For welcoming Jennifer Anniston’s honesty about her struggle to have children

[RhubarbRocks]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63576100

As someone who went though multiple rounds of unsuccessful IVF in my late 30s and early 40s it’s good to see this normalised in the news. It sometimes feels very isolating when you can’t have children (not least here when it’s sometimes questioned why childless women are here - I joined during ivf and have stayed for all the other non child related chats!)

So not really an AIBU but maybe a question/observation about the assumptions we make about whether a woman does/doesn’t have children.

I have a friend who now says she's relieved she didn't pursue IVF and having a child at all costs. She was sad at the time when she couldn't have a child but she has got over that now and will say she thinks her life is much better than if she'd had children.

I feel like this although I did have IVF. There are huge compensations. Really strong happy marriage, more financial security, more travel opportunities. I was able to take early(ish, aged almost 58) retirement, which I probably would not have been able to had I had children and a less healthy pension due to maternity breaks.

@Schlaar this is such a shitty comment to make.

I wonder if people are forgetting that public adoration and public pressure means women like Aniston CANNOT come right out and say they don't want children? Having followed the 'triangle' since 2005 and a member of many messageboards surrounding it, the consensus is that so many major Jen stans, the minivan Aniston mum fan club or the 'minivan majority', as they were called, could not handle Jen saying she didn't want children, so she had to lie and say she did? Her fans wanted 'mini Jens' and were always saying how they hoped Jen would get pregnant with Vince Vaughn, then with Mayer, then with Theroux, how her fans would squeal when they saw something on a tabloid that said "Jen is definitely pregnant this time!".

Her fans wanted and expected her to want to have children. It never would have gone down well if she had come out and said she was happy being childless. Her rabid fans could never compute with that, nor accept it.

She had no choice but to keep her fans happy by telling them she wanted kids, so they wouldn't be disappointed. Yet now she's entered menopause, she is relieved but instead still chooses to hide her real self behind "I was infertile" (of course she is now, she it's true now), instead of admitting the truth?

It's kind of like a heartthrob who is so popular with girls but can't publicly admit he's gay.

Has anyone really stopped to consider that... Occam's Razor - she didn't want children but did not want to upset her fan base by admitting it? I am just so surprised that people are so gullible they really don't see through this.

There are huge compensations. Really strong happy marriage, more financial security, more travel opportunities.

Interestingly, I have quite a few child free friends, and they have all been happily married for 25+ years and several have celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary.

You can't possibly know this. Why are her own words not enough to be believed? Please stop projecting.

@LuckySantangelo35

Right she will survive but there’s nothing wrong with practical advice for those who really do want kids - and that advice says try before your late 30’s.

And I think Brad is just a simple poor stoner lad who got parts because of his looks and was enamoured by Ange’s looks (which were incredible in those days) and did something dumb. Obviously he isn’t innocent, he cheated. But she does seem really off to me and always has.

@SirMingeALot No. I was referring to this: "So the fact that Jennifer hasn't done either, and she could still choose both if she wanted, must indicate that it wasn't what she wanted."

It's called observation over many, many years, and knowing what her fan base is like.

Have you simply not stopped to think she never wanted them at all (as is a woman's right) but people like you, clearly, as your own post shows, would never believe her or accept it? It seems there is a staggering amount of people who just haven't joined the dots here and are incapable of critical thinking.

He didn't cheat.

whos really thinking about marriage and kids and “settling down” in their early twenties though ?!

I don't know, when I moved to my current city at 24not quite early 20s, perhaps, but only just past themI remember being offered a house share and turning it down in favor of a miniscule cubby-like one-room bedsit, because the house share rules would have made it impossible to have a boyfriend staying over and I was on the lookout for a partner. When I met guys, I was definitely looking at them in terms of "are they husband material?" I met my current DH at 24, got engaged at 26, married 18 months later.

I don't know, to me this is, like, pretty normal, IF you want to have children. You start looking for a serious partner once you are in not too far along in your 20s, because finding the right person, spending time together, getting serious, getting engaged, getting married, TTC all take time--years, usually. If you want to be TTC no later than your early 30s, you need to set that as the endpoint and then work backwards in your head.

Women who want to have biological children of their own but don't actually get serious about looking for a marital partner until they are already 30 or so, remind me a bit of those people who are always late for everything they do because of the inability to mentally plan backwards---if they need to get to a place at 12:00pm and it's 30 minutes travel away from their home, they don't start getting ready until it's 11:50 because they're not factoring in all the time required to do all the things that need to be done before they arrive.

I do remember feeling very sorry for her when she was papped on holiday once with Justin Theroux - she'd put a bit of weight on and it was all on her tummy area/lower abdomen. There were lots of media pics and speculation that she was pregnant when you could see that it wasn't a baby bump at all. As a woman who feels completely shit when I've packed a bit of even more weight on, I didn't envy her that at all.

I wonder if people are forgetting that public adoration and public pressure means women like Aniston CANNOT come right out and say they don't want children?

I really don’t think this is true - it might have been before the 90s but there are/have been plenty of childfree celebrities - Helen Mirren, Oprah Winfrey, Renee Zellwegger, Winona Rider, Cameron Diaz, George Clooney, though the latter two changed their minds.

@user1477391263 not everyone thinks like you. Everyone's journey to motherhood or not is different and frankly there is a huge amount of luck involved along the way. I certainly wasn't thinking about being a mother in my 20s, I was in education then trying to establish a career as being independent and financially secure were important to me. People's lives and situations are very different and I for one think it must have been v hard for JA along the way being in the public eye and the narrative about her not wanting children.

@LightHousePanda

I think the photo is just showing that aside from her being able to be open about not having children and being beyond that in her older years now, she is still a confident, attractive and sexy woman.

I think it give a positive message and shows us we can still look good as we age.

But the Aniston fanbase have always been really rabid about wanting her to have babies. 'Mini Jens'. This has been whipped up to some extent by Aniston herself talking about having babies in almost every interview she did (and Aniston had veto power over questions asked; she was called out once by Oprah when Aniston lied about an interview she did and Aniston had to backtrack and retract), so of course that would be in the forefront of her fans minds, it was her publicity schtick to talk about having babies. None of those you mentioned had talking about babies in every interview as their M.O.

Do you hear yourself, you sound obsessed. You don't know her no matter how much fan gossip you read.
And It's not that I wouldn't believe her - I don't want children myself so I know that there are many women that don't and that's fine.

It's that she has actually come out and said in her own words that she had IVF - why is speculation and gossip more believable to you than her own words? Or is it just that you want something salacious to gossip over?

I'm really glad everything's worked out well for you @KimberleyClark

I ended up having a child, a surprise after all that unsuccessful IVF, very late. I've lost my career and my health. I love my kids SO much but I can see that my friend is much healthier and happier than I am right now. Hugely jealous of the international travel.

My marriage also went downhill after kids. Who knew that a man who said he believed in equality didn't want to do any of the extra housework / childcare once a child came along and might TALK about equality but actually DOING it was going to be a bridge too far and that he would expect everything for him, including career trajectory to stay exactly the same? (Yes, I know, literally everyone on MN on the Relationships board knows this is likely but I was a confident know-it-all young woman who didn't go on MN until too late!)

I feel for her and I've always liked her. I'm surprised in her world with all her money etc that no-one advised her to freeze her eggs.

I get it, I’ve been in the thick of infertility crap for years now and recently I’ve become aware that in 5 years or so, it will be too late and I’ll know one way or the other whether it’s ever going to happen. Part of me can’t wait for the relief of putting it behind me and living my life again. It’s completely and utterly dominated my 30s.

Wow. I sound obsessed? Why? Because I proffered another line of thinking, and the way you over-reacted to it to the extent you are protesting too much basically proves my point. That you simply cannot conceive (pardon the pun) that she lied all these years to keep her fan base. Your reaction proves my point that people take it as a personal offence at the thought she not only didn't want children, but lied about it. Calm down. I think your OTT response proves my entire point about how she could not come out and tell the truth.

@user1477391263

dont be smug, there is a huge amount of luck involved too.
I didn’t find anyone I would have wanted to have kids with in my twenties despite looking
I wasn’t gonna settle with just anyone to have kids - having kids wasn’t ever that important enough to me to do that. I do know people who’ve done that and they r not very happy now

Sending solidarity @louloulemons I have been where you are. It's shit.

Once I got to the point where the IVF clinic was recommending donor eggs, we decided to stop (for various reasons - financial, ethical, personal) and I read a book called 'the Next Happy' by Tracey Cleantis which I found enormously helpful. She's a therapist and she spent years and a lot of money pursuing a baby and was unsuccessful. The book is about generally having to give up on a dream, but there is a lot specific to her journey with IVF in there. That book really helped me to move on.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock To be quite honest, I was thinking this too. I did wonder if she just decided to was easier to sort of adopt the party line that, as a woman, OF COURSE she wanted children but very sadly failed to have them rather than to say "actually no, that was never on my radar, I just never felt that I wanted to be a mother."

The first option leads to lots of sympathy (for the most part), the second perhaps to speculation about what is "wrong" with her that she never wantedchildren, did her parents divorce affect her that much, is she just a cold hearted selfish, career obsessed woman without natural womanly urges etc etc.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock

i think you’re wrong

I think in this day and age there would have been loads of people who would have applauded her for coming out and saying she was child free by choice. There might have been some weirdo fans who wouldn’t have done but most people either wouldn’t give a shit or they would admire her for it

@SirMingeALot No. I was referring to this: "So the fact that Jennifer hasn't done either, and she could still choose both if she wanted, must indicate that it wasn't what she wanted."

Ok. It was a bizarre response, then.

The part about not wanting a child enough is simply an invention on your part. Nothing in my post even addresses that question, much less tries to assess it. Not wanting to go for either surrogacy or adoption, which she clearly doesn't because of what we know about her not having done it, the money she has and the availability of both in the society she lives in, means nothing other than not wanting to do surrogacy or adoption. It doesn't remotely relate to how much she might have wanted a child per se.