Men negative about pregnancy / children and women positive. Why?

[Nurse15]

I'm 16 weeks pregnant and just had a discussion with my husband. It seems all his male friends / colleagues etc have made comments very negative about babies and children whereas all my friends colleagues etc have been very positive about it. Is this a normal men / woman divide? Thoughts?

Yeah, I think that's pretty normal. A lot of men are ambivalent about having children, at best. A lot of men feel pressured into it by women - although few seem brave enough to express their reservations honestly at the start. A lot of women choose to ignore the evidence of their senses and assume that 'he'll fall in love with the baby when it's here'.

A lot of women and children pay a high price.

As for why - the more pressing question is why so many women go ahead and have children with men who obviously don't give two shits.

I disagree with racer, I havnt found that to be normal at all, my husband is just as keen on children as I am and his friends are always really happy for us, plenty of men want children! Obviously not the norm everywhere but I personally havnt seen that issue

That is odd, my experience is the opposite. I was pretty ambivalent about having children & really only had them because DH wanted them. I assumed that was pretty normal, that men wanted to have kids more, because it is much so easier for them - no pregnancy & then sporking your career on the mummy track. I thought most women had kids because the men in their life pretty much expected it.

As with What, I've found the opposite. I was ambivalent about children, still am at 20 weeks haha. DH loves kids

Same as what, shark, and alb

Just to clarify - it's not my husband that's the issue - he's content. It's the reaction he gets from friends and colleagues of his

My husband was more keen than me. He recently comforted a colleague after she'd suffered a mmc; she'd been for a scan and found her baby had died. We'd been through the same a year ago. I think people just say dumb things. It's not reflective of males and females really.

Both my male and my husband's male colleagues have been supportive. We've had the usual jokes about lack of sleep etc- but that's from both sexes.

I haven't found this. My DH's friends have been very positive, as have my male work colleagues.

I'm shocked you think that Raceback it was my DH's suggestion to start trying!

Hmm, actually from my personal experience it's men who are more positive than women. All the men I know are so keen to be dads they don't see their gf etc looking terrified at the thought. My dh expressed having kids for years before I was ready. As have 3 of our male friends. The women, whilst positive, are not exactly excited by the prospect. I have 3 friends who actively hate the idea of pregnancy- they seem almost repulsed by it and breastfeeding etc.

I know what you mean OP. When you tell your female friends they're like oooh how lovely. When DH tells some of his male friends they'll say oh you're in for it now, you'll never be let out the door again, etc.

I blame it on those men being sad immature wankers and hope no woman ever has the misfortune of procreating with them.

I do know a lot of wankers, to be fair.