Me from the 1980s until 2005: anti-kid. Not in a mean way. DEFINITELY not one of those people who referred to children as "sprogs" and parents as "breeders" and went off on rants about how there should be childfree sections of restaurants. I'm not that non-kid person. It just wasn't something that I thought was right for me for a variety of reasons. I didn't think I'd be a good mom. I didn't like thinking about how much my life would change, having to center it around a kid and nothing else. Basically I knew that being a parent was the most important thing a person could do and if they weren't 100% into doing it right, they shouldn't do it at all.
In 2004 my father died. It was horrific. He was sick for a while, and went quickly at the end. I live something like 3000 miles away so made it home and he died 24 hours later. Then I came back home and tried to pretend my life was normal even though it absolutely wasn't. About 7 months after he died I finally started taking anti-depressants and BAM started feeling more who I was supposed to be.
In 2005 I went back home to see my family. I vividly remember sitting around the patio with my mom, grandmother, aunt and uncles (one my dad's brother and two my mom's brothers and also among my dad's best friends), telling old family stories and enjoying our collective history. Family get-togethers used to stress me pre-emptively due to some alcoholics in the family, and I don't know if it was just my age, us all missing my dad, the Zoloft or what. But on this trip I was able to let a lot of the old baggage go and enjoy them, and my part of it all. And it hit me like a brick wall that this - this - was why people had kids. To have these moments of history and togetherness. And it suddenly broke my heart that I might not have that. Suddenly the prospect of stressing out about the right way to raise a child, the worry, the time, the lack of sleep, etc etc etc, didn't even matter one whit to me. Not when compared to the awesomeness that it would be to have a baby.
Cut to 2006 (yes I waited almost a year) when I told my husband I had changed my mind about kids. I'll say it again - YES I WAITED ALMOST A YEAR. I wanted to clear my head about it and make sure I knew what I really thought about it all. Anyway, so I told him, and then told him not to respond because I wanted him to really think about it. He waited, like, less than a day to tell me he could see it happening in the future, whenever that was. But still, happy happy!
Cut to about 6 months later when my husband tells me out of the friggin blue that he's not really on board with kids. Which leads to a whole other long post I could type but I just don't have it in me, but the basics would be that it's been about a year since then and I still don't know what the hell to do about it. I let him know it might be a deal-breaker, and he said he could consider it in a few years when he's older and not feeling so selfish of his "his" time and all that hooplah. But I don't really believe this and don't really know how to make the decision about what I want more - to be married to him or to have kids. I'm turning 36 in a few months, so my childbearing years are not behind me, but it's also not like I have a ton of time to be making up my mind and then possibly starting over.
To sum up all this crap: It Sucks.
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