The poorest men are most likely to be childless against their will

[Socktopusses]

Really interesting article on BBC News today - especially interesting points around wealth and demographics - the poorest men are most likely to be involuntarily childless

link: BBC article

I'm child-free by choice - but being female, I've always had the comfort of knowing that if I changed my mind, I could have a child by sperm donor, on my own and I'd solve my own problem. (Fertility dependent of course, but in theory). It's up to me, basically.

I've had plenty of discussions with my female friends who want children but are struggling to have them, both those struggling with physical fertility - and single female friends who haven't met the right person at the right time and don't want to do it by themselves.

But I'm ashamed to say that outside of the couples I know undergoing IVF, I've never really thought about childfree-not-by-choice men and what it must be like for them. Particularly single men - who in theory could become fathers but don't have the circumstances. They can't just 'do it by themselves', and they're also not even acknowledged in the statistics.

Do you know any single men who long to be fathers but aren't? Just thought it was interesting.

Very recently I have ended up managing (and unfortunately dismissing) the sort of males I can see coming in this group. I strongly agree re incels and entitled behaviour.

in my experience, these men are also
often autistic, but of an age where this wouldn’t have been recognised or supported. Whether this is a factor, or responsible, I can’t say.

they generally are low earners because they struggle to operate in a structured environments such as offices or other company hierarchy.

Often unable to play the game (impress or charm others) in any way whilst simultaneously furious that the world doesn’t recognise how special they are and worship them for it.
often seemingly unable to perform their jobs because they feel they’re above it, and do a minimal slapdash job or do nothing despite the basic nature of the roles.
Often in trouble for being rude or patronising/ unkind to others- particularly be email which is where the worst of their entitled angry behaviour seems to get unleashed

I’ve already seen these men failing at jobs which makes it harder to get another and ends up with unemployment or a job where no one cares about experience or references.
they often have low level problems with the police- fighting or domestic abuse.

obviously, these men aren’t particularly desirable to your average woman although they do sometimes have children, often with much younger or otherwise vulnerable woman, and often have restrictions on their access.

these men have always existed, but now we support women to expect more than a substandard and a gaggle of kids, they have lost some of their power.

on the other side of the fence I know many more attractive men who were desperate to have children. As other posters have said, they had no trouble meeting a partner and settling down, particularly were they prioritised it from a young age.

lol probs why he’s single.
most women don’t want four kids

@AquaPeer that's very interesting.

I don't think so. I am genuinely curious as to why you have that perspective. I am willing to be told otherwise.
This is my take.
Think about it historically.
Woman couldn't vote, own property in some circumstances or were just generally worse off having a spinster life. Married women were more esteemed and if you wanted children, you married obviously.
If you think even further back than victorian times, if made sense to marry because you needed someone to do the hard stuff like building the house or chopping wood.
So even if the husband you were able to attract ( ie say you were not middle class or very pretty or aristocracy or whatever) and the pool of men you could choose out of were generally poorer, or not agreeable or whatever, you still married them. Because it was better to be married than not. Even in high society, women married and stayed married even if their husbands had mistresses or were abusive. Because it was better to be married. earlier you needed his physical protection and even later you might have still needed his financial protection etc.

However today woman do not have to put up with a lazy, undesirable man to be successful or accepted in society. She can have a good job, she is not a spinster cast out to be a governess somewhere or cannot build herself a house. So she does not have to enter into a marriage that she know is not ideal. She also does not need to stay in a loveless marriage like before. There is less incentive to marry if you don't necessarily want it. So it makes sense that the men in the lower eschalon of society are not as desirable as they once were

O yeah I get what you meant now! Yeah that is true, men tend to date equal or down whereas women are more likely to date equal and up.
Hence why more successful men have the most women to choose from.

No - the men i know that wanted family life got married. Those that wanted a more hedonistic lifestyle into middle age, didn’t marry and now at 50/60 something seem as happy as ever.

I online dated for a decade. I don't know if it's the introduction of OL dating that's caused this but I met lots of 30s and 40s men who are in no rush to commit and have kids. They want to have fun but are scared of commitment. Then mid-late 40s suddenly want to have kids but of course are looking for a significantly younger woman. The men interested in me at 40 were frequently much older or a fair bit younger.

The ones I know who wanted kids but didn't have them only came to that realisation fairly late in life

Wonder if those men that they asked who were sad about not becoming fathers at what age this started feeling like this - doubt it was their 20s or even 30s maybe even not 40s...

The first man mentioned in the article had been married (and then divorced) in his twenties

Both men and women need to realise they have one shot at life. There is no do over

You only need to look on here, though, to see that there are still loads of women who are willing to procreate again and again with cocklodging men who contribute neither financially nor practically to family life.

So I think it’s really the men who have significant differences in social skills, rather than income, who struggle to get their end away. Men who might not have the capacity to behave in ways that feel good (let alone seductive) to other people, or to show (or even fake) interest in people apart from themselves. And such people do come across very clearly as looking not for a partner but a sexually available caregiver / mother figure. And I do think a woman who is serious about having children will avoid a man who can’t at least make a decent show of being able to take care of themselves on a very basic level.

I live on a vast council estate that's considered, by most standards, disadvantaged. I can't say I've witnessed many childless poor men, or poor women for that matter.

The only man I know who desperately wanted children was so desperate that it came across as predatory and weird. He is still single and in his 60s now. Instinctively I feel relieved that he isn’t a father.

I genuinely don’t know any man that really wanted children until their partners did, and then the majority went along with it.

The more I think about the more I think articles like this would be more honest if they spoke of mediocre men who’s company women are now more able to choose to avoid, and they’re not happy about it. Like incels but crying about children rather than beautiful women rejecting them.
None of it makes me sympathetic to the poor dears.

I am childless by circumstance. I desperately wanted a family but it didn't happen. I've opened up about this to very, very few people but one was a close, platonic male friend who was also single at the time. He confided that he felt exactly the same but would never express it 'out loud' - it was just something he couldn't talk about, or not something that would ever have been discussed with his male friends down the pub.

This was about 10 years ago when we were both around early-40s. A few years later he met someone and became a father at 48, his wife was 41. I do think there are perhaps a lot of men who feel the same, but they would never admit it, or they don't have an outlet to talk about it. Maybe the imperative is not as strong as it is for a woman, and maybe there are lots more men than women in this position who are indifferent. But I don't see why men who wanted children wouldn't feel the same sadness as a woman, and the same grief for all the things you feel you are missing out on, including family life and grandchildren and that weird feeling of being 'the end of the line'. It's very isolating and hard to talk about - makes you feel like a complete failure to be honest - so I can understand why it would be a 'hidden' issue with men.

There is stats showing that in today's world 10% of the men ( the top 10%, think looks wealth, etc) have 90% of all the sex. (or around those numbers)

How would that possibly be true?

If you are talking about the UK, that would mean men earning over £60k “are having 90% of the sex” and the other married men earning less than that are living mostly celibate lives. So very obviously untrue.

If you mean worldwide, this would mean that in many developing countries, nobody would be having sex at all.

The whole thread is rather cynical about the idea because men in that situation rarely work on improving themselves. It's easier to blame women (hence incels).
While women (like with most things) 'blame' themselves first.

Not casting judgement on your friend and of course, there will definitely be those who try hard and don't get anywhere. But this is what I've observed.

Obviously anecdotal as well... But I had a male friend who was exactly like this. Bemoaning the lack of female interest when he had a job, house and car. He seemed nice enough to me, so I introduced him to a single friend of mine.

I later found out not only did he behave very badly towards her (touching when not wanted, getting angry when she didn't reply quickly to his messages) he'd also done the same with many others where he'd worked!

The worst part was he still didn't realise that it was all his fault. I was married obviously so he was decent enough to me, but to single women a different story.

You never know what people are really like. It shocked me to be honest. I'll never vouch for anybody again.

Meanwhile my female friends who have unsuccessfully tried to date... Have had a lot of experiences like the above.

"I genuinely don’t know any man that really wanted children until their partners did, and then the majority went along with it."

Same here. Many of the husbands I know who "went along with it" also had affairs or the marriage broke down. Basically because the man resented the loss of freedom, the expense, the lack of 1 to 1 with their partners and coming second to the kids. I don't think women actually "get" that most men don't feel the same way about kids and would probably be happier without them.

his late thirties, he met his current wife. By the time they were talking about children, they were in their forties and it was too late.
This from the article is interesting. I wonder how much of this was him thinking they had loads of time. His wife must have had her head under a rock to not realise her fertility drops in her 40's. Of course it's too late if you don't even start talking about it until your 40's. I wonder how much of this is men looking back and regretting their decisions then retrofitting their situation to excuse decisions they made when younger.

He probably wouldn't want 4 kids either after the first one or two. My brothers all changed how many kids they wanted after the first one.

Incidentally I was listening to the radio earlier where they were discussing it. One of the men who called in said that he wanted a woman that lived near him and shared his values.

I remember when I was dating there were men with decent jobs who refused to go out with me because I lived an hour away. On the other hand there were other guys who worked out it was an hour and responses were along the lines of "It's only an hour". I should add I live in London.

I do.

I am related to them, friends with them and acquainted with them.

However while they expressed these feelings to me and a few other women it was on the understanding that it wasn't shared except to check that whoever they were going out with at the time also wanted children.

There's lots of comments like this but I don't think it's true.

My DH was always desperate for kids - even when we met at uni at 18 he wanted kids.

Both my brothers really really want kids. I've met many attractive player-type men who all have said they want kids at some point. As they've gotten older, most are having them.

I think it's just a stereotype that men don't want kids. All my single male friends in my 30s want kids but haven't found someone - the only two friends I know who definitely don't want kids are both women.

Thats interesting. All the men I know want kids. They are not as vocal about it as some women, but all of them want children. Even if you ask my brother and his friends at uni (they are 20), they will say, yeah they definitely want kids someday!

I echo another poster. The people I know who are vocal about NOT wanting kids are women.
I think we mistake silence for not wanting kids! Just because they do not shout it from the rooftops, does not mean that they don not want it.

I think this is bollocks. Show me these stats please? If this was true, arguably, there would be a similar percentage of babies born to the top 90% of the male population. And that is definitely NOT the case. As for sex moving outside of the confines of marriage, if anything I imagine that would have made rich men having more sex in the past - they could afford to keep wives and mistresses and had the time to spend with all these multiple women.

Even if it IS the case, sex is not something men have the right to. So I don't actually care who is getting sex, as long as all parties involved are completely happy to have that sex.

This. I bet you could construct a similar study for women with poor MH or low drive and initiative not finding partners to have children with but instead of seeking sympathy it would blame them.

Men may want kids but too many of them don't seem to want to pay for them or look after them. I'd like to see the stats of men leaving if they have a SEN child as they just can't cope. I'll reserve my thoughts and understanding for all the women who are struggling with no child maintenance etc.

I mean no offence to the poster but it’s obviously not possible to have stats showing the “top 10% of men have 90% of the sex”