SD, my advice is to ask "why do I want kids"? It's a tough answer because they don't really serve a tangible purpose (we're not passing down kingdoms or supplying help for the family farm anymore and haven't for a long time). Much like marriage, they are socially acceptable events in a life cylce (if not social "requirements"). Doesn't mean they aren't fun or aren't great, they just really don't serve a "tangible" purpose. They can provide "meaning" as chum puts it, but so can a lot of other things. And as RD suggests, you can ship them off to the grandparents for a week and take a vacation with your spouse...but that's just one week, what about the other 51 weeks?
IMO, people that have kids are afraid to say that kids aren't the greatest thing ever because it somehow diminishes "life", when in fact it merely acknowledges that humans aren't super awesome every day of their lives. In my limited experience, kids are fun, tremendous fun, but they're also terrible, just fracking terrible sometimes. You do begin to enjoy different things, but you're kind of forced to. You can still have fun with your spouse or have time for yourself, just not as much as before. Your experience, your perspective, your focus changes. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a reality. A different reality than before.
