Adoption

[Rick Modena]

You're life is about to change in a couple of years, once your two older girls hit puberty, everything changes. You think you have your hands full now or if you think that everything's been going good for you so far, you don't have a clue whats coming.
And then you have two more coming down the puberty pipe. You're no young buck either, in 10 years you'll be 52 and when your youngest son graduates HS you'll be 58 years old, we become less tolerant as we get older.
I have a couple of friends that had to adopt their grand kids because their daughters got preggos young and decided that having kids was interfering with their social life, their life sucks, this is after raising their own three kids too.


And you want to add a couple of more to the mix, kids are not pets, pal...

[Baron Von Crowder]

You're life is about to change in a couple of years, once your two older girls hit puberty, everything changes. You think you have your hands full now or if you think that everything's been going good for you so far, you don't have a clue whats coming.
And then you have two more coming down the puberty pipe. You're no young buck either, in 10 years you'll be 52 and when your youngest son graduates HS you'll be 58 years old, we become less tolerant as we get older.
I have a couple of friends that had to adopt their grand kids because their daughters got preggos young and decided that having kids was interfering with their social life, their life sucks, this is after raising their own three kids too.


And you want to add a couple of more to the mix, kids are not pets, pal...

The adage: raise your kids or you'll be raising theirs too fits here.

[Rick Modena]

The adage: raise your kids or you'll be raising theirs too fits here.

Yes sir.

I may have made some mistakes raising two of my three daughters and the third is probably more than a handful at the moment, but none of them got preggos and so far only my eldest has giving me grand kid at age 28 and we are at a long distance relationship with her so we don't see her much. The other three aren't ready for kiddos at the moment so I'm able to enjoy my later years not caring for kids or grand kids and doing what we want, I've been lucky in that regard so far.
I don't believe we are destined to raise kids beyond a certain age...

[jluv]

So where do you draw the line on quantity versus quality?

Three. I mean, there are obviously exceptions. I would never want that many, and some people do fine with more. But in general, I think three is a pretty good place to draw the line.

I'm 42, and we just had our first and only kid 9 months ago. She's crazy cool, but I don't know how people keep having them, especially at this age. Maybe I'm jaded because I made it so long without one.

My wife drops hints about wanting to adopt someday (she was adopted as an infant), but I'll never sign up for that; it's absolutely off the table.

Good on folks who do it. Seriously, that's an amazing gift to give a child, and the world needs more folks like that. And maybe it will be the best thing you ever did. Take what anyone says with a grain of salt and just do what you and your wife truly believe is best.

But ya, for the record, I think you're crazy.

Good luck!

[BradM]

The adage: raise your kids or you'll be raising theirs too fits here.

This is true. When I married my wife my step daughter was 16. She had her first child at 18, her second at 2nd at 23. There are often times that I want the kids to come live with us. She makes some of the most boneheaded choices I could ever imagine. I actually asked her last night if she wanted them to come live with us this next school year because her and her husband fucked around and got foreclosed on. So they are living in a trailer with some friends until they get a permanent residence. I really hate it for the kids.