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Do you think everyone is meant to be a parent? Why do people get crazy over having kids?

Monsterchick87's picture

I have said before that I might not have kids of my own. It's just not my priority in life. I just don't get why our society pushes us to have children. Some people are not even meant to be parents.

For example, I noticed that my boyfriend has a big problem. He's a neat freak. If something is not neat and tidy, he'll go nuts. He'll start a fight over insignificant stuff like a towel that is on the floor and didn't get picked up for whatever reason. Well, he said that when he was little his mom was really strict with him and used to spank him if something was not super clean or perfect. He seems traumatized and now he wants ME to be an obsessive neat person like him. All because of his mother that raised him in a very unhealthy way. And my boyfriend gets mad at me just like his mom, except he doesn't spank me or get physically abusive. 

It's not that people are bad, mean, dishonest or whatever. It has a lot to do with how parents raise them. That's where it all starts. And I truly believe that a lot of people are incompetent at raising children. That's why I don't get why society pushes everyone to have kids even if some of us are clueless. It shouldn't be that way. What do you think?

tog redux's picture

Ugh. Neat freaks are the worst. And they think they are in the right and everyone should live up to their standards.  I don't know if "society" pushes people to have kids but families often do. More often though, I think people really want kids. 

Aniki-Moderator's picture

I'm sorry his mother traumatized him. But he CAN try and overcome his obsession with neatness. 

He's not physically abusive, but he's starting a fight over a towel on the floor and that immediately brought to mind "Sleeping With The Enemy". 

Seriously consider if you want to live your life living up to his rigid standards. I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. 

Rags's picture

No, not everyone should be a parent.  Sadly, there is no licensing requirement for breeding. Breeding, by the way, has next to nothing to do with parenting.  Breeding is a basic biological function like the rest of the basic biological functions.  Nothing more.

I think that it is obvious that there certainly are people who are driven to be parents who really have no business being parents.  Similarly there are people who had no conscious intention of being parents who are extremely good parents.

Fortunately those on the extreme end of the crappy parenting scale are relatively rare and most people are decent parents.  The blended family world has a much higher frequency of people who are crappy parents.

IMHO parenting is no different than any other critical group of tasks.  Make a plan, work the plan, adjust as necessary as events unfold.  Growing up, as the eldest of 3, the most infuriating thing for me was how my parents parented differently with my younger brothers than they had with me.  They were far more strict with me.  I am 6yrs the elder with boy #2 and was 8yrs the elder with #3.  The notable age gaps made the differences in how I was parented Vs how the younger two were parented very obvious.

When I gained the confidence to express my frustration mom and dad answered my questions to an extent.  They threw me a curve ball in those discussions. They told me I was right. They did parent me differently than they were parenting my younger brothers.  They learned what parenting was with me and my brother's benefited from that. Once I had beat the topic to death they finally said enough is enough and "Your brother's owe you a debt of gratitude for teaching us how to be parents.".

We all have parenting tapes that we inherited from our parents.  We all also have baggage that we inherited from our parents. At some point those problems become ours to solve..  Good parents take the good, build and augment that foundation, address the baggage and problems, and raise children from an improved perspective to that used to raise us.

Crappy parents have no plan, think that love is that tingly feeling they get with the SO of the moment, and the warm fuzzy that they get when they breed "unconditional love" through the physical act of breeding and think that procreating makes them a parent. They worship their children rather than establishing and enforcing standards of performance and behavior that they raise their children with, and then spend way too much time whining about the outcome of their crappy parenting. 

They ask why, why, why, why, why continuously regarding the crappy results of their ineffective parenting rather than addressing those failing results with the demand that their kids step up, deliver to established standards of performance and behavior and continually stretching their own performance and that of their kids.

Parenting is a highly emotional human experience.  The problem is that far too many parents never engage the brain while parenting or when dealing with the continual nurturing that a quality relationship with their breeding partner takes.  They follow the meandering random path that emotion takes them down as parents and partners rather than parenting and partnering with a structured plan and carefully considered goals for that most critical responsibility (parenting) and priority (partnering).  

As challenging as application of the brain over emotion is, that alone is single biggest success factor in parenting... and in partnering. Enjoy the emotion when appropriate, engage the brain and put emotion on the back burner when the what is not cutting it regarding kid and parenting behaviors.  Screw the why, focus on the what.

Those that are paralyzed by the why, have no business being parents at all.

IMHO of course.

As for the why of the drive and societal pressure to breed, that is basic biology and survival of the species.  Unfortunately those who should be breeding and parenting generally don't and those who have no business polluting the collective human gene pool are slinging their reproductive cells around wholesale and without any application of brain power. "Thinking" and decisioning with the tingly bits and feelings rarely turns out well for anyone. Mostly it does not turn out well for the kids that the tingly bits/emotion driven parenting model results in.

smh

Just my thoughts and experience.

 

Cover1W's picture

I have never, ever wanted kids, ever. Nothing, no urge no drive to want nothing.

Even as a kid when others talked about "when I get married" or "when I have kids" I was like "when I get married" - there was no kid option for me. I firmly belive some is genetic, I'm not wired to have kids at all. 

And I don't feel I'm missing a thing! I'm happy, a good person, help others, etc. I just don't have kids.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

I never wanted to be a mother, either. Which doesn't mean I hate kids, just that I didn't want to be a parent. I actually like well parented kids, and think parents should be held to much higher standards.

I raised my H's youngest for FIVE loooong years, and feel that's earned me some street cred. So when I say neither DH nor BM2 should have reproduced, it's based on observation and experience.

We've got things quite backwards in this culture. We CLAIM to care about kids, but we view them as chattel instead of a precious resource. We subsidize the least qualified to have them, but thousands of children don't get enough to eat and are housing insecure. We make it expensive and difficult for divorced fathers to be a part of their kids' lives, but claim to want to keep families together. Meanwhile, those who don't have kids - the people who use less resources,  have a smaller carbon footprint, and don't qualify for most subsidies - get taxed up the wazoo. 

Casey76's picture

Same.  H and I briefly discussed having one together, but the skids were teenagers at the time and I was like no way do I want to go through teen years again I 13 years - I barely have the patience for it now.  I'm so glad we didn't, we have the empty nest now and it's so nice.

I've never understood the absolute urgency to have a biological child.  My sister has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to have her kids.  I love them, I just don't really get that burning need for myself and don't understand it in others.  I'm missing that maternal gene I think.  

Rags's picture

I am completely with you on the drive for BKs.  I really have never had that drive.  I love kids, I also love when they go home.

We had one.  My SS-28.  He was 15mos old when his mom and I met. We married the week before he turned 2yo.

An ours spawn came up as a topic a few times over the years but there were two major influences that ended that thought any time my DW had it.  First, her first pregnancy almost killed her. She had sever pre-eclampsia/toxemia and after SS was born all of her Gynos strongly advised her against having any more children... until she was 40.  When we lived in Saudi Arabia her Saudi female Gyno was all alarmed that she was so young and only had one spawn.   That Doc was all over us having another kid or two.  She was confident that she could treat any toxemia issues DW might have and it would all work out well.  Inshallah.

The second influence is that I have an auto immune disease that can readily manifest in any children I might spawn.

So... we stuck with SS as an only child in our family.

LIke you, have never had a burning need, to have kids.  Or poetically, I have no need to spread my seed... from a procreative perspective.

We are on year 9 as empty nesters.  April of next year will be the 10th anniversary of starting our empty nester adventure.

There is nothing unhealthy about not wanting or not having BKs.  

Enjoy your empty nester adventure!

 

Monsterchick87's picture

I do agree that being tidy is important. But I still believe his mother somehow abused him. He was a kid and he was expected to be super clean to the point of not leaving a tiny spot of dirt. But just because his mother abused him, he shouldn't abuse me. I consider myself clean and organized but he'll get mad over pointless things. For example, one time he was using wipes to clean and he took them to our room. Hours passed and the wipes were still in the room and I assumed he was still using them. Then he told me: "I can't believe you left the wipes in the room. Why didn't you put them were they belong". Excuse me??? I was not the one who was using them and how was I supposed to know he finished using the wipes? He made a huge deal. Also if there's something on the floor that belongs to him, he wants me to pick it up. Almost like he wants me to clean after himself. I get that it's not a big deal but I wouldn't EXPECT someone else to clean up my mess. He's all messed up because of the strict rules his mom implemented on him

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Him saying YOU left the wipes in another room is gaslighting. RED FLAG

He expects YOU to pick up HIS mess? RED FLAG

Again... Sleeping With The Enemy. Please watch it. 

tog redux's picture

Yeah, that's something other than just being a neat freak. Though for most true neat freaks it IS about control. It's one thing to want a tidy house, it's another to freak out and have a melt down if something is out of place.

TheAccidentalSM's picture

He may not be hitting you but his behaviour is controlling and abusive.  You need to address it with him.  If he can't and doesn't want to change, I'd leave the relationship.  

SMto3's picture

I seem to be of the less popular opinion but to be honest, a towel on the floor after one used it, would be annoying to me. I feel that it speaks to being lazy if you simply keep bypassing the towel and not picking it up off the floor of it it is indeed yours. However, I just made an entire assumption, which is that it was a bath towel, used, thrown on the floor and being stepped over by the person who used it. 
I am not a neat freak per se, but I do have a problem with people who are messy and think I'm supposed to clean it. Here's an example. SSs, when they were younger, would leave dishes in the sink all the time, and actually still do (though I should be grateful the dishes even make it to the sink). The issue with this is that if I or SO do not do their dish, we have to tell them to do it because they will not take the initiative to just do it. This annoys me and they are 15 and 20. I can't imagine having to deal with a grown up who does this. Again, my brain might just interpret it differently, more of like you're not being considerate of me at all if you think I'm just going to clean after you and not have a problem with it. 
 

I kept reading though and those last comments you wrote are a big red flag. He's expecting you to clean his mess, and now that's a horse of a different color. 

bdaddy's picture

Being able/willing to be a good parent is best reason for having kids.  Unfortunately, so many people (wrong people for parents) have kids for the wrong reason and the kid suffers.  That is horrible.  If you remember the old movie PARENTHOOD with Steve Martin, there is a great line delivered by Keanu Reeves that sums it up perfectly: "you need a license to buy a dog. You need a license to drive a car. Hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any @$$ be a father."

To me being a neat freak is a qurik (maybe a very annoying one) but don't most people have quirks of their own?  Quirky people can be great parents.  

Seriously7's picture

Historically I don't think it came down to "wanting" kids. I think it was just wanting sex and, before birth control, kids were often a result of sex. Like some others have said, it's just biological - the desire for sex. Now days we have birth control so people (women) can choose whether or not to have kids regardless of having sex. I think many people are not meant to have children in the sense that they do not do a good job at parenting but it is what it is.

hereiam's picture

I wasn't meant to have kids but unlike others who shouldn't have kids, I chose not to have any (never felt the biological need to, either). Really don't care what anybody else in society has to say about that, and I never dated anybody who for sure wanted kids, because I was so sure that I didn't.

As in everything, there has to be a balance. Procreation is necessary, but overpopulation and child abuse/neglect are real. There are definitely people who should not be raising children.