To ask why having children is such an expectation?

[stereeotype]

If it wasn't an expectation of your family, friends, society...would you really have had the burning desire for children?

It's such a societal expectation that I genuinely think it is what persuades a lot of people to have them.

I'm ambivalent about children and have posted a few times recently about it but just wandered if it wasn't for external pressure would you really genuinely have seen children as a sensible decision?

It would also be great to hear from those who didn't give into pressure and are later in life and happy with the decision they made - I don't seem to hear many of those accounts either on MN or IRL

Looks boring and self indulgent as fuck to me. Who cares about your biological urge to have another spotty Katie in the world? Also many threads here of women complaining how hard it is.

Happy as I am (haven’t RTFT have we had the “why are you on MN?” Pop up bingo yet? 😂

I think it is biological. I've never wanted children; in fact always actively disliked children until I turned about thirty-two, at which point it was like a switch had been flipped. There is no pressure or expectation from my parents, who have never once mentioned any desire to be grandparents -- I don't think they really like kids very much.

Early on, society told me it was what I should do so I guess the seed had been planted.
However, in my 20s I always had a very strong desire to have children. This desire was even more so because I was in a long term relationship.
If I hadn't been able to have kids, I know I would have found it unbearably difficult and would have done anything to make it happen.
After having DC1 in early 30s, despite how hard it has been for various reasons, its by far the best thing that's ever happened to me. For me, it feels like what I was meant to do.

I’m very happily childfree by choice and IDGAF about ‘societal expectation’.

My mum was disappointed & upset when she realised that I was serious about not having children, but ultimately it’s my life, my body & my choice and her views on the matter were not relevant.

Most people want to have children. Good luck to them, but I am not ‘most people’, and I don’t want to be.

It’s a dreary expectation for women, not men. ‘What’s the point of you then?’ ‘Don’t you want to GIVE a bloke the product of his sperm?’ It’s deviant, we are conditioned from infancy to be for appeasing, for breeding, told ‘it’s all worth it’, baybeeees are ‘cute’, what else would you do, it’s the step by step bog standard life.

Fuck that 😂 parents lives look, sound and smell shit, at all stages, I’m not fooled. Proudly childfree ☺️☺️☺️

@3scape

Biological drive seems important in most animals

The biological drive is to mate. We don’t know if other animals experien e a conscious desire for offspring.

(Anyone fuming over ‘why are you bitches on MUMsnet then, wehhhhh!!!’ -here to laugh at your shit life. HTH. Try looking at threads that aren’t about cleaning up faeces or your boring life. There’s loads.)

@NowEvenBetter

(Anyone fuming over ‘why are you bitches on MUMsnet then, wehhhhh!!!’ -here to laugh at your shit life. HTH. Try looking at threads that aren’t about cleaning up faeces or your boring life. There’s loads.)

I don't care if people without children are in MN.

I do if total arseholes are.

Is it really biological though?

Why do some people actively not want DC?
Why are some people attracted to members of the same sex - people who they cannot naturally reproduce with?

No urges here. Never have. A lot of people I know have had DC because 'that's what you do'.

I had a complete, overwhelming urge to have children. I couldn't shut it off. I knew I'd always wanted to be a mum but by 25/26 it was all I could think about.

I now have 2 children and I adore them with my heart and soul (despite the fact that they've been little shits today 😂)

I wanted children but I think that a huge part of that was feeling like I was missing out if I didn't have them and a part pressure from society. I think if it was more split down the line so 50% of people had children and 50% didn't I might have decided not too as I'm not massively maternal although I absolutely love my sisters 2 boys with everything I have and love spending time with them and I'm due my first baby any day now but I've never been interested in fussing over newborns or other people's kids.

I always knew I wanted children, but didn't have any until I was in my 30's.

It can be very all consuming when they are tiny, but I also always felt quite strongly I didn't want being a mother to be the thing that defined me. It's part of who I am, of course, but if i had to do a tell-me-about- yourself type thing I'd probably talk about my job first rather than saying I have 3 kids.

Agree totally it's a dreary expectation and a double standard in society - men don't get questioned in the same way about having kids. I remember a distant relative latching on to me at a party and, dripping with fake concern, ask me if I regretted never settling down and having children. Reader, I was 25.

My biological drive was/is crazy. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I couldn't have had my one dc. It makes me sad every day we can't really afford another, I literally think about it every single day and watch my clock ticking away until it will no longer be possible to have one. I feel very blessed everyday though.
I think I'd have gone into a deep deep depression if I couldn't have dc. Some of my friends laugh at me for saying this though so it's clearly not how everyone feels. Certainly nothing to do with what everyone else thinks, everyone else thinks I should have more so if it was to do with that I'd have at least 3 by now

@NowEvenBetter

(Anyone fuming over ‘why are you bitches on MUMsnet then, wehhhhh!!!’ -here to laugh at your shit life. HTH. Try looking at threads that aren’t about cleaning up faeces or your boring life. There’s loads.)

😂😂😂😂😂

yeah, that’s why too. 😂😂😂😂

@Lucythewonderdog

Looks boring and self indulgent as fuck to me. Who cares about your biological urge to have another spotty Katie in the world? Also many threads here of women complaining how hard it is.

Happy as I am (haven’t RTFT have we had the “why are you on MN?” Pop up bingo yet? 😂

The only people who have made this 'hilarious' [sic] comment are you and one other poster who also seems convinced that everyone else is saying it. Even though no one is. Still, as long as you're enjoying yourselves.

@NowEvenBetter

(Anyone fuming over ‘why are you bitches on MUMsnet then, wehhhhh!!!’ -here to laugh at your shit life. HTH. Try looking at threads that aren’t about cleaning up faeces or your boring life. There’s loads.)

No one has said that, called anyone 'bitches', or is 'fuming'. But go ahead.

If something is only a social expectation without any biological component it doesn’t turn up in every society in the world.

You enjoy your “biological urge” Hun @BudgeSquare.

@backtolifebacktoreality

My FIL told my DH that it is selfish to not have children.

My DH responded by saying that surely it's more selfish to have children who are not wanted!

I think people who say it’s selfish not to have children are probably a bit envious and bitter. They regret having children or felt they had little choice in the matter. But if they can tell themselves that at least they’re not selfish, and they’ve done their duty, it makes them feel better.

@Lucythewonderdog

You enjoy your “biological urge” Hun *@BudgeSquare*.

Fuck me, did you just use the word 'hun'?

@Lucythewonderdog

You enjoy your “biological urge” Hun *@BudgeSquare*.

@Lucythewonderdog, stop being a nasty cow. People are allowed to make their own choices in life, your way isn't the "right" one for everyone.

DH is the only one of his siblings who's had children, the others are childfree by choice. We had children because we wanted a family, end of. Biology had something to do with it, I suppose, but creating a family of my own was my primary motivation.

People tend to focus on the tiredness/mess of the early years, but once you're through them, you have new and interesting human beings!

If you say so @Cameleongirl, most people find them annoying bores. Maybe torelable as adults? Who cares as long as you put you un meaning full genes on the world though eh?

I was being sarcastic @BudgeSquare hun 😂

@Lucythewonderdog

If you say so *@Cameleongirl*, most people find them annoying bores. Maybe torelable as adults? Who cares as long as you put you un meaning full genes on the world though eh?

I was being sarcastic @BudgeSquare hun 😂

I'm glad to hear that you're not wasting your genes on the world, Lucy, people who find others annoying bores tend to be pretty boring themselves.

Who cares as long as you put you un meaning full genes on the world though eh?

Perhaps if you wrote those words on pieces of paper & shuffled them about in a hat, it might result in a wonderful bon mot. You never know!

Give it a try ; you might discover hitherto unsuspected reserves of wit. They're certainly well hidden. But it must be worth a try, hun.

Sorry I forgot the "crying laughing" emoji.

I never felt the remotest outside pressure? Or maybe I'm just good at ignoring such things