Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t have kids, but most of the time I’m glad to not have put kids through growing up with a Schizoaffective mom, and to not have passed the genes along. Thoughts?
There are some people on this forum who are parents… and they are pretty amazing parents, working, paying attention to their health and are there for their kids.
I’d love kids… as far as the genes?
Well, I have an Uncle who IS Sz and he as some kids who are in their 30s and so far… so perfectly healthy. So my cousin’s genes didn’t have the switch turned on.
My Dad… NOT Sz or anything and so far… one son (me) Sz one son bipolar… 2 sons somewhat Ok I guess… and a daughter… my kid sis who is mostly healthy and highly functional. (I have stable and supportive parents and grew up in a very kind home)
I read the probably of the genes and all that… but in my family… the light switch is always in the room… but what turns it on is a roll of the dice.
If I have kids… I would be SO happy… do I fear they would or wouldn’t have Sz? There is a roll of the dice that they may… but there’s also a roll of the dice that they won’t
My brother has the genes… so far… his kids seem healthy and just fine.
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As a rule I’d say - no because of the unpredictability of relapses. But I think there exceptions.
I would say yes, but be ready and responsible for taking care
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kids are hard work they are and schizophrenics don’t handle stress well on the whole.
As long as you have a healthy, very supportive spouse, I think it would be okay. Kids are great!
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My ex wife is schizophrenic and she had a son and he is competely normal, a little too normal actually. He is very manipulative. For instance, she asked him if he would “color” her hair and he said, “only if you quit smoking”. So now she has to color her own hair. I wish I still had him as a step son but he thinks I ruined Nancy’s life. She doesn’t think so. I wish I had had children but it just wasn’t in the cards.
Adoption, if the schizophrenic has a decade or so of stability. Biological, no,I won’t curse a child to suffer this disease.
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Bad genes, maladaptive, no kids. I know it sucks. It hurts me deep because I am the last in my line and I am the IV in my name in a row, I was expected to have a V.
I have two kids. One with PDD-NOS/ADHD, one healthy kid. I got them before I got ill. They were 8 and 5 when my brain decided to crash.
I have a very supporting husband. Without him I would not manage. My oldest son with autism lives in a group home. Comes home to visit every second weekend.
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Due to my lack of empathy I don’t think I would fair well with a child. Im only twenty so my opinion may change, but I’d be at risk at giving them the gene and I couldn’t bear that at all. I’m afraid I would be too tired to take care of them and would have to ask my mom for help. Which I would hate to do. I don’t particularly like kids so it’s better if it doesn’t happen anytime soon. I go back and forth on this topic quite often. If I was to be pregnant with someone I really loved and trusted like my father, then I might be able to handle it. If not, then no way. Just have to find that stable man first.
i’d love to have kids and i think i can handle them too esp if they were mine, i would like to do it properly tho like getting married and all the rest of it and i have been stable for a good while and i don’t see myself ever going back to the mental hospital.
I’m scared with the idea of having kids, but I’m open to it for the sake of my husband, as he really wants children. Part of me would like the adventure, but the sz side of me is scared, because I worry if I will have to go to hospital again from not coping in life and relapsing, and it will affect the kids. Maybe just one child. I said to God if He thinks I can handle a child to let me have one, but if He knows I won’t cope, then He must make me infertile. I think it is possible for sz’'s to have kids, but they must find lots of support first to fall back on. And keep going to their pdocs and taking meds and taking responsibility for their health.
Yeah, I know that just because you have Sz doesn’t necessarily mean your children will get it. Sz apparently can be genetically spread pretty funkily – in my family, my mom’s dad’s sister, my mom’s sister, my mom’s other sister’s kid’s kid, and I are the ones who had/have it (so far). I would hope that people would consider members of their wider family when considering whether to have kids, and take it more seriously than just a “roll of the dice”.
And yeah, I’m sure there are some good Sz parents. But, as someone on here more or less already said, how do you know how bad your Sz is going to get? I’m saying this because mine eventually got REALLY REALLY REALLY bad – way worse than I could’ve imagined.
And btw my Sz has really tested the relationship I have with my husband. If we’d had kids on top of my Sz I’m pretty sure we would’ve been too stressed to function very well as a couple. And then my kids may have had to deal with a divorce, too.
Yup, it seems to me like the most responsible thing to do as a Sz is to not have kids. But I realize it may just be that I’m biased, since I got it so badly.
Probably shouldn’t have, but I did. One girl. Now a teen. High achiever and honour student with no signs of having inherited my issues so far. Glad to say that everything is going well.
10-96
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Yeah my aunt was the valedictorian of her high school class right before she had her first bout with Sz. And I graduated from college with highest honors and earned a doctorate in law from a top law school before my first bouts with Bipolar and Sz. So I don’t know that your daughter being a “high achiever and honour student” is very relevant to whether or not she’ll become ill.
But I’m glad things are going well for you so far.
The reason I did not have kids has nothing to do with my illness - We had the chance to have children when I was married, it just did not work out this way. I think its ok for someone with SZ to have children as long as their is some understanding and a good plan in place… My spouse was a sociopath so I am glad that I do not have children with her - but if you are in a stable and solid relationship I dont see why not - there are some really good SZ parents on this site
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I don’t know how relevant it is, either. That’s why I qualified it with ‘so far’. Apparently having SZ doesn’t stop me from doing okay as a parent, which is why I mentioned the successes to date. I just hope that she doesn’t inherit the monkey I have on my back. I’d like for her to have a sailboat that doesn’t need to be continually bailed out along her life journey like mine does.
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It’s a personal choice. Everybody knows the risks. I know from my own case of schizophrenia that I should never have kids. I was a good uncle for many years. But now I am not as close to both my nephews but it doesn’t have anything to do with schizophrenia. I lived with both my nephews from 1995-1998 in my sisters condo. It was not a perfect situation but it was not bad. Now we just mainly see each other at holidays. It’s a little sad but that’s the way it is.
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I was editing my response to add “Not that you said it is” right as you were typing your response, apparently! I’ll go take it off now so you don’t sound stupid, lol.