Commitment-phobic men are often the reason that women 'delay' starting a family

[Petal02]

A lovely friend of mine is in bits because her latest relationship has broken down. She is 41, would love to settle down and start a family, but has been unfortunate to have a string of boyfriends who didn't know what they wanted, or wanted to keep their options open, or didn't want children now but might have wanted them in the future. You get the picture.

She was 'told off' by her GP about 6 months ago (when she mentioned the subject of conception) for 'hanging around too much and not getting on with it.'

Yet you read so much about women who allegedly decide to wait til their 40s before starting a family; I suspect some of them would have started far earlier if only there weren't so many idiotic men about.

Sorry, just wanted to offload. Makes me very sad.

It's true sebsmummy I've known women who've been in long term relationships where they could not get the man to commit to marriage and/or children - then they finally break up and several months later the man is engaged and getting married to another woman!

Ah, Latara, I see you've met my ex .

As in most things, the risk you take is commensurate with the value of the reward.

So if you're desperate to have a child above all else, absolutely throw your cards on the table early, set a timeline, walk away after a fixed period of time etc.

For most people, it's not that black and white, though. And the desire to find a proper life partner (rather than a baby making machine who may or may not be in it for the long haul with you) is an equally strong desire for many women (and men!). Women are trying to balance multiple desires and it's really hard to do that in the midst of it all.

I also find the tone of these CHILDLESS AT 40 articles misogynistic and gleeful. Everyone makes choices; whether they work out or not is largely down to luck. And to suggest that having the temerity to have a career that's the problem (as is so often implied) is offensive.

My biggest problem still, at 37, is shyness.

I'd rather have teeth pulled than go on a date, when I do go on dates I feel physically sick with nerves and shaking.

The stupid thing is that I'm really confident in my work life and social life.

I'm messaging a man on Tinder at the moment but taking the next stage and giving him my number is hard because I know he'll want a date... now can you all see why mentioning marriage and children on ''the third date'' is not feasible for me??

Angel - your last paragraph is spot on!

Ok, I've just given him my number - now let's see if he actually texts me.

Good luck, Latara.

But as to those advocating The Talk straightaway laying one's cards on the table. No. No. No.

It is not a job interview. "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" is not a date question. You might as well ask to see someone's payslips, pension plan and how much of their mortgage is paid off. Enough to sap any hint of romance out of the equation.

Otoh I'm beginning to think that some cultures have got it right with arranged marriages. These sort of questions are dealt with in advance then! (More - ahem - er professional people I know who have had arranged marriages say that it's all quite civilised and you just meet up and decide if you like each other.)

Well, one of my friends has just become a Muslim and started wearing hijab, who knows she may have an arranged marriage soon! But she already has 2 sons.

All my religious friends (Christian, Muslim) seem to have settled down young and had children.... all except 1 who is in her 40s, a Mormon and 'missed the boat' when younger with the unmarried Mormon men, now she can't find anyone because her religion forbids sex before marriage!

I think religious people settle down young because they are generally part of a wider community or church and it's a good way of getting to know other single people, whether by arranged marriage or not.

It's not for me though because I'm not at all religious.

Particularly agree with this angel

"I also find the tone of these CHILDLESS AT 40 articles misogynistic and gleeful. Everyone makes choices; whether they work out or not is largely down to luck. And to suggest that having the temerity to have a career that's the problem (as is so often implied) is offensive."

I don't know what the definition of a 'career women' (aren't we all career women if we have to work??

But those I know with professions and their own businesses are just as likely to be married with children or not as those with min. wage jobs.

Career IMO generally doesn't affect personal life - maybe that's cos I work in the NHS.

The one woman I know with her own business who works most hours in a week hasn't got children but she does have stepchildren.. and puppies! Which are harder work than the children at present!

Meanwhile I know several care assistants inc. myself who are single and childless, we're not exactly 'career women', although I'm a trained nurse I wouldn't call it a career that excludes a social life and love life... I've just been unlucky!

No, Latara, religious people 'settle down' because they're already steeped in a mindset that women are domestic servants and brood animals.

Will everyone please remember that the 'traditional' progression of a couple of dates, marriage and breeding was never for women's benefit. It was all about women being used for reproduction and domestic work and the whole design of marriage was deliberately made to favour men - and, to an extent, children - at women's expense.

The majority of the waily articles published are quite blatant propaganda to the effect that women exist for the purpose of serving men and carrying on men's genes, and that we shouldn't get above ourselves. It's actually perfectly rational for women to decide that they would prefer not to have children early in life or at all when there are other things they would rather do.

I didn't want children, or a husband, for most of my adult life. I have been determinedly and happily single for the best part of 20 years (I have dated, and had plenty of sex, but never lived with a partner.)

Because I have mostly mixed in 'alternative' social circles, most of my good, longstanding friends tend to be childfree people and quite a few do not engage in longterm couple relationships. So the social pressure to submit to male ownership and engage in housework has never been that severe for me.

I do have my DS, who I love unreservedly, but he was a big surprise - I got unexpectedly PG at the age of 39 (so, you know, it's not guaranteed that you've had it as far as DC goes by the age of 35) and an amicable co-parenting relationship with his dad.

I think the actual answer is to ditch any idea of returning to the 'old ways' of female slavery and start exploring the possibilities of making families that suit individual circumstances.

Actually, you may find that quite a lot of people marry for the companionship. It's not all about breeding. Having a family is great, but so is having a good friend and a rock.

I may be submitting to male ownership and acting as a domestic servant, but on the other side of the coin I also have myself a very decent quiz night partner and boxed set viewer.

Angel, you nailed it! But if the Daily Fail stopped writing articles like that the paper would be be about two pages!

SGB - intellectually, I think I agree with you (even as a kid I used to be puzzled by the whole "women trap men into marriage" trope which was orthodoxy back in the 70s - 'cos it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that women lost far more by going into marriage than men did)... the problem is emotionally I can't do it that way (I think it was Greer in Sex and Destiny who said women can't escape their conditioning, they can only recognise it's there). I'd love to have casual, no-strings attached sex, but it isn't me.

Also, I think a certain proportion of the population (of both sexes) genuinely does want companionship as well as sex - and (although I'd put less than half of marriages/relationships in this category) I do know quite a few people who have reasonably equal, mutually supportive relationships - and in the words of the onlooker in the diner scene in When Harry met Sally (ghastly anti-feminist message, but still a very funny scene) - "I'll have what she's having".

And at 48, with everything heading south, I don't think anyone would want casual sex with me anyway!

religious people 'settle down' because they're already steeped in a mindset that women are domestic servants and brood animals

or that their religion forbids sex before marriage, and so the only way to have sex is to get married. It is one of the more crap reasons to get married, btw.

I would actually disagree about marriage benefiting men to the detriment of women. If fact I think these days you could say it's the other way around and the trend towards having families outside of married but living together is leaving women (and their children) very vulnerable. Man don't have to 'take on' a wife in order to have sex and somebody to cook, clean and have children for them.

Men still earn more than women, women are still the primary care givers (and I for one couldn't wait to give up my job to stay home with my children, although I may not be typical). Being married gives me and my children a load more security than if I wasn't married and also makes it a lot harder of DH to cut us off without a penny. You might want to argue that the only reason men earn more than women is because of marriage though. In my view, let them earn more, I don't want to work 60 hour weeks to get there. I don't really care a great deal about money and would rather have the time with my children. As I said though, I may not be typical.

That is of course being very cold and hard about it. I also benefit from the love, companionship, sex, laughs within our family which co-habiting couples also benefit from. This isn't to say single people don't have every bit as much joy in their lives, it's just that theirs doesn't come from a partner.

It was mentioned up thread that working class men offer women a better chance when it comes to having children. Maybe that's the solution if you like. High earning man should date low earning (much younger) women who want to stay at home to look after children. High earning women should look for low earning men who want to stay home and look after children In all seriousness though, one partner at work and one at home works great, so we should actually raise the status of being home looking after children so that more men are willing to do it.

It's such a shame we can't just shunt our fertile years ten years forward back, so you can't get pregnant at 12 but can at 45 instead.

I imagine this anxiety about never getting to have children starts about 30 (?) do you then come out of it the other side, when you get to 45 say and feel ok about things then? I have quite a few single female friends around mid 40s, they know they're past their fertile days. To me they seem to have a great life, money, social life, career, I don't envy their careers (too much hard work!) but I do envy the status it gives them. I know almost all of them really longed for children and that 30- 40 age was difficult for them.

Will everyone please remember that the 'traditional' progression of a couple of dates, marriage and breeding was never for women's benefit. It was all about women being used for reproduction and domestic work and the whole design of marriage was deliberately made to favour men - and, to an extent, children - at women's expense

Definitely. And I think this is one of the reasons that I didn't get married and have children for a long time. Unless I was going to get an equal, mutually supportive set-up, I wasn't going to do it at all. There were a lot of other factors, but I was more afraid of being trapped in a really unhappy situation than being on my own. Generally, we are conditioned to be the opposite.

kendodd - sloppily expressed on my part. Yes, I entirely agree that marriage offers a whole range of legal protections which living together does not. Maybe it's more that, given the current social norms, it is overwhelmingly still the woman who takes the hit in terms of financial autonomy (NB, not talking about high-flying career here - more the much more mundane thing of "if your partner did a runner/died, could you support yourself and your family, and do so without looking forward to an impoverished old age?").

And yes, I know households where there is a SAHD or both partners work part-time (which would be my preferred model if I could design my ideal domestic set-up) - but overall, that remains the exception rather than the rule. And the traditional setup of man as breadwinner, woman at home does leave women in a very vulnerable position.

But I guess that's getting us a bit off topic (or is it? - SGB is definitely right to remind us that maybe the emperor has no clothes - that the heteronormative partnered-up utopia many of us were brought up to aspire to may not be all that).

The concept of youth and being young is being stretched and stretched. Middleaged is a dirty word. My parents and grandparents would've been happy to be described as middleaged at 40 even younger. It was the thing to be a grownup with responsibilities eand a family. Now being young and free is everything

I had a conversation with a group of old University friends last summer- we are all 45ish. All the men- those married and not -would not countenance the fact they are middle aged. The women more happily so perhaps because biologically they are heading for the menopause. Those of them who didn't have kids still thought that they would sometime in the future but not yet- they were still young. It was madness. The lucky women would of course be younger than them.

Not sure I agree with the op. I married dh at nearly 24. I had dd1 at 31, I did not want to have a baby in my 20s. Can't really blame dh's lack of commitment for that (and he is middle class).

To me this is a thread of sweeping generalizations, topped off by the idea that women in their 20s are most attractive .

Most people who delay to 40 its because they haven't met the right person. Regardless of social class if you have you are one of the lucky ones.

That's the point most of the posts are making, brettgirl2. Ie it's rarely the woman's fault, but that meeting someone who wants to have children at the same time as you isn't always that easy.

Who's 'fault' it is depends on the situation but men do not owe it to women to want to have a relationship and/or children neither do women owe men.

At least there is always the option of doing it alone not ideal but that way you can avoid depending on men and avoid the risk of being let down.

I think the "fault" thing comes in because of the vast slew of articles in newspapers saying "it's women's fault because the hard-hearted bitches are too committed to their careers (oooh, the effrontery of actually wanting to earn a living) then surprise, surprise, they wake up in their 40s with their wombs all shrivelled up." It's very tedious to be on the receiving end of this barrage of misogyny. (NB, I don't mind people reporting the medical facts - I do mind them making all sorts of arsey judgement calls on those medical facts in a supposed news article. We're also in real DM sidebar of shame territory - wait for the right man, you're too picky, dump a man who won't have children to look for one who will, and you're calculating and/or settling - you cannot win).

I also feel for women who encounter the sort of men (not all) who string them along by continually saying "maybe next year/ in six months time." (As I said, this is one thing I can't accuse my ex of - he was always upfront - in this case the fault was mine for trying to delude myself that I could be happy without children for the "right" man.)

I'm in my early 30s and in a going nowhere relationship where nothing has moved on in 3 years and I need to decide what to do. Previous to this I had a serious relationship with a well educated con man who wasted 4 years of my life and then ran off with someone else after he was released from prison. I also have a feeling that I now can't have kids (hospital appointment due to find out more). I am not massively into kids so if my thoughts are correct and my ovaries are indeed knackered or worse then I won't be devastated but I will indeed be very angry that the choice has been removed from me by stupid men who can't move in the right direction and have wasted my time. My MIL made a comment that we should have a baby in front of the whole family and I felt like going nuts about her son and how angry I feel at him right now but instead said well we'd have to be married first which somewhat killed the conversation...