to be getting more and more annoyed by the attitude that kids can be planned

[stitch10yearson]

Because if you dtd, then there is always a risk of pregnancy. condoms are only 98% effective, the pill and the coil 97%. This means basically that if you do the deed, then the only way of ensuring that you don't have a baby is terminating it.

And breathe.

IMO, NOT having kids is a lifestyle choice, not the other way around. If a man doesn't want kids, then he needs to always always wear a condom, even if she ison the pill and has a coil in, or have the snip. and probably still wear a condom. Or only have sex with someone who is post menopausal.

Having kids = lifestyle choice.

Not having kids = lifestyle choice.

I've managed regular sex for about 20 years now using the pill for some time and then just condoms and managed to only get pregnant the one time my husband and I wanted to. It's not rocket science.

Nope. Thats just my point. It isn't a choice. Sex is a biological urge. And the risk isn't teeny. Its actually pretty huge. The only choice is termination.

Have you any understanding of basic biology?!

Sex is a biological urge NOT a necessity like eating or sleeping. You can survive without it.
I too have been having sex for well over 20 years and managed to only get pregnant when I wanted to. You can't always plan for them, there are contraceptive failures and infertility but generally it IS possible.

Off course having children is a choice you make. The risk of contraceptive failure is so tiny but to you it seems like 50/50. That's a weird way of thinking op.

Sex is a biological urge. That doesn't make it a right. Sex results in babies. We have many methods of contraception, and none of them are 100% safe. So if you don't want a baby, and you are not willing to accept the risk even with contraception, then don't have sex.

YABU.

You need sperm and egg at the right place at the right time to make a baby. Usually, the egg is only available for a few days a month. Taking the pill will prevent ovulation for most women. A condom will prevent sperm getting close to an egg if there is one present.

Not every sexual encounter can biologically lead to a baby. and termination should be a last resort, not a form of contraception!

ok, so the consensus is that IABU?

I shall await more answers if that is ok. Because the numbers just don't add up for someone who is possessed of a reasonable amount of fertility.

Having children is a choice.

Cannot stand the term lifestyle though, I didn't ruin my foof for a child I wanted to treat like a handbag looking at you Kardashian

Surely having/not having children is two sides of the same coin? We 'chose' not to have a child for 11 years, then 'chose' to have one. We have 'chosen' not to have any more.

I'm not entirely sure what you're frothing about in your op thick emoticon but choice/lifestyle riles me

I don't really think you are being unreasonable. What you are saying is even with good contraceptive choices there is still a risk. It is pretty small but if you are in the small percentage that suffers contraceptive failure then life can be pretty tough.

For those suggesting celibacy, really

The fact that people think its a choice. Contraception isn't 100% and the fact that people think it is, and can be used to plan kids... Just because people have low fertility, don't do the deed often enough, or are happy to use termination as a contraception makes me see red.

Another one who has been having sex for more than 20 years and only had the 'planned' child. Although in my case the 'plan' was "we'll have a child sometime this year" and the reality was pregnancy from the very next shag

Carrie, We did celibacy for an entire year after dc3 was born. It was the ONLY reasonable alternative, because it was the only one that worked.
If you are youngish, healthy, and regularly have sex, then absolutely no contraception is likely to work the way that people make out they should.

I kind of get what you mean. I really get wound up by the 'she trapped him into fatherhood' brigade. Men are not passive victims to their biology. If they don't want children, take responsibility for the contraception. If you never want children, have a vasectomy. I admit, I've become a bit of a saddo and reading celebrity gossip on the internet. Some of the comments, especially about Benedict Cumberbatch and Ryan Gosling about being caught out by the 'oldest trick in the book ' really makes me despair for the type of men we have living in this world. They can't really all be living in their parents bedrooms. They must be men who are around us every day.

YABU. Having children is a lifestyle choice. Whether it's because you are choosing to have try and have kids or because you are just choosing to have sex. You accept in your OP that having sex might result in children so you are choosing to take that risk when you have sex.

Also if you really want sex and no children then you could be on hormonal contraception, use condom, use a female barrier(diaphragm) and a spermicide. Pretty sure chances of all of that failing would be tiny. Pretty unsexy though, all that faff.

I think you are being unreasonabale to say sex isn't a choice, of course it is!

But YANBU to say children are a clear choice. I think many people wandering around today were probably unplanned, and many planned children never materialise.

Also, a 97% success rate for most contraception means that 3 women in every 100 will get pregnant. That's quite high when you consider the amount of women on contraception. It runs into the hundreds of thousands for each type.

YABU.

Just because contraception isn't 100% effective doesn't mean it's not a choice to get pregnant.

If you have sex a lot with contraception, you're less likely to conceive than if you have sex a lot without contraception. So you can to some extent control it.

Can't quite believe we're having this discussion, actually.

Just posted on the other thread about men using condoms, seems to be a theme this morning! IMO, you're being a bit unreasonable - on that thread I mentioned using two methods of contraception (pill and condoms). IME, both used correctly, all the time - really low rate of failure. Really, really low. Most people I know who've had a condom fail and had a pregnancy result assumed they were covered in some other way and weren't, or didn't check and didn't notice.

I actually think its more of an issue the other way - you can't magically become pregnant at the right time, which lots of people ignore when talking about planning families. However its easy enough to prevent a pregnancy if you're willing to use multiple methods - I'm sure there are people where a condom, IUD and morning after pill all correctly administered failed, for example, but I would say they are very few and far between.