If you could start over, and knowing what you know, would you have kids?

[Pat]

I asked myself this question recently. Our second son left home late last fall and here we are, my husband and I, in our empty nest. But it's not like when we were first married. Maybe a marital home isn't a nest until it has some young in it?


Anyway, I couldn't answer the question. My first reaction was "of course, I wouldn't change a thing" - but I realized that this was out of loyalty to my husband and sons. That was the answer I gave to my husband when we discussed the question. But another, secret and maybe more honest answer is "well, maybe I might pursue my interests, not have kids, travel more, have a career, have more personal financial independence..."


If you could go back and begin again would you change anything? Would you still have kids? Would you have more or less of them?

[MaryB]

Oh my gosh,  like you say there are two answers to this question...  the one for the love and loyalty for our families, then the one secret one we hold in our head..  I am still struggling with my one and only child, and deep inside know if I didnt have any children my life would have been so different, but then again I go back further and think if I didnt marry my husband.  I could have done things I wanted to, where as I was old school and believed the man ruled the home so everything was his way, his thoughts, his wants, his ideas...  Oh yes, to go back and do it over again, knowing what I know now,  to do it over again and carve out a life for myself... 
 

[girlchild34]

This is a nice way of looking at it and whereas there a few things I would change, I doubt if I wouldn't want to have kids. Raising them has been journey and there has been everything to learn, along the way!

[Indiana]

I would still have kids, but I would have waited longer.


The problem wasn't so much the children, but the S.O. I picked to have children with.


If I could go back, I would change that aspect  of it.

[cookielady]

If I could do it all over again I would have had more kids. A co worker has hers spaced far apart so she (who is close to my age) will have kids in her house til she's 63! I always wanted a big family but I grew up in an abusive home so I had trepidations about having kids to begin with. I envy people who have big families.

[Guineagirl]

Had to reply as I ask myself the same thing.  I think over the years I put myself last very much so and find it hard gaining my identity.  My identity probably wrongly was Daughter, Mum and Wife and pet owner.  I am still a daughter although my parents have both died, still a Mum from afar and Wife but no pet owner now.  I do look back and wish I’d gone more places exploring though.  I seem to have lost purpose now and do far too much thinking in a negative way.  I do think people who haven’t had children wont of gone through the loss we feel, after all they’ve had just each other all their marriage in a way.  I find it very hard just being with my husband, god he has annoying habits.

[4am coffee]

When I think of my children, I think of the society they have to live in. It's a tough call simply because of the way society seems to be deolving. I would still have kids, but knowing now what I do, I would teach them things a little differently.