Why why why do people have kids without marriage

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Obviously if you earn more.. have an independent income... so NOT aimed at you..

But WHY after all these years do I see threads from economically improvised women STILL posting how they are so severely compromised ?

The massive bill to divorce is one of my reasons for not wanting to get married despite happily having his child. I don't fancy a huge divorce bill as well as the emotional and practical logistics of a separation.

Controversial but I do agree that a lot of women and people in general men too do not consider the realities of a baby before having one. Not as much as they should.

Because naivety, blinkers, been sold on these love stories, not enough experience.

Tbh, I honestly think if women were to really analyse what having children would mean to them, the human race would die out. Luckily our hormones etc take over.

Because I don't believe in marriage. It's as simple as that. I'd far rather take a financial risk and deal with the consequences of that than cynically partake in a ritual that means a lot to some people but means nothing whatsoever to me. It would be like taking communion to get my kids into a "good" school. It would be dishonest, cynical, and disrespectful to the people who invest a lot of significance in the ritual.

Because the evangelism seen on MN about marriage “protecting women” isn’t borne out by lived experience.

The OP admits it’s financially not as big an issue when the woman is the higher earner/has the assets.

It’s also not a big factor if both partners are low earners and have no assets.

On a modest household income the prospect of a partner’s pension looms far less large than the implications of said partner fucking off - and experience tells women marriage doesn’t prevent that.

Just as shared experience tells women that assets can be hidden, child maintenance can be evaded, etc.

Those are the rational reasons - and that’s before we get onto the point that having a baby isn’t a rational decision and choosing a co-partner isn’t like recruiting for a PA.

I'd rather the question be "Why do women have children before establishing themselves in a career, having a plan to manage childcare to continue with said career, and have an exit plan should they ever need it".

Marriage isn't the panacea MN would have us think. Giving up financial independence can often be the first step in a relationship turning sour or abusive, marriage certificate or not.

I think we need to empower our daughters with the tools to live a successful life with or without marriage.

I had no idea how vulnerable babies would make me. I fully intended to continue working and being independent with a good income. Many of my friends kept working, but their careers stalled for years because they were so exhausted, or couldn't do longer hours at work. The other thing is people expect equality, that their partners will do half the caring. That's what I expected. But I have never actually seen it in practice - or only when neither partner takes on the bulk of the caring and they get full time nannies or full time grandmothers.
I feel like capitalism is simply oriented against mothers. You're okay if you have a devoted partner with an income, but that's risky. In another thread, people are saying to a new mother don't expect your partner to stay if you don't give him all the sex he wants. That awful coercive dynamic is the fault of society that does not protect mothers it shouldn't be that failure to get married means they're just thrown to the wolves.

really???
where are you?
I have never, ever come across this as an option on a form- cohabiting maybe- and definitely not on anything that carried any legal or financial weight

I'm not married to my DP and we have kids. I would rather have been married but he didn't want to. I wanted the relationship to continue and have children so I chose to do it without being married. We own our house jointly and I continued to work. We've been together 20 years and are talking about getting married or a civil partnership purely because we are getting older and it simplifies things if one of us gets very ill or dies.

Obviously if you earn more.. have an independent income... so NOT aimed at you..

I often see the argument on here that higher earning women should protect their finances by not getting married. However, the same argument could apply to higher earning men.

It doesn’t actually offer you much protection if there’s nothing to split it’s only men with assets that are worth divorcing therefore worth marrying and those men are pretty determined to protect those assets and therefore won’t get married.
It’s better to just acquire your own assets and then insure that anything child related is split 50-50 he buys half the nappies he buys half the shoes he pays half the childcare.

For a number of people having a child trumps marrying the love of your life. Having children is time bound and the women I know who’ve done it that way have only just got on the property ladder and have no money left for the wedding they want or met their partner late - all mid 30s problems.

Agreed they are not impoverished but it would still be bad for them financially with a break up. But then that’s their risk 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m sure women from other backgrounds still want kids in a similar vein.

Also marrying the wrong person is also not a great idea.

Surely the question should be 'why are women being completely fucked over?'

Not just by partners but by employers, the benefits system, the housing crisis, society.

We shouldn't have to shackle ourselves to a spouse to be protected.

I think she’s allocating personal responsibility to women for their own decisions and financial security.

People used to put more weight on marriage as a precursor to children though. It represents a cultural change that we now don't, and while it has had some upsides in terms of not tying people together who would be better of separate, it also has had a negative impact on child poverty.

And because it represents a cultural change, it's not just that people who might have had an accidental pregnancy anyway don't bother to marry when they might have before. It means that people may be less careful to avoid pregnancy than they would have been before.

Then there is the question of whether there are demographics where becoming a single mother can represent an advantage, at least in a short term way, to some women. I have a young cousin who was in that position, and it got her out of her house and able to leave what was a rather difficult home.

Not sure what the answer is but acknowledging more openly that children without marriage is risky might be a start.

I'm very lucky I didn't marry mine, I am much better off because I didn't. But then I refused to give up my career to be a SAHM. Why anyone woman risks that I do not know.

Because they believe in the fairy tale. And biology takes over when you’re newly in love. And they’re so many men who don’t care about their children. But many young women want to have a baby because it’s what they want, to fill a hole in their hearts.

I often see the argument on here that higher earning women should protect their finances by not getting married. However, the same argument could apply to higher earning men.

In the vast majority of cases, the children are mostly or at least half, with the woman, making it much more important to have decent finances.

Lots of people will never have a career like that.

Why is the question not "why do women need to get married to have security"?

Peacsuse a lot of people don’t actually know what an ideal situation looks like and sometimes the desire to get what they want makes them compromise too much.

Ummm I've been with my other half for twelve years..... We have 2 DC... I don't want to get married. It's a waste of money IMO.

Because the majority of the time, unless it’s the woman who for whatever ideological reason does not want to get married- women are settling for men who don’t want to marry them. (This contributes to my personal crackpot theory of why we are seeing ludicrously massive baby showers- because they aren’t getting a wedding)

Men don’t need to propose now. The majority of women accept absolute scraps, and will pay 50 percent of the bills and take on all of the mental load and drudge work. The men literally don’t need to get married. They are happy as they are, leeching female emotional energy and unpaid labour. I’m not blaming women for men’s shit behaviour- but we need to do something about tolerating it?

Usually their DPs will marry someone else in the future, who they actually want to marry.

Men will have entire 10 year long relationships and families with women who they think are good company, like having sex with and will wash their pants. Regardless of whether they are head over heels in love with them or not.

All of the above.

Because we earned a similar wage. Because we didn't own a property. Because it cost money and it was more important to provide for our child/ren. Because when we split we then didn't have to pay for a divorce.

Not really, because we don't actually have the power to go back in time to before we had kids and then insist on a change in marital status before jumping back to the present day and enjoying financial security. It defies the laws of physics.

Rather, it's a way of avoiding society's responsibility. Those women suffer because they were silly. So many silly women.