When to discuss wanting children?

[MoaningMeowing]

I’m a similar age to my BIL and sometimes I find myself being his agony aunt. It only clicked yesterday that he calls me out of the blue and asks me advice.

Anyho, he started seeing someone a couple of months ago (both early 30s). He seems to really like her and it seems to be going well. He doesn’t know if she wants kids which is the only ‘worry’. Apparently he’s been testing the waters to see if she’s interested/start the conversation but no bites per se. He sounded a little deflated with a ‘but that’s normal right… to have those conversations down the line?’

I gave him advice of not getting too attached before he knows that they have the same wants out of life. I told him that me and DH did have that conversation on our second date but thats because I didn’t want to be wasting my time.

Just out of curiosity when do people usually have those conversations? I do have a feeling that BIL will be turning up here with a broken heart and more booze in him than Whetherspoons.

Gosh, I think I was pretty upfront with now DH and asked him within like 3 dates

HOWEVER, we met on an app and his profile said "wants kids" alongside his age, location, drinks/smokes/vegan/whatwver, so it wasn't crazy for me to prod

1st date

It needs to be discussed ASAP, especially so if early 30s as this is pretty much decision time (for women anyway). No point wasting time if you aren't on the same page.

Agreed.

BIL obviously has more time but I know he does want to settle down.

He’s also not had a great time dating either.

I didn’t want to advise him to have those conversations now in case my approach wasn’t the right way either.

Before we went on first date. If he'd said no kids, there wouldn't have been a date.

Yeah... we talking about that on the first date. It's not about putting pressure on; it's about ensuring neither party wastes time on a relationship that's doomed to fail

I think it depends on how old you are. If someone had asked me that in my 20s I genuinely wouldn't have known the answer then and may have been a bit put off if it was really early on (although that's just me!). But then when I met my now husband I was almost 30, so we discussed it when we'd been dating about 3 months which felt about right for me at the time. And I'd finally decided that I did want them, but I think he was part of the reason for that!

I had the conversation from date one, basically. Not "let's have babies now" but basically saying I was only interested in dating people who did definitely want marriage and kids in the next 5-10 years (I was mid to late 20s at the time). And when I started dating my husband, I'd check in with him regularly to check we were still on course for that.

Luckily I found someone who did want that and wanted it quickly so it was never an issue, but I never would have stayed with someone who wasn't willing to talk honestly about life plans and essentially make a timeline.

I was exactly the same.

I don’t know if men are the same? Maybe men presume in general that women are more likely to want kids? Or maybe that it comes across a bit strong/patriarchal if a man was to set his stool out quite early on…