A guy that asks you about kids with the sole intent of making conversation doesn’t get into much detail about it.
He is making small talk, but doesn’t care all that much for the topic.
Regardless of what you say in response, he doesn’t do much to relate to it in describing where he stands on the topic.
The topic of kids only came up due to external stimuli.
In this case, you were talking to him at a playground, park, schoolyard or anywhere that kids were present.
He was influenced by this environment and chose to use its young occupants as a topic of conversation with the sole purpose of making conversation.
Were you in any of these environments while you were talking to him?
Even if you weren’t, the mere mention of a child as you engage in conversation with him can trigger him to ask you about kids.
Did you say anything to him about a family member of yours who so happens to be a child, or that of a friend or coworker?
Did you mention the name of a child in any context?
This alone can trigger him to ask you about kids, in an attempt to keep a conversation going.
This is yet another example of how he uses external stimuli to bring up a topic about kids.
In this case, the external influence wasn’t the environment he was in with you, but what you said.
In making a reference to a child as you were talking to him, he naturally followed that up by asking you about kids.
He is making superficial conversation with you in these circumstances and nothing more.
This is evidenced by the lack of detail in his questioning and his nonchalance in relating to what you had to say about kids.
This makes it unlikely that he sees you as someone with romantic potential.
Conversely, a guy who asks you about kids completely out of nowhere and gets into detail on this topic is a totally different story.
He wasn’t influenced by the environment he was in, nor by words you said that were tangentially or directly connected to kids.
He asked you about kids without any external stimuli whatsoever.
And he is getting into detail about it too in asking you about whether you want to have them, how many you of them you want, what their genders are, and what names you want to give them.
The more detailed he is in his questioning, the likelier it is that he is gauging you, deciphering whether you are on the same page as he is on this subject.
He is already attracted to you.
He knows that he is connecting with your personality too.
Despite all this, being that he wants kids in the foreseeable future, he doesn’t want to take it any further with you unless he confirms that you see eye to eye with him on the subject of kids.
This is what has prompted him to ask you about kids, and do so with such detail.
Only when he confirms that you are on the same page as he is on this topic, is he emboldened to take the next step in asking you out on a date in the foreseeable future.