To wonder why some men have children at all?

[TheRossatron]

When they have absolutely zero interest in family life? I see it on here constantly. I don't mean men who accidentally get someone pregnant and shirk responsibility... I mean men who enter into a relationship with a woman, propose, get married and try for babies... then end up with two toddlers and a presumption that they can dump everything onto the wife and fuck off out all weekend every weekend to play golf? Or get smashed in the pub? Or sit playing video games all day? I myself loathe the thought of family life - I just wouldn't want to be tied to anyone and would feel suffocated and resentful. So why on earth don't they just stay single and childless?! Baffles me.

(Disclaimer - I know there are loads of really good men out there!)

But how will they be happy when deep down the husband knows his heart isn't in it and is only doing it as some sort of favour and she will probably in the long run have a harder life because she'll be fucking knackered looking after her children while he makes any excuse under the sun to fuck off out with Dave and the lads etc. Funnily enough I'm watching Friends at the minute (I'm a fan, can you tell?) and Richard says he'll give Monica a baby "if he has to"... she is heart broken but let's him go because she really wants to have a baby but only with someone who "really, really wants one" too. It's one of the most fundamental conversations a couple needs to have before going anywhere near a church.

Because they think they'll change their minds, or that they won't be able to NOT love their kids once they come along, or they don't realise how bloody hard work it is to raise children.

My ex didn't change a single nappy, do a single feed or basically do anything related to the home. This was not what we agreed when we got married.
I agreed to return to work full time as long as he shared a childcare and housework. He agreed this.
I kept my side of the bargain but he failed to do any of his side whatsoever.
We divorced when DS was 5 and DS now 40 has no relationship with him whatsoever.
This is apparently my fault according to my ex.

Well because they might be willing to put up with the deadbeat husband to have the kids they really want? They don’t want perfection to be the enemy of the good?

Lots of good points - another aspect is of course reproductive biology.

Most women want a family in their 20s or 30s at the lastest because - biology. It’s then or possibly never. While many men would happily wait till they are in their 40s or even 50s. They compromise to settle down and have children when they are 30 or 35, but it’s not what they would “really” like to do if we are talking about totally honesty selfish gene type stuff at the instinctive caveman biological level. They’d rather be putting it about for another ten years or so.

My Cousin (male) married his childhood sweetheart and they have a healthy, solid marriage and two sons. When I was over at theirs a while back he was in a really good mood because he'd been waiting weeks for some sort of sports final on TV. I think he'd paid extra to watch it live. It starts... the poor bastard didn't get five minutes peace. One kid was climbing all over him, the other fell over and started screaming, mother in law turned up half way through expecting a cup of tea and a chat. If that had been me I'd have had a complete and utter fucking meltdown. But he laughed it off... because he knew what he'd signed up for, they had serious conversations before marriage and even though the house was mayhem he loves having his family 😊

This all day

My pregnancy was accidental an undetected until options were taken away.

Yes I'm one of those who still had periods go figure.

Anyway. I would eat my own arm, maybe even leg too, if it meant I could go back to the life I had pre her. I love her to pieces, but I had absolutely no idea just HOW uncomprehemsibly hard it would be. And I'm not unintelligent for the most part. I feel like my brain is wired "man" mode. Motherhood in no way comes naturally to me, so I think I empathise with SOME men who just think they would be better off out the way 🤣

Luckily my OH is ace, but would I shit have another, I do monthly pregnancy tests now just incase 🤦🏼‍♀️

Why didn’t she take the kids for a bit so he could watch it?

@IntentionalError

A huge number of men are ambivalent, at best, about becoming fathers but agree to do so for one very simple reason : Because the women they love are desperate to be mothers, for reasons which are both biological and social, and their husbands & partners want them to be happy.

I agree to an extent and will also add, that depending on the age of the man/woman, its not that easy to find a 20 or 30 something year old woman who definitely doesn't want kids.

So these type of men want the status of stable relationship, but not a child and that's often why after him saying he want kids... when it really comes down to TTC, years later, he admits that he doesn't really want kids and she's wasted her best years with him.

See, I'm just wondering why his wife didn't take the kids out for a couple hours so he could watch the game in peace?

Fuck knows. I would have. She comes from a loud, loving, massive family (Irish) and is used to noise, people just turning up etc and is a very patient, sociable person and just doesn't think that way. But he knew that when he married into her family.

I think there are many reasons, most of which have been mentioned.
Going along with it for the wife or girlfriend, having children because that's "what you do", not understanding the life changing impact having a baby can have, underestimating how hard the work is, usually because they have only seen their friends with children for a limited amount of time.
I think the younger years are hard for many men because the child can't do a lot. I know my husband was hands on in the baby years but as soon as our son could run around and play he was a lot more comfortable.
I'm not putting blame on women but I do also know a couple of people whose partner is always told he is doing it wrong or similar comments, so gave up trying.

You can love your family yet watch a sports game alone.

Well if they have more than 1 child with such a useless man don't start threads on here moaning about him and how tired you are.

I personally think it is pretty stupid and really rather selfish.

I think the younger years are hard for many men because the child can't do a lot. I know my husband was hands on in the baby years but as soon as our son could run around and play he was a lot more comfortable.

But lots of women don't particularly enjoy the baby years either. I'm not really a baby person... I look back on the first few months and tbh my main memory is of trying to care for a screaming little gremlin while in a sleep-deprived haze. I definitely enjoyed my DC much more from about 18 months onwards and saw a huge improvement in how happy I was as a parent after around age 3. Despite this, I never considered caring for DC - playing with them, changing them, cuddling them, feeding them, doing bedtime and bath - to be something that I could opt out of. Why do men get this option?

Well whatever. It was just an example of a man who is hands on and embraces family life as opposed to the dozens upon dozens of men described on here daily who avoid as much responsibility as they can get away with x

To be honest, like others on here, unless someone’s being abused I don’t understand women who have 2+ kids with a shit partner.

Children don’t NEED a sibling with the same father or even a sibling at all. I know plenty of happy only children. I get that some initially good men can show their arses when the first child is born and surprise their partners. However, if he’s shit with the first, why actively work towards fucking up additional kids childhoods and making your life harder? I just don’t get it.

Women leave men who say no to kids. ("I wasted / don't want to waste my best years"). Men love their women and want to make them happy. Wome will push men to have kids (I did, I really wanted them and I was nearly 40 - knew it was my last shot).

Neither men nor women fully understand the changes that having children will cause in their relationship. Frequently neither is happy. The women blame the men because they don't do XYZ and the men leave the women because they do do ABC.

Well, I'm a woman who's been sexually active for 40 years and can tell you that each and every month I was totally in charge of my own fertility, in charge of who I slept with, in charge of what contraception I/we used, in charge of whether or not to abstain during fertile periods, in charge of what happened should an unwanted pregnancy happen.

No one else controlled these circumstances for me and in no way, shape or form would I have proceeded with a pregnancy with some loser, user, abuser, addict, unemployable, spendthrift, man-child, disinterested or fickle man, no matter how attractive, how good in bed or how much "in love" I was.

Frankly, it IS that black and white for me, and if we counseled/educated young women as we should, about the huge toll to them, to their offspring and to society of reproducing with shit men, maybe more of them would take charge and be discriminating about their sperm donors.

If I were dead set against termination I would have been even more careful than I was. Everyone has the choice to abstain, to double-up or triple-up on birth control, to use Plan B, etc., sex is fun but hardly a necessity.

But why don't they understand it? It's hardly a secret.

Kinda misses point of thread but heck I'm going to say it anyway:

OP - Good guy or bad guy - Bottom line is Mums always seem to do MORE in 99% of cases...

Make of that what you will but them the facts since year dot.

And yes of course... there is the wonderful 1% who buck the trend...much love to them.

True, so true.

Because how can anyone know what having kids is like until they've got them?

Also some of them think they’re great. DH does a night of wake ups after I’ve done 7 in a row and honestly thinks he’s stepped up to the plate big time. We both work full time but he’s the one that gets the praise for nursery pick ups or remembering to put DS’s coat on. I don’t really know what to do with that. Except not have another, because fuck this for a game of soldiers quite frankly. I do nearly all of it, the difference is I don’t whinge.

The way we know anything -- by learning it from our elders and extended family, by being taught in school, by observing. Come on.

Don't you think it's reprehensible to forge on with reproduction before informing oneself about all of the pros, cons, opportunity costs, financial costs, relationship costs, etc.?

If people were more honest about the downsides, perhaps, rather than being stigmatized for talking about the difficulties of parenting, and if we didn't coddle people who make these monumental misjudgments, perhaps so many people still wouldn't be making poor decisions in 2022.