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'The desire to have a child never goes away': The Involuntarily Childless
- lumberjack 9y agoIt is an extreme option, but you can pay if you want to have a child, and I don't mean abortion. If you have the money and the time, and a supportive family, it is doable.
- explorigin 9y agoIt seems to me that the involuntary aspect of this encompasses more that the physical presence of a tiny human but the ability to raise this tiny human in a responsible manner. Wage slavery, broken families or unsupportive spouses are just a few of many possible causes of this involuntary aspect.
- wizu 9y agoAbortion or adoption?
- Dunan 9y agoWasn't especting to see this kind of article referenced on HN, and it hit me hard. I'm 41, partner is too, and would give absolutely anything to have a child of my own. She was never ready until just recently. I can't even go an hour without thinking about it...
- noir_lord 9y agoI hope it works out for you :). OTH I'm 37, at 15 I said I didn't want kids and everyone said "you'll change your mind", 22 years later I still haven't changed my mind in the slightest. My partner has a little boy though and he's great, it's just I personally don't want kids (parents had mental health issues, I had a rough upbringing and I wouldn't want that for someone I was responsible for creating).
- Dunan 9y agoI had a rough upbringing too, and my parents (who would never admit to that) were a lot mellower with my sister, a decade younger than my brother and I am and born when my parents were almost 40, so when I was in my 20s I feared being like my own parents and wanted to have kids in my 30s. I didn't worry too much about it and had no idea that the panic and depression would sneak up on me like this. In your case I certainly hope you don't suddenly change your mind!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sitkack 9y agoI don't know your physiology, but 41 is entirely doable for most folks. I did have a friend that went through menopause at 37, they needed to go for a donor egg. That said, evolution has a power greater than the tallest dam. That desire you are feeling is how we all got here. Be ok with the desire or the choice not being rational. And it very well may change _after_ you have a child. Also be ok with that, just give a respectful nod to evolution.
- chaostheory 9y agoI agree that it's possible but at a price. I could be wrong but I think it costs about 50k USD for 3 IVF attempts (marketed at buy 2 get 1 FREE) in the SF Bay Area. Monetary cost isnt the biggest issue either; it's not entirely safe. Anecdotal - I know someone who developed major thyroid issues after 3 IVF attempts.
- Dunan 9y ago$50k is real money -- it's more than I earn in a year -- but I'd pay it (or double, or triple) without question if it meant having our own child. The problem with IVF is that it's not guaranteed. Would I part with a year's salary for a 10% chance of having a child? How about 90%? These are scary calculations to make in your mind... and those percentages go down with each passing month.
- yodsanklai 9y ago42, I don't want kids. People keep telling me that: I'd be happier if I had one, that they thought like me until they had one, that they wished they had them sooner, or more of them and so on... I like my life as it is now and don't feel the appeal for kids. Should I take the risk because everybody says so?
- paulcole 9y agoNo! Why would you do something just because other people want you to do it, especially something that can't be undone like having a kid. Misery loves company. There's a discussion about the regret of having kids here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955
- jdietrich 9y ago>Should I take the risk because everybody says so? Do you trust the opinions or a bunch of random people more than your own judgement? Do you think that these people have some insight into your psyche that you don't?
- aidenn0 9y agoTwo words: Hell No. I'm saying that despite having kids and being glad that I made that decision. I've seen way too many relationships destroyed because one or both of the couple were pressured into having kids that they didn't want. It's not pretty.
- jobu 9y agoAgreed. Do not put a human life through the hell of not being wanted.
- dqpb 9y agoMillions of years of evolution have led to you. Now you have the fascinating choice of whether or not to end this branch.
- bunfunton 9y ago
- Aaargh20318 9y agoYou realise this is just your instincts talking, not your rational brain. Why do you think the world needs another human being ? Is it just for your personal entertainment ? Do you think it’s ethical to create a conscious entity that will have to suffer through 80+ years on this planet for the sole purpose of satisfying your primitive reproduction instincts ?
- Dunan 9y ago" Do you think it’s ethical to create a conscious entity that will have to suffer through 80+ years on this planet for the sole purpose of satisfying your primitive reproduction instincts ?" In what way would my child be "suffering"? We plan to be the best parents we can possibly be. We will not be perfect, of course, but we certainly want the opportunity to try.
- sctb 9y agoPart of the standards of civility for this site is the acknowledgement that life is complicated and undeserving of dismissal. Please approach such topics with thoughtful curiosity and not reductionist finger wagging. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- soperj 9y agoFor what it's worth, my boss just had 2 kids at age 49 and 50.
- kingmanaz 9y agoIf your wife is open, try IVF. Also, if her eggs are non viable (which becomes more likely after 40), frozen donor eggs are increasingly affordable (~$15,000-$20,000) and the success rate at some clinics crossed north of ~70% recently. There are several clinics which list donors' psychological profiles (including IQ), national/ethnic pedigree, physical attributes, and provide photos. The following clinic provides the above, is based out of Chicago, and is often recommended at PVED.org: https://www.advancedfertility.com/donor-egg-success-rates.htm https://www.advancedfertility.com/donor-egg-success-rates.ht... ...there's another clinic based out of San Diego which is often recommended, though its prices were a bit higher than the former option as of a couple years ago. PVED should have the exact name. Good luck to you and your wife.
- patorjk 9y agoYou should consider adoption. You'll get to be a dad and you wont have to worry about the issues related to your wife having a child in her 40's.
- mlevental 9y agoI don't mean to offend but what is the difference to you that the child is genetically yours? why not adopt?
- fjsolwmv 9y agoThere is a moral answer to that question and there is a primal answer to that question. Several, in fact.
- knicholes 9y agoI wanted my kids to be my own genetically so I can better relate to them (and their genetic quirkiness. Tourettes runs HARD throughout my family) and give them some good insight to family diseases to be aware of.
- dgabriel 9y agoAdoption is expensive, difficult, and often heartbreaking. I hate it when people casually throw out adoption as a solution without understanding anything about the process.
- simonsarris 9y agoSome try to take a fundamentally 'rational' approach to life, or view it through the lens of cost/benefit, especially fiscal cost benefit. In fact I have some friends who do not want children simply because they will cost too much money. This brand of rationality is very alien to me. It makes all the difference in the world if the child is genetically one's own child. It is not a toy or a cat. It is an emotional extension of your own being that culminates in having its own identity. It is both you and not you. I fear that if you cannot intuitively grok the difference that it makes, there is no 'rational' way to convince you that it matters.
- jdtang13 9y agoVery well articulated.
- tathougies 9y agoThere are more parents willing to adopt than children available for adoption. While there are some children still awaiting immediate adoption right now, many of these children have very very specialized needs which (I'd guess) most people would not be able to handle because they do not have the right training.
- dogprez 9y agoI saw my cousin and my aunt both go through fertility problems. My aunt was about your age when they adopted a little girl, it was a very happy story and the daughter just left home for college this year. My cousin and her husband fought hard to conceive, spending anguish and money to make it happen. Even the suggestion that they should adopt was hurtful to them. They were completely closed to the idea. After years of pain they finally reversed their opinion on adoption and adopted a little boy 3 years ago and it has meant the world to them. I haven't personally had to go through this luckily and I know adoption isn't the easiest either but if being a parent is something someone wants, it's worth fighting to make sure no child is left without a good home. I'm not to say you should do one thing or the other, just something to consider, much love.
- pstuart 9y agoMy wife and I struggled with fertility issues and ended up adopting embryos. We have twins now :-). FYI, we have a couple of embryos left and are looking to donate them....
- magic_beans 9y agoI am 26, in a very healthy relationship in which we both can't wait for children... It's just that we live in New York, and we can just barely afford rent on our apartment. By the time I'm financially stable enough to have children, I very well might be 40 and no longer able to conceive.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoI've had a few discussions on this subject with my present girlfriend. (We're downtown Toronto) I think one of the glimmers of hope is the lengthening of healthy child-bearing years as of late (in wealthy, first-world countries, anyway). That said, the changes in your life between 26 and 30 can very well be monumental. They were for me. It's probably best not to stress yourself out about it. However if it's a real ambition, I'm sure you'll find yourself and your partner assessing different options as you go along. Some options and paths that seem distant and unimaginable now can end up closer and more realistic. Just don't expect things to suddenly get easier. They might not (and probably won't). It's just that the possible solutions might become more apparent, and the results of your actions pursuing those goals be more fulfilling.
- devonkim 9y agoSomething seems odd about the supposition and their opening data set with older, childless women - do women that are childless and infertile from an earlier age feel similarly? Why not flip this around to comparing how men with vasectomies at earlier ages feel decades later? Paternal instinct and maternal instinct overlap somewhat I presume but it’s not clear what the differences are I suspect.
- KittiHawk 9y agoI would be interested in reading about men's reactions later on after having had vasectomies. That's something I've never seen discussed.
- sunseb 9y agoWe are 7 billions people, it's actually a good thing that people have less children. 7 billions people who want a house, a car, a job, that eat meat, that travel and so: it's not sustainable.
- dqpb 9y agoIt's especially good for the people who do have children to convince others not to.
- patorjk 9y agoMaybe good for the genes, but for the sentient individual, it really depends.
- shiven 9y agoGood for you. Me, on the other hand, would like to see my genome multiply and spread on this planet.
- sunseb 9y agoYeah, but you are so special, so unique: humanity desperately needs your genome. :P
- shiven 9y agoIn my opinion, the only opinion that matters to my life, yes, I’m that unique and the world needs my genome. :P
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- everyone 9y agoSo what is your goal? Your genes are in already loads of people. No matter how many kids you have your specific combination of them will be diluted out of existence in a few generations. .. This is very hard to quantify and I certainly have no data to support this, but; I suppose, in this era of civilization, your actions in life, your influence on society and culture, and memes you propagate, rather than genes, will have a much greater influence.
- everyone 9y agoCan someone explain the desire to have kids? I have never felt it. Also, I thought animals that reproduce sexually have a desire to have sex, and then kids end up happening as a result.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Also, I thought animals that reproduce sexually have a desire to have sex, and then kids end up happening as a result. For animals where the young are independent from birth, a desire for sex is sufficient to have offspring that are not only born but survive to reproduce themselves. Mammals are mostly much more high maintenance than that, and human young are unusually high maintenance even among mammals, because they are born relatively physically undeveloped, largely to accommodate giant brains. Humanity, therefore, would not have survived to be here today if humans weren't generally genetically programmed to seek not only to have sex but to want to engage in child rearing.
- everyone 9y agoI most cases say, mammals have a desire for sex. Also instinctual love for their offspring and a motivation to feed, care for, and teach them. Humans certainly have all that.. But that does still not tally with a pre-meditated rational conscious desire to have children. We certainly wouldnt expect to see that in other mammals. I think the type of conscious decision to have kids discussed in this article may be a socio-cultural phenomenon. There are documented cases of stone-age level people who had not actually made the connection between sex and resultant children. We are not certainly imbued from birth with knowledge like that.
- dwaltrip 9y agoUnless the consciously stated desire is an ad-hoc rationalization of the underlying drives. I agree with you there are also likely strong cultural influences which are unfolding mostly separately from any genetic dynamics.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
- Overtonwindow 9y agoI've had two thoughts on having kids. Full disclosure: I had a vasectomy, which is important because I've come to learn this is a deal breaker for many women. That said, here they are: 1) I would love to have kids so I have someone to pass on the lessons and knowledge I have learned in life, and to contribute to a better tomorrow for the world. Not to mention someone to talk to in old age. However, 2) I really don't want kids. They're expensive, fraught with liability, uncertainty, costs, and there's zero assurance things will turn out well. Having children seems to be a tremendous leap of faith in yourself, and the future, and I just don't have that much faith in either.
- thr0waway__ 9y agoMildly off topic, but do you mind sharing your approach to telling women about your vasectomy? I've started dating again recently and it's the first time I'm dating with a vasectomy so I don't know when or how to bring it up. More on topic, there are a lot of ways you can volunteer or mentor kids in order to pass on lessons, knowledge, and make the world better. In fact there is probably a bigger impact on the world than reproducing or adopting, as these kids need it the most and you can affect more than just a few. Check out "Big Brothers Big Sisters" if you're interested.
- jackbravo 9y agoYou can adopt or you can become an "uncle" of a less favored child. In my city there are "uncle" programs in orphan homes where you visit them, play with them, help them economically if you can, even take them out on weekends if you and they want.
- bluedevil2k 9y agoI think you're overestimating the chances of something bad happening here, much like people fear crashing in a plane crash.
- ap3 9y ago>and there's zero assurance things will turn out well. c'est la vie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- gozur88 9y ago"Involuntarily Childless" is a term I'd apply to people who can't have children for medical reasons and not people who arranged their lives such that they were unlikely to have children.
- aaroninsf 9y agoAs a parent I can say, the desire to have a life never goes away, either.
- n0tme 9y agoI don't want kids, but I really want to find someone to not feel alone and depressed. Since I broke up with my gf after 10 years that we had been together I feel more depressed every freaking day.
- throwaway12332 9y agoGet a pet; dog, hamster... even bright aquarium is nice.
- n0tme 9y agoVery funny, bro. Especially fish are big fans of conversations.
- throwaway12332 9y agoNot a joke, you thing you are the only one in such situation?
- n0tme 9y agoThanks for making me feel special! Now seriously: Did I say something like this? I just have another situation which is kind of close to the one in the post.
- ranie93 9y agoI agree. Although its hard to suggest it without knowing additional details of the GP. They may not be in a right spot to care for a pet, or even care to do so in the first place. However, if they are, a pet can make a world of difference.
- stronglikedan 9y agoI was in your shoes until a couple of years ago. About four years ago, I got out of an eight year relationship where I was promised a marriage and family that never materialized. Being middle-aged, it now seemed like a daunting task, and I quickly sunk into my first ever depression without even realizing it (in fact, I wasn't even a true believer until I was). Once I did realize it, I took myself straight to a counselor for talk therapy. He diagnosed me with depression and depression related anxiety, and referred me to a psych for meds. I've been on wellbutrin for a couple of years now, and while I still struggle with depression every day, it's less and less, instead of the more and more you feel right now. I'm getting out of the house a bit more, and I'm just now starting to date again, but I don't believe I could have done any of that on my own. Point is, start by talking to someone. That's all it took to set me on the right path, and hopefully you'll be so lucky. Just be patient, as it can be a long process (most of which is up to you). Sometimes it's a chemical imbalance that you just cannot overcome by yourself no matter how hard you try. Best of luck!
- throwaway12332 9y ago> only 10% of childless women actively chose not to become mothers. That leaves 90% of women like Day. Only 9% of that 90% are childless for known medical reasons Where is individual responsibility? 81% are not 'involuntary' childless, but delayed it until it was too late. Solution is not to comfort 40-something children, but education. But that is almost taboo.
- dragonwriter 9y ago“Known medical reasons” and “medical reasons” aren't the same thing. I've known quite a number of people who were late in their childbearing years when the latter became the former, and I suspect it's more common among the large portions of American society that don't have well-above-average access to healthcare because of jobs that provide the income to afford it out-of-pocket and/or top-flight insurance that makes it not out-of-pocket in the first place.
- throwaway12332 9y agoThis number is from UK, with good public health insurance.
- tathougies 9y agoI'm not sure I'd apply the term 'involuntary childlessness' to people who chose to not have children and later regret that decision. I married my wife at 22, and we started not preventing at 23. Two years, three early miscarriages, three later miscarriages, and one stillbirth (our most recent pregnancy) later, we don't have any living children. Doctors still can't explain why our unborn son died. In the last ultrasound before he died, he was kicking, swimming around, with a great heartbeat, normal morphology, and a healthy placenta. The next morning, my wife woke up with a bad feeling, and we learned his heart had just stopped. Nothing turned up on the autopsy -- everything normal. Just sudden cardiac arrest. My uncle had a son die of leukemia at age 7 or 8 (before I was born). They were lucky to have another daughter, but we have a few older friends who had one or two children that ended up losing them to freak circumstances or disease, and were then unable to have another. These are actual stories of involuntary childlessness, not people who made a choice to wait until it was too late. And before people pipe up with adoption: (1) we had decided to adopt before we married, but were too young at the time; (2) we started the adoption process as soon as we reached the age threshold; (3) adoption takes a long time and is expensive (but we are more than willing to wait and pay the legal fees); (4) because of our age, we can only adopt younger children; (5) there are not many young children available for adoption because there are more parents willing to adopt than children needing homes, which is a good thing; (6) we would love to adopt an older child as soon as the state would let us. But none of this takes away from the fact that we would like the doctors to figure out the miscarriages and stillbirth -- we want all our children to have a good set siblings and the healthiest start possible.
- dkural 9y agoDid you & your wife get carrier screening?
- tathougies 9y agoYes, we do not carry much (the only flag is alpha thalassemia on my side), and nothing in common, which makes sense, since we are completely different backgrounds. We've had genetic testing on the babies too... all normal.
- 9y ago
- hosh 9y agoHuh, interesting contrast to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955
- pmarreck 9y agoOdd that this post was directly beneath this one in my feed: "Mothers who regret having children are speaking out": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16132955
- simonsarris 9y agoI submitted because of that story. I wanted commentary from the HN crowd on the flip side of the issue.
- pmarreck 9y agoSmart idea and it's interesting to compare the 2
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]