3 ms·

I really don't agree. Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having th

I really don't agree. Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having them? Hell, hints of borderline suicide ideation? That looks like a significant struggle with mental illness to me. Forty is often that turning point in life where the end starts to look closer to the beginning. You have a lot more of your life to look back at and less to look forward to. We joke about mid-life crises, but they're a real thing. The OP sure sounds to me like they're going through exactly that, and children have become a fixation. And if they're struggling with anxiety and depression now, I can't imagine what they'd go through as a parent. At minimum, they should not be making any decisions until they get a little healthier. First, it's very unlikely any decision they take, today, would be rational. And second, if they did choose to become a parent, they'd be doing so at a time when they're incredibly mentally and emotionally fragile, which is a recipe for disaster.

ASalazarMX 4y ago
> Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having them? I'm not going to psychoanalyze someone by a single text message, but I also thought it was unusual to swing that hard. Probably the decision was not thought well and hence the regret, maybe the neighbors have beautiful babies and FOMO brings regret, maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy, only they know. I can only contribute my experience deciding not having kids. We both agreed to not have them, we're 50 now, the window has closed indeed for us, and we don't regret that decision at all. It's fantastic to age together and be the center of our own little family. What little need for forging a malleable mind is left, is fulfilled by the sporadic visits to/from our nephews and nieces. Whatever OP does, I hope he doesn't do it on impulse. It's immensely better to regret not having kids, than regret having them.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy It makes me laugh when people talk about having a "legacy" 99.999% of people are unremarkable. There are currently just over 1M Wikipedia articles about living people. Meanwhile, there are 7.7B people on the planet. Even if you made the incorrect assumption that all 1M were about living Americans, with the US population being nearly 330M, that means you'd have to be in the top 0.3% to even have a Wikipedia article about you. Unless you become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or at least a state-level politician, or become a high-profile criminal, you will probably be forgotten entirely within three generations of your death. It surprises me that some people have a hard time coming to terms with this.
  - freedom2099 4y ago
    Even CEOs and most head of state will be forgotten in a couple of generations unless they do something really bad or really good. And most don’t!
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      They might at least end up with a Wikipedia article that doesn't immediately get deleted for not being notable.
      - freedom2099 4y ago
        Such a worthy goal!
  - educatedwoman 4y ago
    Very true, but I think people associate the word "legacy" more with their children and community rather than their social status in the world. "legacy" is very important to me as I want to have an impact on my friends, family and community. I might never have a wikipedia article about me, but at least I had kids and they will have kids and so on. Of course, I will eventually be forgotten (I don't know who my great great grandparents were) but if it weren't for them I would not be here today. One of the defs is " something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past".
  - FrontierPsych 4y ago
    Even worse than that. Your children will have 1/2, or .5, of your DNA. Your grandchildren will have .25, great-grandchildren will have .125, then .0625....after 10 generations (about 300 years), your descendents will have 0.000977 of your DNA. After 30 generations (900 years) your descendents wil have 0.000000000931 of your DNA. What kind of "legacy" are people thinking that they are leaving behind? All traces of your DNA will effectively disappear from all your progeny. You are gone, not a trace. Your DNA vanishes.

ASalazarMX 4y ago

> Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having them? I'm not going to psychoanalyze someone by a single text message, but I also thought it was unusual to swing that hard. Probably the decision was not thought well and hence the regret, maybe the neighbors have beautiful babies and FOMO brings regret, maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy, only they know. I can only contribute my experience deciding not having kids. We both agreed to not have them, we're 50 now, the window has closed indeed for us, and we don't regret that decision at all. It's fantastic to age together and be the center of our own little family. What little need for forging a malleable mind is left, is fulfilled by the sporadic visits to/from our nephews and nieces. Whatever OP does, I hope he doesn't do it on impulse. It's immensely better to regret not having kids, than regret having them.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy It makes me laugh when people talk about having a "legacy" 99.999% of people are unremarkable. There are currently just over 1M Wikipedia articles about living people. Meanwhile, there are 7.7B people on the planet. Even if you made the incorrect assumption that all 1M were about living Americans, with the US population being nearly 330M, that means you'd have to be in the top 0.3% to even have a Wikipedia article about you. Unless you become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or at least a state-level politician, or become a high-profile criminal, you will probably be forgotten entirely within three generations of your death. It surprises me that some people have a hard time coming to terms with this.
- freedom2099 4y ago
  Even CEOs and most head of state will be forgotten in a couple of generations unless they do something really bad or really good. And most don’t!
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    They might at least end up with a Wikipedia article that doesn't immediately get deleted for not being notable.
    - freedom2099 4y ago
      Such a worthy goal!
- educatedwoman 4y ago
  Very true, but I think people associate the word "legacy" more with their children and community rather than their social status in the world. "legacy" is very important to me as I want to have an impact on my friends, family and community. I might never have a wikipedia article about me, but at least I had kids and they will have kids and so on. Of course, I will eventually be forgotten (I don't know who my great great grandparents were) but if it weren't for them I would not be here today. One of the defs is " something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past".
- FrontierPsych 4y ago
  Even worse than that. Your children will have 1/2, or .5, of your DNA. Your grandchildren will have .25, great-grandchildren will have .125, then .0625....after 10 generations (about 300 years), your descendents will have 0.000977 of your DNA. After 30 generations (900 years) your descendents wil have 0.000000000931 of your DNA. What kind of "legacy" are people thinking that they are leaving behind? All traces of your DNA will effectively disappear from all your progeny. You are gone, not a trace. Your DNA vanishes.