How common do you think involuntary childlessness is?

[Bumpitybumper]

I was listening to a podcast about the falling birth rate and began to think of friends and family members that haven't had children. I would honestly say that the majority had the desire to have children at some point but ended up without children either due to medical or fertility issues or more commonly life circumstances.

For the women I know, it was almost as if they suddenly ran out of time and found they had fertility issues when they decided they were ready for babies (usually mid/late 30s) or they either didn't have a partner or their partner didn't want children. I know lots of people actively choose to not have children but I would say this is uncommon amongst the people I know. I'm therefore wondering if my circle is unusual or is unintended childlessness a much bigger thing than we are led to believe?

Amongst the women I know, the majority of those without children didn't want to have them and were firm on that from their 20s onwards. I know 2 people who are near/over 40 who have sadly had several miscarriages and no children (they are still trying and will hopefully have children in the end). I know another 2 families who have adopted and 1 who is planning to adopt (2 of these 3 had fertility struggles, I think the 3rd did too but I'm not sure). I also have a friend who stopped after 1 child due to health issues.

Only 1 of the families I know was in a "time was running out" scenario where they only discovered they had issues when trying to conceive in their late 30s. The others tried from much earlier.

Getting a man to commit to marriage / children in this day and age is a never ending struggle.

Many of my friends have been messed around by blokes who strung them along for years and others have never found one who would commit at all.

Its easy to blame woman and say we are deciding to have children too late or focus on careers, etc.

The reality is most of the ladies I know would have started having families earlier but had to wait for their other halves to be "ready". And for most families I know that means career goals, and buying a home before even contemplating TTC.

Off the top of my head I can think of 4 colleagues in the past 10 years that are childless not through choice. One had a series of awful relationships and is now late 40s, but the others met Mr Right early on but it 'didn't happen'. None wanted to go the IVF route.

I'm childfree by choice and have never had the desire to have any of my own for all sorts of reasons, even though I really like kids. Having said that, in all honesty, even if I HAD wanted them, I don't think I'd have met the right partner in time "to" have them, anyway and would have massively had to settle. One of the reasons for me for not wanting kids of my own is due to my neurodiversity and there's no way I could have coped with having children AND having to be an equal provider financially to my male partner over expectations now as I need "down time", hobbies/interests and so on.

I’m childfree, both by choice and not. I grew up definitely wanting children but never found a man I trusted enough to parent with.

Then at 40, I made a huge life change that made me very grateful I’d never had children. I felt extremely relieved I’d never had a child.

THEN at 48, I had a hysterectomy and the surgeon told me afterwards I would probably never have been able to get pregnant. It’s been a rollercoaster!

FWIW, I feel extraordinarily lucky to be happy with my situation. I imagine being childless not by choice must be very painful.

I'm 37 and the only one in my friend group without a child.

We have tried for nearly two years but no success, we have decided to have tests in the summer. But that being said, I don't think we'd go down the IVF route.

Were of the thinking what will be, will be

Most of my friends who have been/are going through IVF have been almost too sensible. You are told to go to uni, get established in your career, buy a house, get some money in savings, get married and then think about having children. By the time most of us were ready we were mid thirties. How can you change this? I don't know. It's hard when you take responsibility for your own life. There's a lot of help available if you're a lower income but if you aren't then there's no help to pay your mortgage whilst on mat leave or help with childcare. You're just expected to push having a child back and save harder.

I don't think infertility is discussed enough either. It took us years of trying, I had grown up thinking that I'd fall pregnant if I had unprotected sex once. I have friends who had terminations in their late teens/early 20s but are now going through IVF.

@Gwenhwyfar it's unlikely. I've just been diagnosed with severe endometriosis and am waiting to hear the treatment plan

I think the falling birth rate is also related to couples having fewer children than before. In my circle, most couples are one and done.

Under 24’s are at the higher risk of pre-term birth than women in their 30’s. So no 19 is not a good age. 30-34 is the lowest risk age group.

I think donor eggs and IVF have taken some of the worry away. A couple in my family decided they wanted a baby when they were in their early 40s. He turned out to have issues with his sperm so they proceeded with donor sperm and her eggs, and had a baby. They then decided they wanted a second, by this point she was in perimenopause so had to use donor eggs as well as donor sperm.

I don’t think this is a secret at all. I’ve no idea where you are getting that impression from.

As for “involuntary childlessness” that’s actually very difficult to define. I had a child at 36. If it hadn’t happened naturally for us we would have just called it quits and got on with our lives. I would despise that being called “involuntary childlessness”. Plenty of people are very “if it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t” and aren’t devastated if it doesn’t.

You also seem to be suggesting that having or not having children is what makes someone successful or happy in life. If someone doesn’t have a child because they were focusing on their career in early adulthood or weren’t in the right relationship and therefore they “miss the boat” to have kids is that “involuntary childlessness”? Or have they chosen childlessness because they didn’t pause their careers or have a child with an unfit partner? Knowing that making those decisions could mean no children for them in the future?

I think it’s arrogant to think you know when a woman’s fertility declines but other women who end up childless don’t/didn’t know and oh if only they’d know you could have saved them from their miserable, childless lives!

From the women I know this is the case, it’s not them delaying children that they want it’s the men they date who aren’t ready to settle down/ get married/ have kids. I think also men aren’t told about the decline in sperm quality as they get older enough either. 99% is about women, my fertility consultant refused to even look at me until she had ruled DH out because that was relatively quick and easy and there was no point in bothering me with anything more than quick bloods as a starting point.

i married at 22 but still didn't conceive despite not using artificial contraception. am 31 now, been more than 8 years.

But with the housing crisis, having a baby before buying your property may mean that you have to rent for longer and possibly not be able to buy property. Like with babies, there is a deadline for buying property, generally it is advisable to buy before you are 40 (unless you are high income and have a big deposit/able to pay it off really fast) or the mortgage term may extend into retirement. We already have a problem of people's pensions being unable to cover private rent. Furthermore, the housing crisis also means that many families only get by due to the accrued savings of two working adults (working without interruption in their 20s) forming the basis for a deposit which reduces the monthly cost of housing aka if 10-30% of the house is already paid off at least, then it is cheaper to service a mortgage. Without the time spent saving, i guess child poverty rates would be higher than it already is.

It's talked about a lot.

No

No

NO

Women KNOW it’s better to have children younger.

it is EVERYWHERE

for women that want children and it didn’t work out 9/10 it’s the lack of a decent man that also wants to have them on a reasonable timetable to have them with.

Did any of the women you knew say ‘well I could have settled down with X in my early thirties and had kids, but I wasn’t ready and wanted to focus on my career’

No? THOUGHT NOT

i saw some fascinating research from the US that showed:

• most women want to have children BUT
• they want a good man and decent father to do that with.
• if they don’t find that guy in time, many will ‘choose’ not to have kids rather than go it alone or WAY WORSE have them with some crap man / father.

we need to educate men.

THEY are the ones who spend their 30s saying they are not ready and later, later.

THEY are the ones who want to settle down but won’t do their fair share of domestic labour.

i would have had my kids a few years before but my partner wasn’t ready.

when we stared TTC when I was 35 it wasn’t easy to get pregnant and we had IVF to be able to have two.

if we’d started on my timetable we could have avoided that.

i have a younger friend who has just turned 30. She has just broken up with her boyfriend of two years as he does NOTHING around the house and she rightly won’t stand for it.

ITS THE MEN

we need to teach THEM

• to step up and take an equal share of domestic labour
• to know mid twenties to early 30s is the time women should be having kids.
• so they need to man up and be ready for that

@Bumpitybumper what you are saying is ‘how can we encourage women to make themselves vulnerable by having kids with crap men when they are younger?’

how about we TRY to teach the crap men to step up and be better men and dad material?

Sorry to hear that.
The doctors want to take my womb out, but I'm too old now anyway. Made my peace with it around 40.

"ITS THE MEN

we need to teach THEM

• (...)
• to know mid twenties to early 30s is the time women should be having kids.
• so they need to man up and be ready for that"

They have an idea about women's declining fertility, but it's not a problem for them. They can just look for a younger woman. They don't have to 'man up' as you call it as there's no pressure on them to get married and have children young, they can do it whenever they want as long as they can find someone.
We can't change the biological reality unfortunately.

I’m not saying men should have kids early 30s.

im saying we need to teach them that the normal and best window for any woman they date to have kids is 25-33

men dating or in relationships with women in that age group need to be educated on this and know and expect to have children with them in a reasonable tometable

OR not date them in the first place.

some of the men delaying are themselves older! Late 30s dating younger still saying they are not ready

I think this is one of the cruellest things, though. A lot of people imagine that fertility treatment means more or less anyone can get pregnant, or that 'freezing your eggs' guarantees you a baby down the line.

Too much pressure on women. Personally I feel it is more acceptable to not be in a relationship. In fact I’m not interested unless it adds to my life most don’t. I don’t see most men as being good partners nevermind fathers and I am not willing to bring a child up with them or alone so unless that changes I’ll have no children. Is that a choice? Yes. I would happily be a father though.

"im saying we need to teach them that the normal and best window for any woman they date to have kids is 25-33

men dating or in relationships with women in that age group need to be educated on this and know and expect to have children with them in a reasonable tometable"

Women have a larger window than that, but anyway, my point is that men KNOW this, but they don't necessarily CARE because they don't NEED to. There's no point trying to educate them to worry about something that's not a problem for them.

Not sure that’s true.

i think my DP now wishes we started sooner.

if we’d started even a couple of years sooner we’d have saved £30k and maybe been able to have three.

he underestimated how much he loves being a father.

i think heat have made different choices if he’d known delaying to start TTC to mid 30s for me and late 30s for him would have the consequences it did.

also male fertility is affected by age too.

his poor sperm quality by the time he was early 40s was a key reason we had IVF to be able to have no 2. We had ICSI in fact - whereas my eggs were pretty good

I went to dinner with friend tonight who is childfree (age 40). She used to be broody, had a terrible husband, felt really upset about not having kids, recently she finds small children freaky. She commented how expensive they are today. She is throwing off expectations that she is a bad person if she doesn't give her parents a grandchild. I think she's appreciating the other opportunities she has due to being childfree.

Maid of Honour at my wedding (age 51?), always said she never wanted kids, afraid of passing bad genes, didn't have them, sometimes sounded a little sad about age 48 that she didn't have them, mind. Maybe a little FOMO.

Foster sister age 56... had rough upbringing, never esp. wanted kids but might have liked choice; she has a difficult genetic condition, very disabled by it, wouldn't want her kid to inherit.

Step-sister age ~61: begged me 20 yrs ago to have another baby so the pressure would be off her; never wanted a kid for herself.

I mean, I dunno everyone's story, but they were literally the 1st 4 women I thought of. Nobody very unhappy how things turned out. They all seem to have good guys in their lives now, too, 2 of whom have kids from other relationships.

This is ridiculous and naive. I am not encouraging women to be vulnerable but the absolute opposite. Women who are desperate to have children are most likely to be vulnerable when they feel that their fertile window is ending. When they are young, they have choice and time is on their side. It is therefore important to use this time wisely and root out the crap men. Easier said than done I know, but the reality is that so many are crap because they find it possible to be this way and still get what they want with enough women tolerate coasting along in these relationships in the hope that he will eventually commit to them and agree to have a baby.