While ranting like a small child appears to be order of the day
Allow me to add my humourless tirade to the mix.

I wasn’t prepared for the ticking biological clock. I spent from the age of about 14 until around 30 convinced that I didn’t like, didn’t want and would never have children. I rather arrogantly assumed that the sudden inexplicable rush of hormones that accompanies the transition into one’s 30s wouldn’t happen to me as, frankly, I was above all that. I would pull faces at my friends when they tried to hand me their wriggling offspring, complain vociferously about any slightly misbehaving child within a 2 mile radius and generally swan through life without really contemplating what “having a family” meant. I guess it’s partly a product of being an only child, from a very small and fast dwindling family. It’s also partly that for the last 15 years I have been in desperate need for someone to tell me to get over myself. A tendency towards self pity is unattractive, if excusable as a teenager. It’s unforgivable and downright ugly in a 30 something.

And now. Now I find myself realizing, maybe too late that I wasn’t immune after all and that the prospect of being entrusted with a fat, squaling, stinking responsibility for the next 18 years is actually something that I want. I don’t know what I’ll do if I get to my late thirties and I’ve not had the opportunity to have a family. I could be fine, I might be devastated (I suspect the latter). Ask me in a couple of years and I can give you a more accurate answer, if I haven’t been imprisoned for smuggling orphans in from China by then.

So if you don’t like kids, fine. It’s allowed, no one is forcing you to like them and true, some are a pain in the ass, but be prepared that you can change your mind about it, god knows I have. If you have kids, that’s great, but remember not everyone wants them, can have them and not everyone is interested in yours. Not everyone who wants children gets to have them, some people have kids when they didn’t really want them, shit happens. Try to have a bit of respect for either side of the fence.

Fuck me, that was a bit much, sorry. On a lighter note, when I was four, a lady in the dentist’s waiting room asked me why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I replied “because Daddy didn’t have any seeds left”. Hilarity ensued.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 18:53, 5 replies)

Well said Racky
That wasn't too much at all.

Apparently I have no siblings because my old man took one look at me and said, "Eeeeough!"
So I'm told...
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 18:58, closed)

I claim
to be the youngest 'cos my parents knew they'd produced perfection so didn't need to try again. Older bro claims it's because I was the spawn of satan and they were afraid to try again!

Good points, well made, by the way.

*click*
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Fri 18 Apr 2008, 19:11, closed)

Ah, but look at everyone else
Working ridiculous hours to feed a family. Always stressed over kids. Look at those for whom something went wrong, and they've got 4 teenagers in a 3 bedroom house that they can't afford to renovate. The ones whose kids are out of control, etc etc.
You, on the other hand, can do what you want. Jump out your job and go to some far off place for 6 month, start a hobby. Whose going to say no?
Cheer up :)
( Greenbat, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 19:29, closed)

Oh wow
Hits home quite hard that.....

*click*
(Douglost, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 23:05, closed)

the broody thing
does subside, and I was feeling smug that I'd got through it, until someone pointed out that it comes in waves.

Arse. Smuggle me a Chinese orphan too, please.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Sat 19 Apr 2008, 11:20, closed)