Save up, invest, do it all over again. The world is a big place and there’re lots of ways to play in it. Cherish and guard your DINK life. Don’t let some brat ruin it.
Save up, invest, do it all over again. The world is a big place and there’re lots of ways to play in it. Cherish and guard your DINK life. Don’t let some brat ruin it.[/quote]
Here’s my brat in Vietnam.
We had a great time together there. Kids travel just fine, assuming they’re raised right. 
I don’t see how kids are irreconcilable with having a fulfilling and fun life? That is provided you bring them up with an appreciation for these things.
Start them travelling early and they’ll know what to do and how to behave. Make them understand that there is appropriate behavior for different venues and locations…you’ll be amazed at how they can show appreciation for things.
Kids are really adaptable…You’ll still be able to go to very nice restaurants provided that you teach them how to behave and how to appreciate. I had my kids in for a michelin 2 star and a 2+hr long meal…they did just fine to the amazement of the poeple around us.
If you travel to remote locations, they’ll learn how to adapt to no hot water and no electricity…
Kids are brats only because adults treat them like brats…a little patience, willingess to explain and some practice
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Freecia, 30 sounds about right for you in my opinion, assuming you’re happily married to your husband (despite his frequent absences due to being in the military). I understand you’ve been married about 3 years now and 30 is about 3 years in the future. That gives you plenty of time to discuss it, get a mutual committment to go forward with it, implement a sensible plan to save money and pay off your debts, and make that baby.
If I were you, I’d consider making that the target. Begin telling him you want to have a baby by age 30. Don’t let the comment fade away into a general “i wish. . .” followed by some diversionary tactics to switch the subject. Make him deal with it. Get him to commit. The money shouldn’t be a problem at all. Plenty of poor people around the world have children. I doubt your situation is so extreme. Pay off all credit card debt first, and other loans, and if CCs have been a problem cut them up and use cash/checks in the future, or at least don’t let them accumulate. Cut back on luxuries – dinners out, movies, expensive clothes, travel, etc. Get a job if you don’t have one, and start paying yourself first every month (open a “baby” account and deposit $100/month without exception; in 3 years you’ll have $3,600). Babies aren’t really so expensive. The bigger issue is how they completely consume all of your time, but that’s something one gets used to and it’s worth the trade-off as they bring so much joy into ones life.
3 years is far off enough into the future that it should be perfectly easy and reasonable for both of you to adjust to the idea by then and prepare yourself financially and otherwise. By that time you’ll have been married 6 years. If it takes longer than that to figure out that you want a baby and to create one, perhaps there’s something wrong. I realize it’s not ideal for you to raise the child while he keeps leaving town for work, but plenty of women do it and you can too. Your kid will be alright, you’ll be alright. If he can’t commit to have one 3 years from now, perhaps he has unreasonable fears or something else may not be right. Talk it over with him, try to set age 30 as a firm deadline and get him to commit.
I feel like a sellout to my gender (male) 
, but that’s how I feel.[/quote]
Thank you for your input. I think my husband just wants to make sure that everything is obtained first, such as having a house and being able to afford having great things for the children before having them. We do have a common goal, but I guess I am perhaps being a little impatient…
By the way, I must comment on your cute little daughter. She’s just adorable. 
For us, it’s not that they don’t travel well, but a question of finances. Everything gets multiplied by a larger factor. Wife going back to Asia to visit the parents, 1000 USD; wife and three kids going back? $4,000. That’s in addition to having less money to begin with after paying for a larger house to fit 'em all in, art lessons, sports fees, braces, clothes, vet bills for the dog they wanted and kennel fees for when we travel… And for us, at least, having kids makes it more imperative to get them back to see the family fairly often. That means a smaller budget for fun trips.
Don’t misunderstand, ours lives are still fun and fulfilling, just in a different and more labor-intensive way. It’s amazing how good it feels when your 2nd grade son gets an A+ on the model Spanish Mission you built while he sat next to you, playing Gameboy and mumbling occasional words of encouragement. And then there are the Pinewood Derby races…
As for the best age, it’s different for everyone. I was 31 when we had our first, and that was about right. My wife was 27 and that might have been a bit young, especially since we’d only been married a year and a half.
I’m 42 and my two daughters are 11 and 9. they are full of energy and mine is petering out. but my head was straight and i was fully committed to having children at 30 and 32. i’ve regretted my decision to marry many times, but i thank god in all its forms i had children. my sister had a child at 40 and has a high pressure career. she is worn out. some people don’t have the temperament for having children, so they shouldn’t have them. not wanting children by itself doesn’t say anything about a person’s character: they could know themselves very well and be making a responsible decision. or they could be underestimating the joy children can bring.
my father is very selfish and is a child himself- he definitely shouldn’t have been a father. my mother is a very kind, intelligent person; but my sense from how she treated us and how she interacts with my children is that children are a little boring to her. my russian grandmother, who took care of me sometimes, but who fills my good memories of childhood, absolutely adored children. we took nature walks out on the farm, we made cookies and other food together, she read books to us, taught us games, she taught me to read russian, took me to church…my life wasn’t the same when she died. my parenting style flows naturally out of how she treated me. that is how she lives through me and how my children know her- through me. my mother said my grandmother wasn’t such a loving mother to her- that she used to get beat for things like not kneeling down fast enough to pray. i have no reason to doubt my mother. so i guess my grandmother changed because she was more of a mother to me than my own mother was.
The way I’ve always thought about this; young people have kids, old people have kids, rich people have kids, poor people have kids, people who don’t want kids have kids, people who wants kids have kids…
Even when people aren’t ready they have kids.
The most enjoyable thing about having kids is that sometimes you see yourself or your spouse in the kid. Not the positive part of the person’s character, but the negative part. The dark side of human nature. The killer, the liar, the theif, the emotional blackhole. So as a parent you try to correct these issues. But no more than one could alter the nature of themselves nor their spouse, can they do it for their kids. It is like an universal joke of karma.
that’s a very interesting insight,ac. i have to agree that we can see ourselves and our spouses in our kids. but i’m more optimistic about the ability to change the negative in our kids that we ourselves possess. maybe i should say that it is possible to help your child with something you have already overcome. i was a very sensitive child who got frustrated easily and was easily hurt, very shy. my oldest daughter is like that and i was able to give her advice that i think comforted her and let her accept that this was ok for her. mommy grew out of it and she could too. i didn’t freak out over it and think it was a big deal like my sister and mom did. and my daughter is progressing nicely, and no where near as shy as i was at her age.
my youngest daughter got the crazy gene from both me and my husband. also she is very strong-willed like my husband, which i view as a huge plus, but which can manifest as being rude and mildly cruel at times. i have to remind her to put herself in the other person’s shoes.
also i try to control my temper because i have noticed that my youngest mimics my angry ‘phrases’. so instead of you correcting your child, they can help you to correct/control yourself out of your desire to be a good role model to them. i believe most people ‘improve’ in some way after having children. how many little ones do you have ac?
[quote=“Buttercup”]My mother is still in her 40s.
I’m scared I just wouldn’t like my children. I’m afraid I would just leave them outside a 7-11 one day. It’s not really a risk I want to take.[/quote]
I don’t believe you’d ever do that.
Your kid is awesome MT! I can’t wait to have kids…but I just need to find the right woman! I’m planning to take at least 2 years off away from available women and go to Dubai and get financially set up. Then look at having kids ~35.
[quote=“Tyc00n”][quote=“Buttercup”]My mother is still in her 40s.
I’m scared I just wouldn’t like my children. I’m afraid I would just leave them outside a 7-11 one day. It’s not really a risk I want to take.[/quote]
I don’t believe you’d ever do that.[/quote]
You don’t know me very well. I’m exactly the kind of person who would do that.
[quote=“Buttercup”][quote=“Tyc00n”][quote=“Buttercup”]My mother is still in her 40s.
I’m scared I just wouldn’t like my children. I’m afraid I would just leave them outside a 7-11 one day. It’s not really a risk I want to take.[/quote]
I don’t believe you’d ever do that.[/quote]
You don’t know me very well. I’m exactly the kind of person who would do that.[/quote]
Yes, but on purpose?
I used to think 24 was the perfect age for having children when I in elementary school. Seeing that I am beyond that, I am kinda out of ideas of a perfect age and am now down to a perfect time in my teaching career to have them. But then, I am going to be spending the next two or three years getting started and I want to be at home for the first two years for the first one (I am planning to have twins so that eliminates the need to do it a second time - 
). And I am not starting my career until 2008, more than a year from now. That means I’ll be like 30 when I’ll be able to conceive (pun intended) to have a child.
As for marriage, the jury is still out. I’m not too crazy about having someone around to tell me how to raise my kids…
Maybe. Not everyone is maternal.
[quote=“v”]that’s a very interesting insight,ac. I have to agree that we can see ourselves and our spouses in our kids. but I’m more optimistic about the ability to change the negative in our kids that we ourselves possess. maybe i should say that it is possible to help your child with something you have already overcome. I was a very sensitive child who got frustrated easily and was easily hurt, very shy. my oldest daughter is like that and I was able to give her advice that I think comforted her and let her accept that this was ok for her. mommy grew out of it and she could too. i didn’t freak out over it and think it was a big deal like my sister and mom did. and my daughter is progressing nicely, and no where near as shy as I was at her age.
my youngest daughter got the crazy gene from both me and my husband. also she is very strong-willed like my husband, which i view as a huge plus, but which can manifest as being rude and mildly cruel at times. I have to remind her to put herself in the other person’s shoes.
also i try to control my temper because I have noticed that my youngest mimics my angry ‘phrases’. so instead of you correcting your child, they can help you to correct/control yourself out of your desire to be a good role model to them. i believe most people ‘improve’ in some way after having children. how many little ones do you have ac?[/quote]
I have 2 that I know about…will legal acknowledge… 
They are like the moon and sun sometimes. Complete opposite in personality. The older one will run away from bugs, the younger one will find a stick and beat on it till there is nothing left.
Many thought I had kids too young, right out of college and just starting my career. But it is one of those milestones in life, so might as well bite the bullet. Not to mention by the time I can legally kick them out of the house, I will still be pretty young to enjoy life as a couple in an empty nest.
oops, ac, you humanized yourself!!! how will we be able to attack you with the same verve knowing that you are a loyal husband and father? we all went canoeing today, which with all four of us in a boat brings out the family dynamic nicely.
I think it’s a real risk. Just ask the author of this piece from the Daily Mail.
[quote]
Sorry, but my children bore me to death!
It’s the start of the summer holidays, when millions of mothers despair at how to entertain their children for the next six weeks. What none of them dare say is that they would rather their children were still at school or, frankly, anywhere else. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, a 42-year-old writer, lives in Notting Hill, West London, with her businessman husband Charles and their sons Constantin, 12, and Ivan, ten. Here, she argues provocatively that modern women must not be enslaved by their children.
[b]The lies started when my eldest son was less than ten months old.
Invitations to attend a child’s birthday party or, worse, a singalong session were met with the same refrain: ‘I would love to but I just can’t spare the time.’
The nanny was dispatched in my place, and almost always returned complaining that my son had been singled out for pitiful stares by the other mothers.
I confess that I was probably ogling the merchandise at Harvey Nichols or having my highlights done instead. Of course I love my children as much as any mother, but the truth is I found such events so boring that I made up any excuse.
I can’t say which activity I dreaded more: playing Pass The Parcel at parties with a child who permanently crawled away from the action towards the priceless knick-knacks, or listening to the other mothers go on about such excitements as teething and potty-training. Mind-numbing! [/b]
To be honest, I spent much of the early years of my children’s lives in a workaholic frenzy because the thought of spending time with them was more stressful than any journalistic assignment I could imagine.
[b]Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?
While all my girlfriends were dropping important careers and occupying their afternoons with cake baking, I was begging the nanny to stay on, at least until she had read my two a bedtime story. What kind of mother hates reading bedtime stories? A bad mother, that’s who, and a mother who is bored rigid by her children.
I know this is one of the last taboos of modern society. To admit that you, a mother of the new millennium, don’t find your offspring thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable at all times is a state of affairs very few women are prepared to admit. We feel ashamed, and unfit to be mothers.
It’s as though motherhood is an exclusive private club and everybody is a member except for us few. But then, kids have become careers, often the Last Career, for millions of women who have previously trained for years to enter professional fields of business. Consequently, few of those women will admit that they made a bad, or — worse — a boring career move to motherhood. [/b]
My children have got used to my disappearing to the gym when they’re doing their prep (how boring to learn something you never wanted to learn in the first place).
They know better than to expect me to sit through a cricket match, and they’ve completely given up on expecting me to spend school holidays taking them to museums or enjoying the latest cinema block-boster alongside them. (I spent two hours texting friends throughout a screening of Pirates Of The Caribbean the other day).
Am I a lazy, superficial person because I don’t enjoy packing up their sports kit, or making their lunch, or sitting through coffee mornings with other mothers discussing how Mr Science (I can’t remember most of the teachers’ names) said such and such to Little Johnny and should we all complain to the headmaster.
At this point in the conversation, my mind drifts to thoughts of my own lunch and which shoes I plan to wear with what skirt.
The other mothers tease me for my inability to know anything about school life. But since when did masterminding 20 school runs a week become an accomplishment? Getting a First at college was an accomplishment.
[b]The trouble for a mother like me is that not being completely and utterly enthralled with, dedicated to and obsessed with one’s children is a secret guarded, if not until death, then until someone else confesses first. When I mentioned this article to my friend Catherine Fairweather, travel editor of Harpers & Queen, the relief on her face was instant.
For years she’s listened to her friends proselytising on the sublime act of mothering. ‘But no one ever told me how boring it is,’ she moaned. [/b]
When I brought it up at lunch yesterday, my friend June, a stay-at-home mother of three young children, admitted that ‘children are mind-numbingly boring’ and the act of being with them all day and night is responsible for many mental breakdowns. ‘Looking after children makes women depressed,’ she concluded.
[b]All those glossy magazine spreads showing celebrity mothers looking serene at home with their children serve only to make women feel inadequate. What the pictures don’t show is the monotony, loneliness and relentless domesticity that goes with child-rearing.
They don’t show the tantrums, the food spills and the ten aborted attempts at putting on shoes. They don’t show the husband legging it to the pub so he doesn’t have to change a nappy, either. [/b]
Research tells us that mothers drink the most when they have young children. Is that because talking to anyone under the age of ten requires some sort of lobotomy?
Arabella Cant, an art director with two young children, admits that she considered jumping off a bridge in the early stages of her career in motherhood. ‘Bringing up children is among the most boring and exhausting things you can do,’ she says.
Her solution was to avoid subjugating her own life to that of her chil-dren’s. ‘I’m certainly not traipsing around museums or sitting on the floor doing Lego if that’s what you mean by being at home,’ she explains. 'I’m loving it, but my children fit into my life and not the other way around.
‘I have friends who spend their lives driving their children to and from activities, but I don’t want to spend my life on the North Circular’.
Those of us who are not thoroughly ‘child-centric’, meaning we don’t put our children’s guitar practice before our own ambitions, are made to feel guilty. We’re not meant to have an adult life — at least, not one that doesn’t include them.
Many of my friends — fortysomething, university-educated professionals who swore that they would be normal parents — make it a policy now that ‘our kids go where we go’. They drag their three-year-olds to dinner parties where the youngsters end up in front of a video all night. (I have seen children having tantrums in front of guests, and rather than send the children to their rooms, the parents send their guests home.)
So how have we reached this point where so many intelligent women are subverting their own needs and desires to that of their children?
[b]Much of our current obsession with parenting has to do with the cult of child sychology. ‘Parents in the Fifties were led to believe that if they weren’t with their children, the children would be disadvantaged,’ says psychologist Eva Lloyd. ‘It started this ridiculous “kids first” culture. We live in an age when parenting is all about martyrdom.’
Psychiatrist Dr Alvin Rosenfeld, author of The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding The Hyper-Parenting Trap, adds: 'To be a good parent today, you have to sacrifice a lot.
'When the current generation of mothers was young, children were simply appendages.
‘Our parents would never cancel an adult activity to get us to a soccer game. They would often not show up for our games or school plays, and, as a consequence, they never witnessed our great triumphs or were there to comfort us in our humiliations. As a result, our generation said we would do it differently.’
So it is drummed into mothers that if we find our children stressful or dull, it’s because there’s something wrong with us (but not dads, of course, who have a ready-made excuse for being out of the house all day because they ‘have to go to work’).
And yet many women have spent years studying and then working so that we would not have to do a job as menial as full-time motherhood. I consider spending up to 30 hours a week sitting behind the wheel of a 4x4, dropping children off at play centres or school, to be a less-than-satisfactory reward for all those years of sweat. [/b]
Besides, in my view, making a child your career is a dangerous move because your marriage and sense of self can be sacrificed in the process.
Psychotherapist Kati St Clair has listened to the frustrations of scores of mothers. ‘Women now feel great pressure to enjoy their children at all times,’ she says. ‘The truth is, a lot of it is plain tedium. It’s very unlikely that a mother doesn’t love her child, but it can be very dull. Still, it takes a brave woman to admit that.’
All us bored mothers can take comfort from the fact that our children may yet turn out to be more balanced than those who are love-bombed from the day they are born.
Research increasingly shows that child-centred parenting is creating a generation of narcissistic children who cannot function independently.
‘Their demand for external support is enormous,’ says Kati St Clair. ‘They enter the real world totally ill-prepared. You damage a child just as much by giving them extreme attention as you do by ignoring them altogether. Both are forms of abuse.’
Child experts are increasingly begging parents to let their kids be.
‘Parents think they can design their children by feeding them a diet of Mozart — well they can’t,’ says Dr Rosenfeld.
Sometimes, apparently, the best thing parents can do for their children is to let them be bored.
This, of course, makes mothers like me — who love their children but refuse to cater to their every whim — feel vindicated. By sticking to our guns, we have unwittingly created children who can do things like make up stories (very few kids can any more).
Because I have categorically said: ‘I am not a waitress, a driver or a cleaner,’ my children have learned to put away their plates and tidy up their rooms. They’ve become brilliant planners, often inviting their friends to come for the weekend (because I’ve forgotten to bother).
[b]Frankly, as long as you’ve fed them, sheltered them and told them they are loved, children will be fine. Mine are — at the risk of sounding smug — well-adjusted, creative children who respect the concept of work. They also accept my limitations.
They stopped asking me to take them to the park (how tedious) years ago. But now when I try to entertain them and say: ‘Why don’t we get out the Monopoly board?’ they simply look at me woefully and sigh: ‘Don’t bother, Mum, you’ll just get bored.’
How right they are[/b]. [/quote]
Here’s the author, with her (boring) children.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]Here’s the author, with her (boring) children.
[/quote]
Hmmmm…looks like yuppie trash with two depressed and future drug addict kids.
But seriously, what strange, warped expectations…I mean she says she’s taught them to ‘respect the concept of work’ yet she’s violated the first principle - kids take work. What was she thinking when she had them?
I think you serve better as a role model living an interesting and balanced life that includes them. The younger you have kids the more time you have to find that balance. 
.
Just for the record I had my 1st kid at 25. It scared the crap out of me at first; the money, the responsibility, the family history…we were very young and just starting out…but then we found that we could manage somehow.
I dunno…I fear I would be the same way. I hear my co-workers talking about that baby stuff she mentions in her article…teething, changing diapers, potty training…sometimes just complaining and sometimes really getting into it, giving each other tips etc.
It bores me to tears. This woman is incredibly shallow and whiny, and while I don’t consider myself to be like her at all, I also fear that I would find parenthood boring. I imagine a lot of parents feel that way, but as the author says there is a strong taboo against saying such things.