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"I was one of those who was a little old man at 10 years old (am pushing 50 now), never did kid things and pretty much always hung around with adults, and to this day I've really never gotten a handle on how to deal with kids, I have no frame of reference for it."

I absolutely understand this, and it mirrors my own experience. If I'd had a spouse like your wife who was totally gung-ho on having kids, it might have been different (MIGHT), but my husband was not gung-ho on having kids, and when both people are not terribly interested, it tends not to happen.

It may be that this woman thought there was more "excitement" to being a mother and the whole experience has let her down. Otherwise, I can't imagine why she had kids. My dad was adamant that my mother stay home with me, when I arrived (this was normal in 1955), and by the time I went to kindergarten he said to her, "For God's sake, go back to work!" because she didn't have enough to keep her occupied. It went well after that. :)

My kids do sometimes bore me, as is the case with this woman. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love them, I do things with them ... we have an outing planned this afternoon ... I do more than just put food in their bellies and a roof over their heads and tell them I love them, and I do it not because I have to but because I have this inner something in me that makes me, as hard as it is for me to execute, want to. But sometimes dealing with them is, as I said, drudge work to me and it can be painfully boring.

And then I see people to whom it seems to come so easily ... yes, I know it's probably work to them as well, but it still seems to come so free and easily and natural to where they don't show it ... and the thing I keep drawing from my interactions with them, at various functions, etc., is that it's because they have the ability to get down on a child's level. And that is simply not natural to me.