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Notice that it's not just this one woman who did it, but that a friend confided in her that she too intentionally misled her man into getting her pregnant, and that Prudie's answer acknowledges that she's "hardly the only woman" (underlined in red for strong emphasis) to have done it. Read some other search result pages of more personal stories that often include mention of friends who did it too. It sure doesn't sound like it's even a little rare. A man is perfectly reasonable - no, well advised - to be aware of this.
Hm. Well it seems like a remarkably stupid risk to take. You could wind up, at best, with an uninvolved partner who won't really help you raise your kids and will leave you burdened with a ton of thankless effort, or at worst, raising them alone.
But not every person is smart, or weighs risks appropriately.
As I mentioned in my post, telling personal details like that he had a a vasectomy is definitely too much information. I agree with you there. I do think the first few dates should be kept light, but I personally wouldn't have wanted to go into more than a couple dates with someone who didn't want kids because that would be the point? I guess if you aren't sure or haven't thought about it maybe it doesn't matter, but for those of us who have a strong stance one way or the other I think it's better to know sooner rather than later.
I don't go on dates so I can find someone to make me a mom. Most of my single friends think the same way so my opinion can't be that alien to people I wouldn't think. More and more women are choosing to have kids later, or maybe not at all.
I don't go on dates so I can find someone to make me a mom. Most of my single friends think the same way so my opinion can't be that alien to people I wouldn't think. More and more women are choosing to have kids later, or maybe not at all.
I think the point has been made upthread that as a woman gets older, the priorities change. Once a woman reaches 35 or so, the decision is usually made and dating needs to either focus on people who want kids or who do not want kids. There really isn’t time to waste on people who are still thinking about it. You still need to establish the relationship, get married, and try for kids. By 35 or so, wasting a couple of months just getting to know each other is a lot of valuable time that a woman might not have if she has to do it with multiple men only to find out that they do not want kids. Even with men, risks of certain developmental disabilities go up as they age.
I think the point has been made upthread that as a woman gets older, the priorities change. Once a woman reaches 35 or so, the decision is usually made and dating needs to either focus on people who want kids or who do not want kids. There really isn’t time to waste on people who are still thinking about it. You still need to establish the relationship, get married, and try for kids. By 35 or so, wasting a couple of months just getting to know each other is a lot of valuable time that a woman might not have if she has to do it with multiple men only to find out that they do not want kids. Even with men, risks of certain developmental disabilities go up as they age.
I was just speaking for me. I don't have my whole life planned yet, but I like to date.
...I divorced my husband of 13 years over it when he changed his mind and said he wanted kids. Well before talking about marriage I saw to it that we specifically discussed all aspects of NOT having kids NOR adopting (he was/is sterile). For whatever reason he changed his mind though he has no kids to this day.
Perhaps it was the only sure way he could think of that he could use to "easily" extricate himself - but it was certainly a dealbreaker. I only wish it had come much sooner.
what other reason to marry if you don't want kids? Silly otherwise.
There are lots of other benefits- health insurance, social security benefits (particularly if you are with someone with much higher earning capacity than you), and other benefits depending on the situation- if you move to another country and you SO is a citizen, getting married is going to help in that respect.
Although with online dating, I could easily see on their profile their thoughts on kids and I avoided setting up dates with guys who indicated they didn't want kids.
OLD was a godsend for me. It made it really easy to filter women who wanted kids and women who didn’t, and that way I wasn’t wasting someone’s time.
what other reason to marry if you don't want kids? Silly otherwise.
I've seen this statement before. It's a silly statement. Having kids together isn't automatically a good reason to get married, in fact the first 10 years with my Ex we were not legally married, we just considered ourselves married as a sort of...lifestyle? Nobody was goin' anywhere. We had two kids. We were a family. The reason to NOT get married in that case was our tax situation. I'm an accounting nerd, so I knew that if we married and combined our incomes into one return we were gonna lose thousands of dollars in taxes every year. We finally did it anyways when he was going back into the military. That is one life situation where you absolutely want to get married whether there are kids or not, because the military will dump a lot more bennies on you both, if you're married.
My guy and I plan to marry after my sons from my prior marriage move out (hopefully this year.) We don't plan to have more kids. Well, my babymaker is shut down for good, thankfully. Why get married?
Because...
- ...we're both really happy together and want to celebrate our love. Cheesy, but it's true.
- ...we are part of a community of friends and it's how we met and we want to specifically celebrate this with THEM.
- ...it will make his family happy to know that he finally has a wife.
- ...we absolutely do expect to be together until death do us part.
- ...it makes sense from a logistical standpoint of taxes, estate planning, health insurance, medical directives, etc.
- ...we are both people with proven track records of kindness and compassion, each finds the other worthy of trust and commitment.
- ...it makes us look more "respectable" for purposes of business contracts, may lower our car insurance rates, etc. The world seems to think that married people are more stable and trustworthy and that can benefit us.
- ...and most importantly, because we both WANT to. And cannot think of any reasons NOT to.
Having kids together is simply not the best reason to get married. I think it is incredibly backwards and stupid and just WRONG to think that a piece of paper and a fee paid to your local government is more binding to anyone, than the lives of children. As though it's more ok to run off and abandon your kids just because you aren't married, but man, once you put a ring on it you're not going anywhere, you said some words and stuff man! How a man can be more stressed about the possibility of losing some money or assets, than he is about the lives of children he fathered...I just can't wrap my head around it. Having children is a much, MUCH bigger commitment, than getting married.
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