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.

I think we need to take responsibility for our own actions tbh. You can stay with a committment phobic if you wish, in the UK you can date who you like. Your choice. But you cannot then turn around at 40 and start blaming all these men for YOUR decisions.

I didnt get married until mid 30's and had last child at 41. However I wasnt sure I wanted children. if we hadnt have had them I would have been fine - the maternal instinict never really kicked in but I cannot imagine my life without the boys now.

I have friends who in the past were very fussy (they called it high standards!) and who were able to support themselves in life. I think it did creep up on them that they were leaving it late to settle down and have kids - should they want them but they almost seemed to have a sense of entitlement.

But you cannot blame nature and men for their choices in life. I did read somewhere that if a man hadnt made a commitmenet within 18 months he wasnt going to make it all. Staying 5 plus years with anyone when you are in your 30's and waiting for them to make the decision is just plain daft.

AveryJessup

The point morbeta is making is that these men will not have children to support because they are choosing not to have children.

Which of course is perfectly acceptable isn't it?

car - desirable, I would say.

But he's not just saying that - he's saying that some men know they're doing this and string women along for the relationship.

I accept some men do do this. But I also think there are lots who do what others have described, thinking they are being sincere saying 'I want children' but having a completely unrealistic timetable for that. Which is actually worse, because you end up with a man and a woman who're mutually kidding themselves.

My DS has been with a partner for nearly 20 yrs.

He had a number of children from various relationships. She decided not to have any and hasnt regretted it at all! Interestingly he really wanted a child with her. She said he had more than enough already!

A close relative stayed with a man for 4 years who had NEVER lived with anyone. She was mid 30's. She was convinced that he was just looking for the right women (which was her!). She wasted her golden years with this man consantly making excuses for him.

He never said that he wanted children - he did say he was looking to settle down eventually. He was late 40's

Personally I would have run a mile....

Yeah. And yet people will have told her she was too clingy, and she should let him take his time, and that men find it hard to talk about these things.

And people will have given him the message that it's normal to say this stuff and not mean it. And so it goes on.

See I'm finding the opposite problem to the one described by the OP. I don't want children and preferably would like a partner who didn't have children. I'm currently on a few dating sites and it's nigh on impossible to find a chap who's put an outright "no" in the "wants kids" box. Plenty of "somedays" and "undecideds."
Doesn't help when everyone tells you "you'll change your mind when you meet Mr Right..."
However, if I did want kids and was getting on a bit, i would most definitely go it alone, thanks to a good career.

I think if you are mid 30's and been with a man for a few years you need to be fair to yourself. You dont want regrets in a few yrs. Give it another 6 months and then leave if they dont want kids and you do.

But some women wont, they will stay and suddenly find they are 40. The doctor was quite right to point out that the years have run away with her.

Well at least we have MN trumpeting having the all important conversations!

Too often in life women who are worrying about what the future holds, are told from all channels, friends, family, society "don't be that girl" "you can't be clingy, he'll run a mile" "don't push him into commitment" and are mocked if they refuse to take a passive role in the relationship

Even as someone who took the step of making sure DP and I were on the same page, DM & DSis & even a couple of friends thought it was all "a bit keen" and basically expected me to be dumped for raising the issue.

The thing is if you are still messing around with dating unsuitable men and you are pushing 40 - something is going wrong for you.

Assuming you started dating at 16 you will have been at it for 20 years! You will need to think who you are going for. When I was in my early 20's it was the bad boys for me. I had to the time to that. Come early 30's I needed to take it more seriously

YY, that's true.

I think this is a self-respect thing on both sides. A woman who dates strings of men who don't want what she wants is either very unlucky, or she doesn't trust she could find someone who does want what she wants. A bloke who, as beta describes, strings along a woman because he's too scared to admit he doesn't want children obviously doesn't have a massive amount of self-confidence either. I think?

YANBU OP. I think opening up this debate to focus on both genders when we talk about women 'delaying' is really important. I was with a couple of 'stallers' in my 20's/early 30s - it's not always as easy as walking away, as you don't want to walk away from a decent relationship if there is a chance things will change. Lots if people (not least women do change their mind about wanting kids). Luckily I met the right man and had DS. But I appreciate that there was a big element of luck in that, lots of gorgeous lovely women I know are single not by choice in their mid-30s. Morebeta I completely disagree with what you say about marriage - your post simplifies the issue enormously. People choose to marry or not for various valid reasons. We are not living in jane Austen's times, blimey.

A lot of men simply don't know that women's fertility declines at the end of their 30s; they think that menopause happens at about 50 and women have 10-15 years longer than they actually do. So it is important to discuss this. Particularly given the brutal truth that a man of 70, say, could still impregnate a woman. Because men know they have more time, they may be happier to defer parenthood.

Mind you, women get criticized if they have babies when they're young, as well - the young mum is considered an irresponsible slut who couldn't keep her knickers on, while the older one is 'selfish' for having put her career first. Women can't win.

And of course the other problem is that people do change their minds. The majority of people in their 20s tend to think that they will probably have children, at some point. A lot of them meet an acceptable partner and commit/move in/marry, still with this vague comfortable idea that they will have children, in a while. And then one or the other either suddenly desperately wants to breed, or realises that s/he really doesn't want to be a parent.
BUt sometimes someone who has been determinedly childfree up until about 33, and who has coupled up with another childfree type, has a sudden yearning for children - and often, the childfree one is supposed to give in gracefully even though it's the other partner who has changed the rules of the game. It's tricky all round.
It would probably be better if less of a big deal was made about the need for a couple-relationshipto be in place before breeding.

From personal and professional (ex-nurse, mental health,social services, working across all social classes ) and now late fifties, I have seen this as a bit of a social class/professional divide too.

Over the years many of my colleagues put off children to develop their careers, and were quite sniffy about the number of teenage girls we dealt with who were pregnant . Some of the girls had partners who stuck around, but most of the young men soon cleared off and got others pregnant, often in quick succession. Not unusual to go to maternity units or wards to find young women sharing the same father of their children.

These young women often developed strong support networks among their peer groups, and men were very peripheral to their lives, certainly in any supportive sense. Now ten, twenty or more years on the 'girls' are now mature women, the children have pretty much moved on and the women are finding a new lease of life, going to college, starting small businesses. Almost all of them say having kids early was the best thing for them, they may have regretted missing out on a social life when younger but they are making up for it now.

On the other hand, many of my highly trained and intelligent friends and colleagues are desperately trying for children, have young kids and are exhausted, or bitterly mourning lost years with the wrong men. One friend married an older man who already had four children, she was distraught when he said he had done his bit and didn't want any more...she took an ex-boyfriend to a hotel on her most fertile weekend and got pregnant by him, and then brought her child up pretty much on her own.

sorry long post, but the upshot is I think more and more women are and will see themselves as mothers without partners, and find a different and very communal mode of being a mother, working or otherwise.

I considered going it alone. I was self employed and single. I felt I couldn't cope with the crushing responsiblity and financial insecurity.

And then I felt even worse because in addition to being too horrible and too ugly to attract a man I was also clearly insufficiently unmaternal.

Yes but why would that financial motivation be any different for women, caruthers? Women are forced into confronting the financial responsibilities of parenthood sooner than men because we ideally need to have our children before the age of 40 but it's not a huge difference.

I don't know many people, men or women, who would delay becoming a parent much past 45. Nobody wants to be a 60 year old with a newborn! So the financial pressure should surely be the same for men and women.

With maternity leave etc not many women expect to be financially supported through their childbearing years anymore so why would young men feel particular pressure as MoreBeta suggests?

I do think this is a problem. I think some women who are with men who don't want to have a family think if they wait long enough they might change their minds. But how long is long enough. And men might think these days what's in it for me.

AveryJessup

Again....in the instance I was referring to it entailed men that just didn't want children for whatever reason be that financial or otherwise.

Which is up to them if they so choose.

Paying for children they don't have and have no intention of having doesn't come into it does it?

Yes, SGB, there is a socially acceptable window for women to have children of about 8 years, from 26-34, anything outside those bounds has people raising some objection or another. It's ridiculous.

MoreBeta I can understand some men thinking like that (and can't blame them) but I'm not convinced most men would actually be organised to think enough like that. I'm sure theres a fair segment who just don't want children, another segment who struggle to feel close to someone and a high proportion who just feel they haven't met the right person.

How many people, in reality, get together with someone, not because they passionately love them and share the same interests and same motivations and lifestyle, but because they can't meet anyone else, and so dig their claws in to hang on by hook or by crook, just in case they can't get anyone else?

Out of the women in my degree class, not one remained unmarried by age 33 (we had a reunion). Yet now, 10 years later, I'd say most of the couples I know are from the sport I do competitively, so quite a large number, I know a lot of couples in live in relationships, long term and no engagement, but what they have in common (being sarcastic here) is that they don't have anything in common. The girlfriend stays at home while the man does the sport (despite it being a sport both men and women do) - I as a woman wouldn't dream of going out with someone never mind marrying someone who didn't have the same interests as me.

Cinnamon - "We are not living in jane Austen's times, blimey."

Unfortunately, I think we are going back to that BECAUSE of the economic situation we are in of the distribution of wealth being hugely polarised.

See my earlier post on the trend back to the Victorian mode of marriage with older men marrying much younger women when they realise they want a son and heir. Before that they enjoy their economic freedom and play the field with no commitment.

Not every man is doing this but a significant number and a growing trend. Its something I really have noticed more and more young men I meet being willing to talk about often in quite a jokey way. I think young women have come to accept 'no commitment' relationships as normal because they too want to enjoy their economic freedom and play the field with no commitment. After all - isn't that what 'equality' is all about?

Problem is women still need to give birth one day and they have a limited time and in that sense women are not equal.

There is the other scenario of course which I have seen quite a few posts on MN about where a youngish woman has a child with a youngish man in a relationship but he still expects her to pay 50% of all the household costs and bring up the children. The man again is making damn sure he not having any economic commitment above paying 50% of household costs. The logic is 'if she wants kids she can pay for them as long as she pays half the rent'.

You're not making any sense, caruthers. MoreBeta said that young men are put off by the financial responsibility of becoming a father. I said why would that be an issue specific to men in this day and age when most women earn and have the same responsibilities as men.

And you're saying that these men just don't want children for any reason financial or otherwise. Which is entirely beside the point. I'm addressing MoreBeta's specific point on the issue of financial burdens putting young men off fatherhood. What their other reasons for shunning fatherhood might be aren't really relevant to what I was addressing.

What callani and others said.

This idea that it is somehow inappropriate to have a discussion about life goals within a new relationship needs to die a ghastly death. Reproduction, involuntary or otherwise, is always a possibility (sometimes a very tiny possibility, whether due to effective contraception or underlying fertility issues, but still a possibility) within an opposite-sex relationship. If a man is incapable of having a discussion about his plans for the future, then he is actually too immature to be having sex. Rather than shagging men and indulging "commitment-phobia", women are entitled to either force the discussion, or treat these particular men in a manner appropriate to their immaturity- and dump.

So you're saying MoreBeta that a lot of young men you know are taking the attitude that the kids are the woman's idea and her 'thing' so they don't want to carry any financial responsibility for them such as childcare costs etc ?

What an odd attitude to take. I can only assume it's because they actually don't want children and have been pressurized into it by their partners. Fair enough if that's how things work for them but it makes me glad I'm not in a marriage like that!