; Just wonder if it’s normal to be ambivalent about both sides and never having a true desire for parenthood.

I feel like this isn’t going to be what most people think it’s about because usually this would be because of kids misbehaving in the store but it’s actually become about the parents. Yes I see kids screaming and throwing fits at work all the time but it’s not what gets me it’s actually the parents who come through who just look absolutely miserable. I have not had a single family or parent come in with their kid/kids and look happy regardless of if their kid is behaving or not. Today I had a mom come in who was holding her what looked like 1 year old son and asked me where the cheese was and before I could answer she followed with “please hurry I don’t want to hold him anymore” and while I was directing her every time the kid tried to giggle at her or touch her to get her attention she didn’t look annoyed she just looked completely devoid of any affectionate feelings towards the kid. I felt so bad for her and the kid because she was genuinely a really nice lady and so are all of the family and parents I mention. They are always super nice to me but as soon as their kid opens their mouth or does really anything they look like they want to cry or shove their face in their palm. I even had a customer say to me after a mom and dad who looked absolutely defeated leave “this is why I’m glad me and my husband never had kids” It’s genuinely heartbreaking seeing all these people deal with this as well as the the kids who will be impacted by stuff like this. This isn’t just at work either I see it everywhere like family’s on walks, at the movies, vacations, and neighbours. They don’t look like they are annoyed or hate their kid they just look like they don’t feel anything towards them and seeing it constantly at work has genuinely scared me out of ever wanting children. I feel really weird and anxious about this simply bc I’m scared of regretting it but it has absolutely broken my heart seeing these poor people and I’m equally scared of becoming that way as well.

I'm in my late 30s and being a fencesitter is the oddest feeling. I think about having kids a lot these days. Sometimes I think, especially when I look at a father or a family having a good moment with their kids, that having kids would be awesome and it would be awesome to experience those moments.

Other times I think hell no. The loss of my freedom, which I value deeply because I like having free time to do what I want when I want, all the sacrifices, financial and otherwise, and that says nothing about raising the kid and making sure you raise them well and raise them right to make sure they navigate life well. It all seems incredibly daunting. So on one hand I think aw that's cute it would be nice to experience that, and on the other I'm like oh my god there's no way I could do this and be okay with this. With life and the world going the way they are, sometimes it feels like I'm barely hanging on to my own sanity as it is.

And the people I know that have kids, and this is to say nothing about their love for their children because I am 100 percent sure they love their kids and they are fantastic parents, but maybe it's a bit of projection on my part but sometimes I don't think they're the happiest people.

Being a fencesitter makes dating extremely difficult. Not impossible, but extremely difficult. I think it's a bit easier if you're in your 20s, you know, not really thinking about kids, at least I wasn't. But now my matches are mostly women my age who want kids or who are sure they don't want them. I do find some not sures out there but nothing guarantees you'll click with them beyond that one thing you have in common which is not being sure about having kids.

So it's a lonely world, you know. It almost feels like being pulled in two directions. When you're dating it's like well jeez I'm having a good conversation with this person or a good date, should I be transparent about being not sure if I'm having kids? And then the relationship just ends up dying from there.

So it's a frustrating world man. I'm on the verge of just giving up on dating in general and just living my life out there. There should be a dating group for fencesitters haha.

I've given this tons of thought and I feel like it would be irresponsible for me to decide to want kids due to all the feelings I have about freedom and sacrifices. I just don't know if I would be a happy person, even though I'm sure those lovely moments I mentioned earlier would be joy filling and very rewarding.

Yeah, this turned into a bit of a rant but I don't know where else I can turn to. Anyone else out there feel the same?

Hi all, so my husband and I have been undergoing therapy for past two months. Essentially we both started off on the childfree side (him strongly; me more ambivalent to children as didn’t particularly like them but didn’t have experience).

As I’ve gotten older and spent more time with kids (and more time with kids I know/like), my feelings have changed and I now want a baby. He remains in the no camp, though there were occasional conversations of “if we had a kid, our lives would look like this,” from both sides.

We did a few sessions of therapy to work through some of the anxiety and disengagement that led him to be a no and to help us talk through the issue more productively as ultimately my feelings were always that I choose our relationship and our lives together, our home, our cats, our shared goals (and I don’t want a baby with anyone else), but wanted like to know that it’s a definite no and not from a place of his own anxiety and childhood trauma/self esteem issues around kids, so that I can grieve and move on.

Throughout the process he’s been able to work through some anxiety and see children more positively and see where I was coming from in having felt I wanted them and did say he had shifted a bit as there were a lot of things he’d never considered as he had just shut down on the topic of kids due to fears about money and his poor self esteem. But the session last night was ultimately that he still remains a no with the full information, and that he will always be a no despite having fully explored it all and worked through the anxieties that had previously made him shy away from even considering it. He’s shifted a bit into the positive but he doesn’t think he’ll ever shift enough to be doing it for himself and not just doing it for me and opening up to resentment and pain down the line.

He has a few individual sessions to work through his own issues so he can confirm his position and work on his anxiety and some remaining feelings he has that he wants his decision to be for the right reason and still has some doubt due to the anxiety. But I feel we’re at the point that it’s a no and that’s not because of the anxiety; he just genuinely doesn’t want kids. And that’s okay, I’m the one who changed. And I don’t want a kid with someone else, I want a baby that’s 50% him and I’m not willing to sacrifice our lives together to seek something that may not happen if I can’t find someone or can’t have kids for any reason and certainly won’t be the kid I want (his) with the partner I want as a co-parent (him).

So we’re waiting until he’s done his individual therapy (on the recommendation of our couple therapist), then we’ll reconvene with our couples therapist and then I’ll do individual therapy to figure out grieving and accepting the no with all knowledge that we gave it the good college try.

Partially sharing this to get my own thoughts out, but also to share what might be a useful story for someone else who has gone through the same or thinking about therapy.

Today I feel like my heart is breaking and that any last hope I had left is gone. And I just want to mute every group chat I’m in where people talk constantly about their babies and their kids. I want to uninstall all of the social medias where all I see is friends kids, pregnant people from school, parenting advice from an algorithm that knows I might want to have kids. And I want to sit in a hole and cry and try and figure out how my whole life moves from centring on this conversation for the past 6-12 months and dreaming of kids to being about moving forwards and being together.

Hey I wouldn’t say I’m open to dating now, I’m a 23 year old male who’s still figuring himself out, wanting to know what to seek…

I’m a fence sitter and while a CF life can be very fulfilling.. I can imagine being in my 60s 70s and not regretting a CF life if I choose it. However, this is a very dark thought but, what would a CF life look for someone who lost their partner in their 50s+? I would imagine with kids there’s still love and purpose, but in a CF life most of the focus is on the partner and no accidents can be prevented and life can take its course.

I know this isn’t a reason to have kids, I know this is pessimistic thinking, but it’s a scenario that can happen that I always think about as a fence sitter…

My friend, who I also work with, was venting to me today about her cat and how she's thinking about rehoming her after having the baby. Before having the baby, the cat was her whole world. But she said she feels overwhelmed and can't keep up.

I know having a baby is incredibly challenging, but the thought of becoming emotionally unavailable to my innocent pets is so heartbreaking for me and is turning me off having a baby.

Very curious how peoples bonds with their pets changed after baby?

i’m 23 im very young and i see kids as nowhere near my future until early 30s i have genuine fears of pregnancy along with childbirth and losing my bodily anatomy and im not sure i could go through pregnancy maybe i could do adoption

however back in february i met this guy who got me like no one else did he was smart handsome funny and we spent 4 months together and i was so happy i finally felt like i found someone i saw a future with and he was everything i was looking for.

but one day in march he asked me if i would ever want kids i think my answer was im not sure if i could go through pregnancy i might adopt. he said he wanted kids and thats his main goal in life. that was the entire conversation well last week out of nowhere he ended things said that he needs a relationship where he knows she wants kids. it absolutely crushed me i told him i could get there in the future but he said he needed certainty

since then ive been thinking a lot about this person and what i lost. i know theres 7 billion people in the world but no one understood me like him i told my mom about this and my reservations and she told me pregnancy was amazing for her and she loved it so now my head is completely screwed. what if i just through away something really good over a fear i have at 23? if anyone has been in my shoes before and had someone pressure/ ask them when they were young what did you do?

Hello, everything is in the title. I have seen quite some stories about people that were fence sitters that finally chose parenthood, which is helpful for a lot of people to make a choice, but I have not seen a lot of « nice » stories about people who chose to be CF and have no regrets (even after being 40/50 for example).

I would like to see some, if anyone want to share their story.

Thank you

I’ve always wondered about this. If a man truly loves his wife, why does he still choose to have children with her, knowing that pregnancy can be physically painful, emotionally demanding, and sometimes even risky? I’m genuinely curious to hear different perspectives from both men and women. What are your thoughts?

I’m 41 year old fence sitter, and could definitely use some advice from anyone who relates to my specific predicament.
I have an incredible partner, we communicate really well, and we’ve talked about potentially trying for a kid several times. I think they would make a great parent, and they support whatever I choose (I do not take this for granted).

Some of what is holding me back:

-I have chronic physical health issues that are moderate to severe (can only work part time at best)
-I need much more sleep than an average woman due to my health issues (10-12 hours)
-We wouldn’t have a lot of family support from my side (let’s say about zero as my parents were older when they had me and my sweet father has passed, mom would be no help at all).
-I have PTSD from my toxic mom and worry that I would somehow pass on this trauma to a child, or it would make me afraid to bond to the child as my relationship with my mom has been/still is incredibly painful

The pros:
-I’m a piano teacher and have enjoyed working with kids for about 15 years
-I generally enjoy kids’ presence
-we are financially stable enough to have a kid
-I am told I am a patient person and work well with kids
-my relationship with my partner is loving and stable
-My partner’s parents could provide some emotional support but are older as well (80s).

What would you do? Am I searching for excuses not to do it? My instinct is that I am afraid the relationship with my hypothetical child wouldn’t go well because of my experience with my mom.
When I think about having a kid, I mostly feel panic, fear and sadness. Yes, I’ve been to therapy and it didn’t help much. Thanks in advance!