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I know people who had kids that turned out to be mentally ill, or who died young. I know people who had kids who are perfect, but decided to move thousands of miles away. They can facetime but if they want to be physically together it's a long plane trip.
It might even be the exception to have wonderful adult kids who are not mentally ill, who you get along with, and who did not move far away.
I know a woman whose sisters and brothers still live near, and whose two kids moved by not terribly far. She has generated a whole tribe of young people, whom she often visits. So she is always surrounded by loving relatives. Well good for her.
I didn't have kids, and all my relatives live far away. So it has been a priority to have hobbies and friends, things to do and places to go, so as to not always be alone. And I value the time I do spend alone, because that's when I can do what I want.
I do not feel like a pathetic lonely old lady, although I imagine I might be seen that way. I would probably not enjoy being surrounded by grandchildren and great grandchildren. Maybe I don't know what I missed. No idea. But maybe I am happier than some of those people who claim to be so thrilled about having reproduced.
I don't know...maybe in current American culture where it is so stigmatized, and with the genuine likelihood of some kind of exploitation or awfulness going on, I can see that.
But the basic concept? I wish it were legal and more normal/OK. Not just for men either, and not just for strictly sex-acts, like... I can envision somewhat more intimate kind of a massage by someone who is expert and knows how to give incredible sensations, as a "luxury resort" kind of experience for women, too. Or heck, better yet, also have classes to teach our partners how to make us feel good. That would be super cool. As it is...anything even close to that is so far underground in the sexual subcultures that most people don't know it exists, where it even does.
But I personally don't see sex without love as being dirty or shameful. Or pleasure to be sinful or bad. I think that a lot of the US's Puritan (or Victorian) hang-ups are ridiculous.
I can see how there would be great benefit if the industry were safer for workers and more regulated and controlled for testing and health stuff. I could understand the sense in a man wanting to treat himself to a good experience, without having to do the whole...forming a relationship, or dating, or any of that. I have heard and read from sex workers that there can often be an "amateur therapy" component for some clients, as well, who just don't really have much human connection.
But I really don't think that most lonely men turn go this route. I think that a lot of them just suffer, and don't really pursue anything different at all. And as another poster mentioned, sure some women do, too. Certain personality types are more likely to form connection or not. But I just do believe that our culture makes it more normal/acceptable for women to have those more deeply connected friendships, and that there are a lot of men who could really benefit from more bonds with other people. The way I see a lot of men take an approach to romance, too, comes off as this "I need a person or I will have no one, and once we have each other, we should have no one else" thing.
Sorry but I think having to pay someone to spend time with you is a big indication a person is lonely be it a hooker, a sex worker, a family member, a friend, etc. and not necessarily for sex. It was the poster I was responding to that brought up buying, not me.
Once a woman is no longer able to conceive her desirability drops a lot naturally as nature intended women to be the caregiver of children and not continuously produce. This is why society especially equality is bad for women. They want the same pay as men but you have to manage your own career and have children at the same time. I would rather not have to work and let the men go out to work.
Now women who decide to pursue corporate ladder during their fertile years is robbing themselves of valuable time. By the time they become some corporate director, they will be childless and not desired. You gave that 15-18 years of your best productive years away just for career and now you have to spend the rest of your life without a mate and especially children. You may find a man who chooses to tag along but as soon he gets a younger woman he's gone because you can't have a kid with him so there's no way to keep him.
Is it worth it? Or you would rather be without a career, have tons of children around you and take care of you. That's how my grandmother lived. Never worked a day in her life.
My eyes are bleeding.
Not all people want kids, especially men. I would also say not having to worry about pregnancy is very desirable.
I bet if you told your grandmother that she ever worked a day in her life taking care of a ton of kids she would give you what for.
Not all people want kids, especially men. I would also say not having to worry about pregnancy is very desirable.
I bet if you told your grandmother that she ever worked a day in her life taking care of a ton of kids she would give you what for.
Yeah...I was thinking about that too. There are plenty of women who didn't and don't want children, and I'd say since the 60's, the era of modern birth control, we finally had the freedom to say "No thank you" to having kids.
I had kids. I love my boys. But I didn't PLAN for either of them. (Here's a not-so-secret fact...you have to use birth control consistently. LOL But I'm here to tell ANYONE: Birth control was a HALLELUJAH thing for women kind. LOL
That's not to say there are not PLENTY of women who wanted, and yearned for children. There are women (like me) who didn't plan to have them, but we're thankful and gratified to have them. There are women who had kids and resented them every day, or were horrible parents in one way or another.
There really is no "One size fits all" that can be applied across the board. There are plenty of women who will never feel an ounce of regret over not having children. There are others who struggle every day to get pregnant, and for whatever reason, have not or cannot. There is no "tried and true" to apply to all women.
And there are probably women (and men) who DO have some wistfullness over the road not taken. That's life.
I agree but it's interesting that many of the people with the viewpoint are married - like the Valuetainment guy.
I also find that many of these married conservative men are desperate to sleep with other women other than their wives but it's something they keep secret.
How about the traditional wifes who make the vidoes of their life style? Or the women who release ticktoks etc about there poor decisions, - no shortage of thoes if you choose to look.
The bottom line is there are a certain cohort of women out there who have made a choice to not have children and get married etc and do regret it later on.
Even further if you forget the people trying make sensationalist media content to sell to a small targeted group of people, who is it pushing girls to have kids and get married in real life?
I would dare suggest its mostly happily married women who have kids?
I only had a brother, and in my life it was never our dad who was telling us to find a girl and settle down, - that was our mum and grandmother.
I'll go on the record as saying (and sorry for repeating myself) that I do NOT think it is appropriate for anyone to try to convince either men or women to have children. If you don't want them, you don't want them. Your business and not anyone else's.
However, I do think that women in particular who express an interest in having a family "someday" should be encouraged to make that a first priority. I did not have my first child until 30 and I really wish that I had started younger. The twenties are the ideal time, biologically speaking, for pregnancy. Just because some women have no trouble getting pregnant later in their 30s and even into their 40s does not mean that is true for most, by any means.
A young woman in her 20s may feel that she is being unjustly "threatened with growing old and lonely without children" if she doesn't start fairly soon, but as many women in their mid-30s and older have found, this is not an idle threat. Especially if they would like to have more than one child. Modern medicine notwithstanding.
Everything depends on the character and circumstances and choices of the woman, her spouse (if she chooses to take one) and the kids (if she chooses to have them).
A woman can marry, have children, raise them to the best of her and her mate's ability, a happy family, grandchildren, kids and grandkids who live within a few hours of her and frequently visit, continuing a warm familial relationship.
A woman can marry, have children, raise them to the best of her and her mate's ability, the kids take good job offers on the other side of the country, visit every other year, the woman's spouse gets an illness and the woman has to spend extra time and money caring for him/her alone, it's hard; and she has minimal help. Finally, she has to relegate her mate to an assisted living facility; where the kids visit once every few years. She's lonely. The kids and grandkids have lives of their own.
A woman can marry, have children, raise them to the best of her and her mate's ability, and, after her mate passes away and she has the first stirrings of Alzheimers, not enough that she can't function, but enough that things are more difficult, her kids move her to an assisted living facility. She has always been a strong, brilliant, vital woman, and she can't cope with the silences, the lack of self-direction, and passes away within a month, unvisited by her sons.
A woman can marry young, a marriage that seems quite perfect, while in college, and, six years later, with two children, divorces her spouse. She struggles, but she is a hard worker and the spouse sends some child support. The kids grow. Eventually she meets another man from a slightly different culture, dates him, likes him, lives him for many years and finally marries him and they remain quite happy as their children from previous marriages mature.
A woman does not marry, adopts a child, works throughout her life, remains busy and in touch with other family members. She occasionally travels to other countries, mostly for vacations. She is content with her life and is definitely not lonely.
A woman who had been raised with the expectation of marrying and having children, never did either, and, now that she is older, is lonely. Though she finds pleasure in small things and manages to enjoy her life, she often wonders if she could have had the patience for motherhood, how she could have managed to bring up one or more children.
At least two of these examples (but not all) are not hypothetical, they are from my real life, either me or people I know.
Personal priorities of course run the gamut. But one supposes that to equate a woman's "desirability" with her fertility, and further, to regard individual actualization in one's career as "robbing" of oneself - if one happens to be a woman - is just a tad reductionist. Doesn't this imply that a woman is basically just a uterus? I'm a heterosexual male, and enjoy the company of attractive women... but to reduce women to brood-mares is fatuously boorish, even among my locker-room towel-slapping buddies. I would hope that in the modern world, the number of women who view themselves thus, is small - and declining.
You can defend women all you want, it won't change the reality that men prefers women that are of fertile age than those aren't. Some would go as far as prefer a virgin.
We can debate this forever, societies outside of ours have set this preference for thousands of years. You think your preference is going to change majority of the male population? I'm here to state the obvious not make a comment. I can easily date women past their fertile age but not easy to find women of child bearing age. Because supply and demand. Fortunately, with feminism all young women today think they are capable of running their own business like the Kardashians and sadly they can't do it without men.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rodentraiser
Oh Lord. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this post.
My worth, and the worth of any woman, is not dependent on their ability to conceive or raise kids. In my case, I don't even consider myself a "woman". Being female is something I use to describe myself and it's way down on the list along with having brown hair and eyes. I consider myself to be a person, first, second, and last.
Spare us the pronouns, you are your biological identity and that's how people will look at you. No matter how people want to be addressed, just don't be identified as something you won't regret.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rodentraiser
And nature really screwed the pooch when it came to me. I have no maternal instincts at all. I hear a baby or small kids screaming and I want to get out the plastic bags. Nature in no way intended me to be a mother.
Equality is bad for women? Please. The 1950s are calling and they want you back.
I will agree that most women can't have it all and they do have to make a decision, but here's why they have to make a decision: it's because most men do zip, zero, zilch when it comes to housework, raising kids, or helping out in the home. If men did the same amount of work women do when raising kids, then advancing a career would be as big a problem for them as it is for women who raise kids and work today. In other words, your reasoning is only valid because of a man's ineptitude in helping his wife out with raising a family. Just bringing home the bacon ain't everything, Charlie. Men need to raise the kids, too.
And by the way, my life has never been about "being desired". If the only men who desire me, desire me because they want me to have their kids, I'd rather be single. But the facts are, there are hundreds of thousands of childfree women who don't plan on procreating who are married and living their best life. I think we'll do just fine without having to be "desired" by anyone.
If any man who was married to me wanted to go after some young thing so she could give him kids, then he's not worth the whiskers on his chin and I say good riddance and don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out. That's not a man who wants kids. That's a man who either didn't know himself very well and changed his mind while leading on his wife, or that's a man with a major character flaw. And what woman needs that grief?
If I ever get married to someone, I would hope we'd be partners. I wouldn't want to be a little pet goldfish in a bowl, safe but never experiencing life, while someone takes care of me. I'm a grown woman and if I get married, it will be to a husband, not someone who wants to be my father.
Yes, it's worth it. Freedom is always worth it, to some more than others. My mother never worked a day in her life after she got married. She never learned to drive. She was taken care of hand and foot by my father. I'd suffocate if I had to live the way she did. She liked it. I wouldn't be able to stand it.
You know, you're entitled to your opinions and how you feel, but flat out telling us women without kids that we're flawed, unwanted, and not natural is pushing that a bit. But if you're a man, I wish you luck in finding a doormat you can wipe your feet on when you come home at night, or if you're a woman, I wish you luck if you choose to find happiness in being a doormat.
Your personal experience is such a short term temporary experience. I admit mine as well, that's why you have to constantly learn and adapt. We as modern society can try to reshape society but it still balances out.
Someone like you and other feminists don't even know that feminism is bad for women. It's really good for men because it allows men to have less responsibility and not being the breadwinner for a change is great. I don't have to over-extend myself to carry the weight of raising a family on my shoulders and demand that my equal partner should put in the same effort as I am in a marriage. However, modern feminists isn't about equality. It's about having the same entitlements of the past and selectively demand equality where it isn't about equality.
However, if I were a women I would not want feminism to succeed and become the norm. It is destroying societies as we type. Soon the low birthrate will change the demographics of this country in favor of ethnics that prefers a traditional household. The difference between men and women is fertility cycles. Women who wants to be successful and delay child bearing must bear the consequence of being bored and lonely later in life. Sure when you're 30-40 you can put on some make up you may still have game but watch as you the supply of men dwindle down.
I am here to tell you to be careful what you wished for, you have no clue how much your short term desires will rob you of your time and future. You can't have it all but men can get much further over time.
Nature will always balance things out regardless, how things were and how our species will survive will depend on how we chose our ways and nature will enforce the balance. Evidence is everywhere that nature is balancing things the way we were designed and intended.
Societies that embrace feminism are shrinking. Societies that prefers the traditional roles are thriving and will take over.
Not all people want kids, especially men. I would also say not having to worry about pregnancy is very desirable.
I bet if you told your grandmother that she ever worked a day in her life taking care of a ton of kids she would give you what for.
Nobody is telling you to have kids, that's your own choice. However, don't complain when you change your mind and you want kids. You have a limited time window if you're still capable to think things through. This is your own decision not mine. I'm here to tell you what you could be missing out on if you trade your time for something that may not be worth it.
I can say that having kids is an important choice and not everyone should be parents. But if you feel you have some desire to have children then you must seize the opportunity and not let it go to waste. I see people go do vacations or spend all the money they've earned on self indulgences. That's your choice, you can delay those choices and go enjoy the same activities with your children later in life. Your career can be put on hold, there are plenty of companies that will tolerate maternity leave.
You can defend women all you want, it won't change the reality that men prefers women that are of fertile age than those aren't. Some would go as far as prefer a virgin.
We can debate this forever, societies outside of ours have set this preference for thousands of years. You think your preference is going to change majority of the male population? I'm here to state the obvious not make a comment. I can easily date women past their fertile age but not easy to find women of child bearing age. Because supply and demand. Fortunately, with feminism all young women today think they are capable of running their own business like the Kardashians and sadly they can't do it without men.
Yeah, I think that is antiquated thinking. Sure men, and women, may fanaticize about having sex with someone younger (i.e. fertile age), they may even prefer it but it is not reality.
Speaking of reality, it trumps your beliefs.
Again, statistics. The majority of men and women enter relationships (marriage) with someone within 5 years of their own age.
Currently, more and more women are in relationships with younger men than ever before.
Currently, fewer women are marrying and/or having children.
Currently, more women are getting higher degrees and earning more money (i.e. running their own business).
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