I feel sorry for people who can't have kids. I can't imagine NOT having them.

[HopeHoops]

They make life complete.

[applegrove]

1. I always assumed I would have them. Then I was traumatized and it takes so much

of my emotional time to manage that that I am glad I never had them. I wouldn't want to tranfer my trauma/fears to my kids. So I'm fine with it.

[HopeHoops]

2. As a former kid, I can fully relate to that.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. No, kids make life complete for YOU.

It's ironic that I came across this thread, because I was thinking this morning about the fact that there has never been a moment...not a blink of an eye, not a lingering period of deep reflection...where I've wanted to have kids.

And before I go any further, I don't mean any disrespect in my response to you. I mean what I said...kids make life complete for you and anyone else who wants to have kids, but that's not a blanket statement. I may be in the minority. I had an ex-girlfriend who felt so strongly about not having kids that she went through tubal ligation to make sure it would never happen. We haven't been in contact since we broke up but from what I know of her she is living in Minnesota, happily married (first marriage was to her ex-boyfriend, who was an asshole, and it didn't last. Second marriage appears to have staying power). She loves horses and loves dogs and is surrounded by both. I spent five years of my life with this woman. Trust me...in her value system, her life is complete.

I have good friends who have three kids who range in age from 20 to 26. One kid turned out great, a real straight arrow. One is a sullen little self-absorbed prick who thinks he's James Dean. The other is the village idiot, high most of the time, just a complete burnout. The latter two have both had run-ins with the law for a number of reasons. I see my friends, I see these kids, and I thank God that I knew, early in life, that parenting was not for me.

I have a sister in Colorado who hasn't spoken to me in years. Her daughter...my niece...concocted a fake malady right out of high school and learned how to game the "disability" system. She has never worked a day in her life. She lives in a house that she owns in Colorado with her lesbian life partner. The two of them like to tie up their gardener and yell cuss words at him while they pee on him, but it's OK, because he likes it.

There's a scene in the Bruce Dern movie "Middle Aged Crazy." He's going through a midlife crisis, and kis kids are high school / college age, and they're carrying all of the peer pressure bullshit that goes with it. They keep wanting to bring their problems to him and in one of the most electric lines of dialog I've ever heard in a movie in my life, Dern sits alone and says to himself "I never wanted to be the daddy."

Neither did I. But I was smart enough to know this early in life.

I'm at a point, at this stage in life, where the overwhelming majority of women I meet who are my age have kids, either living at home or on their own, but the reality is that they are never on their own. The first time they can't make a mortgage payment of meet a medical bill or want a new car or a trip to Hawaii, there they are...right on the front doorstep. I can pretend all I want to but a potential relationship in which kids are part of the bargain is a relationship I'll reject from day one. I'm not the type to "date" and then bail when "things get serious." I know from day one that I don't want kids of my own, and I especially don;t want someone else's kids. It's just not in my DNA.

There are people in the world who have never smoked a cigarette. And there are people in the world, today, who are dying of cancer, and are probably sitting there smoking a cigarette while I type this.

There are alcoholics, and people who have never touched a drop.

There are drug addicts, and people who never "experimented."

Straight people, gay people.

People who gamble the monthly house payment and lose it, people who go to VEgas and never drop a coin into the slots.

There are parents who feel that having kids make their life complete, and there are people who never wanted kids.

I understand what you're saying about people who don't have kids because they wanted them but couldn't, for whatever reason. I agree, that woudl indeed be sad. I'm replying exclusively to your "kids make life complete" remark.

Kids make life complete for you...and anyone else who wants kids. For some of us, not having kids makes life complete.

[HopeHoops]

4. "but that's OK because he likes it" - ROFL! No offense taken, friend.

Yeah, it's one of those things that's either in your nature or not. We don't eat meat and that freaks almost everyone else out - QUESTION #1: "How do you get enough protein?" (note: it's almost impossible NOT to get enough protein). Kids totally change your life from full-time party to full-time attendant. Mine are at the age where they often serve as MY attendants. To have or have not is a choice and that's a major reason why I'm pissed at the GOP efforts to eliminate birth control. Short of "the big V" or a TL, you really need to use some form, well, unless you're a sexless Republican like Santorum. Does anyone really think he sired those kids?

[HopeHoops]

5. UPDATE TO OP - too old to edit: "They make life complete for ME."

Thanks AV.

[harun55]

6. Spam deleted by MaineDem (MIR Team)