taking sides: single, childless men in their mid-thirties vs single, childless women in their mid-thirties

Most men who put off children do so because of their career, or lack thereof. This really makes them about equal with their female peers in one regard.

Yes, but this is where biology really does come in and it's not just about societal attitudes. Women's fertility drops off vertiginously from the age of 35. Men's doesn't. A 35-year-old guy can probably put off having children without the nagging thought that he won't be fertile enough to do it in a few years' time. But a woman who leaves it to her late thirties or early forties is running a big risk.

Way to generalise!

The risk of chromosomal defects, etc increases dramatically beyond 35 for the woman too. I guess an issue for the middle-aged new dad is that he may be an OAP by the time his son or daughter is in their teens. This is something I worry about a bit, being a faintly creaky 37. I'd like to be trading forehands in the park with Ava in 2019 but I suspect my knees won't be up to it.

On the bright side, the risk is getting smaller, I believe.

As for choosing, we have chosen choices, unchosen choices and choices that choose themselves choices.

Wow, how long did you have to study to come up with that statement? I disagree after seeing a program on the former group.

AnyHOOO, But a woman who leaves it to her late thirties or early forties is running a big risk.

Yes, very much so. This is why I am still in doubt whether to have a second child. I know I should not think too long about this, cause I don't want to be 36 and having a battery of tests to check if I have a healthy child. And secondly I don't want to be too old: I don't want to be sixty with a young teenage son/daughter.

(x-post) I have decided not to have children and I'm quite happy, thank you very much. Perhaps the programme makers should have talked to me - I'd have put them straight.

Or am I just lying to myself and I actually secretly want hundreds of children because, you know, that's what women do.

But it just sickens me, the way that this is invariably turned into just another stick to beat "Career Women" with, when, according to the same article (or maybe it was a similarly themed one later) one of the biggest reasons quoted for said "gap" was not actually "delaying baby for career" but "lack of suitable partner". Which I thought was quite interesting.

I mean, sorry to counter the inherent misogyny of the question with my generation's bitterness towards men (or bitterness that has infected me from other OH NO! childless 30-something womens I know) but who wants to have a child with some kidult boy who's not finished being a child himself?

(I'm of your generation, Kate, and I'm not even remotely bitter towards men. Some of my best friends, etc...)

Yeah hearing this must be infuriating. But I do think it's possible to make a clear-headed unambiguous decision against having children in your 30s and be surprised by a sudden stirring ambivalence w/r/t that choice when you hit the 40s, it's like a biological reaction. Obviously much stronger in women, since childbirth becomes physically impossible past a certain age, but I've seen men go through this too. Again, please don't take this as questioning belittling or patronizing your choice. Just an observation.

I would have liked to have had kids, but at 35 (about to be 36 next week) it's probably OH NO TOO LATE according to "Science!" (Cue man in flaming tophat.) Making me one of those desperate women it's all too easy to lampoon, I suppose. Though I'm moving towards acceptance. (I'm trying to deal with it by thinking of the idea that it's better to be childless than to pass on what is by all indications a genetic condition, without sounding too much like a eugenicist.)

So I get touchy about the suggestion that IT'S BECAUSE YOU HAD A CAREER, BAD WOMAN, OH NO PUTTING OFF YOUR BABIES!!! when the reality was that it was far more complex than that, and mostly down to the tragic ineptitude of the partner(s) I had during my optimum health baby bearing years.

Why am I writing this if it's just going to provide more funnybait for stalkers? Because it's a touchy subject and I'm trying to be honest about it, as well as just falling back on the cliches.

(that said, we did have a bugger of a time trying to conceive)

"Man is not a garland flower that can pollinate oneself" to quote good old Captain Anderson (or was it Talbot? I can't quite recall.)

crossposts

Bah. My wife and I are both 36, and we've known since we were married (15 years!) that we didn't want children. And we still don't.

LEND ME YOUR SPERM!!!!!

There were plenty of other factors in play of course, and I'm not suggesting that this would be the norm for 40-y-o new parents. The way things are going, that kind of generation gap will probably become the norm.

(FWIW, I was very keen to have children when I was in my mid-late 20s, gradually went off the idea into my 30s and then, suddenly, at 34-ish thought it would be the greatest thing.)

Seconded. I've already more or less done my back in! You simply don't have the energy at 40 that you had at 30.

Thanks, SteveM...)

Oh, and I'm a lot worse off financially now than I was in my late-20s...

I imagine student debt is taken into account when applying for all the various benefits you get for having children.

i guess, if they WEALLY WEALLY want kids...

Incidentally the pressure to even just own a property can be just as irritating as all this to people like me a lot of the time.
-- Konal Doddz (stevem7...)

otm

(working families tax credits and whathaveyou)

i don't want children, but i'm pretty sure that if i ever change my mind i'll go the adoption route. there are so many kids out there that need homes, and that's more important to me than bringing some precious-wecious vanity project into the world.

xpost the man from mars won't eat up bars where the tv's on otm

I'm not going to raise a child and have it financially dependent on me for at least 16 years just to get a tax break and a couple of wee incentives.

JBR OTM re adoption.

You think people having kids is basically about precious-wecious vanity projects? That sounds a bit snotty Also, don't assume adopting is at all easy. First, you have to prove you're financially viable and stable, have got a house big enough etc etc. And there's usually an age cut-off as well. Once you've gone through all those hoops you've got to go out and find the child yourself at your own expense, which generally means thousands of pounds and dealing with the tortuous non-English-language bureaucracy of countries like Russia or Haiti or Colombia or whatever. And then often enough you'll find that the kids up for adoption aren't all necessarily unwanted by the mother but the mother simply can't afford it so there's the moral dilemma of the fact you're basically buying the child, etc etc etc. It's not so easy.

it's probably a good idea to have this kind of stuff in mind however you acquire a youngling.

Sure, but you have to prove it to the authorities, who are going to ask all sorts of searching personal questions about your marriage/relationship, your finances etc etc.. Anyway, I'm just saying that adoption is by no means an easy option. The people I know who have done it have gone through hell doing it, spent vast sums of time and money and it has required real single-minded determination.

From what I've seen, I think it's psychologically much tougher than pushing one out through your vagina.

All through my 20s I was stoiclly anti-children (for myself) and I thought if I ever changed my mind I'd adopt (for precisely the reasons JBR and Alisa have articulated.) But what can I say, I have changed as I've grown older. Starting about 4 years ago I came to terms with the fact that I really want to bear a child. This was greatly intensified by my grandmother's death last year. She was like a mother to me and now that she's gone I realize how much she brought to all of our lives -- her little family. I feel like I wouldn't do her love justice if I didn't pass it on to a child of my own. Now having children is at the top of my goal list.

£80/month child tax credit, falling to £40/month after the first year. £256 child trust fund payment (one-off, though I think there's another payment at 7). £68/month child benefit.

Obviously, with all this cash rolling in, I barely need to work but it's nice to have some pin money to keep the nanny in Bentleys.

i think america is a very self-centered country, and too often the reason for having children stems from a kind of sense of entitlement and acquisitiveness ("i should have a child because GODDAMMIT I WANT ONE" and never mind what they might be passing down to their offspring -- hereditary diseases, addiction/mental illness genes, toxins in the body that cause serious developmental problems). when you have a kid you're creating a life. that's serious shit and you'd better have a really good answer when the kid is old enough to ask why he has multiple sclerosis or why his sister has to live in a group home. i remember being in high school and how my friends were depressed and confused and resentful that there were all these factors in their lives they couldn't control and they'd have to live with them for a very long time. i would hate to mess up someone's mind like that just because society told me it's my destiny to be a baby-machine.

Errrr... you're blaming *America* for this? What? I think you're projecting political agendas onto a very basic animalistic instinct for self propegation so deep it goes down to a genetic level. (Dawkins to thread, etc.)

I mean, I know that this opens up a whole nother kettle of fish, but... if you choose not to have children, that's your decision. But it's frankly bizarre to condemn others as being "selfish" because they do. I think that's going a bit too far.

I mean, if you want to blame anything, blame Science! (here comes the man in the flaming hat) for introducing these question of choice (little c, please) in the first place - or for allowing humans with flawed genetics to grow old enough to make the choice whether to pass on their flawed genes.

Bring back natural selection, I say. Mutter mutter.

This is incoherent and sputtering, yes, I know.

oh, absolutely. look at how tv networks are falling over themselves to provide "family programming." look how political leaders and the ever-powerful christian right are driving home the importance of "family values" and treating people without families like they don't figure into the dialogue at all. it's very alienating. it makes me feel like america doesn't have a place for me.

But the only thing that pisses me off more than the BABYBABYBABY pressure is people trying to extrapolate their personal choices to the entire human race by saying things like "having children is selfish". It's reactionary and doesn't make either side any better.

x-x-post

But yeah, what others said, men can produce children up to a much later age.
Maybe they cannot be a dad, but they can impregnate.

just because you feel an instinct doesn't mean you have to act on it. on the other hand, there are some instincts/urges that DON'T fit into the so-called biological imperative, like homosexuality. and i don't really care about this imperative (the word gives me the creeps); i figure the world will go on turning even WITH a smattering of childless heathens and homos.

i'm not suggesting that everybody is selfish, just that too many people are.

(I am just touchy because this was not my personal choice. And I am full of cookie.)

Anyway, the desire to have children isn't selfish, it's a basic imperative. We evolved from creatures that wanted children, so of course we do too.

Those of us who don't want children aren't selfish either. Society will always need childless people to pay for the tax breaks of those of you who have bothered to reproduce...

Why doesn't it just mean wanting something for yourself? Not that this is necess. a bad thing. But yeah not wanting kids could be seen as selfish too because either way it's a decision you're making to suit your own interests ahead of others (parents hopes/expectations etc.).

it's why i said "so-called." i believe in biology (obv) but this notion of "imperatives," well, it's a slippery subject and it gets thrown around in politics a lot by people with dubious science backgrounds. if we're talking about nature taking its course, well that leaves wiggle room for, you know, evolution.

O don't, please!!! I've given them up for Lent.

You have to braise them just so, though.

It seems that people are equating "basic imperative" with "having children". This isn't true. Women with full-grown children don't drop dead after menopause.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

Specifically: the first section, which addresses evolution

of course the right person could well change my mind (eg i would have more than gladly had children with my recent ex but nobody else i've ever dated)

I am baffled that there are people who don't understand or believe the concept that some women are actually NOT AT ALL MATERNAL. It is possible you know.

Thinking about getting a tubal ligation in fact (I'm 35 - if I'dve tried before now I'm sure the docs would say no. sigh.)

I've been lucky - I dont often get the usual unthinking responses like "oh you'll change your mind" and "its different when their yours you'll see" and "you're too young to decide that just now", and when I have it has usually been from probably well-meaning but misguided older women, interestingly. My own mother has been great - she came to understand even when I was a teen that I wasnt maternal in the slightest, I guess one's own mother would be able to figure it out after bringing one up.

Men more often than not dont care or are relieved/pleased when I tell them, which leads me to wonder how many men go along with being a father rather than *actively* wanting to be one like many women do. I have only ever had one partner who actively, very much wanted kids. I always make it clear I dont want them and will not be changing my mind.

One lovely, long term couple - two very dear friends of mine - recently broke up because of this very disagreement. Apparently earlier on the woman had said "I want kids" and he'd always thought she was semi-joking. Eventually she'd said "no really, I want kids, and now I really want them" and he totally didnt, and there they were, stuck. They broke up. Its so sad.

But no, its not for me, it just isnt.

Most apples are round.

In fact I knew from a young age I didnt want kids. Isn't even that I dont like them - it just doesnt make sense or feel like something I "have" or "want" to do at all.
Thinking about getting a tubal ligation in fact (I'm 35 - if I'dve tried before now I'm sure the docs would say no. sigh.)

I can completely understand your point, but an operation like that is final and irreversable, no? Hence why I doctor will not do this for you. There are ample possibilities to avoid pregnancy that are not as final as a tubal ligation. What *if* you do DO change your mind? I realize at this point in time you may think "NEVAH IN MY FRIGGING LIFE!" but you NEVER KNOW. And, no, I don't think you will change your mind... :-)

Yes, I am still smarting from that, two years later or whatever.

I fail to see the point of bringing another child into the world when there are so many out there that could do with my love, help and support.

This staggers me. Are you robots?

Heh heh, like it!

xpost

If anyone feels swindled for missing out on the grand or so we get off the govt every year "simply for having functioning genitals" (to paraphrase something upthread), well, just see our sprog as a future taxpayer who'll help keep you in Tunnock's Tea Cakes, corned beef sarnies and hip replacements in your dotage. Just helping to broaden out the base of that population pyramid...

The funny thing is that this generally only applies to women; I got my vasectomy when I was 25 years old, and no questions were asked. The doctor preferred that my wife sign off on it as well, but it was not required. This is, of course, stems right from the "If a woman doesn't want kids she is a FREAK of NATURE" school of thought, or at least does nothing to make women feel less paranoid about it.

There are ample possibilities to avoid pregnancy that are not as final as a tubal ligation. What *if* you do DO change your mind?

But that's just the point! If you're clear on the matter, none of the other possibilites ARE final and irreversible.

Note that people rarely ask of those eager to have children, or who have recently had them, "What if you have them then change your mind and detest them?"

Hence "The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow")?

But it is a question you ask yourself before embarking on the whole adventure - what if this actually destroys us? How will we deal with a tantrum-prone 2-y-o? Neither decision - to conceive or to prevent biological possibility of same - is taken lightly. (I'm talking here of that particular form of planned 30-something parenthood that is the focus of the thread).

I do shudder a little when I hear of someone having a vasectomy or a tubal ligation - not so much the finality of it, just my own squeamishness.

I don't see why this makes us robots. I can feel love and pity and a sense of obligation towards someone or something that actually exists far more clearly than someone or something that may or may not come along in the future. Even if that someone doesn't "belong" to me.

I am a happily childless woman, and the only regret it gives me is that (some) people with children are suspicious of me and do not believe that I have a right to any input into the lives of children in our country except to shut up and pay my taxes. If I hear the words "do you have children?" or "are you a parent?" spoken accusingly once more, I think I'll go mad. Do people really have children just to prove a point and win arguments? I can have an opinion on social laws and ASBOs and schools and child care too, you know.

I love kids, I just love them in small doses, is all.

Two good friends of mine have had tubal ligations, BTW: one due to high levels of mental illness in family/preference for adoption and the other just told them flat out she was not going to be a mum, ever. She is happily married and her husband has zero issues with her decision.

But that's just the point! If you're clear on the matter, none of the other possibilites ARE final and irreversible.

Dude, have you never changed your mind?

Besides, I just curry favor with my sister's kids. They'll support me in my twilight years!

For a long time my deep-seated non-child-wanting was based on genetics (mental illness) and a bad childhood myself. But age, successuflly dealing with those problems and most importantly seeing my brother, who also suffered through a bad childhood, become an excellent father helped me realize that it's something worth trying.

Sam, you know I have a lot of respect for you, and maybe I'm misreading that particular phrase, but if you can't come up with something more committed than "it's worth trying", maybe you should write a book or something instead?

xposed

No I don't. Adoption's great and the existence of people happy to adopt is a wonderful thing. I was shocked that neither of the people I was quoting seemed able to accept that, to some people, there is a real genuine need/desire to have their own children.

nasty, unlike calling people 'un-human' and adopted kids 'random'?

Of course a waiting-to-be-adopted child would be "random" - unless you're proposing picking and choosing the one with the bluest eyes or whatever? What possible good does it do imbuing the word random with negativity when all I meant was "any child from the pool of children up for adoption"?

As for un-human, well, bad choise of words. I mean having a lack of empathy for what is a necessary attribute of our (and any other) species. Apologies if it offended Ailsa or JBR.

it takes some other randomer's eggs to make a baby too, y'know.

But if you'll see, it's not even neccesary to check context for their remarks - they're both in the first person, describing how they feel about it. You, not very shockingly, seem to be the only one to consider this an assault on convention.

Of course a waiting-to-be-adopted child would be "random" - unless you're proposing picking and choosing the one with the bluest eyes or whatever?

You are an ass.

I know what you mean by this, but I'd point you back to those old arguments that part of what makes humans great is our ability to rise above primitive instincts and see the bigger picture. Of course we need future generations to carry on the human race (if you see it as being worth carrying on, separate argument natch), and of course I need someone's kids to pay my pension, but I don't think it's unhuman to step back and see a major problem, which is that while we're having kids who are thought about, wanted, well looked-after and have a great chance at life, other children are not in that fortunate position, and maybe, just maybe it's more human to say 'right, I'm ready to make a home and a family. Who's got a kid they can't look after?'

However, I don't believe it's right to take a child away from its family and possibly country just because its family there can't afford to look after it.

Some of us were discussing this on a hen weekend recently (it's not all L plates and Heat magazine on hen weekends, it turns out) and I realised that the logical conclusion of my own beliefs is that I should continue to do what I do now, which is to out the energy and money that I might have put into childrearing into making it possible for other people's children to be reared safely and successfully. That's just what I believe in.

To get back to the thread's original thrust, though, I do feel that as a woman I'm required to have a stance on this, whereas my husband can just get away with saying 'dunno, just don't want kids'.

-- Andrew Farrell

Andrew, that's a bit much. Mark wasn't advocating picking the prettiest baby.

xpost

http://images.radcity.net/5990/1070833.jpg

Nope, never. In fact, I grow more confident with each passing year -- dadhood just is not for me. And if anything, my wife is even MORE confident that momhood is not for her.

I give up. If you can't really see the doctor's point of view... I was just trying to state that SOME PEOPLE DO CHANGE THEIR MIND. :-)

Consider the fate of someone going onto the Chicago thread a catlovers site and describing the result of going to the pet sactuary as a 'random' kitten. :)

I don't know though.

It's as obnoxious to me as would be a doctor trying to talk a woman out of an abortion.

I don't know about "panels of experts". I do believe parents choose a child from the ones available but their choice must be approved (including from the child herself if old enough).

isn't a vascetomy much more easily reversed than a ligation? Also it is not major surgery as ligation is.

This really might be the true fear.

All of a sudden I'm wondering if I wasn't being hopelessly naive. So parents ARE allowed to pick and choose their babies? That seems kinda... divisive - the generous, philanthropic qualities of adoption take on a sinister note if the parents can pick the prettiest or most smiley baby.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE UGLY CHILDREN!

p.s. thanks Anna for explaining very concisely what I've been spluttering about

Being 17 or whatever, I think we picked the parents who listed music as one of their primary interests, because we thought they would be more likely to be artistic or open-minded in the event that her child turned out to be like her.

It was an unbelievably difficult decision. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the prospetive parents. So it does kind of... I don't know. It seems a bit flippant when people say "oh, well, I'll just adopt!"

I am of an age, and an inclination where I believe that I will not have children. Part of me feels I would really like kids, though I have seen the degrees to which they have changed friends lives and wonder if I would be able to accept such a change. As someone whose whole approach to relationships is hugely risk adverse, it would seem to be admiting a whole load of risk into my life. Therefore the adoption or fostering idea is both attractive and even more scary for me. I do like children and am pretty good with them (I know where the off switch is).But am I missing out by not having any? Not when there are so many friends and families children I can be part of.

You're missing a lot. But if you have kids, you also miss a lot. it's a win/win, lose/lose situation. Does that make any sense?

at least until they were thirteen or so, the threat would probably seem pretty plausible.

This wasn't really a problem in NY, where none of my friends were baby makers, but now that I live in VA (temporarily) I'm in a much more conservative environment, and I think it is a bit of a mystery to my coworkers now as to why I am not married and making babies. If/when I move back to a large city this will hopefully change.

Also, now I work with a lot of kids and parents and I think the kids are so charming and wonder if I shouldn't embark on my own little vanity project after all. But I like to come home to peace and quiet and I wonder how I could deal with raising a child and being peppy and not cranky. Because I realize how depression in parents easily manifests itself (somewhere down the line) in depression in children. Luckily, there's no sperm donor in the picture so I don't have an opportunity to test my recent musings.

FInally, dealing with my mom's health now makes me think about who will look after me when I get older...and maybe I should have a child as a form of security. But again, this is fear speaking.

So childness for now and for the forseeable future, but not ruling out possible changes of mind, as circumstances permit.

Also very disturbed with why someone would state point-blank that childness women are somehow going against their nature. If you feel that you are not going to be a good mother, or don't have the wherewithal to raise a child, or simply aren't interested in having children, surely it's better to realize that than to blindly go along and have a child for the sake of it?

I also respect those who do have children, whatever their motivations, the delivery process itself seems massive, and all of those minutes and hours and days dedicated to childcare. I wonder how people entertain their children all day? I think I was just put in front of the tv or left with a good book, but I feel like it's important these days to be stimulating baby's brain at every moment.

Way to generalise!

-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006.

Whoa there, Alisa. You sound a little neurotic

For Markelby:

(I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here a bit. I have no *desire* to give birth to a child. I'm not going to rush out and adopt a kid either. If I were to find myself pregnant, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I'm only thinking about the issue right now because this thread is here.)
-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006 4:44 PM. (ailsa) (later)

And, as Andrew F pointed out, I wasn't extrapolating to the whole world. Basically, *I* don't have the desire to experience pregnancy, give birth, etc. And I don't really understand this urge in others. I do get that it's there, but without having experienced it, I can't understand how it would drive, for example, Nathalie to question Trayce's decision to not bring another child into the world, given that Trayce is a grown-up intelligent woman who has, presumably, given this matter a bit of thought.

I *do* understand that everything changes when you have a kid (I do have a mother, after all, and she didn't really want kids either, but has managed more than OK). I just don't understand this rampant biological ticking clock stuff. I can't imagine a point ever in my life where I'll go, "oh, what I need now is a baby". I'm 33, I've been happily married for five years. If I was going to do it, now would be as good a time as any. I JUST DON'T WANT TO.

I think I have stuff I could pass on to the next generation (I do "mother" problem teenagers for a living, you know) and I have considered fostering, as it's not so *final* as adopting and having a kid, but it can be... (my big brother was fosterered by us when he was 11, he's now in his late 30s and very much part of the family).

Sorry, Mark, you called me a robot (and you know me well enough, I hope, to know that I'm not) so I just wasn't sure. Also because I use "cheers" in a sarky voice more often than not. Thanks :-)

Seconded on Mary's post. Much more eloquent than my ramblings.

If it helps - I have fallen pregnant before. I had an abortion. No regrets. Sorry. Not going to apologise for it.

?

there is nothing inherently wrong with either group

i just found out my mom smoked throughout her pregnancy with me. thanks mom!
― the man from mars won't eat up bars where the tv's on (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:54 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

she did look cool tho
― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:55 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hahahaha

sarahell otm. the thread title sets up a pointless opposition that the OP then blithely ignores in order to make a blandly 'trenchant' observation. bfd.