#[ and said girls were sent to the same circle and ended up dating sdkjfhjsdf ]

[idolbound]

More seriously though, I actually think Meredith and the concept of having children was something she may have considered at some point, but entering the Templar Order and taking up a vow of chastity* made the idea become all but a distant memory. In addition, Meredith discovering her same-sex attraction in her early teens also became a hurdle to the idea of bearing a child, because in her view, even if she did want children, it would require having sexual relations with a man, and that in and of itself was something she considered repulsive.

However, regardless of her sexuality, Meredith's core reason against having a biological child is the deep-seated fear that she could possibly pass on the 'mage gene' to them. She witnessed the horrific events of her sister losing control all those years ago, and she couldn't bear the thought if she, as a templar, bore a magical child who could risk sharing the same fate as Amelia, or be forced to live their entire life in a Circle - which is ironic, of course, given how she runs the Gallows - but she knows that it is not an easy life for mages, who she believes must take responsibility for themselves.

Beyond her circumstances though, Meredith does not hate children; in fact, she does tend to have a soft spot for young children who get taken into the Circle as they remind her of her sister at that age, and of course, this extends to children who become wards of the Chantry like herself. She tends to take a bit of a softer approach with those children, though this is not widely known by most people, or even by most templar knights serving under her.

Relatedly, I think in some ways, Meredith giving the role of Knight-Captain to Cullen is akin to seeing him as a pseudo-son. It's two-fold in this sense; when he came to Kirkwall, she saw a young boy, traumatized by mages, who she could mould easily into following her strict system, so that he could inherit her role and continue to run the Gallows in her footsteps. On the other hand, Meredith saw someone she could take under her wing, much like how Ser Wentworth Kell took her in, and saw her as the daughter he never had. In this sense, Cullen is indeed her underling, but in some ways, she has an almost maternal yet still professional relationship with him.

In a modern verse, with greater access to technologies and control for having biological children, I think Meredith wouldn't necessarily be opposed to being a mother for the same reasons in the DA canon, obviously. But, it would depend on a few things, namely her extensive focus on her career in corrections, and of course, her partner. Meredith would most likely want her partner to 'bear' her child (e.g., by picking a donor that resembles her), and she would still likely not be the greatest parent in the world, given her upbringing and the resultant trauma of losing her family and adoptive father, and of course, her beliefs about strict routines and otherwise, hard-ass style of parenting.

...

* I think in some sense, the vow of 'chastity' in the context of the Kirkwall templars is more so focused on no marriage rather than no sex - exemplified with just how many templars go to the Blooming Rose.