I have been single for so long because I assume that all guys want kids and I do not want to lead them on when I intend on not having kids.

The only way I can think of meeting guys who do not want kids is dating websites/agencies perhaps?
As it is Valentine’s Day, I feel I ought to make some sort of effort in that area this year. What do you think?

How can you know absolutely that you *do* want them?

Don’t make the assumption that because something is not “the norm” that you can’t truly know what you want.

In life, we make choices and making one choice sometimes means that you can’t make the other. That’s the way life is. Maybe no one can be absolutely 100% sure of anything, but we can come close enough to be satisfied with our choices be they “normal” or not.

It’s only fair to both parties to let someone you’re dating know early on that you aren’t interested in parenthood; there is a gray are of discussion between, “I hate the little b@stards,” and “I don’t want kids at this point in my life,” which is often misinterpreted as not wanting kids now, but that you will want them with the right partner. I’d let them know you are relationship minded, you simply have no interest in having children, regardless of a relationship or marriage.

Because I decided (as a child myself) that I was not interested in motherhood, I’ve had some people label me as selfish, promiscuous, or commitment-phobic. (I’m in a 12 year relationship with a wonderful guy who feels the same way as me, thankfully.) And get used to “you’ll change your mind,”—just never date anyone who says that to you. When I was still dating, I always let the man know (within the first few dates and before any sex) my feelings; it didn’t seem fair to allow more feelings to develop on either side if the man in question looked forward to fatherhood. It does limit your dating pool, especially as you get older, if you don’t want to date parents. I’d suggest going to childfree sites and not being apologetic about not wanting kids—desiring children or not has no bearing on the kind of person you are or what qualities you have.

As a 29 year old black woman who doesn’t want kids, finding a black man who doesn’t want or already have kids feels impossible. I signed up on EHarmony.com with the specific intent to find a black man who doesn’t have kids and what I got was a sleu of Black men who have kids who don’t live with them So, yes, Eharmony has filtered out all of the black men who have children in their homes but they still have children. When those men say they don’t want kids they usually are saying, “I don’t want your kids.” Am I destined to live my life co-raising someone’s child?

I am SO frustrated.

Many women have told me over the years that their feelings about relationships are, more or less, that any day spent with a man who isn’t Mr. Right is a day stolen from them (or at least wasted) that they could have spent looking for Mr. Right or with Mr. Right. By making unclear the depths of a man’s choice not to have children, he risks making her feel that she has wasted her time with him, and making her very angry with him for doing so.

I also feel it’s bad advice to both genders to say that a man could spend a few happy years in a relationship with a woman who wants children eventually, and that they could then break up and she could go find someone who wants children and he could go find someone who doesn’t. Women in their 30’s who want children and aren’t married face having to find a man who wants children FAST and marry him and, depending on how late in their 30’s, possibily have children right away. This is not only emotionally difficult for the woman, but also scary to the men: I have a number of male friends in their 30’s who find it genuinely disturbing that women are telling them outright “if you love me you have six months to propose, the engagement can not be more than a year, and we will start trying to have children immediately after the wedding, and you will have an income that can support three people and a house and car.” In most cases this is scaring the guys away, but the women are not doing this because they’re evil, they’re just laying out what they believe to be necessary in order for them to have kids when they’re young enough for it to still be relatively easy. But to the guys, it represents a shocking shift from the idea that he meets a woman, dates her for a couple years, maybe they have a leisurely engagement, get married, spend a few years together to build up the relationship more and work on his career, then talk about having kids when conditions are right… to suddenly he’s being told that he will now have to make instant commitment and he’s only wanted as sperm donor and paycheck and she owns him for the next 25 years, or bug off.

Conversely, a man in his 30’s who doesn’t want kids has a problem too. First, most of the best women, who have the best personalities and looks, are “taken” since their 20’s. Single guys I know in their 30’s tell me they get a lot of first dates with never-married women who are obnoxious or demanding or clingy or severely obese, or more often some combination of the above. Then of course, there are also a lot of previously-married (or previously long-term-relationshiped) women in their 30’s. They tend to divide mostly into those who have children (in which case if the man doesn’t want children he’s not interested) and those who are in a rush to have children, as described above. So, he’s forced into a desperate search for either that one special woman who somehow all the other guys have been too stupid to snap up, or that one special woman who some other guy was stupid enough to let go. Either way, he’s better off letting it be known up front in his search that he doesn’t ever want kids, because that helps him eliminate most of the women he’s not interested in up front and concentrate on the smaller pool of women he might be interested in. Even then, the guys I’ve known who don’t want children have told me that they still get dates with women who proceed to spend the whole first date trying to convince them that they should want children after all.

The comment that I made was how can any of us REALLY know what we’ll want in 5 years, kids or otherwise. I don’t know about you but my life and my life’s desires change dramatically every 3-5 years.

Neither of us said in this article NOT to tell your partner that you don’t want kids. We simply said not to use such a firm ultimatum and to use softer words.

We try to stay away from the words NEVER and ALWAYS… Those are very big words and it’s simply impossible to use them with certainty. Fact is, you never know what life will throw your way!

Also, most of the women that I know who do not have kids, and there are few, are corporate women at high career levels or are unable to have children. I’m sure there are others, but I’ve not met any of them…

jennifer

and while i’m on the topic, i also wasn’t thrilled about dan’s presumption that women who don’t want kids are usually more all about our careers. could you spread a few more stereotypes about us?

so i think the moral of the story is that someone would make a bundle off an online dating site that specialized in “child-free by choice.”

patent pending.

So I agree, let the relationship build and the answer will present itself in a way that will be right whichever way you decide.