To think more people should be intentional about who they have children with?

Not sure this is the same thing. More like in many cases your partner who had the key and you trusted does a complete change and sells the house from under you.

On another note what happens if you leave the back door open rather than the front. I guess you won’t get pregnant at least🤔

I agree with this.

And there is a general expectation that fathers will be shit.

Men are ‘different’, men don’t see mess, men can’t multi task, men can’t do house admin. John is amazing because he picks his kids up from nursery and can work a vacuum cleaner. Fred can’t otoh poor lamb because his important man-job means his hours are too long, even though his female colleagues manage.

Even more depressingly I can’t see any change in the last 20 years or so.

I don’t think YABU except that reason doesn’t come into it, when sex rears its ugly head

This may not be a popular view, but I think there is something of a vicious circle here. I think if a girl has a decent, loving, present father and has seen her parents modelling a good relationship she is more likely to choose well in future and not be fooled. She will know what to look for. Whereas a girl who has grown up with a shit father will think it’s normal.

i guess some just get horny and then its oh pickles but by then etc

Hear hear

I think people too often move in with people too casually without really thinking about the future, then whoops there’s a contraception accident and living together isn’t fun any more.

I'm just astonished when women get pregnant from 'short flings' (or even ONS with total strangers!) and decide to keep the baby.

"Oh it'll be fine, they don't need to know their dad, I'll love them"

You don't know ANYTHING about the father's medical history. He could be carrying genes for (or suffering from) all sorts of horrid medical conditions. Huntington's, for one extreme example.

How can you casually produce babies like that? It's so sloppy and careless. As I said earlier, even female insects put more thought into choosing a decent, healthy mate. Isn't that the most basic thing you can do for a child?

Sometimes people have bad luck, but Sometimes it does feel like people get together and too quickly have a baby, it goes wrong then they do exactly the same again! My wonderful friends 20 year old DD had a baby with her boyfriend, who was only a few years older, it was her first and his 6th! Needless to say they split up before the baby was even born, god knows how many more women he’s got pregnant since her baby was born

I think if no decent man comes along I can understand conceiving by an unsuitable candidate so long as you’re prepared for the inevitable and are set up with a house, reliable income, support network and a willingness to raise a child alone and not waste years of energy and stress chasing somebody who clearly wasn’t suitable for parenthood from the outset.

Often these women are not ‘great parents’ themselves tbh hence the bad decisions

I think no one is brave enough to say that if the right man (apparently right man) doesnt come along, well you (shouldnt) cant have the child.

The PP says it right, a walking red flag but planning to have kids with him, why? Because it means that the right man may never materialise and she wont therefore have those children she thinks. So she goes ahead with it and hopes for th best even though deep down she knows its not the best.

If we all waited for the perfect partner the human race would die out. One great parent is enough.

One great parent can’t always cancel out the effect of the shit parent though.

In my opinion, straight women in particular are the most determined to chase a conventional lifestyle. The new build house, the car on finance, the perfect social media relationship, the big wedding and two or three kids.

They don’t think about the consequences of rushing into this until it’s too late.

It’s the job of parents to teach their children how to behave in relationships.

I have DC of both sexes. All have been taught by myself and DH that they should:

1. Really try to get to know any prospective GF/BF well enough to trust them before having sex
2. Sex, unprotected or protected, can result in a pregnancy
3. Think about whether you both know what to do in the event of a pregnancy and make sure you are both in agreement
4. Remember that a child is an 18-year minimum commitment if you decide to keep a child from an unexpected pregnancy, and make sure that both of you are in agreement with raising a child for that long and providing the child with the best possible life
5. Remember that any child you have, deserves to have two loving parents, even if your relationship doesn’t work out, and ensure that you are both equally committed to providing this

All our DC are in happy healthy relationships… I see a lot of young people - even those with supposedly good upbringing - that don’t seem to understand the basics.

I blame this on our British desperation to put no expectations on anyone, for fear of sounding judgemental, at the expense of guiding people towards thinking of the potential ramifications of their desires before acting on these!

Most of the time they dont have to declare it, its right there on the surface.

There are always loads of posts on here of women either TTC or pregnant for the second or third time with a man who is a walking red flag. YANBU.

I’ve plainly said upthread this doesn’t apply to women who do their due diligence - and I don’t mean forensic investigating and dating for 15 years beforehand, just ticking off the main indicators. Making sure they have stable employment; no ‘history’ of ‘mental exes’; no previous kids that ‘they don’t see because insert feeble reason; that they don’t seem allergic to housework and know how to cook/hoover/wash up after themselves.

The number of women who post on here about lazy, abusive men who have been awful for years and I’m sat there thinking ‘don’t be pregnant, don’t be pregnant..’ but of course, they are always pregnant.

I’m not surprised children seem so unbalanced, angry and anxious with the absolute mess the foundation of family has become tbh

I’m assuming you had the benefit of a crystal ball OP.
What sanctimonious judgemental woman blaming crap. Don’t you have anything better to do than worrying about what other people do?

Not quite the same though, is it?

Of course women bear more responsibility, but that doesn’t mean that all men will declare their intentions to be a shit/ absent parent.

Agree completely.

Yes we can ‘call out men’ or instigate some kind of ‘culture change’, men won’t give a fuck. Rape, drugs and murder are all shameful yet continue with abandon because they don’t care.

Which leaves 1 option, protecting yourself. That or being a helpless bystander in your own life while the men do whatever they like.

I read a quote once

"People put more thought into what clothes they wear than into what partner they choose".

Female insects put more thought into choosing mates than some female humans on here.

The trouble with this thread and others like it, its going to bring out misguided accuasions of misogyny because people posting on it are the outliers in situations like this. The ones where the bloke presented as reasonable and really keen to have kids and then showed his true colours later

I think what OP is referring to is the amount of children that are born to parents who either have met weeks prior, months prior, have children already, flit from relationship to relationship, have believed all the BS about how previous partners of the bloke have been awful and wont let him see the kids or like someone mentions above, he's going out each weekend getting drunk with his mates and sitting around scratching his balls all day.

Its hardly misogyny to be warning women to protect themselves at all costs.