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The most active thread since Friday was the Gaza war thread which, like the war itself, shows no sign of ending. Because I've already discussed that thread, I'll go on to the next most active which was titled "What is it with people given childless couples unsolicited fertility advice?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she is 36 and her husband is 34. They have remained child-free due to financial reasons. Others, generally people who are not even all that close to the original poster and her husband, constantly give them fertility advice such as encouraging her to freeze her eggs or not to delay motherhood. The original poster is fully cognizant of the issues involved and doesn't need other telling her about them. The original poster asks why some people are so concerned about other's fertility. I'm not sure the relationship forum is the best forum for this topic, but I am also not sure which forum would be better. So, I'll leave the thread where it is. The first several posters made at least half-hearted attempts to address the question, but ironically, they couldn't stop themselves from also offering fertility advice. In fact, the thread almost immediately became emblematic of exactly the phenomenon about which the original poster was complaining. Without knowing a single thing about the original poster beyond the sparse information contained in the original post, poster after poster presumed to be in a position to "fertilitysplain" to her. I didn't have to read very much of this thread before I concluded that the answer to the original poster's question about why people are obsessed with the fertility of others is that a huge number of them lack any ability to prevent themselves from commenting on the topic. The advice appeared to come so automatically to some posters that I doubt that they realized what they were doing. If this were not an important topic to the original poster, it would be funny. She basically asked, "why is everyone so concerned with my fertility?" and ninety percent of the responses were "you have to have children now, right now!" Probably because DCUM has such a generally affluent userbase, very few users seemed capable of understanding that someone realistically might face financial challenges. As the original poster responded with additional information, it emerged that she has had to support herself since age 18 and always worked in retail. She has not had the opportunity to go to college and has exhausted her earning power. Her husband is apparently in a similar situation. I wonder what the reaction would have been had the original poster started a thread describing her financial situation and stated an intention to have children? She probably would have been derided as a prospective wellfare queen or criticized for poor financial planning. As it was, one DCUM Marie Antoinette expressed shock that an adult works in retail. She may as well have advised the original poster to eat cake.