thank you everyone for your input! This is going to be a long post...

I have just come back from a 4 day trip to Las Vegas with my mother.

Just this morning at the airport we were having a conversation about the "you'll regret not having kids later when you're alone and nobody's there to care for you". I also reminded her that I wasn't going to pop a kid just so I can have someone to care for me when I'm old.

She said that's not what she meant; now that she's lost both her parents and then last month her older brother, she now only has her younger brother and she said that's a lonely feeling. Lonelier made still if she didn't have me or my brother (and his kids).

Just because you have a child doesn't guarantee that child will be in your life later on. S/he could move away to another country, you may not end up being close, etc.

I also suspect that my mother should not have had children. She was exceptionally hard on us, and had very high expectations that were extremely difficult to live up to. She often made me feel bad when I didn't get the grades she wanted me to, and she often compared me to my brother or my peers "why can't you be more like your brother/friend"?

I also know that if I do have children, then I know what NOT to do to them. I certainly won't play the "why can't you be more like..." game, and I will hug them every single day. I can't remember the last time I touched my mother, let alone hugged her (it goes both ways, we're just not a touchy-feely family).