taking sides: single, childless men in their mid-thirties vs single, childless women in their mid-thirties

LEND ME YOUR SPERM!!!!!

There were plenty of other factors in play of course, and I'm not suggesting that this would be the norm for 40-y-o new parents. The way things are going, that kind of generation gap will probably become the norm.

(FWIW, I was very keen to have children when I was in my mid-late 20s, gradually went off the idea into my 30s and then, suddenly, at 34-ish thought it would be the greatest thing.)

Seconded. I've already more or less done my back in! You simply don't have the energy at 40 that you had at 30.

Thanks, SteveM...)

Oh, and I'm a lot worse off financially now than I was in my late-20s...

I imagine student debt is taken into account when applying for all the various benefits you get for having children.

i guess, if they WEALLY WEALLY want kids...

Incidentally the pressure to even just own a property can be just as irritating as all this to people like me a lot of the time.
-- Konal Doddz (stevem7...)

otm

(working families tax credits and whathaveyou)

i don't want children, but i'm pretty sure that if i ever change my mind i'll go the adoption route. there are so many kids out there that need homes, and that's more important to me than bringing some precious-wecious vanity project into the world.

xpost the man from mars won't eat up bars where the tv's on otm

I'm not going to raise a child and have it financially dependent on me for at least 16 years just to get a tax break and a couple of wee incentives.

JBR OTM re adoption.

You think people having kids is basically about precious-wecious vanity projects? That sounds a bit snotty Also, don't assume adopting is at all easy. First, you have to prove you're financially viable and stable, have got a house big enough etc etc. And there's usually an age cut-off as well. Once you've gone through all those hoops you've got to go out and find the child yourself at your own expense, which generally means thousands of pounds and dealing with the tortuous non-English-language bureaucracy of countries like Russia or Haiti or Colombia or whatever. And then often enough you'll find that the kids up for adoption aren't all necessarily unwanted by the mother but the mother simply can't afford it so there's the moral dilemma of the fact you're basically buying the child, etc etc etc. It's not so easy.

it's probably a good idea to have this kind of stuff in mind however you acquire a youngling.

Sure, but you have to prove it to the authorities, who are going to ask all sorts of searching personal questions about your marriage/relationship, your finances etc etc.. Anyway, I'm just saying that adoption is by no means an easy option. The people I know who have done it have gone through hell doing it, spent vast sums of time and money and it has required real single-minded determination.

From what I've seen, I think it's psychologically much tougher than pushing one out through your vagina.

All through my 20s I was stoiclly anti-children (for myself) and I thought if I ever changed my mind I'd adopt (for precisely the reasons JBR and Alisa have articulated.) But what can I say, I have changed as I've grown older. Starting about 4 years ago I came to terms with the fact that I really want to bear a child. This was greatly intensified by my grandmother's death last year. She was like a mother to me and now that she's gone I realize how much she brought to all of our lives -- her little family. I feel like I wouldn't do her love justice if I didn't pass it on to a child of my own. Now having children is at the top of my goal list.

£80/month child tax credit, falling to £40/month after the first year. £256 child trust fund payment (one-off, though I think there's another payment at 7). £68/month child benefit.

Obviously, with all this cash rolling in, I barely need to work but it's nice to have some pin money to keep the nanny in Bentleys.

i think america is a very self-centered country, and too often the reason for having children stems from a kind of sense of entitlement and acquisitiveness ("i should have a child because GODDAMMIT I WANT ONE" and never mind what they might be passing down to their offspring -- hereditary diseases, addiction/mental illness genes, toxins in the body that cause serious developmental problems). when you have a kid you're creating a life. that's serious shit and you'd better have a really good answer when the kid is old enough to ask why he has multiple sclerosis or why his sister has to live in a group home. i remember being in high school and how my friends were depressed and confused and resentful that there were all these factors in their lives they couldn't control and they'd have to live with them for a very long time. i would hate to mess up someone's mind like that just because society told me it's my destiny to be a baby-machine.

Errrr... you're blaming *America* for this? What? I think you're projecting political agendas onto a very basic animalistic instinct for self propegation so deep it goes down to a genetic level. (Dawkins to thread, etc.)

I mean, I know that this opens up a whole nother kettle of fish, but... if you choose not to have children, that's your decision. But it's frankly bizarre to condemn others as being "selfish" because they do. I think that's going a bit too far.

I mean, if you want to blame anything, blame Science! (here comes the man in the flaming hat) for introducing these question of choice (little c, please) in the first place - or for allowing humans with flawed genetics to grow old enough to make the choice whether to pass on their flawed genes.

Bring back natural selection, I say. Mutter mutter.

This is incoherent and sputtering, yes, I know.

oh, absolutely. look at how tv networks are falling over themselves to provide "family programming." look how political leaders and the ever-powerful christian right are driving home the importance of "family values" and treating people without families like they don't figure into the dialogue at all. it's very alienating. it makes me feel like america doesn't have a place for me.

But the only thing that pisses me off more than the BABYBABYBABY pressure is people trying to extrapolate their personal choices to the entire human race by saying things like "having children is selfish". It's reactionary and doesn't make either side any better.

x-x-post

But yeah, what others said, men can produce children up to a much later age.
Maybe they cannot be a dad, but they can impregnate.

Way to generalise!

-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006.

Whoa there, Alisa. You sound a little neurotic

For Markelby:

(I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here a bit. I have no *desire* to give birth to a child. I'm not going to rush out and adopt a kid either. If I were to find myself pregnant, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I'm only thinking about the issue right now because this thread is here.)
-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006 4:44 PM. (ailsa) (later)

And, as Andrew F pointed out, I wasn't extrapolating to the whole world. Basically, *I* don't have the desire to experience pregnancy, give birth, etc. And I don't really understand this urge in others. I do get that it's there, but without having experienced it, I can't understand how it would drive, for example, Nathalie to question Trayce's decision to not bring another child into the world, given that Trayce is a grown-up intelligent woman who has, presumably, given this matter a bit of thought.

I *do* understand that everything changes when you have a kid (I do have a mother, after all, and she didn't really want kids either, but has managed more than OK). I just don't understand this rampant biological ticking clock stuff. I can't imagine a point ever in my life where I'll go, "oh, what I need now is a baby". I'm 33, I've been happily married for five years. If I was going to do it, now would be as good a time as any. I JUST DON'T WANT TO.

I think I have stuff I could pass on to the next generation (I do "mother" problem teenagers for a living, you know) and I have considered fostering, as it's not so *final* as adopting and having a kid, but it can be... (my big brother was fosterered by us when he was 11, he's now in his late 30s and very much part of the family).

Sorry, Mark, you called me a robot (and you know me well enough, I hope, to know that I'm not) so I just wasn't sure. Also because I use "cheers" in a sarky voice more often than not. Thanks :-)

Seconded on Mary's post. Much more eloquent than my ramblings.

If it helps - I have fallen pregnant before. I had an abortion. No regrets. Sorry. Not going to apologise for it.

?

there is nothing inherently wrong with either group

i just found out my mom smoked throughout her pregnancy with me. thanks mom!
― the man from mars won't eat up bars where the tv's on (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:54 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

she did look cool tho
― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:55 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hahahaha

sarahell otm. the thread title sets up a pointless opposition that the OP then blithely ignores in order to make a blandly 'trenchant' observation. bfd.