Is my boyfriend thinking about having kids?

[LovelyBones13]

I (almost 27F) am wondering if my boyfriend (31M) is thinking about having kids.

I work in a field where my clients are in vulnerable social and financial positions. Like ex convics, people who can not work due to mental or physical dissabilities, refugees etc. My current case is a very tough one of a single mom with 8 kids. Me and my coworkers have dealt with horrible situations/clients before, but this one takes the cake by far.

My birthday is this weekend and today I receieved a birthday card signed by my coworkers. I am friends outside of work with most of them aswell. All of them just wrote their name on it except one who wrote his name and "good luck with your 8 kids". I showed the card to my boyfriend and pointed that out. He went pale and asked why that was written there. I explained it was related to my current client/case. My boyfriend knows the gist of what I deal with at work, but I prefer not to talk about it too much when I am off the clock. He was visibly releaved and said that he thought I was shouting around that I wanted 8 kids.

Me and him have been together for 4 years and have been living together since about 6 weeks into our relationship. We have 4 cats and are both finacially stable and career wise prerty succesfull. Do you think he is thinking about kids? We sometimes joke about having kids and how we would name them etc (things like Shrek or Pikachu), but we never really spoke about it seriously.

A lot of my coworkers have been getting engaged and/or gotten pregnant in the past 6 months, so whenever he asks me about my day I mention those kind of things. Might have gotten the idea in his head. What do you think?

Updates

9 mo

Update: today he asked me how much govermental funding in regards to daycare we would qualify, because he discussed this with a coworker who is his age and recently had a baby and made him curious about the daycare funding. So he says. Is this him dropping a hint?

[Berethor]

I think that you running out of time, losing your fertility so it's good that he is ready for kids.

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/My_Biological_Clock_Is_Ticking

[LovelyBones13]

My mom had me at 33 and my little sister at 35. I think I am way to young for a kid.

[Berethor]

Your sister was lucky, it's hard for woman to get pregnant at that old age.

https://www.yourfertility.org.au/everyone/age

[NotInterestedSorry]

Do you know more and more women are falling pregnant in their 30's I know someone who just had a kid 3 years ago and she was 40 at the time. I just had my baby at the age of 36

[OlderAndWiser]

Men don't have the same biological clock issue that women have, but we still think about best age for having children. He may be thinking quite seriously about wanting to start a family soon.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

Yes, there is a possibility he wants to have kids in the future. All you can do is ask on how he likes kids. If he gets quiet on you, then just let things lay in his ball field for a while.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

@lovelybones13 My sister gave birth to my niece, at age 32

[Lliam]

Do you ever talk about getting married? I'd do that before having kids.

[LovelyBones13]

His parents had a horrible divorce that really affected him as a kid/teenager with ongoing custody battles and legal troubles about the house/money etc. So he never wants to get married. My parents have been together for 34 years and credit their succes to the fact that they are not married and always had an easy way out if things would not work out. They never had joined bank accounts either, my parents are really like "I earn my own money and can depend on my self" types

[bowenw]

He may have worried that you wanted 8 kids and he may want significantly less. This is probably a good excuse to ask him how many kid he really wants.

[Fireguy17]

I would simply ask him.
Do the old, hey have you ever thought about having kids...

[Jamie05rhs]

That's a pretty terrible way to bring up the subject of you WANT him to get you pregnant.

[Jamie05rhs]

"if"

[slatyb]

Ask him. What do you want?

[LovelyBones13]

I am unsure. I think I am way too young to have kid and becoming pregnant never appealed to me

[slatyb]

Have you never discussed this? If not, it's definitely time.

[LovelyBones13]

Like I mention in my post, we never seriously discussed this.

[TrillXHippy]

Sure