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.

It's jaw dropping naivety to think that this is a good thing.

Freeze your eggs if you are under 35 is my advice. I have a good husband (and thank my lucky stars I didn't fall pregnant to any of my exes); we may or may not have the baby I had hoped for (IVF), but I know I won't be bringing a child into this world under unstable circumstances.

I thought of donor sperm when I was in my thirties (had not thought about freezing my eggs unfortunately), thinking I don't want to miss the boat. My parents advised against it, and as several PPs have indicated, a child is entitled to happy, unbroken parents and a healthy upbringing.

Finding the right person to have kids with IS so important. You owe it to them

This is exactly what I was going to write.

My husband isn’t Mr. Perfect, but I knew that he would make an excellent father, husband and I loved him.

I dumped my Ex as I knew he would have made a dreadful father/husband. As I knew I wanted kids I put ‘good father/husband’ on the top of my list. Any man who wasn’t ready for marriage/kids was immediately skipped.

You only need to scroll through the trending threads here to see how many children are born in to completely inappropriate circumstances. To parents where 1 or the other is a total fucking nightmare.

And so yes, in order to spare that child a life of misery and an adulthood full of expensive therapy bills, sometimes it is just better to not have the children.

This is terrible alt right and patriarchal propaganda. Women are not incubators.

And we need to not reduce this debate further by linking it to cost of living and lack of child care. These are issues for the women who have children but improving them won’t result in women choosing to have more babies. The reason most women don’t have a child is because they are choosing their best life. One that doesn’t involve hitching themselves to any man and one that gives them the fulfilment they want. Birth rates don’t rise with improved standards of living and free childcare. They reduce.

This isn’t a women’s issue it is a man’s issue. They need to up their game to show women they can be a benefit to them and that will ensure their partner has a full life if she wants it. One that is not centred around his need and children’s needs.

Again women are not incubators and we are not the problem. We don’t need to make bad choices for ourselves to compensate for the failures of others.

I think it’s better to use a sperm donor rather than have children with a man you don’t love or don’t see a genuine future with. Adoption is also an option. I’m not saying any of these options are easy, they certainly aren’t, but it makes me really sad that women feel so pushed into a corner to settle for any old bloke because they fear their biological clock is ticking.

Lots of women use sperm donors, you don’t have to have a man to have a baby.

Oh I do - graph provided for your convenience.

Birth rate doing ‘just fine’ means that even though we are having less children, it’s still not having enough of an impact to stop the rapid growth of world population. We need to have even less, not more.

Like it or not, any children born this century will struggle for resources of all kinds because there isn’t enough for everyone. So being born into a good situation is perhaps the least we can give them. Of course women will always have children in challenging circumstances, but why deliberately choose to put your child in challenging circumstances from day 1?

Families used to have 8 children and count on a few not making it, a big purpose of having children creating labour for the household as soon as they were old enough. It’s still the case in some of the world. I don’t think many of us would choose this family set-up now.

We may be having far less children in Europe but some other parts of the world are still having plenty, with many born into extreme poverty and few prospects. Having seen this, parents selling their children off for money etc… Just, no.

There’s ‘less than perfect’ and then there’s this.

Nah, you’re an incel who thinks women owe him sex.

I don't think sperm donors are the best option.
I would want my child fathered by a man that I felt physically attracted to because that at least is some indication of immune system compatibility.

But that doesn’t mean the woman can’t be an amazing mum!!!

We don't need to increase birth rate.

It's around 20% of people who don't end up with children rather than 30-40% and many of those will be through choice and not circumstances.

100% better to never have a child than to give a child a useless father for the sake of yourself.

We have to accept women having babies in less than ideal situations

Who's this 'we'?

That doesn't mean the child isn't massively impacted by a useless second parent. The child could absolutely be fine with one great parent but equally they could be utterly traumatised or end up with lots of challenges due to the other parent being crap. If that happens unexpectedly then there's not much you can do but support but to voluntarily get into that knowing it's just to have a baby is purely thinking about it for yourself and not a child and to be honest anyone who does that isn't a great parent. A child comes first and that starts from the planning stage.

I don't disagree that the world is overpopulated and that this is a problem. However, if birth rates fall significantly below replacement level then some populations will collapse. This is potentially very problematic.

She might well be an amazing mum but that doesn’t mean she can cancel out the effects of a shitty father.

We're so far away from that being any kind of issue. We are massively overpopulated.

Some of this thread is quite offensive. I had my first child with someone who turned out to be useless. He has not had any involvement for a long time now.

I work and we have never been in poverty. Yes, the circumstances were not ideal but my daughter is now in her 20s,very well rounded, very loved and she has no long lasting trauma would you believe!

The only point worth noting is that the pregnancy was unplanned. It wasn't a case of 'I'm not prepared to wait for the right man,I want a baby.'

But if we went by the 'I'd rather have no baby than one with a terrible or absent father', my girl wouldn't be here. She's wonderful, she's intelligent, she's had a very happy childhood full of holidays and memories. It must be amazing to get everything right, all of the time. Life does not always turn out as you planned.

But I wouldn't change a thing.

My friends daughter is pregnant and has decided to go it alone.
She close to 40 and has chose to go for donor sperm .
I admire her for that.

There are already far too many women in this country that choose to have children with men knowing all the while they will be shit fathers. As the taxpayer I end up paying the cost of this.

or just find a quality sperm donor and go it alone ..... which so many women (married and separated) are doing anyway.

That's great but it doesn't always end up that way. Many people have children with people they know will make absolutely horrific parents but they do it anyway. Your situation is very different from that.

@strawberrysea and you know that do you? What about all the women out there who marry 'good ones' who end up cheating, or leaving to be single again, or who's wives decide that the spark has gone, or who don't want to be the person who does everything? Do you resent paying for those women too?

And potentially leave a child always messed up because they yearn to know a father who was never there. It's purely doing it for the adult's needs.