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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Now that I’m in my 40s I have the opposite take.

I think marriage and kids is mostly a scam to convince women to provide unpaid labor.

My life would have been better staying single and keeping my high earning job. I’ve sacrificed my body, sanity, career and income for kids and a husband. Not worth it.

When women actually earn money and can live independently they don’t want to get married. [/quote]

If women don’t want children this is all true. But the majority of women will bat children at some point. And children are better raised married in a two parent household. And that’s our problem as women. [/quote]

I don't think the majority of women want children. I think the majority y of women are conditioned to believe that's what they want. As for 2 parents and married well that largely depends on the parents and the culture the children are being raised in.[/quote]

So your argument is that there is no biological urge to procreate and continue the survival of the human race. Sure.
[/quote]

Agreed. I’m mid 50s now and more content every day with my childlessness - but I had a raging desire for a child from puberty onward until the change of life.

The desire did not outweigh my fear of bringing a child into the world to have a bad father - I’d had one myself and was determined not to subject another child to such a childhood. If I’d met a man who was really good father material I’d have happily had kids.

But the change of life revealed to me how much of it is just biology. Now that the biological drive is shut off, my rational self is very grateful for the tens of thousands of hours I didn’t spend housekeeping child caring husband wrangling etc.

I earned multiple degrees and pursued multiple career paths, enjoyed successes and failures alike, followed my dreams and sometimes my whims and never had to consult with anyone or worry about the impact on anyone other than me. I know I’m supposed to be miserable and lonely but I’m not - it’s okay if you want to tell yourself I am though. Whatever makes your own burdens easier to bear.[/quote]

You are proving the point though. There IS a biological drive to procreate. And what do women do in those situations, if they decide to take the plunge?

There is an ideal situation but it’s still hard! Some women are happy without kids but not all. And the point of this post is what do women do in that instance. It’s good to be sometime young to have kids but not too young. And even then so many things go haywire.

Personally I got a degree and a mini career and travelled. Had my two kids but even still wish I would have done more. I had a drive to have kids. [b]So honestly there is no perfect answer.[/b] We should be telling women what the ideal is for that situation and it seems we don’t have an answer in our society. Career over family isn’t the answer if you want kids. It’s not. [/quote]

I think the actual “perfect answer” is to find an actual decent man who is worth having a family with.  It doesn’t matter what the age is- 22, 30, 40, but once you find the guy you need to go for it because there apparently just aren’t that many decent men around. This is really tricky.[/quote]

I’m the middle aged childless dog lady.

I absolutely agree I’m proving the point. And I want to reiterate that I had a burning desire for kids and only my abusive childhood kept me from succumbing to a very strong biological urge.

And as to the next poster’s point - yes it would be nice if there was a way to tell who the nice guys are and snatch them up whenever we can, but we have countless threads here about nice guys who turned out to be something else when the reality of a wife and children and the demands of family life come to bear.

[b]Men are always a crap shoot at some level, the folks who crow in posts here about how they picked more wisely are just a) lucky or b) the mask hasn’t yet slipped.[/b] I rolled the dice several times with men when it was only me at stake, and every time I balked when pink flags were raised - not interested in sticking around for red flags.

I guess it’s possible that no matter the strength of my biological drive I was never going to have kids. What I saw and experienced growing up was a real disincentive to want to roll the dice on behalf of an innocent child.

Believe me I’ve spent a lot of hours in this life lamenting the state of human coupling and the conditions in which most kids grow. I grieve for the kind of family I wanted and which I think is very rare. I’m just more risk averse than many others. I’m not intending to be smug when I say what I say - just that I think there is a lot of peace for people like me in choosing a single childless life and I think a lot of other people like me find peace in it as well and that leads to a contentment. I’m not in a prison and I’ve not inflicted pain on anyone who didn’t have a choice. That’s a good place to be most days.[/quote]

Poster you are responding to.  The bolded is so, so true.

I think your best clue is the family of origin.  DH has ended up much like his father for better and worse.  Fortunately his parents had a fairly egalitarian marriage, no abuse, no addiction.  I think people who come from somewhat healthy families have the best blueprint with how to deal with adversity and just, regular life.  I say that as someone from a pretty dysfunctional background.  [/quote]

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