Why why why do people have kids without marriage

People used to put more weight on marriage as a precursor to children though. It represents a cultural change that we now don't, and while it has had some upsides in terms of not tying people together who would be better of separate, it also has had a negative impact on child poverty.

And because it represents a cultural change, it's not just that people who might have had an accidental pregnancy anyway don't bother to marry when they might have before. It means that people may be less careful to avoid pregnancy than they would have been before.

Then there is the question of whether there are demographics where becoming a single mother can represent an advantage, at least in a short term way, to some women. I have a young cousin who was in that position, and it got her out of her house and able to leave what was a rather difficult home.

Not sure what the answer is but acknowledging more openly that children without marriage is risky might be a start.

I think she’s allocating personal responsibility to women for their own decisions and financial security.

Surely the question should be 'why are women being completely fucked over?'

Not just by partners but by employers, the benefits system, the housing crisis, society.

We shouldn't have to shackle ourselves to a spouse to be protected.

For a number of people having a child trumps marrying the love of your life. Having children is time bound and the women I know who’ve done it that way have only just got on the property ladder and have no money left for the wedding they want or met their partner late - all mid 30s problems.

Agreed they are not impoverished but it would still be bad for them financially with a break up. But then that’s their risk 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m sure women from other backgrounds still want kids in a similar vein.

Also marrying the wrong person is also not a great idea.

It doesn’t actually offer you much protection if there’s nothing to split it’s only men with assets that are worth divorcing therefore worth marrying and those men are pretty determined to protect those assets and therefore won’t get married.
It’s better to just acquire your own assets and then insure that anything child related is split 50-50 he buys half the nappies he buys half the shoes he pays half the childcare.

I'm not married to my DP and we have kids. I would rather have been married but he didn't want to. I wanted the relationship to continue and have children so I chose to do it without being married. We own our house jointly and I continued to work. We've been together 20 years and are talking about getting married or a civil partnership purely because we are getting older and it simplifies things if one of us gets very ill or dies.

Obviously if you earn more.. have an independent income... so NOT aimed at you..

I often see the argument on here that higher earning women should protect their finances by not getting married. However, the same argument could apply to higher earning men.

really???
where are you?
I have never, ever come across this as an option on a form- cohabiting maybe- and definitely not on anything that carried any legal or financial weight

I had no idea how vulnerable babies would make me. I fully intended to continue working and being independent with a good income. Many of my friends kept working, but their careers stalled for years because they were so exhausted, or couldn't do longer hours at work. The other thing is people expect equality, that their partners will do half the caring. That's what I expected. But I have never actually seen it in practice - or only when neither partner takes on the bulk of the caring and they get full time nannies or full time grandmothers.
I feel like capitalism is simply oriented against mothers. You're okay if you have a devoted partner with an income, but that's risky. In another thread, people are saying to a new mother don't expect your partner to stay if you don't give him all the sex he wants. That awful coercive dynamic is the fault of society that does not protect mothers it shouldn't be that failure to get married means they're just thrown to the wolves.

I'd rather the question be "Why do women have children before establishing themselves in a career, having a plan to manage childcare to continue with said career, and have an exit plan should they ever need it".

Marriage isn't the panacea MN would have us think. Giving up financial independence can often be the first step in a relationship turning sour or abusive, marriage certificate or not.

I think we need to empower our daughters with the tools to live a successful life with or without marriage.

Because the evangelism seen on MN about marriage “protecting women” isn’t borne out by lived experience.

The OP admits it’s financially not as big an issue when the woman is the higher earner/has the assets.

It’s also not a big factor if both partners are low earners and have no assets.

On a modest household income the prospect of a partner’s pension looms far less large than the implications of said partner fucking off - and experience tells women marriage doesn’t prevent that.

Just as shared experience tells women that assets can be hidden, child maintenance can be evaded, etc.

Those are the rational reasons - and that’s before we get onto the point that having a baby isn’t a rational decision and choosing a co-partner isn’t like recruiting for a PA.

Because I don't believe in marriage. It's as simple as that. I'd far rather take a financial risk and deal with the consequences of that than cynically partake in a ritual that means a lot to some people but means nothing whatsoever to me. It would be like taking communion to get my kids into a "good" school. It would be dishonest, cynical, and disrespectful to the people who invest a lot of significance in the ritual.

Because naivety, blinkers, been sold on these love stories, not enough experience.

Tbh, I honestly think if women were to really analyse what having children would mean to them, the human race would die out. Luckily our hormones etc take over.

Controversial but I do agree that a lot of women and people in general men too do not consider the realities of a baby before having one. Not as much as they should.

The massive bill to divorce is one of my reasons for not wanting to get married despite happily having his child. I don't fancy a huge divorce bill as well as the emotional and practical logistics of a separation.

Even being married doesn't offer much security.

I'm separating from my husband, due to the kids I can only work 24 hours a week, one of those days I'm already having to pay for a full day at nursery for my youngest.

I earn minimum wage, topped up by UC. I'm trying to buy a shared ownership house but I don't earn enough to even borrow £13K, I have a good sized deposit from the house but even putting £30K down isn't enough. I'm penalised because I have kids basically, that's what my mortgage broker told me earlier. If I rent I lose my UC, suffer insecure housing and will never get on the property ladder again.

If we weren't married I would still own half the house and get my share so other than paying money for divorce I am not gaining anything.

I might be entitled to half his pension but I'm not 100% sure on that.

So yeah... marriage hasn't exactly protected me.

I'm currently separating from my partner and father of my child and couldn't be more relieved we aren't married! I have higher earning potential than him, can easily up my hours from the part time I do now, haven't damaged my career particularly from having children, have always kept separate finances and savings of our own and we own our house jointly. I'm not sure really what I would stand to gain from having been married to him, he doesn't earn much and has few assets. I think it depends entirely on the couples circumstances as to whether marriage is important or not.

Because being married doesn't mean they won't fuck off and leave you as a single parent. It doesn't guarantee they'll pay maintenance or be a decent parent or that you'll be any 'better off' should the marriage end.

All I ended up with was a massive bill for the divorce.

The end.

I have 2 dc and I've never married and don't intend to, because I don't want to. It suits me fine. But I think I'm one of the ones your post doesn't apply to as I'm the breadwinner and have always been and always intend to be financially independent 😊

Sadly the world is full of feckless idiots who put their own desire to have a baby before any serious consideration of what that baby's life will be like (living in poverty, or with an abusive registered father, or with no father, etc).

The more threads I see on here from single women pregnant in bad situations and planning to keep their babies regardless, the more I wonder if the Conservative party is planting them... but I think a lot of women really are that stupid.

Because "marriage is just a piece of paper/ it doesn't change feelings/ we love each other regardless"

My DH said he wasn't into marriage, I said 'yeah cool, but I will never have children without marriage'. We married. But I came from a single parent background so maybe I had an insight others don't, I saw it wasn't easy. Maybe others think marriage will follow babies, but in some cases men think there is no need to bother by then.

Because life throws you numerous curve balls - after 12 years of marriage, few miscarriages and then 2 children - I did not expect my then DH to piss off fuck a family friend and try to screw me over.

Fortunately - I had the last laugh am now happier than him, earn more than him and thankfully not as fat as him!

However, none of this did my crystal predict for me before it happened

@AnyFucker
*
You couldn’t possibly be blaming women for the shit behaviour of men, could you ?*

No, she isn't blaming women however there are some shitty men out there and what the op wants to know is , why after having the knowledge that such men exist would you still not get married to secure yourself !!

If you live your life through the lens of TV soaps, lies from politicians & social media you may be inclined to think it wont happen to you, and if it does everything will be fine.

I'm really glad I didn't marry the father to my children. We very nearly did and I am so glad fate happened and we had to cancel last minute. I would be in a much worse position then I am now! Women who give up their careers believing a man will take care of you however... Very silly in my opinion.