Definitely agree with you on the Hepburn quote. I have a lot of friends who want nothing more than to surround themselves with children; lots of them went into education and can't wait to have their own kids. All my life when I envisioned my perfect future, kids were never in the picture. It was always just me, sometimes a power spouse, and a huge office, sometimes of the Oval variety. I've always been the kind of person to maximize all of my options at all times and having kids is a serious limitation to that. I also don't even remotely feel maternal instincts?? I worked as a religious school teacher and a camp counselor (cuz those both paid somewhat better than min wage) and I just felt nothing protective towards the kids I taught. One of them slammed a finger in the door frame and came to me wailing and I just put a bandaid on her finger and told her to go play... :/ I feel a lot of affection and maternal instinct towards teens and women my own age though. I just don't get children (although they love me and I think that's probably because I treat them like little adults and not like idiot puppies).
I have to be honest, what I never imagined was what kind of wedding I'd have. When I was briefly engaged I tried and even then it was like meh. I babysat a SHIT ton in high school. It actually impresses me now that I think of it. Nowadays kids are mostly uninteresting, annoying (when crying, etc) or momentarily cute - when they're someone else's problem, basically. I don't mind spending time with kids, I guess, and I'd babysit again if I got paid for it, but that's kind of where the line draws. I'm fine with kids so long as they go back home to someone else at the end of the day. AND so long as they're in the appropriate social setting. On a midnight train back from Boston (8 hours) a family brought a baby who cried all night (midnight - 8 AM) and round about 5 or 6 I was no longer interested in politely refraining from calling little kids spawn and other similarly choice nouns. I kept the comments between me and my similarly-awake friend but I was more than cross.