Anonymous wrote:If you don't consider it you're an idiot! Everyone single knows people with kids and all you need to do is ask them and observe them. And see how your SO interacts with kids. If they don't want anything to do with them that's a message. If they are happy to get down on the floor and play with them that's a message.

I agree. Maybe because I was 31 when I had my first but all of this was very primary in my mind when choosing a spouse.

It’s not just kids. It’s hard things, things that aren’t cute or romantic. Before we got married I had a serious illness and then my MIL had a terminal illness with a long tough period. It doesn’t have to be kids but you need to know that you still want to be together on long stretches when it’s neither fun nor sexy. So kids were hard but I already knew my husband and I knew how to partner for hard.

Crystal ball says....you funny

If you don't consider it you're an idiot! Everyone single knows people with kids and all you need to do is ask them and observe them. And see how your SO interacts with kids. If they don't want anything to do with them that's a message. If they are happy to get down on the floor and play with them that's a message.

In choosing a partner, I was choosing someone who had qualities that made him someone I wanted to share a life with - generous, flexible, true to his word, good humored, and who valued me as an equal partner. It wasn't a surprise at all when he proved himself an excellent co-parent.

True, there's no way to know for sure how someone will react to parenthood, but I think you're an idiot if you only look for "love" before marrying and having kids with someone. There definitely are personal characteristics that make someone more or less inclined to be someone you'd want to share the burden (and joys!) of parenthood with.

Yes, I thought about it. That's why we waited 15 years before we had kids. I was not at all surprised by the level of work kids bring. I was surprised at the depths of emotion.

I have zero sympathy for people who can't do a little research and understand the nuts and bolts of how hard and time consuming it is to raise kids. It's not like parents don't talk about it.

I always thought about those things, and I was a doting aunt, very involved, babysat all the time.

I had no clue what it would be like to BE a parent, not even while in labor, until they whisked the baby off to the NICU. Suddenly all those sappy commercials got real.

I'm surprised by how I am after kids, let alone DH. I'm both better and worse, on different aspects, than I would have anticipated.

I've always thought about those things. If I'm considering a future with someone, I would want them to be good with kids, and the kind of person who pitches in and gets stuff done.

That said, you can *think* someone will be a good father and be unpleasantly surprised. It happens.

I did everything 12:34 did, and 17 years into our marriage my husband had an affair with his married colleague. She also has kids. But it was soooooo romantic, just the two of them, when they traveled together on all those business trips.

It's easy to be in love when you don't have diapers, vomit, bodily fluids, and tantrums to deal with.

Do people think about how things will be with kids when?

When I met DH and we started dating, no, I didn't think about what our life would be like with kids. We were young. I thought about whether we would stay together. I thought about whether we would marry. I didn't want to marry him until I was sure that our life priorities were the same, that we wanted the same things and conceptualized those things in the same way. You shouldn't marry someone who wants to have children if you don't want to and vice-versa. You shouldn't have children with someone who isn't interested in raising them if you want an equal partner. If you want to quit working and stay home with kids, you should communicate that to your potential partner in advance and should absolutely not have kids until you've resolved who will care for them.

Most young people who are falling in love do not know the first thing about what life with kids is like.

You have no CONCEPT of how things are going to change. So, I'll take no for 500.

Lol nope

It is impossible to truly understand how having kids changes everything until you do it.

When you're in love you just don't think about how it is going to be after you're all settled down and have kids. Who, thinks about those things?