Why we have kids.

[kyburg]

Seriously. The thought has to cross your mind, past the obvious "OMG we're pregnant - okay, we're having kids."

The mindset I prefer on the subject is happy acceptance - having sex and having kids? Kinda goes together. You're okay with one, you're okay with both - win/win.

So - unexpected pregnancy doesn't exist in your world. And when you want one, you get one and that's even happier.

I wouldn't know about that. Had the sex, didn't have the kids - and then didn't have the sex for a long, long time. Then got single again. Then married again. Annnd - the pregnant thing didn't jump out and snag us.

Now, you get to think about it. Because now - it costs. Regardless of the route you decide to take, it costs. A bunch. Take a figure and add six zeros or so. Past that, it's just random details.

Somehow, paying money to make a baby didn't make sense when paying money to provide a family to a baby who needed one existed as an equally viable option. We wanted to be parents - and the more I looked at assisted reproduction, the more squicked I got. Jim? He chatted up some coworkers who went that route and just about lost his lunch. Nobody was going to do THAT to his girl!

Not appealing. We don't have to pass on the genetics - really, really.

If it didn't happen on its own, we weren't going to force it. Now, keep in mind back then we were still back in the "adoption is going to be EASY, there's a BUNCH of kids needing homes" frame of mind. That may still be so, but the ability for us to actually connect with a child who COULD be adopted by us has turned out to be, well, not so much - as it turns out. We didn't know - I'll be honest. But I'm really grateful that we didn't spend the time and money on the AR merry-go-round - we didn't have the infertility loss issues to overcome approaching adoption. It IS our first choice.

(Could I still get pregnant? Hang on - I'm getting there. Short answer - yes.)

But why have kids at all - if it doesn't happen on its own?

I'll admit - looking at the house, the yard, the stuff...gathering dust, going to waste...really bothered me. If I've been learning, and growing as a person all this time...why? If I don't pass this baton on to someone...what have I've been doing this for? My own enjoyment? Wow. Not so much!

I want people at all ages of life, in my life. I want oldsters...and kids. And people my age. And people both twenty years older and younger. I LIKE IT THAT WAY.

For me, those are good reasons to have kids. I'll be blunt and admit it - I've considered putting "torch the house with everything in it" in my will, if I survive Jim. After dealing with Cliff's things - and still am - all of the things that really don't belong to anyone else but him - please, just burn it and toss the ashes after mine. (With a few exceptions, of course.)

This just rocks me back on my heels.

"The couple were so desperate for a male heir that they spent their life savings and took out a bank loan for IVF."

The mother is 70 years old.

The got twins. One of each.

Someone is going to have to cross-check me on this one, but wouldn't an adopted child have inherited the same as a biokid in India? (Adoption in India is an incredibly scary place right now - the corruption is mind-boggling and heartbreaking. Might not have been any kind of option for these folks - as old as they were.)

Why are you having children.

Wow.

Every time I look at this, I find another hot button linked to it - property, acceptance, proof of life, immortality, employment, identity....and none of it much involved with the fact that a kid has nothing to do with your issues, and has every need that has to be met by you as the parent.

They're happy - and this is their challenge that they met with these steps. Can't judge. But the mind boggles a bit, neh?

It's not what I would do. For me, I hope to have my adopting done by age 50 - hope, mind. I'd like permission to get older, with my kids being my kids. Not be old - and trying to make things work regardless.

They're happy. Is it wrong to feel sorry for the kids? Would it be more acceptable for the parents to have accepted their lot and not fought 'the system'?

And this is all before I talk about gender preference. Messy, messy, messy.

Comments

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

But don't most places ban adoption by people over 50? Or is that just China?

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

I've encountered both with friends and with family all sorts of responses on the 'why in the world would you adopt' direction.

First, the 'preserve the family bloodlines at all costs' argument. Any other choice, of course, is Just. Not. Acceptable. Someone else's bastard trash? Hell, no!

Second, the 'but they'll know and you'll know' argument. Since everyone's aware that The Kid Really Isn't Yours, including the kid, everyone will be unable to bond. At best, the kid will just be a whathehellisthatone roomer.

Third, the 'if it's not blood kin, you cannot bond' routine. See above. Kid won't love you, you won't love the kid.

I got some of these from my mother, and explained in some detail with a crowbar that this was going to be the only grandchild she was ever going to have, so you'd better frickin' get used to the idea, lady.

Unfortunately, she did when Mere was very young, and Mere doesn't remember her directly. I think she'd be tickled pink by Mere, and she certainly warmed up a good deal on the subject as time went on. I think she's *exactly* the sort of grandkid my mom would have dug in a big way.

The non-attachment stuff, is, of course, utter bullcrap.

[sekl.livejournal.com]

Must vent, give me a sec. Why have a system where only boys can inherit? What is left to inherit after you spend your life savings on IVF? Are these people the Bennetts? Is the entire estate entailed on the male line? Argh.

Good luck to them. And to the babies.

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with your reasons to have children. You have the wherewithall and you have the resources and you have love and kindness and good parenting in abundance to offer.

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

I'm going to take this from another angle.

I get "Why don't you have kids?" As if, in somewise, Himself and I are being Utterly Selfish for not doing so.

Really?

Because, to my way of thinking, the more SELFISH thing would be to pass along my Crappy Genes just so I could say I had children.

I had visions of my tearful 11 y.o. child wanting one very simple, yet complicated answer: Why.

Why, if I knew first-hand what it was like, did I do the same thing to them?

And I would have no answer for that question. None beyond that I was indeed selfish.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

Nobody was going to do THAT to his girl!

do what? what's so horrific about IVF? If that squicks you out, yeah, probably best that you didn't go the bio route - your paternalistic husband would have been aghast at what child carrying/childbirth would "do to his girl."

I am very skeptical that this woman is really 70. Most places won't even do IVF for women over app. 45 because the success rate is so abysmally low. unless they're using donor eggs, of course. The issue isn't the uterus - it's the eggs, which generally are too old to be viable long before 70. though I suppose there's always a medical exception somewhere