30s? So You're not taking conservatives into consideration. According to them, the woman is most fertile when she's 16.
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I've actually had people be less pushy about it once I hit my 30's. Though I still get the occasional "why not?" and "what if your husband changes his mind?" when they ask if I have children. Which is honeslty pretty crazy to me, what if it wasn't by choice (it is) and now you're asking "why not?" to someone who wants them but for whatever reason can't have them.
I'm fortunate enough that my parents and in-laws both don't bother us about it. They'd love grandkids but know we won't be having any. The pressure mostly came from coworkers in my 20's where they'd say "You'll change your mind" and dismiss my opinions.
When my now-spouse and I were still fairly early in our relationship they asked me to go with them to their gyno appointment, because they wanted to get a tubal ligation.
The Dr actually protested and asked "well this is just a boyfriend, what if your future husband wants kids?"
To which I responded "even if that's not me who the fuck cares if some potential future Douchebag disagrees with their choice and wants to force them into having kids? Why are you asking like it's not 100% their choice? Even If I wanted kids and were married right now, tough shit it's not my body. "
We don't go there anymore, but it's a super religious hospital masquerading as not religious. But when your entire board is religious, the major donations are from churches, a lot of the staff go to said churches, and your medical decisions clearly reflect religious views, you can't really claim to be anything but a religious organization... Unfortunately, the only one within half an hour drive of here...
It's shocking the number of people who think they're entitled to know all about your reproductive health and/or choices.
By the time I was in my mid-30s, I had seen several loved ones suffer through infertility and miscarriages, and I thought about how horrible those conversations must be for them, so I started my public awareness campaign.
Someone I barely knew would ask if I had kids. I would say no. If they pressed about why, I would respond with, "You know, when a woman gets to be my age and doesn't have kids, there's usually a reason for it. And she usually doesn't want to discuss it with someone she just met."
Some people would immediately apologize and seemed to genuinely understand how intrusive those questions could be. Others were oblivious and needed things spelled out more clearly: your idle curiosity about other people's family planning is not worth dredging up what could be serious trauma.
I had so much pressure from my parents and my (now ex) husband's parents when I was in my 20s. I remember trying to skirt the issue by telling my mom that we weren't in a good financial place, and she said "that doesn't matter. You'll just make it work. We did." Yeah ma, you made it work by having screaming and sometimes physical fights about finances. Not to mention that I never got to have any extra curriculars or new clothes because of it. Utterly mental.
Thankfully I was told that because of a disease I was diagnosed with in my late 20, if I did try to have kids, I would most certainly die. So yahoo, no more pressure for me.
"You'll just make it work. We did." is such an asinine thing to say when most of us drag baggage into adulthood from varying degrees of childhood trauma. Whether the cause was financial or "I stayed in this bad marriage because of you, kids" while at the same time making another kid in hopes of it fixing said marriage or satisfying your biological need.
I've never truly wanted to have kids—past the very rare, but fleeting thought due to people around me starting to have them and lizard brain getting confused—in over 30 years of existing, and yet I still get the occasional "why not?" and "you'll change your mind" and "your life will have purpose".
The purpose thing always gets me. I came from a large family, six kids. We're all long since out of the house. And while kids did give h my mom a sense of purpose, in her 50s, she had to find a purpose all over again! Once all the kids were out of the house, as an empty nester, she had to find things to occupy her time. And she's found a variety of very rewarding volunteer work in the community to do so.
Not that having kids won't give you a sense of purpose, but that sense only really lasts while the kids are young and in need of a lot of active childcare. Once they're in high school, you'll need to find something else to produce that sense of purpose and keep yourself busy. So if you're having kids just for a sense of purpose, you would be better off focusing on just that and leaving the actual human beings out of it.
The planet's on fucking fire. I have so many purposes already. I need to stop climate change, destroy capitalism, decolonise Australia, help the trans kids stop dying, get Bibi to go home, teach people to perceive otherkin kindly... Anyone who needs a kid to give them purpose has no empathy and would make a bad parent in My opinion. Fight for the kids who are dying in Gaza. We don't need more purposes, we need more helpers.
When I was a kid I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety because I was always thinking about climate change and how to save the world. But I'm not scared. I'm angry.
My mom always says her children are her purpose and I find it unhealthy. My younger sibling still lives with my parents, so the nest isn't empty, but she places a lot of emotional burden on us because her marriage is toxic and even working a lot and having her hobbies isn't enough to offset it. So instead of divorcing my father and focusing on her mental and physical health, she uses us as sort of an emotional crutch. I just don't get it.
My friends are all starting to have kids and I've never been more glad to have yeeted my uterus. People also stop asking you about having kids when you say, "Well you need a uterus for that."
If somehow I do change my mind, I'll adopt. But RN my mind is firmly made up: no kids
that doesn't matter. You'll just make it work. We did."
They always forget about how they kept voting fascists into office, and now food, housing, childcare and medical care are all exponentially more expensive, all while wages remain stagnant. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for reasons why it's harder to raise children now than it was 20-30 years ago.
CW: SA
My decision to have a child was made for me when my then-wife stopped using her birth control without telling me. A few years prior to her actions we had a conversation about kids that was left unresolved. I wanted us to be in a better place financially before trying because I had always loved the idea of a stay-at-home dad, present in his children's lives (and other experiences I didn't have growing up), but then COVID happened and we both lost our jobs. In the midst of recovering from a mental burnout from a career I hated and a nightmarish job hunt, I was also experiencing a final dying gasp of performative hyper-masculinity, eventually channeled into working outside with my body for 40 hours a week while achieving the Adonis look. It was what I had always told myself I wanted if I couldn't be a girl, but finally having achieved it, it still didn't fit right.
Amidst this, my ex arbitrarily decided to try for a baby, perhaps hoping it would convince me to go back out for higher paying office jobs or something. I have never received a real answer from her, other than her friend suggested she do it and she listened, but this is classic deflection from her. We won't get into it. My ex allegedly tried for only one month, and thus, a Star were Born.
Fast forward four years of motherhood, gender discovery, and divorce; My kiddo is the sweetest nugget, my ex still can't use my name correctly and is (has always been?) a real terfy lesbian, and I'm trying to make the best of the world catching on fire while explaining it to a creature who nuzzles into me when it's scared and whose consciousness hasn't yet turned on.
I don't get pressured to have kids at all. When I say "I had My genitals surgically removed", that's a level of asexuality that normal people don't know how to be assholes about at all. It's an out of context problem for the moderate conservative brain.
I got asked about it by psychiatrists when I was getting My surgery letters, and I told them, "If I want to have a kid, I'll adopt. The world has enough babies, and this cultural obsession with having a kid who shares your genes seems kinda eugenecist."
Tell Me which part is confusing and I can try to explain it better
Oh, and I didn't tell the psychiatrists this, but I already did adopt. I brought a couple of wonderful trans pups into My life and I'm helping them get stronger and braver and make their way in the world. That's the kind of family I want to make, and I did.
I think they're blue screening on the genital removal. It's not a common bodymod, but fuckit, they're yours, you can yeet them if ya want
Dogs don't feed the people crushing machine that eats people and creates more money for billionaires. So there won't be restrictions on human breeding.
Please respect other people's choices here. I understand that it can be frustrating to be pressured to have children, but people that have chosen to have children are still in this community.
I have children... I had to think about it very seriously and it had nothing to do with pressure from elsewhere. I also didn't insult anyone who had children. You may be taking this comment a bit too personally.
There is absolutely pressure to have children in order to feed the machine. And there isn't much realism about whether it's a good idea. Family planning is actively discouraged by the billionaire class and by extension, society. You're so easily offended that you completely missed the point and the point is pretty important.
I misunderstood the comment you're replying to, too, at first. They're saying the government doesn't want people to think carefully about having kids, because the government wants to use kids as workers.
Your comment doesn't seem relevant to what you replied to. This person did not disrespect the choice to have children.
Thirties? People were asking me when I was going to settle down when I was in twelfth grade.
So much it gave me a panic attack after a family Christmas. I have andometriosis and a buffet of mental health problems. I don't want kids.
I was asked why I even got married if I didn't want kids. That was really rich, coming from someone who had two kids out of wedlock.
30s? You can have a baby as a teen, and encouraged to do so by the political right that still won't can child marriage and revenue completed that teen births are down.
I’ve never had anyone ask those questions about a proposed dog. You probably haven’t either. Makes a nice reactionary post though
In the real world, people do get asked questions like these. I have asked people questions like these after having seen so many people not be ready to have a dog.
My family said something to me about it a few times and i told them to adopt if they were hurting for more kids around and that shut them up.
I dont want kids and never did. But especially not in this horrid version of global capitalism.
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