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.

The law on child custody favours the main carer giver of the children. Historically, this has usually been the mother. This is changing so it is likely that the outcomes of divorce will change too.

What gets me, is that if you state at the beginning of a relationship that you want children, you get branded as a nutter when all you're doing is setting your cards on the table. Women are supposed to hang around waiting... Then we get blamed for delaying starting a family.

LRD - yes sometimes maintenance doesn't get paid. In general though a professional man with a normal job, gets paid via PAYE with a house, mortgage, pension, is going to find it much harder to escape paying.

I do think that men are making that calculation and just saying 'I'm not taking that risk'. Maybe it makes men who have more to lose much more responsible about controlling their own fertility. Problem is you still want a relationship so you have to string a woman along.

This really is a cold hard economic decision for many young men. They get to share a home with a woman, she pays half the costs, you get the other benefits of a relationship, none of the downside if it goes wrong and the option to have kids later if you change your mind.

yanbu

I would have loved to have children younger. I couldn't find/attract a man who wanted to have kids with me.

Clearly this is my own fault for being horribly ugly and a nasty human being, but believe me it wasn't my choice.

I'm sure that's true, beta. But not all fathers are professional men, are they? And I think there's a fair few of those who manage not to pay, too.

I do think you're right, there are wankers out there, but there are also men for whom it isn't so cold and calculated. There are men who're thinking 'well, of course I want children, perhaps when we're 35 or 40?'

What is really sad is, of course, by 40 a man may have put paid to his own chances, too.

DH set his cards on the table early about wanting children. And was fully prepared to walk away if I'd said I didn't want any. Over the age of about 33, that's how it has to be.

A good male friend of mine always makes absolutely plain from the outset marriage and children are not on the cards with him. You'd be amazed at the number of times women have either said or assumed he will change his mind, and end up tearfully begging him to reconsider. It's madness-if he is so adamant it's one of the first things he tells you about himself, and you are 30s/40s and wanting children, why waste years with him on the off chance he will change his mind?

Possibly because women are socialised to put others first, not single-mindedly pursue their own wants and needs.

btw I was one of those 20 somethings with a late 30's man who decided he wanted dcs with me (well I am 34 now and he is 42)

dh was with someone for years and years, they got together young-ish and he was not ready for children, but had an unplanned child with her because he felt pressured into it

then he met me when he was 35 and i was 27 and bam he wanted more dc with me, pretty much straight the way tbh. we now have a 4 yo and we are about to have another one!

I hear you morebeta and I do think there has been a shift of thinking where young men are concerned.

The 'nuclear family' isn't as much the norm anymore as an actual choice that people make when they enter a relationship and certainly where children are concerned.

If men are starting to take control of their reproduction then surely that's a good thing and should ultimately be encouraged.

I know this sounds harsh but I often think that women who have children with a partner have 'compromised'. He didn't commit to marrying her so she basically had no choice but to agree to have children without the legal protection afforded by marriage.

Many women who have children with a partner don't realise how little legal protection they have compared to if they were married.

Men who won't commit to marry are not commited in my view. I think if you are planning to have children you should marry. Not sort of keeping your options open.

OP I am sorry but it was up to your friend to start dating more commitment friendly guys as she was nearing the age she thought she may want to start a family.

I totally understand not meeting the right guy (any guy?) until later on in life (my situation having spent 99% of my fertile years single). But when I did start dating properly I made the difficult decision to walk away from someone I cared for deeply because he did not want the same as me and thank god I met my DP who is gorgeous and did want the same as me (my son).

I do think there are a lot of men out there who are emotional fuckwits and think they are still teenagers in their forties. But it's up to us to sniff those ones out and be shot of them when our ovaries start aching.

What about us women, MoreBeta? It's my partner who'd like to get married. I'm quite happy to make wills, have joint assets and separate finances, and stay unmarried.

Men who won't commit to marry are not committed in my view. I think if you are planning to have children you should marry. Not sort of keeping your options open

That's certainly my view, MoreBeta. But the perspective of young men you've described in earlier posts is also the thinking of an utter shit, I think. They lie to keep women with them knowing they will move on as soon as it suits them, in order to protect their own economic interests.

That happened to a friend of a friend who said, when he finally dumped her 'He stole my youth.' She has neither partner nor kids now.

It works both ways, surely.

I do believe there are men out there who genuinely want children. On threads like this it's so often implied that about 99% of men don't actually care one way or other ... I just don't see it being true.

sorry, said 'He stole my youth'.

I have a lovely friend who walked away from the man she could happily have spent her life with, because he didn't want more children (he had one already)....

She is now 50, like me. Has a lovely, fulfilled and interesting life. But no, she didn't meet Mister Babymaker. Sometimes happy endings don't work out, however determined you are to walk away from the unhappy ones.

"OP I am sorry but it was up to your friend to start dating more commitment friendly guys"

As if that was so simple and easy to do.

I think if a woman gets to her mid 30s, really wants children and doesn't have a man in her life willing to father them, she should go for fostering/adoption/donor insemination rather than scrabbling around for a man. If you're at the stage where you know time is short, you're likely to get up the duff by an unsatisfactory man who you then won't be able to get rid of.

There isn't actually anything wrong with a man who doesn't want to have children, who prefers to go out every night and keep responsibilities to a minimum, or who is dedicated to a demanding job/hobby or whatever. Plenty of women don't actually want to have children, either. It's not compulsory. It's just unfortunate that women have an earlier cut-off point.

I had my dc young as I fell pg unplanned while at university. At the time my peers were shocked that I chose to continue and I was branded foolish for not terminating (as was the typical practice). Now in our late 30s, a lot of them are facing the prospect of never having children because they haven't met the right man/their partner isn't keen/they have delayed due to career and now struggling to conceive. I'm very glad I made the decision I did - I had to make lots of changes in my life and don't have the glittering careers that they did or keep waiting for the ideal man (in fact my relationship broke down when I was pg with dc2 and I raised them mostly as a single parent) but I have my kids who are mostly independent now and I have plenty of working years ahead of me to do the travelling/working thing that I missed in my twenties. I can't help thinking that, although I didn't plan it this way, it probably makes more sense for a lot of women than waiting while their fertility is at risk.

YY, there isn't anything wrong with anyone not wanting a baby.

But mid-30s is pretty close to the cut-off point for some people and past it for others. This is the issue, isn't it?

motherinferior - I am guessing you are reasonably financially secure?

Most 20 something olds wouldn't go near men in their 40s plus unless they have money, hair, height and still in shape (ish).

It's bizarre that you label men as idiotic just because they don't want children. Surely it would be much more idiotic if they allowed themselves to father children they didn't want?

I think a big problem with this is that women often think they can change men's minds about marriage and children, and that if they just wait long enough then they will get what they want while ignoring the gala ingle obvious signs that their man does not want to marry them and does not want to have children with them.

I'm sure there are men out there that lie and string women along by making them believe they will offer marriage and kids one day, but then there's also women that pretend they aren't interested in those things and then somehow end up with pregnancies they don't want to terminate.

It is very unfair to blame men for women being upset at not having had children early enough. Women have far more control over whether babies are born than men do.

It would be a damn sight better if none of us relied on 'signs' at all.

It should be possible - and socially expected - to talk about these things.

Something's must not be put off if possible. And unfortunately having a baby is one of them. I know lots of people who could have had children earlier. But they wanted to enjoy being married/a couple etc and unfortunately are now struggling and the clock is ticking loudly.

I don't get your point about commitment-phobic young men, MoreBeta: they don't want to have kids because they don't want to pay child support if they divorce? Why don't they want to pay for children they are bringing into the world? If you're a father, you have a moral obligation to financially support your children so why do they think they no longer have that obligation once they divorce their wife?

If their wife is working and earning her own salary as most women do these days then, AFAIK, they won't owe her any alimony, just child support. Worst case scenario she keeps the family home so the children have a stable home life bit that's only fair to the children.

Caveat: I have zero experience of divorce in my family and have been happily married for nearly 10 years so could be I'm out of touch. Just seems obvious to me that if you father children, you should pay for them. To be honest, women have far more to worry about here as it's typically women who end up as single mothers, relying on charity or benefits or tax credits to raise their children because a feckless father has yet again walked away from his responsibilities. Single-parent families belong to the poorest groups in the country.