I have no problem with the "don't get pregnant"s. I do have a problem with the "Quick Get Pregnant!!" It's essential both to treat people kindly and also to prevent them making irreversible, resource-extensive mistakes.
A lot more fun is dealing with this as a can't get pregnant couple.
We’re a never pregnant by choice couple is and it’s a non-stop onslaught of “you’ll change your minds.”
We won’t. It’s been many years and we have no interest. Doesn’t stop friends/family/strangers asking about it constantly.
We enjoy our disposable income, free time, and naps without alarms. I show up to work well rested everyday surrounded by coworkers we’re are exhausted, overextended, and barely getting by. Not exactly the selling point people think it is.
My father's counterpoint is asking who will take care of me in old age. I genuinely feel a degree of disgust knowing that reason played a decent part why he had children. Maybe he should have tried to be a better parent and spouse before thinking about that.
Edit: a letter.
I'm already exhausted overextended and barely getting by. How tf could I add a kid to that?
I think we will see a large US population decrease over our lifetime if the middle class continues to be squeezed.
The single income supporting - 4 kids, a house, cars, and annual vacations is a distant memory. We are firmly in a two-income economy without any pathways to affordable childcare or elder care. It is unlikely that we would ever sink our money into kids. We watched our parents have kids they couldn’t afford out of pressure from boomers. They now haven’t saved enough for retirement and likely will work until they die or be impoverished.
We're already at population decreasing levels. We're not Japan bad, but we're bad.
How irresponsible, having a baby when you can’t provide for it and don’t have stable housing. How dare you?
How irresponsible, trying to improve your income and achieve stable housing instead of having a baby. How dare you?
Women are criticized no matter what decisions they make. This is a way that patriarchy reinforces itself.
Edit: relevant essay: https://www.sevanoland.com/uploads/1/1/8/0/118081022/there_is_no_unmarked_woman.pdf
It’s exhausting.
Yup. This is why I can’t tell if I’m trans or if I just want to be unmarked.
This really hits.
Like, ok, my OS didn't ship with gender.exe, that's an aftermarket DLC consisting of 95% cosmetic skins, and I'm busy trying to roll out kernel patches. Sorry about that! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I only run it to avoid social issues and/or because it's the path of least resistance. And even then... I've only ever thought "I am doing A, B, & C, and avoiding X, Y & Z because they expect me to and it's just easier".
I know I don't want to change my gender -- there's not much there to speak of in the first place. I simply want to do what I like. On the other hand, I know that this is "not normal" because most other guys seem way more attached to their gender, like it's an existential threat to them if I cross an imaginary line while existing next to them. And they act compelled to know "what" other people are, as if they'll implode because they won't know how to be around them!
So the best thing for me to do is to get around people who care about other people LARPing at gender just as much as I do.
(To be clear, I have absolutely no problems with anyone else wearing the gender layers of their choice, and wearing them proudly. As long as they're not an asshole. I actually kinda envy this, because for me it's like wearing a parka in a hot car. Changing its color won't do anything, I actually just don't even want it, I want to live my life without carrying around these heavy rulesets for what color my shoes need to be. LMAO, hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Oh damn I'm the same way, but female. I just figured it was all the body trauma from my body betraying me by bleeding everywhere, forced pelvic exams to get birth control, chronic pelvic pain and compulsory sex.
I just want to do what I want to do, which doesn't involve bleeding out so I can go swimming, being able to enjoy sex without fear of UTI or pregnancy, and just being allowed to exist like before puberty when I felt like a human.
I don't care what pronouns people use for me. I'd transition as an excuse to get rid of these cursed organs. I don't really care how people perceive me.
I think it's a type of agender called cassgender, when you just don't care.
In my case though I don't know if it's because the trauma has made me entirely disconnect from all that and just left me indifferent.
Yeah, I feel similarly. I would very much just like to be seen as a robot/friendly ungendered alien by society. I’m happy wearing super gendered lingerie when I feel it’s called for, but that’s private. I’m also happy wearing a binder at home, but don’t want to wear one in public.
Unfortunately, the least gendered choice is sometimes the most marked. Like, I would have had to answer a question about it every time someone saw a wedding photo of me if I’d worn a suit, so I wore a dress. I didn’t care much, and it was so much easier to just go along with expectations.
My wife and I liked to commiserate about how she got these and I got "hurry and get someone, anyone pregnant" like we were not involved in the decision or process
I got a hysterectomy last summer and now people don't ask me about kids much anymore. People who don't know me well think that I am upset over losing my ability to reproduce. The people I know well know that I had a small party after I got rid of my reproductive organs. I had a custom cake made and everything.
10/10 best medical decisions I've ever made for myself
My wife had a hysterectomy due to extreme endometriosis a few years ago. We had a Yeeterus party. Our friend made a uterus shaped piñata to bash.
I hesitate to ask what prizes were inside the piñata.
Someone asked us if we're planning kids at some party recently and some other friend quickly said "you shouldn't ask questions like that, it's rude. you don't know what people could be going through". The other person simply said "you're right" and moved on.
People are slowly learning.
Asking people if they're planning to have kids is like asking an unemployed person if they've found a job yet.
18-20 is the typical age for the most healthy children, and lowest maternal problems. At the same time, economic health doesn't peak until well into the 40s.
It makes for a social tug of war thats never easy to handle.
When society and biology don't align, we get a birthrate crisis.
Who could've ever predicted making it very hard financially to be young person and making it practically impossible to buy a house and start a family would mean people stop having families /s
Okay, according to wikipedia ~~as it's my favourite source for lazy research~~ in 2024 we had 132 million/year births and it says currently (whatever it means, I should probably read the source book but have no time) we have 63 million deaths per year.
Where is the crisis exactly?
My parents had children they couldn't actually afford, so they spent most of their time at work instead of raising us. Somehow, they expect me to be grateful to them for not being there and for bringing me into slave world.
I wish I hadn't been born.
Same, but I went another way with it. I decided to have kids and be a better parent than them. Since my brother didn't have kids I was able to break the cycle and put better people into the world than my parents did.
If we don't try to put better and smart people out there then we are destined to fulfill Mike Judges prophecy.
I love kids, being a parent was the only "dream" I was really sure of when I was younger. But I can barely afford to support myself, and as a woman in my upper-30s I can see the door of opportunity closing rapidly.
Thankfully, not all is lost. Working in education means I get to do my part to "put better and smart people out there" without having my own kids. It still hurts that I can't have the life I wanted, but at least I have the ability to positively influence future generations.
What birth rate crisis? It’s only a crisis for capitalism, that wants to expand exponentially, which is unsustainable. For humanity, less people means less impact on the environment allowing the human race to live longer and healthier lives. It would benefit us all having less people on this planet.
My understanding was that the best time for women to have children was between 20-30 years old, not 18-20.
From what I've read, 20-30 is when women have most of their eggs at the best quality, and have the lowest health risk in pregnancy.
Where does the 18-20 come from? Like I guess you're most fertile at 20 but that's the only metric I can see thats best at 20. Hell, a lot of sources even say you have the best chance of natural conception in your late 20s.
It comes from men being attracted to teenagers and wanting to justify the attraction.
There’s at least one man in this very thread defending this. That men arent predatory to impregnate teenagers because that’s when women are most fertile/have the healthiest babies.
Pregnancies in teenagers carry additional risk. The healthiest age range for women to be birthing babies is a little higher than 18-20. More like 20-30.
Yeah, I’m not sure why this person has so many upvotes while being so easily demonstrably wrong.
18-20 is not the "typical age for healthy children", it's in the oldest part of not being that and very youngest part of it. No one that young should have children anyway. Your, objectively wrong, view of this borders on very creepy.
This is missing a few regular Get pregnants before the end one.
The "don't get pregnant" only applies to non-white women. White women must get a rich sugar daddy by the age of 16 (!), so they can start to churn out babies ASAP.
Double standards under conservative societies are not bugs, but features.
Unasked for opinions from everywhere when you have the ability to grow and birth babies.
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
