Would you have had kids if you couldn't

Avatar for cindytree
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Would you have had kids if you couldn't
1589
Wed, 09-03-2003 - 3:31pm
Would you still have had children if you knew you might not be able to pay for their college education? I'm not talking about providing food and shelter and needs of minor children and paying bills in general. Just about paying their way through college.

I guess I'm still astounded at the attitude that surfaced at another thread implying that if they couldn't pay for college, they wouldn't have had children. Of course, I'm a lazy, selfish mom at home who isn't working while some of my kids are in school so maybe my opinion doesn't count. Maybe I SHOULD take up scrapbooking to make my existence more worthwhile! lol

In any case, it is an interesting question considering that, under that reasoning, Oprah Winfrey shouldn't have been born. Give me time and I can come up with a whole list of highly successful and respected people who have impacted us in positive ways that wouldn't have been born had their parents decided that because they couldn't pay for college, they wouldn't have children.

How has the college issue influenced your decision to have children, if at all? Do you think it is an important criteria in the decision?

Cindy

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:06pm
Now you're just contradicting yourself. One minute you're going on about how wonderful and perfect your life is, and how you wouldn't have changed anything and that marrying young was great for you, and the next your talking about the "strife, agony and everything you've gone through". Which is it? If your married life has been a struggle, for WHATEVER reason, then maybe it wasn't such a great idea to get married when you did? Maybe you should have waited, realized you didn't want to deal with all you've had to, met someone else, fallen in love and still gotten everything you wanted (including great kids).
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:13pm
There is a difference from my marriage being difficult because of marrying young, and my marriage going through difficult times because of my husbands disability that came up after we were married. Believe it or not, people do become disabled. It happens at all ages. There was no way to foresee that my husband would become disabled. Our life HAS been happy, but it has often been a struggle due to my husbands illnesses. That has NOTHING to do with marrying young. It has to do with his illness.

I am very happy with being married to my husband. We have been through hell and back, but you know what? I am still in love with him, and he is still in love with me. And we are commited to each other. And we have a pretty great life.

I could have waited until I was 30, and married someone completely different, then 2 1/2 years into our marriage, THEY could have been stricken by the same disabilities my husband has faced. It would be the same issue then as it has been for me in the here and now.

Okmrsmommy-36, CPmom to DD-16 and DS-14

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:32pm
I don't think it is a parents' responsbility to pay for college. Both my husband and I are college graduates...and neither of our parents paid for our college. I'm astounded that anyone would think that the kid wouldn't have any responsibility for their own education.

You appreciate something when you have to work for it. My kids will need to work, save money....and do their best to get scholarships. We will have some money saved back for them...but we certainly aren't telling our kids that!!!

Avatar for val10154
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-26-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:32pm
>>>>I am still in love with him>>>>

But you said in post #1031:

>>>>I have fallen out of love with my husband.>>>>

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:35pm
>>>>I am still in love with him>>>>

But you said in post #1031:

>>>>I have fallen out of love with my husband.>>>>

____________________

Let me rephrase. Yes, I have fallen out of love with him, and then back into love with him. lol...I thought that is what I said. opps.

Okmrsmommy-36, CPmom to DD-16 and DS-14

Avatar for val10154
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-26-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:35pm
>>>>But I don't buy the "both parties want to make it work, but they can't". I have never seen it, and I just don't buy it.>>>>

Why is that so hard to believe? Sometimes, people just don't get along anymore & are miserable with one another & are unhappy for years. I really don't see what there is "to buy" about that.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:43pm
Dh went to his 10th and 20th HS reunions. At the 10th, everyone had gotten married and just about everyone had kids. (Dh and were the exception). As a matter of fact, several couples were celebrating their 10th anniversaries. When he returned for his 20th, at least half the married couples had divorced, and all the ones who married within a year of graduation were divorced. Next fall is his 30th. We figure health issues and grand kids will be the topics of conversation. Dh will probably win an award for having the youngest child (he is 47, ds is 6). Dh is simply proud because he still had all his hair and he isn't fat. Lots of his classmates got bald and round.

Susan

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:51pm
It did come off nasty didn't it? Probably more so than I intended.

My point was that for many of us, those days of living paycheck to paycheck wre during our college years and immediately after. Had our college been paid for, we wouldn't have that. So, in the terminology of this discussion, you lived parents to paycheck.

I actually appreicate that I had to live paycheck to paycehck during college. It gave me knowledge and skills so that in some unusual, crisis time, I have the ability to do that again. Like now, during my divorce. I haven't lived paycheck to paycehck in almost 10 years. But I am now. And part of why i can do so efficiently is because I had to during college adn the first year or so afterwards.

Hollie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 12:53pm
Yeah, but you appeared to turn that into some nasty character flaw and lack of commitment on her part (maybe unintenionally). And she adn I don't see it as that.

Hollie

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
Mon, 09-15-2003 - 1:02pm
This is what I don't get. Her stance is to wait 5 or 7 or however many years to marry, if you meet "that person" in your teens (talking adult teens, not 14 here). So, if you are going to get married "no matter what", why wait? I don't get it. She knows, or should, as most people on this board do, my husbands health situation.

Had I waited to mary him, does she really think that I should have had children with him AFTER he had become disabled? Or maybe, I should have chosen to not have children at all? ROFL...fact is, I wouldn't have chosen to marry someone knowing 100% that it they were going to be disabled less than 3 years after we married. And I wouldn't choose to have children with someone who has my husbands disabilities. It is very different AFTER the fact, but to CHOOSE to do so? I just don't get it.

Okmrsmommy-36, CPmom to DD-16 and DS-14

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