People Assuming That You Will Want Kids....

[King Malachite]

This question is mostly aimed towards the younger group.

For those who have no interest in having children at all, has anyone ever asked you if you wanted kids before and when you told them no, they say something like, "you will change your mind when you get older"?

I have had this said several times to me.  The last time someone told me that was a few months ago during my internship.  The forensics investigator asked if I wanted children and I told him no but he insisted that I will change my mind when I get older because he said the same thing when he was my age.  That kind of irritated me some, especially since he is a cis male.  I hate when people, for whatever reason, try to assume things.  He's a great guy and all, but the question annoyed me. Why even ask a question if you are going to tell me the answer?

It's nothing serious though,  I just wanted to see what other people's experience with this question were.  I haven't posted on ths specific board in a while.  I wish you all happy holidays.

[Natkat]

I feel more annoyed with the non posibilaty to say "I cant" without having to go into all kinds of details on why.

[Kevin Peña]

For those who have no interest in having children at all, has anyone ever asked you if you wanted kids before and when you told them no, they say something like, "you will change your mind when you get older"?

Only all of the time. As if they know what's going on in my head. 

My biggest peeve is when they call me selfish for not wanting to have kids. Guess what, folks, no one NEEDS kids. You have them because you WANT to. That's being selfish, too. 

[LivingInGrey]

(pardon my 2 cents if it's not from the demographic your looking for)

As a possible MtF I've asked many doctors several times over the last 10 or so years for at least a vasectomy and have been told no I'm to young or something of that effect EVERY time.

I have had and will always not want to be a parent of my own doing. It pisses me off when people say oh you'll change your mind... I'm in my thirties and still haven't changed my mind.

[DriftingCrow]

I've been asked that and told that I'd change my mind many times.

It's changing now; I am now 24 and people seem to just accept it when I say "no" now without telling me that I'll change my mind one day. I can have a rational discussion with people about why I don't want kids without people telling me that I am selfish because I want to go on vacations by myself, or that I am too young to know. Also, I noticed that once I turned about 22 people outright told me "don't have kids" which I've never been told before then.

Usually people respected my answer when I was younger if they understood where I was coming from (my parents did foster care and had a total of about 23 or 24 foster kids (they even got an award from DCYF because of it) and I have five siblings-four of them younger, so I just spent my days growing up babysitting and changing diapers, so I feel like I've already done my bit in society towards raising the next generation) rather than if they were a stranger and didn't know me well.

[Kevin Peña]

I don't want kids. I love babies, but despise kids aged 1.5-15.

I've gotten people to shut up about telling me to have kids by just explaining to them that I would be a bad parent. If I had a kid, one of us would die, most likely me. I am not kidding when I say that I would kill myself if I had a kid. I have too many goals that kids would ruin.

That statement ends any conversation about kids. Miraculously, it makes people stop talking. 

[DriftingCrow]

I wouldn't mind having kids if they spent two hours as a cute baby, then suddenly became about 22 years old. It seems like a lot of fun to have adult kids that you actually get along with.

[Arch]

Why aim it mainly at the young guys? At the risk of incurring your youth-oriented wrath, I will jump in.

I heard that exact same thing for years and years. It infuriated me. And when I tried to duck the question by saying that my then-partner and I were in disagreement about the issue, the person I was talking to immediately assumed that I wanted kids and my boyfriend didn't. It was the other way around, actually.

The last time someone said something like this to me was when I was early in grad school, so that would be the late nineties. I had been hearing it for a good fifteen years before. I was sort of hoping that people were a little more liberated these days. But then, you heard it from a cis guy who didn't want kids at first and then changed his mind...that's not quite the same as hearing it from women or from forty-year-old cis guys who still have no kids but who assume that all "women" want them.

[muffinpants]

I get this all the time and it is oh so frustrating! It probably doesn't help that I work with all women who are mostly mothers :/

Even random people will say things like that to me. I've told this story here before, but it really bugged me -- I was at work one day, in the front lobby setting up a cage for some kittens we were adopting out, and I carried the kittys down with their beds/food/litter etc, and some man told me 'you'll make a great mom one day!' I know the poor dude was just trying to be nice, but ugh, even thinking of myself as that just makes me feel disgusting!

I just do not like babies or children in any way. I don't understand what is 'cute' about them. If I want cute and lovey, I go no further than my puppy dogs. and they stay adoring forever, unlike children 

[Simon]

As a possible MtF I've asked many doctors several times over the last 10 or so years for at least a vasectomy and have been told no I'm to young or something of that effect EVERY time.

I have had and will always not want to be a parent of my own doing. It pisses me off when people say oh you'll change your mind... I'm in my thirties and still haven't changed my mind.

I wonder how many times a trans person gets blocked by doctors when it comes to removing our reproductive organs?

I say that because it took me four years to get my complete hysto. In 2008 I had issues with my left ovary and wanted to get everything out. I was already living full time and had my name changed. Never would I consider having a child (at least not carrying it myself). I was refused the complete surgery at the time and they only removed one ovary (in 2008).

My surgeon was worried I would change my mind and want to bear children in the future..um, no.

[aleon515]

From an older guys perspective, I have never ever had any desire to have kids. Funny thing, I am a teacher, but I have never found myself to be a very nurturing type. I relate to them, but I don't feel all squishy and cushy towards them.


--Jay

[Joelene9]

  I cannot answer your question because I always wanted kids and was never asked that question that was given to you.  My case that My GID anxiety and my own moral code kept me from dating, thus from marrying and having children.  I regret that to this day.  I have met others my age for one reason or another that didn't have children because they don't want to and never regretted that.  People are different. 
  What that fellow asked you is normal when addressing a woman, in which he thinks you still are.  Rarely to another male.  It's that macho thing. 

  Joelene

[rexyrex]

At the gender clinic i have been told and ask that i need to think about this carefully, but i do know for sure that i dont want kids, but they were like oh you might chagne your mind and stuff please think about it ect. It is annoying at times but i just have to keep saying no and that it. Even if you do chagne your mind there is options.

[Jeatyn]

I get this question all the time and I already HAVE a kid.

I never thought I would carry one of my own, I always assumed I'd adopt, it's not that I changed my mind on the subject, it's just that when it happened out of the blue...I figured I may as well do it this way rather than go about all the faff of adoption later on in life and spend a fortune.

I swear every morning I'm on the bus with her to take her to day care at least one (usually) old lady will ask me if she has any brothers or sisters, to which I reply no. Then more often than not I get them saying "oh you should get on that quick it's best to have them all relatively the same age!"

Naaaah...not having any more "awww why not she needs a playmate" - I just usually nod along at this point, not getting in to a debate with strangers on buses xD

She can have all the playmates she wants, but nope, no more kids, ever. Why not? Oh many reasons. First of all, pregnancy sucks, like really sucks, if I truly knew how it was going to be before I went in I'm not sure I would have gone through with it (no offence to my daughter  ) Second of all, I'm on T and my partner has had a vasectomy, having another kid would require me to get fertility treatment and for him to reverse his procedure. Third of all, kids are EXHAUSTING, mentally, physically and financially. I would rather focus my attention on just one and do the best job I can - while still leaving enough time and energy to achieve my own goals.

[DriftingCrow]

I wonder how many times a trans person gets blocked by doctors when it comes to removing our reproductive organs?

Your questions reminded me of the "Missing Vagina Monologue" (http://www.gendervision.org/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32). It seems like so much of the medical community is just concerned with making people "normal" in order to please society instead of ourselves.

[GentlemanRDP]

I know exactly how you feel.
I've been told this for years. Constantly asked if I'm having kids and being told, "You'll change your mind,"
It all started when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and now that I'm nearly twenty-three,
My answer still hasn't changed.
Not only do I not want children, because I have quite a temper with kids, but because I am highly against over population, and I refuse to contribute.
If I ever decided I wanted kids, I would adopt, without a doubt.
As for carrying my own children? Never, I would never even consider it. For me, being pregnant is the ultimate denial of any masculinity.
I don't mean to be offensive to any FTMs who have carried their own children, if you did it and you weren't dysphoric, then that's great, but I can't imagine that I wouldn't feel over feminized doing something with my body that cismen can't.
Regardless, if you continue to insist that you don't want children, at least your family should stop harassing you, even if it takes a few years.

[Liminal Stranger]

Boy, do I ever have something to say here.
Countless times, random strangers have pulled this one (especially before I accepted myself and wore clothes that matched my gender identity), telling me what a great wife or mother or something I'll be. My own grandfather saw me leaning on a column when we were on vacation (after being stung by a man o' war, mind you!) and said, "Someday, that'll be the man of your dreams". I was too exhausted to really reply, but felt angry as hell over it.

Now, that's not even the exact matter in question, so here's something that is:
My mother has decided that my boyfriend has "put this in my head" and forbidden me from seeing him, yet she dangles this in front of me by saying I'm throwing my life away- when questioned on what she means, she says I'll never have a relationship and be truly happy. Then she goes on about what if he wants kids and tells me I must have a red-haired child because she wants grandkids.

News flash: I don't need to settle down and have kids to be happy.

She doesn't take no for an answer, and my perfectly logical reasoning (no desire for children, no time in the future I am mapping out for a family, population being large enough already, not wanting to force some kids to be raised by a nanny with absent parents, plus my own genetic issues) is replied to with "How could you possibly know what you want yet?".

Well, you know what, Mom? You and all the other strangers out there need to get it straight that what I want is not always what you want. If I ever want a child, I will most certainly adopt one, but don't expect any biological kids from me, people.

It's not even a trans* issue, it's just something I was always repulsed by. Besides, I'd make a terrible parent! My mentality is pretty much congruent with my immature outward appearance- these kids' other parent would just have another child to raise single-handedly XP

[Arch]

In the eighties, my company switched health plans, and I found myself visiting a new GYN. I wasn't thrilled about the visit, let alone seeing someone new, but I needed more pills, so I went. We had a getting-acquainted meeting in his office beforehand. I really could have done without that. He asked me about kids. I said I wasn't planning to have any. He said, "Oh, so you're afraid of childbirth?"

That was the last time I saw him.

[Tossu-sama]

I'm 22 so I guess I'm relatively young? Even when my friends say I'm an old fart.

Luckily, I haven't had any pressuring questions on this matter. Mom realised quite early on that it's useless to wait for grandchildren on my part and the staff at the hospital where I went through the examination process to begin transitioning understood very well my point of view as well.
My point of view being that I dislike children a lot. I don't know why. Well, my fiancé's little brother's a sweet kid. He's the exception.

[King Malachite]

A lot of diverse anwers here!  I enjoy seeing other people's perspectives about it even the older guys (Sorry about aiming it mostly to the younger guys, Arch  )

I do hate how prominent the question seems to be and how the subject even goes far enough where a person who is particularly young has to go through even more hoops to be sterilized because "they might change their mind".  More often than not, I just want to say I can't have them.

I'm highly against over population too and it actually shocks me how so many people who I talk to just forget about that aspect when they jump on my back for not wanting kids.