fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2977 ]

[ SECRET POST #2977 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2977 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Paul Darrow]

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[Dragon Age: Inquisition]

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(Bee and Puppycat)

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09.

[Joan Watson, Elementary]

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(Marvel's Agents of Shield)

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[One Piece]

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[Noah Emmerich, The Americans]

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[Teen Wolf]

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15. [ WARNING for rape ]

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16. [ WARNING for dubcon? ]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #425.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm secretly scared I'll regret not having kid later.

But, I can't tell anyone, because it's bad enough keeping them off my case as it is.

I really, really do not like small children and I hate being tied down in any way or form. So, I feel it's the right decision, but I'm still scared about how I'll feel when I'm 50 or 60.

This is me too. Or at least, a small part of me. Most of me goes "nope" at the thought of having kids. But some small part of me wonders if I'll regret it someday.

There are other ways to have kids when/if you're ready without actually having kids.

My brother isn't technically my brother, he just came to live with us when he was 12, but for my parents, he's their son and for me he's my big brother. My friend, like you, never wanted to have kids of her own, but now she's raising her sister's kids since they were babies and couldn't be happier as their guardian/mom.

I'd say you probably don't really need to worry that much, unless having a fruit of your own loins is something you're worried might be important to you some day after it's too late.

Adoption isn't really a viable option where I live, and it has age restrictions too.

There's fostering, but as I said below, I'm not quite sure how I'd feel about taking in someone who's already half-grown, personally.

Maybe you can take up being a foster carer when you're older? Would that as an idle backup plan reassure you? You're not really tied down by that, you can generally exit at any time within reasonable time.

OP, nah, not really. I don't think I'd foster out of the blue. I might if it was a friend's or relative's kid if they needed a home, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about taking in someone who's almost "fully baked" so to speak. I guess it depends on the age and circumstance. I dunno, maybe i'll feel differently about that later, and I can't quite tell how much my current dislike of fostering is just plain dislike of the idea of having a kid in the house. Also I think that actually has age restrictions, too, where I live.

People are so not even close to "fully baked" at the age they'd be in the foster system.

It depends on the age, I guess. Though by the time you're 10 or 12, I feel like a lot of who you are has already formed.

You may have that perception, but it's not accurate at all. I was a ragey shitbag at 10-12, but at 32 one of the reasons my wife said she married me is that I'm the calm to her crazy.

There's a lot of growing and changing that still happens, unless you mean "formed already" like things that interest me. But there's so much more to who I am than my interest in books and sci fi.

*shrugs*

I feel like I'm pretty much the same person I was at 13, plus some life experience and minus some angst. Experiences may very, of course.

THIS.

Although in my case, I do like kids. A lot. But not in a remotely maternal way, more in a "aww you're cute okay go find your Mommy bye!" way.

There's always adoption. You don't have to reproduce in order to experience raising a child, and you can wait as long as you want if you're interested in adopting later in life.

Nah, that's not really an option either, where I live. It's age restricted, too, and the waiting list are like 15 years. Hell, if I put myself on the waiting list NOW it would probably be too late already.

Waiting lists are only really a huge deal for people wanting to adopt infants. Which is a shame, because really it's older children who are in need of adoption more than babies (who everyone wants).

Nah, for real, inland adoption is virtually non-existent here. Seriously, I feel like people from the USA (though I think you're Canadian, right?) are often completely oblivious about this. There's places in the world where people willing to adopt vastly outnumber the kids available, because some places are just more secular, and people either abort or keep the kid. It's not a "backup plan", it's an insane longshot.

I don't want to go into an argument, but the ease with which people say "just adopt" is baffling to me.

This just seems to not mathematically work out, since I know the numbers of kids in the USA who are in foster situations actually outnumbers the amount of parents looking to adopt.

But maybe it does vary by region?

As for us, we're considering adopting from overseas, so while there's a list it's certainly not as ridiculous as the parents looking for a Caucasian infant who is not disabled.

That's what I mean, though: not everywhere is like the USA.Not at all. Honestly I could link you to sources, but that would make it sort of obvious where I'm from.

Yes, adopting from abroad is an option, but it's vastly more expensive, and also more risky because there have been a few cases in the news of kids being "adopted" that were taken from their parents without consent. Some countries have in fact halted overseas adoption altogether.

Look at it this way: it's a lot better to regret never having kids than it is to regret having them.

This is true.

I came here to say this exact thing, only with added tl;dr.

OP: as you've already noticed, society sells us the story that our lives are incomplete if we don't breed. So you'll hear so much of this story, that you almost certainly will feel regret over it, at some point. Society will succeed in convincing you, if only transiently, that you've missed out on some Great, Important, Wonderful experience, that you've left something in your life undone...

That doesn't mean it will be true. Only you know what's best for you. No matter what you do in life, there will always be choices you second-guess, because you can never know for sure, about anything, that what you're doing is the right thing. All you can do is make your best guess.

You could volunteer for an after-school program, like Boys and Girls Club. That would get you the interaction and connection with children without being fully responsible for them.

I might eventually. My partner volunteers with kids, and he seems to enjoy it.

"You ever sorry you had/didn't have kids?"

http://youtu.be/QiqiTrMVLdQ

That's really awesome. Thanks, anon.

When everyone tells you over and over that you'll change your mind, it's hard not to take that in and be scared that they're right. Most of them mean well and simply can't understand that not everyone has the same feelings about kids and family life that they do, but the ones who get the most ridiculous about it tend to be the ones who regret having kids themselves and are just looking for validation. I'm not saying this is you, but I've known a lot of people who said they didn't like kids and happily had them anyway (lots of them still don't like other people's kids lol), so I think it has to be more about you personally than about kids in general. There's a real difference between "kids are [negative thing] so I don't want any" and "I don't want to be a mother." When you know for sure that that's not a role you want to play or the kind of life you want to live, you get more certain about your decision as you get older, not less. I'm 40 now and knew I wasn't cut out for motherhood, or even interested in it beyond the gauziest "oh I'd name my kid that" daydreams, from a very young age. To regret it at 50 or 60, I'd have to become a completely different person.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2977 ]

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