Waiting for the right guy equals no baby

[Chiliconcarneplease]

I'm going full force with this - I hate how many people on here say about waiting for the right guy before having a baby (you had a baby in your situation???) Etc but between 30 to 40% of women are expected to end up childless (involuntarily) because they were searching for the right guy.

We have to accept women having babies in less than ideal situations, or we're fucked as a race.

That doesn't work because people are living longer. The working population has to increase each generation to pay the pensions of the oldest generations.

So you agree the population does need to increase then? I thought you were arguing that it didn’t.

So you want to to increase to the point of unsustainabllity?

No.

Your original argument was that we need an increasing birthrate to pay for pensions. When I questioned it you changed your mind and said a replacement birth rate is ideal. I pointed out that it isn't and doesn't solve the problem you brought up. I don't think either of your solutions is the answer, based on actual economics and science.

For somebody who called others uneducated, I thought you would know more about the subject but you seem confused.

No, as I said earlier, it needs to be replaced, not increased.

I’m one of those women who went in alone using donor sperm. Got to 35, no good relationship on the horizon, so thought sod it. Absolutely I’m not wasting my last fertile years waiting for a Prince Charming to waltz along. I’m lucky I’m in a position to do so; own house, professional job, savings (since dented, naturally). There is no such thing as anonymous sperm donation now; the information of the donor is released to the child at 18. I have pictures of my donor, lots of information etc, that I can share with my daughter when she is old enough to be interested.

I am sure some on mumsnet will tell me I’m a terrible person for depriving my child of a father. But I can absolutely assure you, no father is better than a useless one. I say that as someone with a useless absent father herself; the hurt of having someone who is incredibly negative and has little to no interest in their offspring is real. I have zero contact with anyone on his side of the family (they are abroad or dead anyway). My daughter will only know love and encouragement and has good male role models in her life.

I would much rather do to this way than battling with a dead beat father just because I wanted a baby.

As I said earlier and as should be obvious, that doesn't solve the problem you brought up.

But I can absolutely assure you, no father is better than a useless one.

Sometimes that's true but it's a false dichotomy. There's no need to put a child into either of those shitty situations deliberately.

@MeowCatPleaseMeowBack

What? When did I ever say we need an increasing birth rate? My first post was to a poster who said we need a decreasing one, which I argued. Read again.

You then came and said increasing is not the answer, which I agreed with, and said replacement is the answer.

To which you replied that increasing the birth rate is needed, therefore directly contradicting your previous post. So which is it, do we need an increasing birth rate beyond the rate of replacement or don’t we?

Replacement will still work if the population is living longer, as tax payers are also working for longer. Not saying this is right or how society ‘should’ function, but it’s the way it does.

Seriously, do some reading. A replacement birth rate will not work. To pay pensions under the current system we need an ever-increasing birth rate, which is not sustainable. Neither are the answer and no, society will not function like this for much longer.

Just to remind you of the post which you quoted and called uneducated,as you still seem confused:

CloudywMeatballs · Today 15:13
Why do we need to increase the birthrate?

I stand by my answer to this question, and the fact it’s uneducated. We can’t keep having a declining population as we won’t be able to support the elderly. So the posters spouting ‘what’s the issue if our population declines, it’s better for the planet, population is actually increasing worldwide anyway, we already have too many people’ etc are ignorant.

I’m still not sure what you think the answer is if you don’t support either population increase or replacement?

Problem is, this kind of compromise - where being physically attracted to a partner and there being a 'spark' is way down the list, causes problems at some point.

You end up with threads that state " He's a good man and a wonderful father, but I'm just not attracted to him and can't bare thinking that this it for the rest of my life"

Quite frankly, it's a breeding ground for an affair.

Assortive mating is the norm, not the exception.

Also to be clear “hypergamy” is about marrying somebody of a higher social status which is not simply wealth and education.

But to repeat assortive mating is the norm.

”Preferences” all else being equal, and what happens in reality are two different things as your links show.

Replacement theory is about different birthrates in different countries example is about 6 in Nigeria and below one in South Korea so it stands to reason in hundred or so years there will be way more Nigerians and way less Koreans than there currently is.
That's just an example a better example would be two countries closer to each other because you could see how one could overpower the other someone mentioned north Korea on this thread but I think their figure is pretty low too.
This is probably why in Russia they give medals to families with a lot of children

@gldd

Did you read the links you googled?

An important criticism of studies of sex differences in sexuality and mate preferences is that there appears to be considerable overlap between males and females, and this overlap may be equally or more important than the strongest differences (Bixler 1989). In Buss and Barnes (1986), the trait “kind and understanding” was the top preference for both sexes. Women rated eight traits, including “healthy” and “physically attractive” as more important than “good earning capacity;” men rated three characteristics as more important than “physically attractive” (Bixler 1989). Sex differences also vary in content and magnitude in different phases of relationships. For casual sexual relationships, women are choosy about partners’ IQ and socioeconomic status (SES) and men are relatively indifferent, but both sexes value these traits when asked what they desire in a marriage partner Kenrick and Keefe 1989, Kenrick and Keefe 1992, Kenrick et al. 1990, Thornhill 1989.

But then we cannot keep increasing populations indefinitely either.

You have a daughter which is lucky but boys fare worse with lack of a father (and we all suffer the consequences.)

I imagine mutual settling in order to co-parent together, amicably, might work, because both parties are on the same page. But that's hypothetical and I don't know any IRL examples.

its rather like a man and woman saying “if we’re both still single when we’re 30, then we’ll get married” but I’ve never seen that IRL either!

I think the real issue is here is that the 'ideal' situation is statistically unlikely.
It is unlikely that a woman (a financially solvent, career driven woman with her own house) will meet an intelligent, driven, kind, caring man who is also financially solvent, a home owner who is willing to go part time or make adaptions to his own career trajectory after children. He also has to be hot so that the mythical 'sparks remains there. Oh and they both have to meet early enough to not have issues with fertility, but not too early to not have enjoyed enough years of solo travelling, nights out, festivals, time to grow a career and one night stands.
Ideally you'd meet each other between the ages of 29 and 35 and have a baby at 36 at the latest in order to be able to have a sibling for child one and not a mentally small age gap.
Do you see what I'm saying? Unless this is a Richard Curtis film, life is rarely like that.
I can put nearly all my friends into two camps. They either had a baby with the rock and roll man child and lamented the decision when he doesn't immediately grow up post partum. Or they choose Mr Safe, who they eventually go off and he begins to give her the ick when he starts playing squash after work. Plus Mr Safe may also cheat on you, or expect you to give up work, or begrudge looking after his own children so you can have a night out.
Life is short. Is choosing to procreate with the man you fancy a bad choice really? Rather than a life of mundane, sexless marriage to someone you chose based on his credit score and because he didn't seem like the type to run off with an escort?

I think the real issue is here is that the 'ideal' situation is statistically unlikely.
It is unlikely that a woman (a financially solvent, career driven woman with her own house) will meet an intelligent, driven, kind, caring man who is also financially solvent, a home owner who is willing to go part time or make adaptions to his own career trajectory after children.

@somewhereinsuburbia excellent post! However wouldn’t the majority of women prefer to be the ones going part time,rather than the man?

What a very sad world you live in where everyone you know is faced with a black and white choice of having a baby with a feckless but attractive idiot or settle miserably to a loveless and sexless marriage with a dull but responsible bore. These things happen of course and I do agree that I don't know anyone married to a 'perfect' man who is constantly highly attractive, virtuous, higher earning, a flawless father etc but then again nor do I know any women that are 100% perfect either, we are all human after all.

But in my experience most marriages/relationships with children are between normal/average women married to normal/average men, who have their flaws but who are well suited to one another and behave reasonably kindly if not always totally perfectly towards one another, sometimes the relationship endures, sometimes it doesn't but it doesn't mean either party went into the relationship making the conscious decision to 'settle' in the sense of choosing someone they find totally uninteresting and unattractive either?

For instance I'm quite aware my husband isn't Brad Pitt, I find some of the things he does annoying, I would love it if his salary was doubled. He is however intelligent, kind, as driven as I am , solvent and a responsible, equal parent. I don't think he's exceptional in any of that though any more than I am on any of those criteria (sorry DH, in the immortal words of Tim Minchin, I don't think you're special, well I do think you're special, but you fall within a bell curve 😂)

@Kitchensinktoday not necessarily. I didn't.

@NoctuaAthene yet only on Mumsnet are there so many women who apparently have found perfect men to father children with, and who have no sympathy whatsoever for women who don't happen to find someone equally perfect by the age their fertility starts to decline.
Can I ask what you would have done had your DH not arrived on the scene at precisely the right age? Would you have settled or remained childless? The answer is that you can't possibly know what path you may have chosen.

But that's the opposite of my point. He's not perfect at all, nowhere near it. Nor am I. Does this mean we settled?

What would I have done if I hadn't met him, like you say no-one can know but I suspect in all likelihood I would have married someone else, also imperfect but probably in different ways. Does that make me an inherent settler in your book? I promise I'm not miserable! I just don't believe there's only one perfect person out there to have a relationship with. Nor I do I believe all/any men are perfect, many of them are total shits. I'm very sorry for anyone that's only met the total shits and none of the average-nice ones but I think denying the existence of the average or that some women are quite happy with an average man (and indeed some men are happy with an average woman) isn't particularly helpful...

I had a huge maternal instinct from age 16 but I would’ve remained childless had I not found the right man.

And btw the world is not suffering because of a ‘declining birth rate’ - we need two planets to support the current global population (to western standards as it is) and it’s increasing every day. It’s only the rate of increase that’s slowing down. The planet’s fucked. It’s doesn't need the offspring of any more inadequate useless men.