[mvp]

It is ENTIRELY up to you and your SO if you want to have children. It boggles my mind that anyone else thinks it's their business.

I have 2 children because ... I really, really wanted them. Only good reason, I think.

Hey, if you can pay for 'em, it is entirely your decision.

Having children is altruistic if you can insure that the little tykes grow up to be useful, productive and.... wait for it... altruistic citizens themselves.

If you raise embezzlers or those who do jail time on the public's dime? Then you were, in fact, being selfish to have kids or even think that other people's money didn't enter into it.

[Fourbeats]

I'm writing this without reading ANY replies.

I considered having an abortion. I was called selfish.

I gave a child up for adoption at birth. I was called selfish.

I chose not to have "my own" children. I was called selfish.

My friends chose to have children in a less than stellar situation. They were called selfish.

Different friends have seven well raised and wonderful children. They've been called selfish.


STOP being concerned what someone else has to think or say about you. Since when did THEIR opinion truly matter? There will always be someone somewhere that will not agree with you choice.

Accept YOUR choice and embrace it. That's is all that is needed.

This times ten!
No matter what choice you make on practically any subject in life you can be sure some segment of the population will disagree with you/it. So, as long as I can look myself in the mirror and be ok with my choices, that's all I worry about.

[mvp]

^^^

Lordy, Epona, a girl just can't win.

Hey, how about we hold men to the standard of selflessness? Or everyone to the same standard? Or perhaps a woman can just grab her balls, say "Bite me, I'll be no more or less greedy than the next guy" and go on her way.

[drmgncolor]

WTF? That is the saddest comment I think I have ever seen on COTH. So sad for anyone to consider themselves "defective".

You haven't been on this forum long if you think my comment (which I admit was poorly written and will likely forever be taken out of context) is the saddest thing you have ever seen on COTH. Please read the follow ups to it and how I explain further what I meant and how I apologized for any offense taken.

There is such a thing as birth defects and as a woman who cannot procreate, I am defective by nature. Women were meant to have babies. I can't... Many of us can't. It doesn't make me or any other woman less of a person... No more than it makes any one else with a disability, birth defect, or congenital disorder less than a person. But denying the fact it is a defect is naive.

My point was that I was responding to a poster who's mother told her she was defective for not WANTING children. My reply was that she wasn't defective for not wanting them... Defective is not being able to have them. That is not necessarily a bad thing and a women doesn't deserve less because she can't procreate.

Maybe I have some unresolved issues with being defective, but I am not in denial that my body is not "normal" in that dept.

OP - I didn't mean to hijack. I don't think not having kids by choice is selfish. Be who YOU want to be and do what YOU want to do. Some people have kids for all the wrong reasons. Some people don't have kids for all the right reasons. Sometimes the choice isn't always yours. The right decision for you is often not wrong.