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’d feel sorry for any man who ended up with a woman for whom he was simply a means to an end I.e having children.

Me too

How depressing

in this day and age it would be a woman’s number one priority in life

it should be one of many

you only get one life

how can anyone have no other important aspirations?!

Having followed the 'triangle' since 2005 and a member of many messageboards surrounding it

jesus what a waste of time, I’d be embarrassed to admit that.

I hope you're raising your precious children to be better people than you're being here.

Said poster is neurodivergent and so it may be that celebrities are her area of particular focus/interest.

@

God, you really are nasty. I thought you were just young and smug, and just not divorced/separated/cheated on/financially dependant etc on someone yet.

Not that it’s inevitable, but often for the women like you who have prioritised children at the expense of other things, you’ll find you come unstuck at some point. I hope you don’t face anyone as judgmental as you are to others.

IF and I am saying IF someone was as judgmental as you are, they could say 20 years of not finding the right one says a lot more about someone’s integrity than getting impregnated by the good enough option that happened to be in the right place at the right time from your “counting back” calculations.

Or, everyone could be kind

That explains a lot.

Wow, what a gratuitiously nasty thing to say about someone you know nothing about. Shame on you!

Some women have higher standards for a life partner than just "someone ok" you know...

@LuckySantangelo35 Thing is most people don’t think they have settled. They simply don’t have incredibly high expectations of meeting their fairytale dream man from a romance novel. No one I know thinks they settled, though if the women who can’t find a man they would have kids with in 20 years knew their husbands they may think so.

I do agree that consciously settling won’t lead to a happy marriage, but I don’t think most women who have kids do that. I think it’s more a case that they don’t have unrealistic expectations or aren’t as flighty around men or don’t have the difficulty developing strong feelings for men who aren’t their dreamed of ideal (if they even have one) that the women who “don’t settle” and end up alone have.

I just think if you really go for two decades not being able to find a man you can fall for and have kids with the problem is your own attitude or nature not simply luck.

I mean it’s fine if you want to hold out for a perfect dream man who probably doesn’t exist. But obviously women who are able to just fall for a good man (not settle genuinely fall for him) and don’t have a dreamt up ideal dream man will be more likely to have kids.

Ah, okay. That provides some context.

@Cornettoninja 😅 Ikr!

@JessicaTooManyRabbits

“flighty around men”

what on earth are you on about?

and no most women who do not settle do not have staggeringly high expectations. There are just a lot of shit men out there.

@LuckySantangelo35

Right it’s just there’s nothing but shit men for two decades of looking for a good one, it’s not the woman’s high expectations. All the other women married with kids just settled or are blind morons to how shit their men are, or somehow managed to bag up the only men who could reach the standards of the women who never settled.

Sure. 😉

What does 'pervasively important' even mean?

And it's a bit patronising of you to suggest that women are 'duped' into thinking they don't need a husband or kids to be happy. Firstly, because the prevailing narrative is precisely the opposite and secondly, because there's plenty of evidence that single women are happier than married women, though the opposite is true for men.

There are just a lot of shit men out there.

I can't stress this enough!
Those who have been out of the dating market for many years have no idea of the shitshow it is nowadays with the hookup culture and commitment phobia epidemic.

It took me 3 years and over 100 first dates doing OLD before I found a keeper. And I started out as a relatively attractive 27 year old woman. No, I didn't have outrageous standards, nor some romantic fantasy about a knight in shining armour... just someone who was just as good a catch as I was and who showed genuine consistent interest.

All my single friends who happen to be good looking, solvent and educated found dating just as daunting as me. Good men are few and in great demand.

@JessicaTooManyRabbits

some will have settled
some will have been lucky to have find the love of their life
a mix basically

Totally agree

Yanbu. When I was going through (unsuccessful) IVF attempts there was a woman at work who asked me nearly every week if I was going to have kids. It was so upsetting. Another woman who I’d made the mistake of telling we were TTC used to greet me with “Are you pregnant yet?” Not “Hello” or “Hiya” just straight to demanding to know what’s going on in my womb, in public.

It’s wonderful to see the trauma of all this normalised in the news, but I feel so sad that she had to go through it, no one should and there is no grief like it.

In particular I’m glad she mentioned no one had told her to freeze her eggs. I’m a similar age to Aniston and we were raised that the worst thing a girl could do was be a young mum. Pregnancy was something to be postponed as long as possible, definitely to thirties, maybe forties. I’m very bitter about that.

Especially when I reflect on how we were also supposed to be holding down high paying jobs while also dressing like sex objects. I can see how me being a rich well-dressed nympho instead of being a mum benefits men, but the “put it off til later” advice ruined my life.

I do think priorities change, and that the realisation that conceiving is not happening does make the issue all-consuming, especially if time is running out.

For the sake of important information, I wish there would be a difference in terminology between infertility and post-fertile. Women saying “I am suffering from infertility” when they’re 45 is inaccurate. It implies that any other 45-year-old is just fine and dandy in the egg stakes.

One thing I find very strange is how the media talk about “women choosing to wait” like the moronic poster upthread who said women wait too long to marry.

Every couple I know - the woman was keen to marry years and years before their boyfriend proposed. And then after yoh get married the husband is like “whaaaat kids why now?!” It’s men, not women, who insist on waiting.

Maybe we should go back to encouraging young women to settle down with men a bit older than them. Sigh.

My perfect one died
Took me until I was too old to find another great love
I think a lot is circumstance and not pickyness.
I nearly settled, thank god I didn't. Imagine being tied to someone inadequate through children for 18 years and beyond

I had dc in my 20s. At the time it looked like I'd hit the raw deal when I'd see pics online of school/uni people travelling to exotic places, driving swanky cars, renting in hipster neighbourhoods etc. But now so many of them, who as far as I was aware all expected to get married and have dc, are childless at an age where that's not going to change. I have teens and some freedom, leisure time/ social life back. I wouldn't change it.

That's great, but your life doesn't sound at all appealling to me, and probably it doesn't to your friends either. Maybe they wouldn't change their lives either?

Having dcs was my number one priority in life. Leaving it until your 30s can be too late for many women. We need to speak more loudly about this.

But lots of people don't prioritise 'dcs', or are willing to take their chances. It's incredibly patronising to assume that just because they make different choices to you, people aren't fully aware of the basic realities of reproductive biology.

@Feysriana - you have a point there. I suppose nowadays middle-class people in particular expect their spouse to be their friend , not just a provider and (literally) a mate. No wonder trying to tick so many boxes ends up in failing to find someone suitable.