Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest hurdle that women have is their biological clock which means that unless they procreate while they are relatively young, they will have missed the boat and the older they are when they get pregnant, the greater the risk of genetic abnormalities in the fetus quite apart from the difficulty in getting pregnant in the first place.

That's not really a hurdle if you know about it, is it? Plenty of means available to get pregnant and screen the pregnancy.

Anonymous wrote:
OTOH, men don't see a corresponding decrease in their ability to father a child as they get older and any effect is somewhat marginal.

As long as they find a cooperating female, they are OK.

Anonymous wrote:
Also - certainly based on the complaints of mothers - one of their biggest gripes against their husbands is that they don't take on the role of parenting to the extent that they should and the burden falls on the mother. Maybe being a "part time father" is something that some men would not have an issue with based on the complaints of women?

I am sure some won't. Men, like women, are all different. "Part time fatherhood" refers to time in the presence of a child, not percentage of child-rearing effort one actually undertakes.

Anonymous wrote:
At work, the incessant complaint by single women who I associate with - some are attractive and accomplished - is that they cannot find a suitable guy who is willing to commit to a relationship. Why do you think men are so unwilling to commit?

I think that might be a problem of single women with whom you associate - might you be seeking out the complainers? Start associating with married women and you won't hear as much of it. The single women you associate with might be looking at the wrong men. I personally never had a problem dating and marrying, and all my friends except one are married. So I do think the rumors of unwilling men might be just so slightly overstated.

What is your location or demographic? Contrast, all my friends in their 30s are having great trouble finding suitable men and none are married. It's an increasing problem on the coasts.

Anonymous wrote:The biggest hurdle that women have is their biological clock which means that unless they procreate while they are relatively young, they will have missed the boat and the older they are when they get pregnant, the greater the risk of genetic abnormalities in the fetus quite apart from the difficulty in getting pregnant in the first place.

That's not really a hurdle if you know about it, is it? Plenty of means available to get pregnant and screen the pregnancy.

Anonymous wrote:
OTOH, men don't see a corresponding decrease in their ability to father a child as they get older and any effect is somewhat marginal.

As long as they find a cooperating female, they are OK.

Anonymous wrote:
Also - certainly based on the complaints of mothers - one of their biggest gripes against their husbands is that they don't take on the role of parenting to the extent that they should and the burden falls on the mother. Maybe being a "part time father" is something that some men would not have an issue with based on the complaints of women?

I am sure some won't. Men, like women, are all different. "Part time fatherhood" refers to time in the presence of a child, not percentage of child-rearing effort one actually undertakes.

Anonymous wrote:
At work, the incessant complaint by single women who I associate with - some are attractive and accomplished - is that they cannot find a suitable guy who is willing to commit to a relationship. Why do you think men are so unwilling to commit?

I think that might be a problem of single women with whom you associate - might you be seeking out the complainers? Start associating with married women and you won't hear as much of it. The single women you associate with might be looking at the wrong men. I personally never had a problem dating and marrying, and all my friends except one are married. So I do think the rumors of unwilling men might be just so slightly overstated.

The biggest hurdle that women have is their biological clock which means that unless they procreate while they are relatively young, they will have missed the boat and the older they are when they get pregnant, the greater the risk of genetic abnormalities in the fetus quite apart from the difficulty in getting pregnant in the first place.

OTOH, men don't see a corresponding decrease in their ability to father a child as they get older and any effect is somewhat marginal.

Also - certainly based on the complaints of mothers - one of their biggest gripes against their husbands is that they don't take on the role of parenting to the extent that they should and the burden falls on the mother. Maybe being a "part time father" is something that some men would not have an issue with based on the complaints of women?

At work, the incessant complaint by single women who I associate with - some are attractive and accomplished - is that they cannot find a suitable guy who is willing to commit to a relationship. Why do you think men are so unwilling to commit?

Anonymous wrote:
I have no idea where in the universe you have been living, and why you seem to equate marriage with 'full-time fatherhood' and unlimited access.

Because no other arrangement offers this to a man except single fatherhood with full custody.

Anonymous wrote:The fact is men all over the world have always been able to have children without feeling the pressure to marry their baby mommas.

You confuse "being allowed to ejaculate inside a woman" with "raising a child." Besides, men haven't been "able" to have children without marriage. They have been allowed to do so by women. Whether a pregnancy occurs is up to both people, but whether it continues is entirely and completely up to the woman. Women control procreation. Few children born outside the marriage have been conceived by men by design; I would guess that most of these men are accidental fathers. How far do you think a man would get if he was explicit and deliberate about his desire to have a child with a particular woman without offering marriage or something like it? A woman isn't likely to agree to this unless she has no other options.

Anonymous wrote: I also can't see what would prevent them from enjoying 'full-time fatherhood' (assuming there is something called 'part-time fatherhood')

The presence of the mother with custody rights. And yes, there is something called part-time fatherhood. If you see your child every other weekend, that's part-time fatherhood. If that is your arrangement, you have less influence and control over that child compared to a man who lives with the child and sees him or her every day.

Anonymous wrote:Did you grow up in a small social circle (built around the church or something)?! Your logic is too simplistic and incorrect.

Getting personal means you are running out of arguments. But since you asked, I'm actually a woman of the world who knows too many women who opted to become single mothers by choice, at the time of their choosing, without waiting for marriage or needing permission from a man. And yes, most of them would have preferred to do so within the context of marriage, but when that wasn't in the cards, they became mothers by other means that science and the market made available - because women, as I said before, control procreation. A man in the same position would have had to spend tens of thousands of dollars and make a lot more effort to avail himself of similar options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men will continue to marry because it's their only avenue for having children and enjoying uninterrupted access to them. Women control procreation and don't need a steady male presence in their life to get a child. But for a man who wants to have children in his life, the key is to find a cooperating female, since there are no egg banks for men, and surrogate parenthood/single father adoptions aren't common or accessible to many.

For as long as marriage is the condition of children, men will have to marry.

Can't believe I just read this BS. Men don't need the security of marriage to have kids...women do!

Reality shows otherwise - how many single fathers by choice do you see?

Bingo.

But let's not turn this into men versus women. The fact is that the damaged men posting in this thread are not the ones any quality woman is looking to for marriage. I briefly dated a man like the goofballs in this thread. So worried about his money being taken in a divorce. I dumped him quickly, moved on to my now-husband, and am now happily married with children. I also earn a lot as a big law attorney, as does my husband in sales. Meanwhile, the years have not been kind to the douchebag I dumped. I kept in touch with him because he refused to stop e-mailing me periodically. Well, he lost his high income when he was laid off during the recession. He is now in his 50s, going back to school, and painfully single. He has also lost the good looks he once had -- hair is thin, waistline has spread, wrinkles have set in from years of drinking too much and being bitter towards women, lol. Recently, he told me that he wondered what his life might have been like if he had married me and if his kids were mine. I changed the subject because the thought of being married to him was too horrible to dwell on. This is real. The 50s are lonely for most people, talk less of those who frittered away their prime years paranoidly guarding their money from an imagined horde of gold diggers.

Male attorney here. This is why my only rule for marriage is no lawyers. Female lawyers are an especially toxic combination of entitlement and insecurity, dripping throughout this thread. I'm assuming you're at least in your mid 40's, and if you were really "happily married", you wouldn't spend your time gloating over the problems of others.

LOL. The hit dog will holler, as the saying goes. The paunchy middle-age men are really turning out to prove my post right. I mean here you are: a single man who is supposed to be out there dating this bevy of beauties who are no doubt beating down your door, lol. Instead, here you are on a perfectly good weeknight trying and failing to tell me off on DCUM. Clearly, you are really killing it with the ladies. A full social calendar you have there. I am in my 30s and I still have my looks and waistline. There was an age gap between me and the lonely loser I posted about. I think his situation is hilarious. It is all of his own making. While he still had his looks and virility, he was contemptuous of women just like you bitter closet cases here are. Now, no self-respecting woman with options would ever give him a second look and he is full of regrets, Cialis, and antidepressants. He makes a good business contact and has sent me clients, so he is not all bad. But this situation is all his fault and I have not one bit of sympathy for him as I enjoy my husband and children and he spends the holidays alone.

In my 30's also. And I shudder to think what kind of man ended up married to you...

And btw, being in on a Wednesday night is pretty standard, especially since I have plans for tomorrow and Friday nights.

Nobody thinks you're actually happy. Happy people don't resent others like you do.

Anonymous wrote: A man deliberately looking for a woman to have his children without offering marriage wouldn't get very far.

I have no idea where in the universe you have been living, and why you seem to equate marriage with 'full-time fatherhood' and unlimited access.

The fact is men all over the world have always been able to have children without feeling the pressure to marry their baby mommas. That's just too obvious. I also can't see what would prevent them from enjoying 'full-time fatherhood' (assuming there is something called 'part-time fatherhood')

Did you grow up in a small social circle (built around the church or something)?! Your logic is too simplistic and incorrect.

Anonymous wrote:I welcome all the men who want to to embrace single parenthood through a surrogate. LOL. I'd love to see how long you last.

Owen Wilson...?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...funny I touched on this point in this thread http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/460783.page and got flack by a couple PPs.

Truth is, it's not just British men, but increasingly more men throughout the whole Western world. Let's be clear, men "...don’t want to enter into a legal contract with someone who could effectively take half their savings, pension and property when the honeymoon period is over..." The rise of Radical Feminism is not entirely responsible, but it sure influences how Western jurisprudence interpret and how courts rule today! So personally it's not something for me anymore.

Traditional definitions and understandings of family are fast changing in the Western world, and so traditional approaches to marriage will change as well....trust me. But this thread will never be popular around DCUM-ville

Oh, God, the [stupid PP] has returned.

...fixed that for ya

There's a period of time - maybe between 45-55 that men look better, but after 55 they don't have an edge.

Gravity catches up with all of us.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that forums - and not just DCUM - invariably have numerous women desperately seeking a husband or a relationship with a man. How often do you find forums where men are complaining that they cannot find a woman with whom to have a relationship?

Men - especially if they have money - can find women much younger than they are if they so wish and, of course, those closer to their own age. They really are a dime a dozen. Women, once they are into their forties have reached their "sell by date". It is downhill thereafter in most instances.

Few men are rich enough to be attractive to much younger women. An average single 40-something, GS-something Fairfax condo dweller is no more attractive than an average single 40+ woman. It's downhill from that point on for both of them. Time only moves in one direction.

The fact that men don't complain online about not finding women doesn't mean that every man wishing for a relationship has one. Men simply have different ways of expressing themselves.

Anonymous wrote:
If your point is that it is easier for a single woman to have a relationship as a mother than a single man would as a father you will have no argument from me.

This has been my argument all along - I wonder why it took you three reiterations of it to see it.

Anonymous wrote:
But the reality is that there are lots of single men who father children and could have a relationship with their child if they so choose.

These men don't "father" children by design. They are thrust into biological fatherhood by wiling women. Without permission of the woman, that wouldn't have happened. A man deliberately looking for a woman to have his children without offering marriage wouldn't get very far.

Anonymous wrote:
The courts would enforce the rights of a father in that role and that would be without having to marry the mother. If you are not aware of this then you are ignorant of the law.

Paternal rights enforced by the court do not equal the experience of full-time fatherhood. How much time does a divorced or never-married father without full custody really have with the child? How much control does he have over the child's life and character? Not very much, compared to a full-time father.

Anonymous wrote:
Marital status is not a prerequisite for the courts to recognize and award paternal rights to a man.

No it isn't. But it is, for full-time parenthood and full-time control over the child's life. It is true in case of a woman, too, because divorced mothers with joint custody have to share control with the father. But for a woman, it is immeasurably easier and cheaper to have a child outside of marriage in a way that factors out the father completely. For a man, that would very hard, next to impossible for a regular earner.

Interesting that forums - and not just DCUM - invariably have numerous women desperately seeking a husband or a relationship with a man. How often do you find forums where men are complaining that they cannot find a woman with whom to have a relationship?

Men - especially if they have money - can find women much younger than they are if they so wish and, of course, those closer to their own age. They really are a dime a dozen. Women, once they are into their forties have reached their "sell by date". It is downhill thereafter in most instances.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A man who wants to be a full time father can do so using a surrogate. Gay men do it - I know of a couple of instances where this has happened one of them with his partner has two children and the other has one. It really is not a huge obstacle. And even the cost of surrogacy can be minimized with a surrogate from another country. Marriage is not a prerequisite for a man to derive the benefits and satisfaction of being a father.

Oh don't be silly. The options you cite are neither cheap nor available to regular Joes. I too know a married gay couple who had twins via surrogacy. It cost them a hundred thousand dollars. Surrogacy in other countries is neither cheap nor easy, and comes with its own set of troubles. Undoubtedly, some men - the rich, the determined and the very liberal - will be able to use them. Most men won't, though. And these options are in fact, almost insurmountable obstacles, especially compared with the amazing ease and low cost of sperm banks and anonymous sex, so easily available to women. And so we come to this, again: fatherhood, for most men, requires a cooperating partner of the opposite sex. Motherhood, for women, does not. And this is why most men who want to be full-time fathers will have to pay the price of marrying or stay childless.

If your point is that it is easier for a single woman to have a relationship as a mother than a single man would as a father you will have no argument from me. But the reality is that there are lots of single men who father children and could have a relationship with their child if they so choose. The courts would enforce the rights of a father in that role and that would be without having to marry the mother. If you are not aware of this then you are ignorant of the law.

Marital status is not a prerequisite for the courts to recognize and award paternal rights to a man.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: LOL. The hit dog will holler, as the saying goes. The paunchy middle-age men are really turning out to prove my post right. I mean here you are: a single man who is supposed to be out there dating this bevy of beauties who are no doubt beating down your door, lol. Instead, here you are on a perfectly good weeknight trying and failing to tell me off on DCUM. Clearly, you are really killing it with the ladies. A full social calendar you have there. I am in my 30s and I still have my looks and waistline. There was an age gap between me and the lonely loser I posted about. I think his situation is hilarious. It is all of his own making. While he still had his looks and virility, he was contemptuous of women just like you bitter closet cases here are. Now, no self-respecting woman with options would ever give him a second look and he is full of regrets, Cialis, and antidepressants. He makes a good business contact and has sent me clients, so he is not all bad. But this situation is all his fault and I have not one bit of sympathy for him as I enjoy my husband and children and he spends the holidays alone.

I think you should stop because you are only proving the 'male attorney' PP correct. You sound entitled, vain, bitchy, and seem to define your identity around your earning potential. It's obvious that if we take away the latter from the equation, you would still be a rent-seeking opportunist trying to marry well to secure financial security.

You have proved the PP right, and frankly you are an embarrassment, and proves this whole thread right.

Not to be a jerk, but I think it's pretty obvious you're the PP she's responding to and you're just posing as someone else...

I welcome all the men who want to to embrace single parenthood through a surrogate. LOL. I'd love to see how long you last.