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How much pressure have you had to have kids? (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago by [M] to c/womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone
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[–] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

"You'll just make it work. We did." is such an asinine thing to say when most of us drag baggage into adulthood from varying degrees of childhood trauma. Whether the cause was financial or "I stayed in this bad marriage because of you, kids" while at the same time making another kid in hopes of it fixing said marriage or satisfying your biological need.

I've never truly wanted to have kids—past the very rare, but fleeting thought due to people around me starting to have them and lizard brain getting confused—in over 30 years of existing, and yet I still get the occasional "why not?" and "you'll change your mind" and "your life will have purpose".

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  • [–] 10 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    The purpose thing always gets me. I came from a large family, six kids. We're all long since out of the house. And while kids did give h my mom a sense of purpose, in her 50s, she had to find a purpose all over again! Once all the kids were out of the house, as an empty nester, she had to find things to occupy her time. And she's found a variety of very rewarding volunteer work in the community to do so.

    Not that having kids won't give you a sense of purpose, but that sense only really lasts while the kids are young and in need of a lot of active childcare. Once they're in high school, you'll need to find something else to produce that sense of purpose and keep yourself busy. So if you're having kids just for a sense of purpose, you would be better off focusing on just that and leaving the actual human beings out of it.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 days ago*

    The planet's on fucking fire. I have so many purposes already. I need to stop climate change, destroy capitalism, decolonise Australia, help the trans kids stop dying, get Bibi to go home, teach people to perceive otherkin kindly... Anyone who needs a kid to give them purpose has no empathy and would make a bad parent in My opinion. Fight for the kids who are dying in Gaza. We don't need more purposes, we need more helpers.

    When I was a kid I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety because I was always thinking about climate change and how to save the world. But I'm not scared. I'm angry.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 days ago

    My mom always says her children are her purpose and I find it unhealthy. My younger sibling still lives with my parents, so the nest isn't empty, but she places a lot of emotional burden on us because her marriage is toxic and even working a lot and having her hobbies isn't enough to offset it. So instead of divorcing my father and focusing on her mental and physical health, she uses us as sort of an emotional crutch. I just don't get it.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 days ago

    My friends are all starting to have kids and I've never been more glad to have yeeted my uterus. People also stop asking you about having kids when you say, "Well you need a uterus for that."

    If somehow I do change my mind, I'll adopt. But RN my mind is firmly made up: no kids

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