Having a child or children is one of the greatest responsibilities on earth. You don't have children because your main priority is to run marathons or take amazing trips: you have children to love them, and raise them, and try to give them what they need to be the best persons that they can be. If you can fit in your marathons great, but if your child needs you, guess which comes first. I suspect many of the mothers here have less sleep, less money, and less adventure than our childless sisters.
Having a child is not a guarantee of some type of fairytale. Rather, for most of us, some pain is guaranteed: from child birth to our children moving away from us. Some parents face enormous pain, the death of a child. Children have to follow their own path not ours, and there comes a time we have to let them go. But we are not clairvoyant and cannot predict the future should we have children. We can just do what we can: we can't make the world or our children perfect. Do some people regret having children? I suppose so, the world is a big place: I also suppose that some of those people complaining about their children were "venting" and if they could have magically made their children disappear, they would not have done so.
To the poster who suggested thinking about having a child with disabilities as a test, that is complicated. As far as having a child with disabilities, that is something that has to be lived, not imagined. Depending on the disability, the help (or the lack there of), and whether your child is suffering, the experience is different from person to person. (My severely disabled child died before he was born and I did not have the opportunity to raise him. I would not say that I was in the same position of a parent who cares for such a child every day. I did however, get the opportunity to think about being the mother of a disabled child and the words "opportunity" or "curse" were not words which came to mind.)
No, not everyone is cut out to have a child. We, unfortunately, see examples of that constantly.
And BTW, if I had wanted children and was not able to have one, I would not go around discussing that with anyone with whom I was not extremely close. (A board like this in anonymous, so that is not the same thing.) Also, if I had wanted a child and could not have one, I know I would have experienced sadness, but I would make an effort to take advantage of my opportunities from being childless, and live a fulfilling life.
Oh, as far as being too old, OP is pushing 30, not 60!
Do the math.
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