Mother's Day

Whenever Mother's Day rolls around, for some reason, it always makes me wonder if I will ever have children. While I have no answer for that, I have finally, after many, many years of searching myself, figured out my reasons for NOT wanting children.

Reason #1-I'm afraid I would be a bad mother
I'm sure every person has this fear and it's quite normal. I know I wouldn't be a Mommie Dearest, but there is that part of me that is afraid I would have no patience and just make a mess of things and wind up having a child that shot up the high school with her AR-15.

Reason #2-I like peace and quiet
This doesn't happen with children. There is no sleeping in until 9am on a Sunday. There is no reading a book for an hour before shutting off the light. Instead, you are trying to clean and do laundry and get all the things done that you couldn't do during the day since the child(ren) was/were awake and making messes and painting the cat and coloring on the walls.

Reason #3-I have bad DNA
Now, I'm not saying that my family is mutated and our babies have three arms, however, depression runs in my family (along with high blood pressure). Multiple studies have shown that depression is hereditary. My grandfather committed suicide, so I never got to know the part of the family that I inherited my last name from. My father, though he has never been diagnosed, I am sure has depression, since he exhibits so many of the traits, and I have battled it off and on since I was a teenager (until it was eventually diagnosed when I was 30). It's scary to think about having a child and passing something like that onto him or her. Again, I'm sure every parent or parent-to-be goes through this fear and it's perfectly normal, but knowing that the chances of passing it on to my child are pretty good is really frightening.

Reason #4 -I am afraid to want children
I could probably get over absolutely all my other reasons, but this one is my downfall. For years, I have gone back and forth on if I want children or not. I have cited noise, dirty diapers, temper tantrums in Walmart, the inability to just pick up and do what I want, etc. as great reasons not to have kids. The plain truth is, I am pretty sure I DO want children someday (which, according to my friendly physician, should be in the next two years before my Yoplait eggs expire). But, if I want children and never have them, how will I feel when I am 50, knowing that it won't ever happen? I don't want to feel empty and disappointed, wanting something so badly but never being able to attain it. And I know I wouldn't be able to adopt/have a baby by myself. I would want the whole family unit. So, in my mind, I have convinced myself that I don't really need or want children, or even to get married, to spare myself the disappointment. Years ago, my little walnut size brain thought it would be best to discourage myself from wanting to have a family so in case it didn't happen, I wouldn't care. I have been basically trying to convince myself I don't want to settle down for the better part of a decade. Unfortunately, I do care and now that I am older and will be staring down the barrel of 40 in a few more years, I am starting to fully realize just how much I want a family.

My reasons for wanting children:
Every one of my friends that has had children tell me there is absolutely no experience like it and I want to have the experience. I want to have a family.