to be really really angry that only women are once again being blamed for leaving having babies too late??

[littlestmummystop]

Where the feck is the man's responsibility in all this??

A straw poll of my friends. . . 4 out of 6 felt broody and wanted babies in their 20s despite all also having great jobs. None of their boyfriends also in their twenties were 'ready' so none of them did.

I had a baby at 24, then my exP decided he was too young to be a dad ( at 28) so he left. I've been a single parent since.

So what are women supposed to do? Make ultimatums, have a baby earlier and risk being a single parent? Or leave it till their menfolk are 'ready' to settle down, which among the middle class lot appears to be around 35, and then risk leaving it too late? Why are women being solely blamed for this??

mayorquimby - lots of men are making their 'beloved' partners wait until their fertility is ducking over the horizon. Do you think that's fair?

I'm never quite sure why you're on MN - you don't seem to even like women very much

Because in my experience - limited as it is only seeing how the neighbors treat their three girls differently from their son, it's generally the mother who panders and wipes his ass for years longer than necessary and then these boys become men and have to live with independent liberal women, a recipe for disaster.
My first husband left me after being too young to be a father to our planned baby age 27, his mother allowed him to move home, I would have sent him back to his wife and child and told him to grow a pair. Am glad I have girls.

I do think that men need to be included in the debate but I don't see this as a new issue. Men are aware of the biological clock but they don't have the problem we do and it is unfair but we cannot beat biology (yet).

So when I was 29 I knew that I would have to press the issue with my oh and was very clear that I wanted children now, and would leave him if he didn't. He fortunately went from never wanting children to wanting one to being proud father of 3! But iwould have left very quickly if I had been continually put off.

I turned 35 this week and do not want to go through any more preganacies after an intense 5 year 3 children period. I am bloody lucky I know as friends of mine are having problems already.

I think we have to accept the reality and blaming men is not the answer any more than 'blaming' women is. I just wonder if the baby making 'industry' in the Indian sub continent is going to continue to grow as professional women are forced to buy their way into motherhood

I don't think men should be pressured into having babies before they are ready and I also don't think women should stay with men who string them along.

All of my single girlfriends just have crazy expectations as far as men are concerned. One girlfriend dumped a guy because he didn't open the car door for her, another broke up with a long term boyfriend because he farted in the bathroom. They are both in their early 30s and say they want to get married and have children, but are just so damned picky. You can't have it both ways. If you wait for Mr Right you might leave it too late.

I am glad DH and I found each other so early on and are like two peas in a pod about most things.

whereverilaymyhat - I am determined my DS won't grow up like that. He already puts his rubbish in the bin and brings his plate out to the kitchen and tidies away his toys and he's two. Never too young IMO

YANBU but ultimately women will end up carrying the can on this one as there is no ticking clock for men. Women therefore need to ensure that their partners are on board. Biology can suck and it isn't fair but it is fact.

it is keeping that going though, spicemonster. DS1 used to help. Doesn't much now and when he does it is under sufference. He is 8 now.

I totally agree with OP, the women I know who are single/childfree and would love to be in that position have been messed around by men who seem to be getting off scot free in this current debate.

DH something of an anomalie - we he is 2 years younger than me and wanted to start TTC when we got married when he was 27 and I was 29. He was the one concerned about my age!

FBG - I'm not smug, honest. But I will carry on trying to get him to help out around the house. Not least because I'm a lone parent so cleaning up after him is something I don't have a lot of time to do. But I think it's not so much whether they actually do anything or not, it's about expecting them to help. So many women run around after their sons in a way they'd never dream of doing with daughters.

YANBU, and a very good point, OP.

"it's generally the mother who panders and wipes his ass for years longer than necessary"

I think there's an element of truth to the sentiment that men put off having babies until their late 30's due to the expectation of extended adolescence. I think that socieital pressures are to blame for this due to the damage that rigid gender roles do to both men and women. 'Women are responsible' 'Men are just big kids'

This also leads into the way mothers will pander to their sons more than their daughters, creating an expectation in their sons to be cared for by women. In turn, women compound this problem by allowing this dynamic to continue in marriage/partnerships. Witness the way most family relationships have the women working at home and work whilst the men only work at work and often have to be dragged/nagged into domestic work for the family.

So poor Jimmy who has moved from his mother/carer to his partner/carer has to deal with a dreadful conflict when faced with the possibility of children- if she cares for them, who will care for me?

Oh, it's easy to say that if they are dragging it on too long, then leave. However, when you love them very much and know they'd be great Dads you hang on in there, believing them when they say 'next year', 'when the business is a bit more stable' etc, you believe it because you want to, so much.

I chose between my first long term partner and having children when he decided that in fact he didn't want them (after saying for years he did, but just not yet). I was pleased he told me the truth, but a bit pissed off he hadn't worked it out sooner. However, we were quite young and true to his word he hasn't had children.

Second long term partner had always wanted children and kept saying 'next year', 'when the business is more stable' etc etc and I believed him - for far too long. I told him how I felt, I told him my bio clock was ticking very fast, I told him we'd cope financially, I told him if we didn't get a move on I'd leave - nothing worked.... eventually we split up (this was part of it but not the whole reason although it contributed to the other reasons I think) and he went on to very quickly have 3 kids with someone else.... wanker.

I don't know what the solution is, but it would be good if the media did start to aim some of the information at men, so that it's not just us 'nagging, broody women' having a go!!!!!!!

'Oh, it's easy to say that if they are dragging it on too long, then leave. However, when you love them very much and know they'd be great Dads you hang on in there, believing them when they say 'next year', 'when the business is a bit more stable' etc, you believe it because you want to, so much.'

I got a divorce. It took 2 years. It wasn't easy. But at the end of the day it's a choice: do I love him and his needs more than me and mine? When you decide that you don't then that's when life starts to get a lot better and you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting what is actually a pretty basic thing in the grand scheme of things, it's not like asking for the moon on a stick.

spicemonster I most certainly wasn't saying you were smug, I was just telling you how things can change sometimes.

expat - did you miss the part when I said I left him.... what I said was, when it's 'I don't want children' it's clear cut, when it's 'Darling I really do want to have babies with you, but we need to wait until the business is more stable, it should be fine by 'x', then we'll get started xxxx' etc etc it's not so clear cut and you have to decide not to believe them before you are prepared to leave.

'Darling I really do want to have babies with you, but we need to wait until the business is more stable, it should be fine by 'x', then we'll get started xxxx' etc etc it's not so clear cut'

Unless you're of the train of thought that that kind of a loaded statement is really, No, I don't want kids, which in essense is what it is. It's a 'no' and as such then one makes a decision to stay or go.

"I wonder if cultures where the man is much older have got it right? Women seem to feel the need to reproduce in their 20s but for men it seems to be much later. So it make sense for there to be a fairly big age gap. Just something that struck me."

Men's fertility decreases with age too, and also there is a greater risk of miscarriage if the man is older, this should have more publicity really.

FBG - oh no I didn't think you were! I was just letting you know that I know what small boys can be like (my 9 YO nephew barely lifts a finger, despite my sister's best efforts!)

YANBU.

No, the answer is not to pair younger women with older men - because that perpetuates the situation where men generally have all the money, and more confidence and agency than their partners and can call all the shots.

Preaching to the converted here - but women who have no money worries at all and feel sorted on the relationship front seem to like to have children fairly young - Charlotte Church, Victoria Beckham, etc. If you don't feel those things are sorted, you put off having kids.

Suggested tongue-in-cheek solution: generous automatic benefits amounting to financial independence for women to support them in their child-bearing years

totally right spicemonster about male fertility..i have had endless debates about this but sadly more people including women think it is all about women and age. In cultures that i have been familiar with it is an all known excepted fact of life that men never age and hence women should worry themselves to death if they aren;t married by 30!!! and that hence means that a man can marry no matter how old as he can continue to bear babies forever( his sperm being made of peter pan youthful forever stuff so it seems) so even when a woman is say 29 and her husband is 50 and she miscarries or doesn't manage to conceive it is her fault never his cause she is the vessel which must be broken..now before you say oh dear what backward societies would think as such let me tell you it is no more different in the west minus except the window dressing is much more sophisticated and less simple.

Vezzie - I agree with you on the child benefit issue - maybe universal benefits for raising children would enable women to have children regardless of mens readiness.

The isssue of a few celebrities having babies in their 20's is misleading however as they do not form a significant proportion of the population. Very few women are ever going to earn as much as posh or Charlotte Church certainly not in their early 20's!! The majority of 'young mums' are going to struggle financially - certainly initially. However the ability to spend time in their 30's rebuilding their career does appeal to me now that I am facing the prospect of a return to the r=workplace as a haggard 40+ (judging by how I am feeling now!!). Without the energy/ hunger to kick arse etc. and be ambitious (not that I ever was really).

I think the point was that where women have total financial independence they maybe start their families younger, which is an interesting point.

The thing that always strikes me with many very wealty women (sleb style) is the number of children they have. It seems that when money is no object lots and lots of children is the way women choose to go.

However in the case of victoria beckham and charlotte church, their husbands are the same age as them and (from what I can tell from the numbers of children arriving) were happy and ready to reproduce themselves.

Which does go to show that for each man who wants an eternal childhood, there is probably another who wants to settle down and make a family.

good point tinofspam i was being to literal