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?

@Bumpitybumper

i am sick of women being blamed for falling fertility rates when most women do want children

there are so many TOO MANY! Crap men.

the fertility rate is falling because there are not enough good men to be partners to and father with the women that want them.

This!!!!

But also even if the men are not bad women don’t want to put up with unequal drudgery or financial insecurity. Lots of men are not bad people but not the best partners or fathers. I always think, would a child want to be born into this?

Also outside of men there are just so many reasons not to have children. I don’t feel it is my duty to bring more consumers into the world especially with concerns about the quality of life they will have. We live in a very unfair system and I don’t see my purpose as breeding serfs for the elite.

There was an article shared on MN recently-ish about men who were involuntarily childless. It got pretty short shrift here, as the men's stories pretty much matched up with what's being said here about men. They just assumed it would happen, and then it suddenly dawned on them that they were well into their 40s, had missed their chances with women their own age, and would therefore need to compete with younger men. There was much schadenfreude on MN about the women they'd probably led up the garden path in their younger years! It's still sad, though - I just want to shake men like this. I have male friends like this, wanting to be dads, having an awful time dating as they approach 40, but with a clear pattern of commitment issues that suggests they haven't exactly helped themselves.

@Ted27 , I wasn't expecting your story to end the way it did - what a lovely post! Though also appreciate that you were lucky and adoption is by no means an easy answer.

I was definitely taught at school that pregnancy was pretty much inevitable if you looked at a boy for too long . It was a pretty awful shock to find that wasn’t the case multiple rounds of IVF later … I wouldn’t be surprised if more people were caught out .

that said - I wanted to be an independent mum so it just wasn’t possible for me to try sooner because I needed a steady income, a house and maternity benefits. Sadly those things just didn’t fall into my lap at twenty.

Most of my friends don’t have children because they haven’t met someone and/or don’t have the money. Sometimes it’s been tricky navigating the fact I now have a little one around this.

I remember that article - and the MN response, which was fair. But it was a terrible article. Of course there must be loads of men who bumble along until they're 50 and suddenly raise their confused wee heads to wonder why they don't have five adoring poppets and a wifey in the kitchen, and who can't quite make the connection between that and their actual wife suggesting, aged 35, that she quite wanted to TTC. But there are also men who genuinely want children and don't have them. I think, especially for single men, it's quite taboo to be childless and to say you wanted children.

I think it’s quite common. I’m in my 50s and know lots of women my age without children. In most cases, it’s just that they never met anyone to settle down with. They might have had relationships and boyfriends in their 20s, even quite long ones, but those ended, and they never really met anyone else who would be significant.

1000% this! This convo always focuses on women and never men!

Edit quote fail -Oh rats... this was a response to @Fernsfernsferns excellent post!

I’ll add that the majority of my male friends, in their 50s, also don’t have children, and some really wanted them.

'Woke Society' Oh, give over. And stop using that word to mean " things I don't understand but am sure I don't like". It sounds ignorant.

Honestly, I think that marriage and security and LOVE is pitched at women, but not at men.

My husband didn't feel ready to be a father until he was 32, despite us getting together 8 years prior. I am 2 years younger, so we are actually relatively young compared to many in our area and peer group. He grew up with a very heavy pitch towards "don't get a girl pregnant" "establish yourself" "don't tie yourself down young". (I told him that there was a deadline beyond which I could not afford to wait for him very early in our relationship and he got there in time, just!).

Funny thing is, that being a father has (whilst being hard at times and having significantly less time for one another) been the making of him. Been the happiest he has ever been. Given us purpose and laughter. Made us closer.

Our culture is not to promote that. For mums it's about "mums need wine" and for dads it is about "end of your life, mate""having to babysit your kids".

Obviously, no one should have kids they don't actively want and no one should be shamed for not having them. But I think culturally we have gone the other way a bit, even aside from the financial hurdles many couples face

It's very weird that men are so reluctant to settle down - statistically, their lives get longer and their health and quality of life improves for it far more than for women!

True, @SarahAndQuack . I think with the men I had in mind, they never even got to the stage of having a serious partner to put off - they're too commitment phobic and/or lacking in relationship skills to have reached that point. And I think that's a "luxury" that we women are less likely to allow ourselves. A woman doesn't tend to turn round at 40 and wonder for the first time whether she could be the common denominator. We're more motivated to either make a relationship work, or move on. There's a lot been said on this thread about men not being prepared to share domestic duties, but I think at least as significant is the number of men not prepared to step up emotionally and engage their brains about this stuff. The most straightforward way to have a family is obviously via a successful relationship, which doesn't just fall out of the sky (as we know).

I do feel for anyone it hasn't happened for, regardless; nature is cruel.

(My husband was also horrified to understand that his sperm quality would likely deteriorate with age, whereas I had known about my declining fertility since 11!).

4 of my very oldest friends out of 6 didn't have children. 2 chose not to and the other 4 didn't meet anyone until much later in life, and 1 was petrified of giving birth so didn't venture down that route. I had 2 DC and as a result it meant we drifted apart as our lives went in different directions. As far as I'm aware nonbody suffered from fertility issues

I’m 32. I’ve been trying to get pregnant for two years. Just had a first failed IVF cycle after 3 failed IUI cycles. Unexplained infertility.

Luckily, Denmark pays for 3 rounds of IVF for everyone, and this year increased it to 6, so I’m hopeful I’ll get there. This would never have been a possibility back when I lived in the U.K. I would’ve remained childless - and not by choice.

One in 8 kids born here is with assisted reproduction - so I’d say it’s a big thing! The difference is the simple and free access to fertility treatment.

Lots to single women in their 50s in my profession. In my immediate friend group of 7 who originally met through work, only 2 of us have children. Only one of us followed the relatively well trod path to 2 kids before 30 and 2 grandchildren before 60. I’m the older mum to an only child, the classic tried everything to conceive, gave up and then was blessed 😀. 3 of us dated love rats, 2 of us found the right one in the end. 2 are part of couples who chose not to have children. 2 didn’t meet their partners until they were too old to consider starting a family. Those statements have overlaps if you are wondering why it could add up to more than 7. Out of the 7 of us I’d say only 3 of the childless ones had made the choice not to based on their own desires alone.

@MarshaMarshaMarshmellow and @ChatBFP

i agree with you both.

it’s not just sexist attitudes to household chores it’s also

emotional immaturity

that boys are taught to avoid family life as much as we are taught to seek it

my now DH was shocked by how much he loves being a dad and if he had his time again he’d have started earlier so we could have had more.

ditto the decline in male fertility with age!

i was actively seeking a stable relationship I could settle down into from aged 20 onwards.

i dated several commitmentphobes who broke my heart in my 20s, including one in my mid 20s that i thought was the one. He felt it too but ran away. It took me several years to rebuild my life afterwards.

i bumped into him when we were both pushing 40.

did he have a family? I asked in our brief chat

‘no’ he said, looking sorry for himself ‘it just never happened’

I think it's very common unfortunately and I don't know what the answer is. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had my kids at 37 and 39 with no fertility issues. I didn't choose to have them that late - didn't meet my DH until well into my 30s. On the other hand my DSis and her DH were together fifteen years before trying for a baby and had huge difficulties. They were very fortunate that fertility treatment worked. It's obviously none of my business, but I never got why they waited so long!! I have so many single friends that would have loved kids but it didn't happen for them and it's too late now. The two women I know who are childless by choice are very happily married and both couples agreed on not having kids before marriage.

"I told him that there was a deadline beyond which I could not afford to wait for him very early in our relationship and he got there in time, just!"

I said similar to my DH, and I HATED having to say it but time was not on my side 😕

I know someone who always wanted children, but her husband didn't. They did split up eventually, but by then it was too late for her. She's in her 70's now and still desperately regrets it.

Also fertility is declining from when you are born!

And the beginning of the steepest decline is around 35.

Mid 20s you are still at peak fertility, which is around 25-30% chance per cycle.

But a 40 yr old still has 5% per cycle and a 44% chance within a year.

Oh and how come only the females get talked at ..... Male factor infertility is 50% of infertility.

There is also a reason fertility clinics don't use sperm from dono's over 39!

But somehow people like that poster only ever focus on and lecture women.

While men don't have the menopause it seems very very rare for men to become a father past the age of 45. There are loads of examples of men over that age having children - but almost always that's a second/third batch not the first.
Past 45 women their own age won't be able to have children/will already have them. And to what some think not all women in their twenties want a much older man. Women that do tend to be attracted to men who have already had children (proof they are a provider???) than men that age who haven't. Also there is the decline in sperm quality.

Unlike women though I think men are less likely to consider that they have a deadline (because it is much less obvious than the menopause to be fair). And also (statistically speaking) men are more likely to take risks/assume they are the smaller % it will work out OK for.

If anything I think there needs to be more awareness raising of this side of things as involuntary fertility sucks for men and women. But I don't know who would be best placed to do that awareness raising. Older men are less likely to advise (or nag depending on your perspective) younger men in the way women do. Actually from a purely evolutionary perspective it makes way less sense for older men to encourage younger men to settle down. Whereas for women it does.

The thing that makes women “vulnerable” is not “being desperate to have a baby in their late 30s” but financial dependence / instability. Much better imo to roll the dice on “missing the boat” with kids and know you can support yourself than to have a child too early / with Mr Right Now - the risk your life will be significantly worse in the latter scenario is material.

for all of my friends, partnered / unpartnered, with or without children, the most common factor in feeling like life is ok is that they have financial stability. Friends who have divorced (about half of them) have coped with it significantly differently, and the ones who have their own money (either through work or because they’ve been provided for THROUGH their marriage so when it inevitably gets a bit frosty on divorce have their own funds) do far better.

for my women friends who didn’t meet someone by late 30s, the ones with money went it alone. They had choices. Men have understood that money (I’m not talking wolf of wall st but a stable income) brings choices and opportunities for a long time. Women need to make sure they do the same.

it’s the oxygen mask on the plane analogy - you cannot look after a child if you can’t look after yourself. I would not advise my DD to have children without some modicum of financial stability. For her generation, who knows what that will look like. But the point stands.