I definitely feel like kids would be too much for me to handle, and grew up with untreated undiagnosed ADHD till 34. Am 39 now.

Well I didn't get diagnosed until after I had kids and they started to get diagnosed, then my wife finally got diagnosed... So yeah it's all 5 of us. But I was diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid. So my wife jumped on it early. With each kid she used a program called "Children Learn Reading" to teach them to read before kindergarten. Then she got them in a program called "Let's Make Music" and had them playing piano by 5 or 6. Those combined with meds, has made my kids lives so much better than what I had. I was the lazy or dumb kid that wouldn't apply himself. My kids are seen as bored geniuses, that aren't challenged enough. The same behavior that got me yelled at and kept in from all the recesses, gets them self directed study and more interesting courses.

Everything is about optics.

I didn't figure out I had ADHD until my kids started getting diagnosed with it. All 3 have it, and I swear they got it worse than I did.

But growing up was fucked. Getting punished and beaten on the daily while everyone around me was getting away with murder was frustrating to say the least.

We live in a crazy society with every moment regimented. Every inch of land "belongs" to someone, you have to do endless paperwork just to be allowed to live. You almost can't even have hobbies unless someone is making money off it

The way I see it, if we fix the world then technology will continue to leap forward. Then in 70 years or so I'll take a couple decades to completely dedicate myself to raising children, hopefully in a healthy world full of life

If not, I'm not dragging anyone else into this mess.

Ya, I have PTSD from all the verbal abuse suffered from my parents and sister, which still continues to this day, even after I have been diagnosed, explained extensively what they did wrong (which my parents acknowledged), and demonstrated how with treatment I can now absolutely kill it at life. They just don’t get it, or have any idea how to stop their horrible behavior, despite numerous lengthy very specific instructional talks, and I’m pretty sure just don’t think they are doing anything wrong. My father definitely doesn’t, because he is a malignant narcissist with his own horrible ADHD, about which he has asked for behaviors to help correct himself, but which he simply cannot implement because he is SO far gone with crazy strong mental blocks, and even on 75mg of Vyvanse he is useless and horrible. I have been living with them for the last 15 months, and am losing my mind, and am closing on my first house in 2 weeks, which is VERY far away from them, and I have refused to disclose its location.

All that said, I would like to have a kid, because I feel that with the right support that I could provide, a kid with gifts like mine would excel immeasurably, and it would make me very happy to help someone to do that.

By the time I was 9, I decided life was not worth living and have not changed my mind at 45 years old. [...] I still feel like no one wants me around.

While this is a side effect of the trauma precipitated by people treating you badly due to your ADHD, and depression is common with ADHD... this level of depression is not inherent to ADHD, and I'd posit that the depression type stuff has more to do with your feelings on children than your ADHD directly does.

I think there's a lot of people choosing not to have children due to depression and other issues of mental health leading them to feel like bringing a child into this world would be cruel.

Mid 30s, ADHD diagnosis when I was six, been on the same meds for it since 18. Medicated for depression starting around a decade ago. Medicated for anxiety for around five years. Narcisist ADHD mother, neglectful ADHD father (both undiagnosed). Grandfather was highly likely autistic.

Two year old daughter and another on the way. Determined not to repeat my parent's mistakes and abuse. Daughter is the light of my life, best decision I've ever made.

No, I just don’t punish my kids excessively.

And if someone paddled them I’d smack seven shades of shite out of them.

I was rarely if ever punished, at most they took away my PS2 for an hour or so despite my fledgling shit grades at best, and me stopping all homework from grade 5. I had a pretty happy childhood as a single child of a happy, loving, married family, my parents were relatively well off. The only dark note was being beaten frequently in primary school, but I made up with the bullies later.

I have no mental health issues and have never really had any, despite suffering plenty in my mid to late teens from gender dysphoria and being thus rejected by those parents later and suffering to stay afloat in a foreign country, including a brief stint as a poly-drug addict to fight panic attacks over being fired by a bigoted boss on whom my visa depended after she tried to fire me on my day off for having a migraine.

I still don't want kids.

You might have CPTSD in addition to ADHD

I definitely have no desire to have biological children of my own. I'm not making someone else live through my life, school was hell and teachers went out of their way to make my life in particular worse. my family has extensive mental health and other medical issues as it is. My genetics do not need to be passed on.

Weirdly though, I don't think I'm as opposed to raising a kid as i once thought I was. Being able to help someone grow as a person, show them all the cool stuff in the world, pass along useful life skills, make cool memories, encourage them to pursue what they like, set them up for a successful life, etc. That and the eventual point where you can share a fucked up sense of humor (i can play cards against humanity with both my parents and its awesome)

Too late.

And I'm bloody proud of em.

I think it can go either way. This sort of thinking is based a lot more on your life experience than your genetics.

As awful as yours and other may have experienced, I have trust that society and my own opinions of ADHD have progressed. I’m sorry for your experience and what you went through. I also was diagnosed in adulthood but I had little to no issues growing up. The education system isn’t nearly as regimented or abusive as it was back then. Paddling and hurting children physically doesn’t happen at public schools anymore. I grew up in the late 90s and early 00s and it was certainly a topic for little kids to talk about who or who didn’t have ADHD and how their medicine affected them. Maybe is still wasn’t fair and some parents or teachers mishandled it but at least it was an open conversation for most. The support system and way I will parent my child will come from a place of support and understanding. There are many more studies and books, etc to help now. I try and hope for future or else I would just crumble into lazily making the planet worse through apathy.

I've thought of having kids occasionally, and have largely decided it is not a good idea. However, I decided that if I ever did have kids, I would need to meet a number of requirements first.

Beyond providing basic necessities like food and shelter, the most important thing a parent can do for their child's happiness and well being is be happy. The parent needs to show their child, through their everyday actions, how to deal with adversity with grace and how to enjoy normal days with happiness and gratitude. While these things may be achieved via sufficient mental training - like hours of meditating per day - likely the more efficient path is to ensure their own higher-level needs are met.

The parent should feel secure in their ability to provide for themselves and their family, even in times of economic turmoil. They should feel their work is not just tolerable, but generally enjoyable and meaningful. They should have a large support network of friends and family with whom they can interact regularly. They should be be generally physically strong and healthy, and able to maintain that level of health easily - barring outside sickness or physical trauma. They should have the time and resources to engage in enjoyable and meaningful hobbies. They should have the time and resources to participate in their larger social communities' gatherings such as festivals, time spent in the bar meeting strangers, or town hall meetings.

And then the child needs to be cared for. The child needs to be fed healthy food; be given stimulating activities to engage in; be provided with ample opportunities to interact with peers; and be given support and guidance not only with object-level tasks like homework, but with emotional issues around navigating social interactions, learning to appreciate necessary rote tasks, maintaining a regular routine, and finding what is personally meaningful to them. And the child also must be given ample unsupervised time where they can be alone or interact with peers (while not staring at a screen), so they can learn to be independent and self-motivated.

So basically my requirement is to form a commune of like-minded people that is walking distance from a small city's walkable downtown, which has a transit line to a large city's downtown, where everyone involved has a common understanding of the responsibilities of shared childcare, and also everyone is financially secure enough such that they don't need to work full time. Further benefits of community organization would include reduced food costs via economies of scale, reduced labor burden of chores like cooking and cleaning, and social support for shared activities like exercise, sleep, and focusing on mental health.

But I have to say, this seems quite unlikely, so I almost certainly just won't have kids.

I'm opposed to human reproduction. There are so many bad reasons to have a child, but I'm not sure there are any good ones.

First of all, I'm truly sorry that you have had this experience. It hurts my soul that you, from the age of 9 have felt that life isn't worth living. I do hope you have had good moments too and life hasn't been all misery for you because fuck. That isn't how it should be for anyone!

As for myself, I will say that I do not have an official diagnosis, but display MANY ADHD symptoms, just in the more inward sort of way.

So for me, growing up, I was pretty good at being sort of invisible in school so i was never really yelled at, but i did get bullied a lot and i was projected to have a very low IQ by a couple of teachers which has stuck with me my whole life. I did experience a lot of rejection too both from peers but also from one of my parents. Later in life I have realized that almost everything about me that was rejected by others had to do with my symptoms.

I did think I would have kids someday, but I didn't want kids until I had a reasonable income and a house and neither ever happened to me. I also didn't want kids until I was mentally mature enough for it and that never happened either.

I love children and I'm really good with kids, but I will never be a mother. I cannot do that to them.

I can't give them a home nor financial stability and I cannot promise that will be a good parent either.

I am extremely scared of the idea of becoming a parent and then turning out to be a monster to my kid.

I don't want to be selfish. My self worth is in the dumpster when it comes to believing i would ever be good enough to be a parent. People used to not understand it. Sometimes they still don't.

But it is what it is. I'm not going to fuck up somebody else's childhood. Instead I can be an aunt to other people's kids and be useful that way. I think that is better.

Yeah, I grew up with parents that didn’t believe in adhd despite my diagnosis and they were pretty harsh. I got bullied at school too, but my school was really big so I just got exiled to the group of other adhd kids and still had plenty of friends. Im definitely fucked up from it all, but I think I’ve grown a lot and learned about managing it and have become way better at giving emotional support than my parents.

So, I think I still want to have kids. My main hesitation is just my current financial situation as well as the generally bleak outlook of the world. Hopefully by the time I decide I’m stable enough to have kids, things will be better.

I'm in that weird position where I definitely get baby fever being around my nieces and nephews. But also I know I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I did. Idk, maybe if I could guarantee they wouldn't have adhd it would be an easier choice