I’ll start. I’m a 37-year-old woman, and I’ve always been indifferent about having children. I love peace and quiet, but at the same time, I wouldn’t mind having kids if my partner really wanted them.
I’ve been with my husband for 13 years now and married for 11. I’m his second (and final) wife. He has three kids with his first wife. She was supportive of him taking a second wife, with just one request: no more children. That solidified my decision not to have kids.
I have one child, and I love her so much. I’m very happy we decided to have a child.
However, I’m content with just one child. Even in an ideal situation, raising a healthy child is hard work. It’s extremely rewarding, but the responsibility of shaping another human’s formative experiences shouldn’t be taken lightly.
As the comments on this post (and birth rate statistics) repeatedly hammer home, the state of the world is extremely hostile to having children right now, especially financially.
What the doomers fail to address, is that raising a child provides a unique opportunity to inject the very values we need to fix the world’s issues into the next generation. If you really want kids, it will be one of the hardest, yet rewarding lifestyle changes of your life. If someone is on the fence, it might be better to abstain, but only they can make that decision.