Dear Childless H. My parents dragged my brother and I to live in Africa when we were kids. Argentina too. We went north of the Arctic Circle... The travelling didn't stop because my parents had kids. I'm grateful for it. It made for an excellent childhood.
Also, my mum still says that travelling with kids opened doors that my parents couldn't otherwise have opened on their own. People are more receptive to small kids and less likely to be suspicious of families.

To WHIP - Why not work making out with a chimp into your BSDM fantasy? You're the chimp. She's the dom, and she's going to have to tame you if she wants to make it with you.

Jeez, does this stop the italics?

Nope. :(

So the theme this week is the refusal to compromise what one really wants- not for advanced age, not for encroaching "maturity". It's heartwarming to know one can change it up that late in the game. And it's reassuring to know domesticity and adventure aren't mutually exclusive.

Childless H-- You write that you and your husband decided together that it was time to come back to the states and settle down, but was it really something you both decided, or did it just seem like that to you at the time? He could have been leading you on, or you could have been hearing what you wanted to hear, or he could have thought he was telling the truth, but he's changed his mind now.

He says he wants to keep adventuring, but he's vague as to time frame and exactly what he wants to do next. I hope I'm wrong, but when I peer into my crystal bowl, what I'm seeing is a man who is going to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. I think he's telling you that if you do have kids, don't count on him to be around to do what's best for those children. He's going to spend money on his own adventures, never mind what's good for them.

That's not to say that children can't have wonderful lives traveling with their parents. You can point this out to him. Definitely have that conversation. Talk to him about money and how you'll support yourselves and your children. Bring up every practical consideration you can think of. Listen to what he has to say, and answer his questions about how this would work.

Then talk with a family counselor to help you decide if this is a dealbreaker for you or not.

I have defeated the italics!

@7 "A few years" might make all the difference, but not necessarily in a good way. If Childless H is already in her thirties, then her window is closing. If men decide they want kids when they're over forty, they can do it. Even at fifty or sixty, it's still possible. Women can't. Just because something isn't fair doesn't mean it's not true.

Guys, read what @6 has to say. It's almost as considerable a contribution as @2's.

WHIP sounds funny and intelligent and sweet. I hope things work out for him.

Dear WHIP,
Don't overthink it. I'm surprised you felt the need to ask for advice about whether to try again with Mel. Surely, it's worth trying.
The advice about how to do it, what to read, and going slowly is good, but for the first step, it's a no brainer. Go for it.

Oh, just ask my dom whether a vanilla guy can learn to enjoy kink. He took to it right away.

@11 There was an excellent article in Salon this summer debunking the myth that women can't safely and healthily have children into their 40s and even 50s. The study (yes, singular) supporting the idea that egg health declines in women's 40s is from the *late 19th century*. No joke. Life expectancies were much shorter, nutrition was worse, etc., etc. More recent research is still in the preliminary stages, but it suggests that the risk increase from the 30s to the 40s for women is so minute as to be incidental, and pretty small even into the 50s.

IMHO, the perpetuation of this idea is pushed less by allegiance to science and more by a societal prejudice against women who want to choose careers (or adventure, or anything really) and put off children. NOT individual prejudice, social prejudice, but it's pernicious.

Dear CH,

I can assure you: child rearing is nothing but an adventure! I had a high school classmate pester me about how "my life was over" after having our 1st. And he was absolutely correct: the life as we knew it was over. BUT, that didn't mean it was worse, just different. Like any adventure, you need to prepare before you start, but be open to what you experience on the journey.

One day, far down the road, your children stop being your charge(s) and become your companion(s). It is a long, long distance to travel, and filled with stuff you wouldn't encounter if you hadn't taken up the challenge. Without bias of good or bad, there are experiences you receive only from being a parent. Or don't...

Peace

Ms. Erica,

I wanted to thank you for an elegant explanation of what a trans woman goes through to get to her body.

Thanks!

Peace

PS: From last weeks column.

@11

Men physically can have children at those ages but not really the greatest idea. Advanced paternal age is associated with negative outcomes and is a contender for why we're seeing such a large spike in ASD.

@14

Oh word, you get all your info from excellent peer-reviewed publications like Salon?

Seeing as much as I do of seniors on a regular basis, I think the first woman is doing this under possibly extreme duress. Yes, she's grown up and can make her own decisions, and good for him for being honest, but it takes a lot more to make a relationship in which an honest but not-good-way selfish partner gets to be dictator than just for the conceding partner to discover the conditions are bearable or even enjoyable. Doing something out of sheer desperation that one would never try when on equal terms is not the sign of someone with the natural character and temperament of a good dictatee. Mr Savage is on the right track, but if it turns out that she has to order him to perform vanilla, it's already over.

The second LW does seem to have genuine affection for her husband, but in other respects seems to want to have all cakes and eat them. She's played out and wants to wear the mom jeans and drive the SUV while being the envy of everyone in the dowdy crowd for having had a wild past. A little greedy, but that's all. He might have expected to find something in himself or wear something out of himself, and it hasn't happened. Not only haven't they grown at the same pace, he might not be going to grow in a compatible direction at all. Divorce now before they hate each other. A good ex is worth a lot more than people realize before the fact.

I agree with Alguna.

Actually the phrase "making it" stood out to me more than the chimp part. Dan Savage has ruined my brain.

For every @2 and @6, there are a 100 thousand couples who retreat into domesticity once the kids arrive. LW isn't going to trek with her infant all over Africa, Argentina, and Alaska. She isn't going to be exploring her pansexuality while baby naps. She, like many women her age, is ready to hunker down and answer her biological calling. She's had her fun, now it's time to fulfill her purpose. If there's any more adventure in her future, it's not going to happen until the kid(s) start approaching adolescence.

She should find a like-minded guy. And dude should hook up with a woman who has aspirations other than motherhood.

Mr. Ven @19: She wants to make it with a chimp. Vanilla has left the building.
Late Bloomer @20: Who doesn't?
Minerva @21: I too kind of glossed over the chimp part at first. "Making it" is such 60's slang which, if the LW is 72, makes sense.

seandr @22: Arguments for biological determinism are some truly outdated shit- and not a little sexist. Her purpose?. Holy shit, man.

Dollars to donuts that if she's as vanilla as you claim, "making it with a chimp" is a sly reference to old codgers like you (think George Burns). Not sure whether she is teasing you or complimenting you, but I seriously doubt it should be taken literally.

@22 I like you, so I'm just going to say it now; you totally just jumped into society's verbal equivalent of dog shit.

Side stepping said accident and roughly paraphrasing ; different life goals plus lack of ability/desire to compromise equals incompatibility? I'm assuming that's the point. Nothing wrong with that, besides being depressing.

And actually there have been studies suggesting that men starting to have children at later ages may also be contributing to some of the increases in certain conditions like autism. At this point it's not exactly certain. (And I know four links is a bit much, but I don't want to be accused of shooting my mouth off.)

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/15/the-d…

http://www.nature.com/news/fathers-beque…

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles…

http://www.livescience.com/10513-sperm-p…

Another way to frame Childless's question--

Let's say you had that house, that domesticity, and that kid. Let's say you and your husband had some ordinary plans, maybe to go to a great adventurous concert with hard-to-get and expensive tickets while your child stays with a responsible babysitter. Now let's say that your child gets sick, or something else comes up child-wise that gets in the way of your plans. Is your husband going to put your child's needs first and do what's best for that child? Because if he's going to run off to that concert anyway, it doesn't really matter if you're in New Jersey or Timbuktu.

hey Dan, Aussie fan here, I just LOVED you on Oz TV Q & A this week. So great to see you in person, in action, and telling it like it is! You go Dan!

Mr Rhone - Hearsay evidence of a suspicious kind. Could be valid, could be an idle dream rounded WAY up to a fantasy - by either of them. Extensive cross-examination (preferably of the sort that would increase the daily refreshers) could be required.

In the end, though, are you asserting that strawberry is more compatible with chocolate than vanilla is? I spare you a vision of you and Mr Ophian finding out that your square kink doesn't link with his triangular one.

Given that many of the people with whom I interact on a regular basis are at least the age of the LW, I am on fairly firm ground in suggesting the possibility of desperation on her part. I'm not saying don't try, but she may need a LOT of extra coddling. I picked up faint traces in him of those LWs who get all crabby because their partners who indulge them don't do it well enough.

My "if she has to order him to perform vanilla" was in response to Mr Savage's "don't neglect her need for vanilla". Mr Savage was saying, "Don't be dictator all the time," but his suggested compromise scenario wasn't sufficiently removed from the dictator sphere.

And even then, that does not really address the dictator issue. It reminds me of the LW who claimed his partner was too big, and tons of posters jumped on the Fitness Uber Alles Bandwagon, ignoring the main point that, even if Cooks With Real Butter became Totally Gym-Ripped Stud, they would still have established the relationship dynamic of V saying Jump and W asking How High by way of response. It's not that such a relationship can't work, but one needs people with the right sets of mind for such framing.

@14 you're right, a 50 year old woman can still have a healthy natural pregnancy.

However, you (or maybe Salon) ignored the reality -- very small % of women can get pregnant by age 50 unless lots of high tech, expensive, and potentially unpleasant feeling fertility technology is used, and even then the chances of an embryo implanting and being carried to term drop off dramatically during the 40s to very low success rates by age 50. Higher success if the older woman's eggs are implanted into a surrogate, but that's expensive and not everyone wants that route.

@14: Oh for fuck's sake. I got pregnant effortlessly in my 20s and with great difficulty in my 30s. (Plan A was 4 kids. I have 2.) My best friend from college, who was doing her post doc work on public health, noticed the curve for difficulty getting pregnant started dipping down at 30, though it really steepened at 35, the official "better get cracking" number. She opted to get pregnant at 29--quick and easy, and she also had a lot of trouble getting pregnant the second time, in her thirties.

If you DON'T want a kid, then "I'm over 35/40/45" is not a reliable form of birth control. If you DO want a kid, the exact same fertility rates that mean 40 year olds need to think about birth control mean that those who want a kid can expect a harder time getting there. The fact that the rare woman aged 50 manages to conceive and carry to term in no way suggests that everyone can just wait til they're 50 and have basically the same odds of a successful pregnancy that they had at 25.

If it helps to think of vanilla sex as a horrible ordeal that you have to submit to—vanilla is a service you provide to Mel, your Dom, because you're a good slave—then ask Mel to order you to have vanilla sex.

Admittedly not at all my thing, but I could see this being a sharp turn-off for some, not a one-size fits all panacea. If the vanilla sex can only happen in a master-slave scenario, does it feel like vanilla sex to the person who has to keep getting into their non-vanilla role to keep the vanilla sex going?

He says there are things he wants to do that he will never ever get to do if we have kids now.

I'm guessing the thing he wants to do is think about himself and what he wants, which doesn't get to be your sole focus once you have kids. I have no patience with this: if he won't get seriously on board with a concrete plan--if you just have to wait around for his feelings to mysteriously morph into different feelings--I strongly suggest you not put much time into waiting. If children are important to you, something you want more than a childless future with this guy, then putting in an indeterminate number of years hoping he just comes around is... it's a category of advice columnist letter I always find so depressing, the "I've sunk X years in, so surely if I wait 2X years (s)he'll finally be ready for that thing they say they think they want with me, someday, but they aren't sure after a mere 12 years and need more time."

A small kid will not keep you guys from traveling. It does depend on the temperament of the kid: some need a strong routine and others will roll with disruption. I did big trips with my daughter at age 1 and 3--first just us, second with dad--and they were great. I built in quiet time every afternoon because she really needed that to function. And 1 and 3 were better ages than 2 and 4 would have been, just with her own particular development. The way kids eventually affect travel is more that you have the sort of stable well-paying job that does not easily allow big chunks of time off, while you also have the sort of relatives who want to see the grandkids on those times off. These are hardly insurmountable.

@19: I think the first woman is doing this under possibly extreme duress. Yes, she's grown up and can make her own decisions, and good for him for being honest, but it takes a lot more to make a relationship in which an honest but not-good-way selfish partner gets to be dictator than just for the conceding partner to discover the conditions are bearable or even enjoyable. Doing something out of sheer desperation that one would never try when on equal terms is not the sign of someone with the natural character and temperament of a good dictatee.

Yes. Someone who's miserable without you is not someone who can rationally determine whether your price of entry is acceptable; if they're miserable without you, that doesn't entitle you to make them miserable as a price of being with you. When negotiating a sale price for your bucket of water, it's in poor taste to charge an arm, a leg, a lung, lifetime net worth and a firstborn child, when the negotiations began with setting the other person on fire.

And I must say, it's nice to not be the only one who notices it, this time.

The advice for WHIP was good for generic senior kinksters, but it wasn't good advice for his particular situation.

WHIP should get the book Uniquely Rika. He will need to be patient, and I know at his age time is short, but better to have a genuine female dominant than a woman going through the motions to please her man.

This is assuming he is genuinely submissive, rather than a bottom who gets off on pain. I am assuming he is genuinely submissive, as he prefers acting as a Dom and having an emotional interaction rather than hiring a pro domme.

I have no idea what Mel meant by saying she wants to make it with a chimp. The fact that this bizarre revelation was immediately followed by "But she stresses these [fantasies] are not very intensely compelling," suggests that she doesn't really want to have sex with a chimp. Who knows? Either she was joking, or once in conversation about chimps or bonobos, she threw something out, or she was being sarcastic, or she felt compelled to come up with some kinky fantasy after being relentlessly questioned by her boyfriend. I think the real issues here are that WHIP is hopeful that Mel can adapt her sexuality to his desires, and I don't see him making any attempt to try and accommodate hers.

I agree with Mr. vennominon: I think Mel is feeling pressured and coerced; she's acting out of desperation. And I see WHIP as having established a long pattern of selfishness. He has left two marriages because they were too vanilla (I understand the first one, but I would have hoped he'd established more sexual compatibility before marrying the second time, although I can see that perhaps he didn't know how important BDSM was to him, if the second marriage followed closely on the heels of the first and he was much younger then.) He just broke off a 4-year long relationship 3 months ago and, at 72, venturing into the kink world, seems disappointed and surprised that he hasn't found a potential life-long partner there yet. So now he's willing to exploit his ex-girlfriend's desperation, but unwilling to accommodate her desires for anything he knows her to actually want, like the vanilla sex they were having and she was presumably enjoying before he dumped her. But hey, if she really wants to find a chimp to bring into the bedroom, that's fine with him. Frankly, I think the letter is a fake. But if it's real, I think Mel can do better.

As far as the second letter goes, without getting into whether or not is is advantageous for a woman to have a baby in her 50s, or whether females experience a sense of biological purpose, it seems pretty clear that there is a serious incompatibility here. She knows she wants kids; he is at best, deeply ambivalent. She is ready now, and he isn't, and can't even tell her when he might get his childless "adventuring" out of his system enough to have them. It is possible to travel with children or to continue having an adventuring life, but it is not easy. Furthermore, it doesn't sound like this is what the lw necessarily wants. Having a child is the most permanent life-changing act people can commit, and I don't think it is responsible to have one in order to try the grand experiment of can a man who doesn't want to have a child learn to be a father. I'm aware that I sound like I'm on the woman's "side," but I'm not; both people's have legitimate desires and drives. But they aren't the same desires and drives, and it's not as if this "child" already exists. The couple is in the position of having to make a conscious decision to create a child. This is sad, because this couple clearly loves each other and have been compatible in many ways. But this is a major incompatibility and too big a gamble with three lives (or potential lives). They should move on.

@40: Then you and your wife should split up. Having a child and forcing you to be a father isn't fair to you; preventing her from having a child when she wants one isn't fair to her.
If you stay together, whichever choice you make appears to guarantee that at least one of you will feel resentment. This will lead to attitude and behavior that will foster resentment in the other.

As you have noted, the more time that passes, the stronger each of your feelings and convictions become.

My gay great uncle, who wasn't a "young" looking person in his 70's but a very geriatric looking type, found his niche in the world in the BDSM leather scene and wound up spending his 70's getting more ass than a toilet seat. I wish this upon everyone in their 70's, but hope they don't have to wait that long to experience it for the first time.

@40, 42: While I think you should probably split up, you should first think very, very hard about which you like more: having her, or not having kids.

And get her to answer which is more important to her: being with you, or trying to find someone else who wants kids and wants her.

Then you should probably split up.

Childless H - you should give your husband an ultimatum. I wouldn't give more than six months. It would probably be worth counseling to figure out if his reluctance to having children is solvable.

For what it's worth, I know lots of wonderful women in their mid-late 30s who lament missing out on the traditional family/children route. They are all good catches. The problem is they wasted their 20s and early 30s in dead end relationships with men who didn't want children. The availability of good husbands/fathers dwindles from the dating pool dramatically throughout your 30s.

And while Savage is right that children don't have to end all the adventures, you either need to have family who will take your offspring while you vacation or be rich enough to afford a nanny. Of course, if you are totally ok with your husband leading the adventures while you are home with the little ones that can work too. Absent that, hauling a baby around on exotic trips will certainly be an adventure, but not the kind your husband is looking for.

Hey WHIP -- I was Mel once. If she loves you and you don't ask too much at first, it might work out. My guy is a secret sub and I was horrified at first ... but now I enjoy the power. The key is to KEEP TALKING about EVERYTHING. what works, what doesn't, all of it. We met in our 50s, which I think helps because we both had earlier relationships that didn't have enough communication so we were committed to working at it this time. Good luck.

@44: I know of one couple in which the husband didn't want to have kids and the wife did, and this hadn't been thoroughly agreed on before the marriage. They both had vague thoughts of "someday, kids, sure" when they married. He was adamant, so they didn't have kids because their marriage was more important to her than becoming a mother. So in their case it worked.

I know of several others which started with lukewarm kid-desires on the parts of both participants, and then the woman really wanted to have children, while the man, not really desiring children himself, was willing to accommodate the woman, and things worked out all right.

I also know of a few in which the man wasn't really enthusiastic, because he'd already had children from a previous marriage and felt "done" with child-rearing, and the woman kind of wanted kids, but was somewhat ambivalent herself, and then wasn't able to conceive without using extraordinary fertility measures, and chose to not make that effort, kind of believing that fate had settled the question for them. These people travel more extensively than others I know, and spend a lot of money on wine and gadgets. They seem happy.

And then I know a lot of people who had that child, because the wife really wanted to, and the husband either swallowed down his antipathy, or tried to do it for her sake and resented not being able to continue to live his single life. Or, as in the warnings/examples crinoline gave, he simply continued to live as if he were childless, while his wife wanted a partner who would help her parent their child. In each of these cases, the couples divorced. The men pay child support for children they may love but don't want to have to raise. The situation is less than ideal.

It is possible that a person can have a child and be totally unprepared for how much he or she will take to parenthood, and it is possible that a couple can decide that the love each feels for the other trumps their feelings about parenthood (whether positive or negative). I am not always of the DTMFA school of thought, and am in fact, deeply questioning my own decision to have divorced my ex and the father of my children over sexual incompatibility, so I don't want to seem glib when I suggest that #40 or the second lw divorce. But the division over whether or not one wants to have a child has such long-lasting consequences for so many people, I think it might be better to split when the one who wants children is still biologically able to do so relatively easily (assuming normal fertility) and both parties are still young enough to try and find new partners.

@ 47: I agree completely (thus the last line of 44 being what it was), but the nit I want to pick is that most people don't easily know whether a given opinion of theirs is lukewarm or absolute. It's very easy to assume you have an adamant desire, when you actually have a lukewarm one. It's worth thinking about (and then breaking up about, in all likelihood).

And for what it's worth, I really hope things work out for you. It sounds like you've been through a hell I wouldn't wish on almost anybody.

I also know a fair amount of straight childless couples together for many years (now in their 50s or 60s) who seem quite happy. Whether their decision to remain childless or not was consensual or deliberate or the result of things just not leading naturally to the births of kids is something I am not privy to, but considering what I know of a lot of them, I assume this was a considered decision. Not all of them are particularly adventurous.

Like Married in MA, I consider parenthood to be an adventure unto itself, and even if it temporarily suspends international travel or wild sexual hookups or orgies (or at least means one has to plan carefully for these experiences), it doesn't mean that these activities will never be resumed. As kids get older, it is far easier to travel with them (though I wouldn't recommend including them in the orgies, at any age), although then you have issues such as their lives and their school schedules to consider when making plans.

While I think that travel is a broadening experience, I don't think the lack of a lot of adventure travel necessarily makes for dull adults.

@49 (Eudaemonic): Thank you for your hopes for me. I'm not sure what I've said that sounds like my life is so dire, but it's true that the last 6 or years have been rough.

Re children, I think this is an appropriate moment for an ultimatum.

It starts: "I feel compelled to have a child. I would very much like to have your child; I think he or she would thereby have a good chance of being a good friend, a wonderful person, and funny as hell. In any case, I want to meet that kid. And I love being married to you; I love our sex life and I think we make a great team."

But the rest of the conversation could proceed in different ways:

1) But I also want a reliable co-parent. If that's not you, then I need to go look for that person and we need to start thinking about putting our house on the market.

Or:

2) I don't mind doing most of the work when the kid is young (and more of a charge than a companion -- thanks, Married in MA), and I don't mind parenting with limited resources. I'm prepared to see you go adventuring without me if I know you'll be recharged when you come back to us. Can you co-parent under those circumstances?

Then listen to what he says. If he really doesn't want to reproduce, the LW should walk away now.

@nocutename, are you questioning your decision to get divorced because getting back together with your ex is an option? If that's not on the table, I hope you can find peace with your past decisions. None of us get to know what would have happened if we had taken different paths in life...

Re WHIP and Mel, I'm with those who aren't hopeful about them getting back together. But, that said, there's no harm in having fun and seeing where it leads. Just keep your separate living situations and non-exclusive dating status until you figure out how compatible you are.

I would advise WHIP to be more flexible and less demanding. Instead of telling Mel she has to be his dream domme or he'll walk, just suggest exploring over the course of the next few months.

Have some scenes with him in charge, some with her in charge, some where it's just about sensation (topping & bottoming) and no one is in charge. Read books, go to some classes together, treat it like a fun adventure. Maybe you'll each meet other people along the way who are more compatible, or maybe you'll find that the adventures inspire you to commit more fully to each other.

For now, why rush into a decision about whether you are right for each other, and what your roles should be?

@EricaP: Getting back together with my ex is not an option. You are right that is is an exercise in futility to re-think past decisions, but sometimes I find myself wondering if what I did was justified, and I feel that when I advise others to leave their marriages I may be bit of a hypocrite. Or at the very least, I wanted to make it clear that I don't dole out "leave your marriage" suggestions lightly. I used myself as an example that one can never know how one will view one's actions in hindsight.

I was quite ambivalent about whether or not I wanted to have children (as was my ex-husband) when I was in my twenties. I drew up endless "pro" and "con" lists and there was always a ton of items on the "con" side and almost nothing on the "pro," except that people always said it was a great thing to do and I'd have to take it on faith. As an atheist and empiricist, I'm not good at taking things on faith.

I felt like thanks to reliable birth control, I had too much choice over my whether I'd have a family and that choice made me vacillate and debate and weigh and set the hamster in my head spinning, trying to anticipate the future. More than once I wished I'd lived in a time where if you were married and fertile you simply had children. I hated having that kind of responsibility for it all.

Finally we decided to just stop using birth control and let nature take its course. I was pregnant 2 weeks later. Although for some reasons, this was not the best possible timing, I look at my children as the best things in my life and the experience of motherhood as the best I've ever had. It was definitely the right thing for me. But I understand that ambivalence all too well.

Apologies for all the typos (the double "is" instead of "it is" in the first paragraph; the "my" preceding "whether" in the third paragraph) in the comment I made @54.

Letters like Childless H's are unsettling because they bring to the forefront something that we all know and don't like to admit: We don't know how things might have turned out differently.

Chi H might leave her husband in that quest for the right co-parent, meet him on the first date she goes on once she's single, and live happily ever after. (What are the chances?)

She might leave her husband in that quest, never find that co-parent, and live the rest of her life bitter that she left such a great friend in search of an adventure that never panned out.

For his part, her husband might tearfully watch her go, confident that children were never for him, then come to regret it as the years go by.

Or he might agree to have those children and, as ChiH predicts, feel that resentment that he never got to live that life he wanted.

Or he might fall in love with his kids the first time they squeeze his finger and give that toothless smile.

We can name people we've known who have made various choices, note the outcomes, and attempt predictions based on their experience, but it doesn't do much good to help predict how things will go for this particular couple. We can cite broad statistics on choices and outcomes and not get much better at the prediction game.

Then add a host of other unknowns:

The economy. Think of the couple who had a bunch of kids, then saw their lives thrown in disarray when a job was lost.

Or health. The primary caretaker could find herself (or himself, I suppose, but I'm being realistic) disabled or with cancer.

Or family responsibilities. Taking care of children looks different when one is also taking care of elderly parents.

Or those children themselves. In my case, the children I regret not having are healthy, brilliant, well-behaved, and with no learning disabilities. They're not constantly hospitalized, in need of special schools, on drugs, autistic, or retarded.

@Crinoline (#56): Well said. Yes.

With regards to CH:

Lots of interesting info for you to ponder. I'd like to add the "even if you want to, you might not be able to" caveat. And the "if you want children, there are lots waiting for you" caveat.

We were in the process of adopting (after trying for quite a while) twice, when we got children of the body. We also went through 2 midterm miscarriages. Waiting isn't going to help when you get to... some age, and failure, frankly, is always an option. However, we are grateful for the blessings we have received.

Orgies are way past my pay grade, but children can easily be accommodated in a date night. I want to stress that: after children, go on lots of dates. Make as much fun time together as possible, keeping in mind that children don't have to be somewhere else for you to have couple time. Just be prepared if your children end up being artistically inclined because of all the exposure they've gotten, or have very sophisticated palates that require far flung travels to sate. Parenthood is expensive, in money and time, BUT if you want to place the bet...

Peace

Crinoline @56, you're not really being fair to the odds of the different circumstances you predict.

Yes, the LW might leave and never find a suitable person to co-parent with. But most people do, so her odds are high, especially since she has already been able to find one person she'd like to parent with (so she herself isn't too much of a perfectionist).

Her husband's ambivalence may come from not wanting kids at all, or not wanting kids with her, or not being ready. She doesn't know enough for us to predict the odds of him regretting a decision about child-bearing. But in any case that's not her decision to make.

I found this odd in your post: "the children I regret not having are healthy, brilliant, well-behaved, and with no learning disabilities. They're not constantly hospitalized, in need of special schools, on drugs, autistic, or retarded."

When you look at your friends, do they fall into those two categories? Most people's children are in between: decent people with some charm and some challenges, just like you and me. They aren't going to provide meaning to their parents' lives, nor will they ruin their parents' lives.

Some children fall at the extremes, of course, but if you're going to talk about making predictions, it's weird to look at the outliers rather than the most likely outcomes.

59-Erica P-- Good point about the outliers. In my effort to make my point, I gave examples at the extremes.

To answer your question about my own friends and their children, you're right about everyone falling somewhere in the middle. It's just that it's something I've noticed about my moments of regret. I'll attend the graduations and celebrations and think I should have had children. I never think that when the same friend is worried about the kids' drug use or just impatient and exasperated with staying up all night as the child is sick with something ordinary.

@56: Chi H might leave her husband in that quest for the right co-parent, meet him on the first date she goes on once she's single, and live happily ever after. (What are the chances?)

Add in "and have time to build that relationship, and get pregnant/have an easier time adopting as a younger prospective parent" and the odds are significantly greater than they are of having that happen if five or ten years from now her husband is still pulling "I don't want kids NOW, but I feel sure that if you just wait another five or ten years I will come around to wanting them."

(I do believe in trying to save a marriage that's been good--one where there's something to save. But either she decides that she can be happy without kids or he decides that he can be happy with them--there is no middle ground where they sort of have kids but sort of don't, or have kids 6 months of the year, or something.

And in the future husband options, you left out "Get divorced because he absolutely does not want children, one year later he calls to ecstatically announce that Celia is pregnant, and it's a surprise but they're both so thrilled..." Sometimes, the truth is just that your SO doesn't want that dreamed of future with you.

@61 IPJ,

Ouch.

Peace

@58: True, it's a choice between definitely no children and a chance of children. But if the chance of children is deeply important to her, so much better to be in a life where she can actively pursue that, even with no promise of success, rather than one in which she passively waits on her partner to finally have a change of heart and grant permission.

Worth noting, as you do, that adoption can be long and difficult. And that the same problems that make getting pregnant difficult (age, health conditions, limited means for fertility treatments) can make adopting difficult.

IPJ, You're absolutely on target in all your comments. Childless H says she's in her early 30s. So if she and her husband decide to divorce (and sell the house), and she has to meet someone and spend time developing a relationship before they can even find out if having biological children is possible, she's already going to be in her mid-30s, bare minimum. Then, if it takes her a while to meet Mr. or Ms. Right and then to discover that they're struggling with fertility issues . . . well, she doesn't have infinite amounts of time.

Close the italics tag!

Childless, I sort of want to echo what Dan says. Adventure doesn't have to end. Parenthood itself is an awesome adventure and I look forward to all the things that I get to show, teach, and do with my son. My wife and I are having better sex than ever. The thing about kids, though, is that you never know what's going to happen. At nearly a year and a half my son was diagnosed with a very rare disorder that has led to twice weekly therapies as well as the need for tons of medical supplies. Needless to say we can't have as many adventures as we would without this disorder. Still, we get to have tons of fun together.

@14 - Late to the party (others have already said this) but I still want to pile on: it's not egg health, it's egg production and there are gobs of studies - real, modern 21st century studies - that show it really goes off a cliff just before age 40.

The false hope being held out for women who are 35+ that they can still just get knocked up like that is cruel.

@35: "I'm guessing the thing he wants to do is think about himself and what he wants, which doesn't get to be your sole focus once you have kids." THIS.

I don't think it's about items X, Y, and Z on his bucket list. I think it's about not wanting to be a responsible grownup day-in-day-out. Which is legit, I guess. It's just more petty than the narrative he's telling about himself.

161-IPJ-- Right! I call that the Harry and Sally scenario. (Though in the movie, it's Sally's ex who does that. I don't remember the character's name.) I believe that what happens isn't a plan on the guy's part. He's not thinking "I don't want children with HER." He's probably telling the truth when he says he doesn't want children. That's when he's still at that point of thinking that he can stay young forever. Then they divorce, and he looks around for another carefree adventurous relationship. He doesn't find it. The rest of his life starts to come into closer focus. And THAT'S when the unplanned pregnancy with Celia starts to look pretty good. (Wait, I can't find the dialogue online. Sally's ex's new girlfriend isn't Celia, is it?)

@ 50 (Eudaemonic): Thank you for your hopes for me. I'm not sure what I've said that sounds like my life is so dire, but it's true that the last 6 or years have been rough.

Having to decide to end a marriage due to mismatched libidos is basically one of my worst-nightmare scenarios. Maybe it's just because I'm the kind of person who would torture himself about it forever with counterfactuals, but that kind of person isn't exactly rare...

And you seem like good people. Stuff like that shouldn't happen to anyone, especially not good people.

Dan's advice to Childless H assumes that their children will be normal. I suppose that isn't an unreasonable assumption, but I know too many people stuck with disabled children who were not able to have any freedom for over a decade. Personally I wouldn't want to have children with somebody who doesn't seem to want children, no matter how great they are.

I feel like a cad for pointing this out, but one advantage of adopting is having a child of known physical status.

Peace

Childless H, your hubby keeps focusing on things he'll never do if he has kids, what about the things he'll never get to do if he DOESN'T have kids?

Like have sex with a pregnant woman? Unless he's already done that, then damn, my hat is off.

The age thing is not just about the gametes. It’s about the energy and flexibility to deal with lack of sleep and financial precarity.

I had always expected to have a family but I didn’t want to be a single parent and didn’t have a reliable co-parent. When I decided that train had left the station and got dogs instead I was 33.

I hadn’t been spending the time up until then developing a high-powered career, saving money and buying a house. All I had was an ok job but nothing else.

Even if I were able to locate that reliable co-parent within the following twelve months, it would still be a while before a child actually came into the family. I didn’t want to:
1) spend my late 30s/early 40s not sleeping through the night;
2) take years out of the career I had barely started to watch short incontinent people ride tricycles in circles;
3) go back to the financial insecurity I had just left;
4) put an infant in daycare full time so I could earn a living.

I also knew that I (like anyone) might have a child with a disability who might need me for more than the first 18 years. If I am 40 years older than my child I’m not going to be moving furniture for them when they’re 30. That’s a problem.

So I got dogs. If you want to have a baby when you’re 50 you’d better have money.

Married in MA, I said that to my mother once. She came back with another perspective: if it turns out that your adoptive child’s disability is too much for you to cope with, it’s your own damn fault and the guilt would be crushing.

Also, anyone — including an adoptive child — can become disabled. In fact, almost all of us will at some point.

@Really Now..., @lolorhone

My post was careless. I wrote a reply with the hope of wiping some of the shit off my shoe, but it ended up being too embarrassingly long. So, I think I'm just going to trudge around the house leaving a trail of shit footprints until it finally wears off.

@Married in MA (72): I know a whole mess o' people who adopted babies that were seemingly physically perfect at birth and who later manifested a host of possibly hereditarily-influenced extreme learning disabilities, mental health issues, or some combination. Many of these kids have demonstrated really disturbing behavior, and have cost their adoptive parents no end of emotional grief, worry, and money--special schools and programs, good rehab facilities, really effective psych treatment costs a bucketload. One couple--two of the most caring, supportive, intelligent, highly-educated people I know--I know have had nothing but struggle with both their adopted children since those children were in late elementary school (they are now 20 and 17, respectively, living on the streets). It's been heartbreaking to witness. I realize that having your own kids is no guarantee against having kids who struggle with extreme difficulties, but I know of so many of these kids (now aged between 12-26, including some in my family) that I really had to re-think my attitudes about adoption. I think genetics plays a very large role in mental/psychological conditions and you can't spot those in a newborn.

@Seandr: You could let your wife out of the dungeon to wash the floor . . .

@Eudaemonic: You seem like good people. Well, thank you. You're right, it was an agonizing decision, and one that I'm not altogether sure was the correct one, 5+ years down the line. But there's no going back.

Mr. Ven @29: I was joking. I thought the other two comments would provide the appropriately humorous context. You're probably right; she seems desperate to please him specifically and he seems determined to be pleased by any means necessary. Which is not a guaranteed disaster, but it definitely leaves something to be desired in terms of balance/equity on her part. It seems his need for kink outweighs his need for her and her need for him outweighs her need for a sexually compatible partner. Tl;dr= not looking good.

P.S.

You did not spare me "a vision of [me] and Mr. Ophian finding out that [my] square kink doesn't link with his triangular one". You pretty much single-handedly forced me to consider it. Just sayin'.

seandr @77: No woman here is going to hold it against you long term...at least not now that you've admitted that this was not your finest hour. And if they do, you could always tell them to get back in the kitchen and make you a sandwich.

(sorry, I kind of had to...)

WHIP's girl should order him to give her hot monkey sex

One's hypothetical reaction to having a child may be much different than the reality.

She could have a child and find out that she was not ready. He may discover that a child was exactly what he wanted but didn't know it!

Weird how life turns the tables.

Mr Rhone - We could all guess what various women here would hold against Dr Sean, but I shall spare everyone a catalogue.

As far as square/triangular kinks, I almost gave any of three concrete examples that sprang to mind, but feared I might be having a psychic flash and accordingly refrained from being specific. I'm sure you two have the wherewithal to round off the edges and make all your kinks circular should necessity require.

Ms Cummins - Although I get along better with young people than with adults, I have always been firmly convinced that I should never have children (far too assimilationist). I had cats instead, and accordingly got used to waking between 2:00 and 4:00 to feed the diva (probably an appropriate consequence of naming him after an opera singer).

Ms Cute - I can certainly see the appeal of freedom from voluntary choice. I'm not sure whether to be reminded of *Mario and the Magician* or *Lord Arthur Savile's Crime*.

@86 venn,

Kneading with claws or having your eyelids licked?

Peace

Having personally witnessed a number of women friends of mine have their biological alarm clocks go off HARD, despite their professed ideologies to the contrary, I think y'all are being a bit hard on seandr for the whole "biological calling" thing.

I.e., in her mid-twenties she would affectionately (according to her, anyway), if condescendingly (to us on the receiving end), refer to my mid-thirties wife and me as "breeders"; fast-forward a decade, there she is admitting over tea to wanting nothing so desperately as to settle down and have babies. It may not be a "calling" as in a vocation, but it sure as hell can be a "calling" as in "hollering up a storm."

avast2006 @89: It wasn't "biological calling". It was "fulfill her purpose". Two very different implications.

A woman who has been on the pill and then stops in order to become pregnant may find out that the pill has upset her reproductive system. It might take six months to a year for her to become pregnant. Every woman will react differently to the withdrawal of the pill hormones. Consult a M.D. for more information.

I'm a woman who's a switch, and I actually prefer playing with other switches whenever possible.

I remember one scene that my then-lover and I did at a party where we were switching every minute or two during a single scene. I've never felt the power between us so tangibly, as if it were almost a live thing, as in that scene, since we were passing it back and forth between us so frequently.

This scene confused onlookers enough that one actually said, "Who's topping this scene, anyway?" Without stopping or consulting with each other, my lover and I simultaneously replied, "We are!" Being THAT in tune with someone was a wonderful experience.

Best of luck with Mel -- I hope that works out for both of you -- but female switches DO exist!

@69: I agree that in most cases, when one person says "I just don't ever want to (get married / have a child/ move to the Yukon)" and then a year later is excited to do that with the new-model partner, they were not intentionally malicious. They had a gut feel that that decision would be wrong for them, but the gut didn't spell out "because it would be with X, and you don't want that with X." So poor X is left like Sally, realizing that it really wasn't his deep-felt philosophical position but just her. (In the movie the breakup and subsequent phone call is over ex's realization that he never wants to get married or have a family. I think the phone call is just that he is getting married to the very next person he dated.)

Regarding WHIP; I'm usually the first to admit that love isn't enough to make a relationship work. But dude, if you're lucky enough to be madly in love at seventy, that's worth fighting for. That's a treasure.

Regarding Childless, I'm a woman who does not want but enjoys the company of children. Bet if she looked among her free spirited friends, she might find similarly minded souls to borrow her potential child from time to time. That ought to make adventuring easier. That said, I wish I had had the childhood any child of hers stands to have!

And Corylea? That sounds fun as hell. Hope I get to try it sometime.

Mr Married - He was much more clever. His favourite method was to knock the cylinder attached to the vertical blinds against the wall. The other cat was more direct, content with a head butt.

re: the LW whose husband doesn't want kids: yes, it's true that people can choose to have adventures/travel/etc with kids, but if travel/adventures/etc are a deal-breaker, then they should NOT have children.

Here are some things that they need to think and talk about:

What if the child is of the temperament who really can't handle constant travel and change? What if the child can't adjust to re-forming friends and connections and really would be better off staying in one place?

What if the child has a learning or a medical need that requires specialized care -- requiring the family to stay in one place to provide those things?

What if the family just can't afford the constant travel and adventures and one or both of them have to take a job that doesn't allow for those things?

What about the fact that travel/adventures usually mean that you *don't* get to carry along with you your support network? Are you really prepared for the amount of work it takes to bop around the world with a kid and no reliable babysitters/family members/neighbors to help out?

Dan's blithe advice, "Sure, you can go off and have adventures; just have 'em with the kid," is not very realistic and isn't taking into account that when you choose to have children, you're choosing to first and foremost give that child what he or she needs best, not what you want most. If that isn't an acceptable bargain, then don't make it.

I was giving seandr the benefit of the doubt, and assumed he meant *her* purpose, in that she really wants kids and feels that this is part of her raison d'etre. Not that birthing a child is the purpose of all women.

@avast2006: My comment was based on having observed exactly the same sort of change in tune among my female friends that you describe.

@clashfan: Yes, thanks, I meant LW's chosen purpose.

Childless - a cautionary tale: I (female) had cold feet about having children until I was "ready" for 5,000 different very good reasons, one of which was that I love to travel in the way that a single or partnered person travels, and not in the way a person with kids travels. I enjoyed living abroad, and did it several times during my own childhood and once as an adult. I don't think being bi/pan-whatever sexual figured into my thinking about being a parent.

Then, in my very late 30's when I decided I might be ready, my body said no. I went a short and expensive way down the fertility treatment path into my very early 40's, and then decided my chances were too slim to justify starting off a family with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. And oh, during that time, the large-enough-for-a-family home my husband and I bought went underwater to the tune of being worth half what we borrowed. I'm not hung up on money, but when you've been self-sufficient for two decades, and you realize you may not live long enough to pay off your debt, it blows.

So my husband, who really wanted biological children (cultural, family and personal thing) and I were miserable together for a while. Then we decided that was not why we got together in the first place, and called it quits after 14 years. Unrelenting pain and festering resentment are a cancer upon a healthy relationship.

I received a toddler from foster care the day before my 45th birthday, and adopted that child 18 months later. The chances of adopting a child without a "compromised" history when you are a single woman "of a certain age" are about the same as being able to conceive at that age, I think. My kid is amazing, and parenting is a total adventure, but not of the swinging with cool people in Phuket type. I just had an emergency parent-teacher meeting because kindergarten is turning out to be as much of a challenge for my kid's haywire socialization skills as I feared.

Meanwhile, my ex and his younger partner are 14 weeks pregnant.

So I am looking at working very hard to raise a child who will probably be a significant challenge all the way. But flip side, the life of my child will probably be, for at least some part of it, higher quality than it would otherwise have been. And my life is already way better than it was, in spite of the incredibly hard work I've been doing.

I am looking at a very steep hill in terms of finding another partner, of any gender. Flip side - if I do find someone, I'll know they are as good a catch as I am.

I am looking at being in debt for the rest of my life. Flip side - I get to be a statistic illustrating the disappearance of the middle class. Oh wait. Wrong flip side. Umm, it's a really decent house. Actually, it's the first stable home my kid has known. That's a different kind of value.

The sooner you become attuned to whatever your place in the universe is, and whatever your "purpose" is (sorry, seandr, couldn't resist) the sooner you'll move through the pain of loss that's coming your way.

Thanks to nocutename, IPJ, Married in MA, etc. for some thoughtful posts, to seandr and lolo for leavening with humour, and to mr. ven for his usual dry observations.

Ms Thinking - I applaud you for being able to stop instead of doubling down as so many do (and very sorry about the house). This is actually a major Ideal World snag; theoretically I'd have been delighted to allocate you whatever it took out of public funds, but how to construct a system allowing everyone enough discretionary electives without neglecting necessities eludes me.

I shall not attempt to guess whether you were or weren't "ready enough". If you really weren't ready, the right thing at the wrong time might have proved just as calamitous to the relationship and with the bonus of co-parenting for the aftermath.

Good for you at least that you have come through to regarding your life as overall improved. I could offer any of a number of comments about the former husband, but, not being able to divine what fate you'd enjoy seeing predicted for him, I shall refrain from comparing him to any well-known characters for the moment.

Childless H here. Thank you Dan for answering my letter. I'm going to show your response to my husband as soon as we get some downtime. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful comments, especially CallazCal, IPJ, and Married in MA. Just wanted to clarify that I'm still on board with a life outside the States but I sure as hell don't want to be trekking around Nepal( or wherever) while 7 months pregnant. My ideal timeframe includes at least a couple of years to get through the sleepless nights and temper tantrums. My spouse says he does want kids but he doesn't know when, and therein lies the problem.

@96, @97, @100,

They are your messes, or disturbances, or distractions, and make life interesting. They are your beloved.

The easiest test of "engagement" is something like: "Yes I'm covered in puke, but it's my child's/pet's/SO's..."*. At some point a change occurred, usually unbidden, and yet you don't want to change back.

Peace

PS: * I use a negative because a positive like "...and we fucked till dawn" or "she/he/it is sooo beautiful and has such soft hair" is just too easy an example of change.