I used to get smacked, throttled, hit and slapped by my mother for small stuff like getting my school uniform dirty. I developed anxiety at an early age because I was so afraid of upsetting her. She hit me at 14 and dad told her to stop because one day I'd hit her back. I think my complicated relationship with my mom who was strict gave me the fuel to rebel so from 14 I was a heavy drinker, smoker and pot smoker. By 17 my parents told me one more **** up and I'd be booted out. I pulled my head in and although I drank a lot in my fun Uni years I didn't feel the need to go to far with it. My mother and I get on now like a house on fire and I don't have an ill feelings toward her because she was often under a lot of stress including post natal depression and major depression and PTSD after her dad died. She literally stopped eating, she kept passing out because she was so under weight. I am worried about having kids. Not because of the pregnancy or giving birth but the thought of me losing it at my kid like mom did. Everyone in my family on both sides has had depression and anxiety (including me after an assault). I'm a really calm laid back person but I've been through a pile of **** with chronic pain since I was 11, other health problems plus a reliance on opoids and sleeping pills. I don't want to pass on Endometriosis to my daughter but my mom desperately wants to have grandchildren (I'm an only child). I also worry that I will get too old by the time I find the right person. Like Burning Down said, the older you have the children the more likely the child may have disabilities. I'm very career focused am not sure I want to give it up to look after a child. At least by the time I'm 40 I hope to be well off.

If I was to answer for sure I would certainly be up for having 1-2 children.

Well with genetic conditions like that you can get yourself tested and most of the time they end up skipping a generation. So it may be dormant in your children and they will end up just being carriers. When you get tested you will know what percentage will get passed on. Also, if you wanted to have children later on, you could freeze your eggs til you are ready.

That's great advice. It's just the depression thing has hit every generation of my family, my aunty nearly attempted suicide. I will definitely get my eggs frozen. There is a big chance that I may be infertile because of Endo so it may end up that I can't carry it. I do know many women have had their pain reduced due to having children but I also know a woman who got Endo symptoms after two children. Also its impossible to test for Endo genetically as it doesn't develop until puberty (pain so extrem I was in fetal position bawling my eyes out. It can only be detected through a surgery.

I have to admit I'd love a daughter.

My mother had endometriosis before I was born. She genuinely wanted a child, and they told her that she could never have one. I was essentially a "miracle" in her terms (my sister followed 5yrs later) but where there's a will in biology, there's a way. She continued to have a lot of problems with her reproductive organs. She had a tubal litigation after my sister was born (but had to fight for it for some stupid reason - they thought she'd change her mind or some other ridiculous nonsense) and a full hysterectomy when I was about 15. She had a lot of cysts and some other horrible things going on, so that was her only choice to make the pain stop forever.



Mental illness has run like crazy on both sides of my family (and in Ki's). Another reason I've chosen not to procreate is because I don't want to subject an innocent child to the possibilities of depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, and even schizophrenia. I suffer so much as a prisoner of my own mind and the stupid chemical problems it has that it would tear me down to give that to another life form. I could literally never forgive myself.

That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. I don't even think other child free people would think that way.

Most child free people, that I've come across anyways, don't see other people having children as a disservice to society either. Well, the rude ones do but most tolerate people's desire to have kids just as they expect others to tolerate their decision not to.

He doesn't mean it in that having a child is a crime on the same level as murder, he's describing the permanency of the act, albeit not well.

I am one of those rude child-free people. Bringing a person into the world has more weight than other decisions the population is meant to tolerate. It's not like tolerating someones decision whether or not to smoke or whether or not to drive a PT Cruiser.

There are no reasons to have a child that don't take root in some kind of selfish desire, and writing it off as a primal instinct is no longer relevant. We do not need to keep procreating to keep the species alive in a world population of `~8 billion - that's merely an ill-thought-out justification. It's the same as saying we should continue to eat meat because that's what we've "always" done.

For me it's a matter of critical thinking and a principle of morality.

Every choice we make in life murders some possibilities whilst giving birth to others. Or as Socrates put it - every action has its pleasures and its price. With that in mind, what Matt said makes perfect sense. Indeed I thought it an excellent expression.

Take one of mine--please.

I disagree with the primal instinct statement. Why do you think a woman's body biologically prepares itself for optimum conditions to have conception happen every month?

I didn't say it was false, I said it was no longer relevant.