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?

@stealthbanana yes! waiting a bit is the rational choice with the way the world works today. I think the possibility that women are (not always but often) making informed, rational decisions is ignored in a lot of discussions on the issue.

My gf left an abusive relationship just before lockdown and has been single since. She's turning 33 soon, and desperate to have baby to the point of saying she can't see the point of living if she doesn't and even "joked" she'd have an arranged marriage. Most of the guys she encounters on dating app fall into the category of wanting quick loveless sex. The messages tend to start out innocent enough but soon devolve into "I want to sniff your bike seat" "let me see you jugs then" etc. One jumped right into it asking if she likes it rough. She's desperate to meet someone half decent and have a baby. So I think we have multiple very unfortunate and interconnected problems these are just some ideas–

• The misconception that hookup culture is liberating for or serves women when we all know it benefits men at our expense.
• The "f all men" "f all women" mentality, which is undermining to the importance of partnership and mutual support. We spend more time then ever in online communities and some of them feature constant gender wars.
• Cost of living. How can people settle down if there are graduates who can't afford to move out of shared housing.
• Educated types opting for a life of comfort over procreating. We need you guys!
• Two incomes needed to keep a house afloat.
• A decline in community centered gatherings lkke church. It's no surprise to me that the only gf I have that has more than 2 kids is Muslim because the religious tend to be more family oriented.
• Increasing in social awkwardness / fear of rejection, compounded on the side of men by fears of being labelled as pests.
• Unrealistic expectations of romance as though marriage is as it is in novels.

Don’t have more kids if you can’t afford them! | Mumsnet
Two-child benefit cap: ‘Every month is a struggle’ - BBC News

It's the old thorny question isn't it?

Given that most terrible men are terrible fathers who is left to teach them how to be good men?

The mother?

How does that work then?

Brilliant for the patriarchy because given that the sons of most rubbish men are brought up without a paternal influence, you can blame that on women!

Bingo!

So that's a win.

As I say to every 'decent' man I know.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

And I'm talking about every little thing, from birth to death.

And every man in my life, my husband, my sons, my brothers, father, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, FIL, in-laws, the boyfriends and husbands of my friends and all the women in my life.

I ask them why? What are you doing? What makes you good?

It's their question really. What makes you good and decent? What makes you a sound person?

I can't make men good.

But I can ask the question.

Do you think there's a distinction between those who find out, but then aren't that bothered about it. I think that's quite different to someone being very upset by it. I also do think most just assume they will more because of society bringing women up to think this way, I think people actively choose not to have children, then to actually have them

@Passingthethyme, absolutely, from the top of my head I have six friends that have actively chosen not to have children.

It's a valid choice. For whatever reason.

I would never drill-down an active no-child choice.

Personal determination and bodily ownership are what they are.

We absolutely belong to ourselves.

My friend did not want children through her twenties and was with a man who had 2 children already and didn't want more. She changed her mind in her thirties and subsequently split with her partner (who ended up having two more children anyway) She didn't meet anyone else suitable and discovered she was going through early menopause in her early forties.

We also need to consider the impact NHS wait times have.

I one friend was on an NHS wait list for IVF (had to be actively trying for 2 years before even joining the wait list). Was about to get IVF when covid happened and it was cancelled. Eventually received her first appointment to discover she had fell pregnant naturally but miscarried early. Back to the start of the wait list as she had been discharged once pregnant. Now she’s waited so long for IVF she’s become too old to receive it on the NHS and can’t afford it privately.

@Madwife123 yeah. That's one advantage of trying to start earlier I guess. If you start TTC in your early twenties there's a chance you might get seen by an NHS specialist before you hit the menopause (exaggerating but also not really)

@anothernamitynamenamechange I think you would need to be referred at birth to stand a chance of being seen before you hit 30 though!

I think vulnerability arises when you feel dependent on another person for something of great importance. I absolutely take your point that a lack of money can do this but in my experience, many women become more vulnerable when they feel that they are in last chance saloon for having a much wanted baby. The biological urge for some women to have a baby should not be underestimated and most simply aren't willing to do it alone, irrespective of how much money they have.

Money absolutely buys autonomy and choice but the reality is that youth is also a powerful commodity that should be used wisely, especially if you want to do things that are age dependent. There is a fertile window in everyone's lives that we should ideally use to have children and this currently coincides with the time when people are expected to be maximising their earning potential and building their careers. Unless society shifts expectations on this or we have a medical breakthrough then we do need to decide carefully how we use the fertile decades to get what we want the most of our of them.

I feel like women absolutely do generally make rational, informed decisions but it is still really alarming that 80% of childless women report that they don't have children due to 'circumstance'. This implies that it wasn't an active decision and that something so important for many hasn't happened for reasons almost out of their control. As a feminist I find this worrying and as a friend and family member of women in this situation, I find it upsetting to see the emotional impact unintended childlessness can have on the individuals.

But it is more complicated than that. Circumstances can also be due to choices. See more women being more choosy over partners or only wanting children in a particular circumstance which isn’t wrong. We can’t get everyone we want in life and a child is a whole other human being which is great responsibility, if you can’t bring them up well and you don’t have your life in order… then choosing not to have a child was the best thing.

I agree but those choices that drove the 'circumstances' women find themselves in aren't made in a vacuum. There are clearly different societal and economic pressures on people now than there were even just a few decades ago hence the very different birth rates. It is wrong to suggest all these changes are as a result of women having complete free will and autonomy over their decisions as this simply isn't the case.

Women are just operating under a different set of constraints that means that they are not having children due to the 'circumstances' they find themselves in. Women may be more choosy about partners or there are less 'good' partners available to settle down with at the right time. Women are now high flyers (great) but want men that are at least their equivalent which becomes trickier as women rise in social and economic status. It's complex for sure but I don't think it's helpful to write off unintended childlessness as 'for the best' because a specific set of hard to achieve, society defined criteria wasn't met.

100%. My SIL told my DH that debt is inevitable when you have a child.. They also rent so it's not debt like a mortgage.

Righto!

Factoids.

If you are a woman. With a uterus. If you want to have children, if you make an active choice, and are able to have children, it comes with choices.

Absolutely know, that if the man that impregnates you, is a useless fuck, YOU will be absolutely responsible, financially, emotionally, and practically. Know that. Because you will. And, the signs will be there beforehand. If your own father was useless, or abusive, there's a possibility you may be in a less than good relationship yourself.

I'm not saying you are, merely asking you to consider the possibility.

If you are the daughter of a good mother and a good father, you will probably understand that you have more choices, BUT, know that as a woman you will be more limited by your choices than any man ever will.

How many women stroll casually away from their children to start a new life?

Very fucking few.

How many men do likewise?

How many women are unencumbered, and take a new, young partner, leaving their first wife to pick up the pieces?

So you have to be so fucking sure about any man that you chose to reproduce with.

So.

Fucking.

Sure.

And always allow for the possibility that you'll be by yourself.

Make sure you are strong and independent before you decide to have children.

I think, especially for single men, it's quite taboo to be childless and to say you wanted children.

DH was a university research when we had our first - his younger male colleagues were besotted by pfb - I was a bit surprised because you're right men wanting kids is much less discussed and media portrayal often is men are always reluctant (many are TBF).

They went on to be Dads about decade later - they had to meet people - get permanent jobs with reasonable commutes which for most was mid 30s get houses bought - doing that round job and location moves and usually two careers took time.

So while there are many peter pans out there - the ones that are keen to be Dads are working with the same constraints women are - it takes a long time to get to a stable position to bring kids into the world.

I know a couple who made sure they couldn't have children - he had the snip but tell everyone they can't have children. It usually shuts people up .The bit they leave out is that it was through choice.

Most of my friends have kids - but then I've met a lot of them through my own children or their activities.

Trying to think outside the self-selection of current friendships - of the 14 girls from my high school class that I still know about, only one has never had children and yes, that was not through want of trying. A couple more were late starters and ran out of time to have a second.

A few of my neighbours are childless couples - one has told me that they didn't want children, and others I know married late, but there are some I do wonder about. One couple eventually adopted when they were about 40. I had no idea they'd wanted a family until a toddler suddenly arrived.

I have several child free friends. All but one would have loved children but weren’t willing to settle for men who didn’t didn’t tick all the boxes/were lazy (fair enough)/didn’t make the earth move. I do wonder if they were too unrealistic in what they were looking for, and compromise would have given them the children they craved. But I also understand not giving up the single life for a less than perfect partner. They all have decent jobs and can support themselves so haven’t had to get hitched to survive like in previous generations. Now we are past child bearing age they are all having lots of holidays, hobbies, handbags and I’m grappling teens. I wouldn’t swap but they actually seem very content now the biological clocks are no longer ticking.

I think now a lot of us don't have that village of aunts and grandparents to help us raise children we have to rely more on our partners to do their share of the parenting. A lot of men haven't really risen to this challenge well.

"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."

Maybe in your case, but mid 30s woman and late 30s man is fine for millions of couple.

Interesting because I don't have any. My childless friends are childless because they're single and/or gay.