Shake

Ha ha ha! I saw that one, too! If I didn't already have one of my own, I think I'd use that line.

That definitely is the connection. I'm sure it's still another part of why the Catholic Church is against birth control. :notworthy to your LDS friend for that question!

Someone else above mentioned high-risk pregnancies as part of a family history that made the thought of attempting to have children seem less enticing. The first of my friends to get married had their daughter almost 9 months exactly after the wedding. They were very excited because they knew it would be difficult for them to get pregnant, and it was kind of risky. She also is in that high-risk group, which is why she still only has the one child. They love their daughter and wouldn't mind having another child if it weren't so difficult and potentially dangerous. So, instead, she dotes over the kids of the rest of us. My son's 2.5 now, but we've got two other sets of friends whose kids are even younger. We had always joked that their daughter would be baby-sitting for the rest of us, and now she's 10, and the reality isn't that far off! She loves playing with my son!

I don't think I posted this before, but we were friends with a couple when we lived in SC who were childfree by choice. He's Catholic and the youngest of 13 (so he's got cousins his age), but knowing Catholics, I'm sure there's still pressure for him to have kids. She once told my wife that they couldn't still be friends once we had a kid, because the child suddenly becomes the topic of every conversation. Of course, she was only kidding (partly anyway). We're still all friends, but I can see her point, and she is right to an extent.

Godless Dave

That's what this thread is for.

brighid

Thanks GD! I posted my mush over there.

Brighid

Immaculate Deception

I had a dream about this last night. Thanks a lot, LOL.

Godless Dave

I've noticed that besides me it's only been childree women in this thread with complaints about getting grief for their choice. Is there, as I suspect, a big double standard here? Is it considered more "normal" for a man not to desire children? Or are women just easier to pick on?

trientalis

I suspect that there is greater pressure on women to have children than on men. Religion probably plays a part; didn't St. Paul say that women would be redeemed through childbearing? Also, given that women were shut out of many careers over the centuries, what else was left to them?

Ab_Normal

My mother-in-law was pretty adamant about getting grandchildren out of us, but she mostly limited her pressure to my husband. So I only had to deal with the side-effects, which were bad enough.

DMB

I have been off-line while some of this hammer-and-tongs stuff has been raging. Since I have been attacked for what I posted, I feel bound to reply.

1. I don't think there is anything wrong in being childfree and certainly have no intention of attacking anyone for it. There are lots of perfectly valid arguments against parenthood.
2. I waschildfree until the age of 35.
3. My main point, and I certainly think it is both valid and relevant, is that it is possible to undergo profound changes even when one is well into adulthood. There is no magic point at which one freezes and stops changing.
4. I know that when I was in my early 30s, I was convinced that I was fully mature and had essentially stopped developing. I was wrong. Of course, not everyone will undergo big changes, and not everyone will change in the same direction, but the possibilities are there even if one currently feels fixed.
5. My advice to Immaculate Deception is therefore not to go off and get pregnant! It is simply to try to keep options open as much as possible if she can conveniently do so.
6. I really have no idea whether Immaculate Deception would ever come to feel regret at being sterilised. I do know, however, that some people do.
7. "It's different when it's your own child" is not necessarily a goad to make the childless procreate. It's a statement of fact for the vast majority of people. I would say that in my experience there is even more difference on average for men than for women, since more of the latter are predisposed to like children (as I was not).

girlwriter

My husband and I have noticed the same thing. When it's just him with other men, they may ask if he has kids, but once he tells them he's not going to, they usually leave it alone. But if I'm there, or we're with other couples, we get more questions.

Based on my observations, I think that women are more likely to want kids, or at least put a higher priority on it. I think that the way we (women) are socialized causes us to wrap our self-image up in parenting much moreso then men. That's changing, of course, but it's still pretty ingrained. I think for a lot of women, it's just harder to imagine feeling fulfilled without children. Also, women are socialized (and probably biologically wired for, I think) nurturing more than men are.

Men, OTOH, are socialized to persue an education and a career and find fulfilment in that.

And then there's the biology argument, but I have doubts about it, as I've personally never felt anything even remotely resembling a biological clock ticking.

These are just broad generalizations, of course. Individuals obviously vary.

Ab_Normal

My husband and I were having a contest to see whose biological clock would go off first (I figured it would be him) when the Pill failed me and made the competition moot. Darn it, now we'll never know.