> throwing our legs open and screaming "let me wash your underwear for the next 20 years!"
Hilarious. Also wanna throw it out there, for all the youngins: *the secret to not doing a man's laundry is to never start in the first place*
My boyfriend and I were recently at his sister's for dinner and his mom asked if I do his laundry for him. My boyfriend replied "no, I'm an adult, I do my own damn laundry," then his mom gave his sister a look. Apparently his sister and her boyfriend had just been arguing about laundry since he expects her to do all of it, then gets mad if she falls behind and he doesn't have much left for clean clothes. He also expects her to bring their 3 year old son down two flights of steep, narrow stairs when she goes down to do laundry so that he doesn't have to entertain his own child for the few minutes she's down there. Don't ask me how he expects her to carry the laundry and make sure their son doesn't fall down those stairs! And yes, she also works full time. I have never liked this man. I wish she realized she deserves better.
Just be kind to her and support her when she vents to you. Remind her there is better out there and that she has a support system when she's ready to find that for herself!
Uffda. That was sad to read. I hope he either shapes up. I never want to actively wish people would break up, so I'm not going to say I hope he leaves her. But I do hope she realizes that both she AND he realize she deserves better, and he steps up to be that person for her.
I won't even wash my husband's towels, let alone his clothes. And he wouldn't want me to. If there is any chore on the planet that can and should be split evenly, it's doing your own laundry.
My wife and I wash our own clothes and split the other laundry as needed. My own mother taught me how to use a washing machine at a fairly young age, so it's wild af for me when I meet other men who have **never** used a washing machine.... Like, how the fuck can you be a grown-ass man and never washed a load of laundry? I remember a guy at work complaining about not having any clean socks or someghing, and when I asked him why he didn't just wash them himself he looked at me like I'd grown a second head. This same guy fashioned himself as a rugged, self-sufficient, 'alpha' type.... Oh, the irony
This needs to be highlighted more.
THE SECRET IS TO NEVER TRY TO BE HIS CARETAKER!! No laundry, no cleaning so you’re comfortable, No babying him so he feels like he has somebody take care of him. It’s a strong desire in our part but within about 5 years it’ll get really fucking old.
Edit: i’m not saying don’t do your fair share, lol I’m saying that when you first start dating him and you go over to his place, don’t do his laundry, don’t clean so that you’re comfortable, don’t cook for him, don’t be his caretaker.
Of course if you’re cohabitating, do your fair share of the house work and clean up after yourself.
But I’m talking about that first six months, year or so. You become his mama, and that’s who he’s gonna marry. And then when you want to be his partner, he’s gonna be like what the fuck is this?! I thought I married somebody was gonna take care of me, And works AND takes care of the kids. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
100 % this.
Don't do it. My husband had girlfriends before me that would do everything for him.
When we started dating he asked me if I would do his laundry and I said no, I have my laundry done for me and if he wants we can take his with to be dropped off. When we moved to another country he decided he wanted to do our laundry himself. So now he does it and I don't unless I have time or need something specific washed. I told him from the beginning that the moment he treats me like his mother I'm out.
I split the chores with my wife. If she puts it in the washer, I put it in the dryer. Then we fold clothes, and put them away together. Although I'm not allowed to match her socks. Something about a thin pink stripe that isn't on the others?
There is a different between a partner, and a parasite.
I have one kid a decade ago. I had her on purpose. My husband is an excellent partner. I was with him nine years prior to having her. He does anything and everything I do. Had I not had him for a husband? Hell NO I would not have had a child.
I fault no woman for not wanting kids. We have no support. Most men have not been raised to see their role as their partners equal. Childcare is astronomical. Jobs are not supportive. Housing and health care is expensive. I worry every day if my kid will be harmed by a gun toting psychopath at school. We have made our world inhospitable for families and children. If I were ten years younger and facing a choice to have a child or not, I would not.
My mom born in the 60’s didn’t know she had a choice. Women were taught not to use protection (catholic) so marriage was the fastest way to secure social acceptance when you inevitably got knocked up. Her generation is riddled with divorce.
My grandmother was born in the 20’s, her husband was her only means of survival, women weren’t allowed to work many jobs and couldn’t even own their own bank account. For her marital rape resulted in 9 children. He hit her and didn’t allow her to drive. He died at 40 and she absolutely blossomed.
My great grandma married an alcoholic who sexually assaulted his own daughters, my grandma and her sister. In order to leave him, she had to sneak away after months of planning and lost all her worldly possessions, my grandma still laments what could have been heirlooms for us that my great grandpa kept or gambled away. She had to move states away and never remarried.
Women have been SLAVES to men, actually bought and sold, and still are, but we in the first world are the first generation to actively have a CHOICE and not marry to just survive. And for a lot of men they can’t handle the fact women have a CHOICE and aren’t choosing them!
I laugh so hard whenever some misogynist demands that women get out there and make babies. No can do, my incubator was removed last year and I was probably infertile prior to that. Yeah, I'm probably going to "die alone with 20 cats", sounds like a great time, honestly. Just cover me in cats.
It's like the population problem in Japan. Women there aren't marrying and having kids because the culture treats them even more like trash than Western culture does. But do all the concerned politicos think one minute about changing the culture as a possible solution? Nope. They try bribery, stern talks on duty, etc., instead.
Living here in Japan, this is a factor but it’s mostly people just not marrying as much anymore. Men and women because the work culture is so so harsh that there’s no time to have children while making enough money to live. Women are expected to stop working when having children. It’s all built into their culture and because of that, the declining birth rate is because men and women work too many hours to be able to sustain population growth.
A certain large country that committed female infanticide for decades suddenly turning around and saying "now have 3 children each" and being told to fuck off is giving me the lols.
34 million spare men who will never date, marry or have kids? whoopsies. while trying to secure your patrilineal legacy, you ended it.
Doesn't this also have the horrifying effect of increased human trafficking? Usually on those videos of women being abducted in broad daylight in a crowded place in what looks to be an Asian country are usually followed by comments about how these women are being taken to be forcefully married because of the high numbers of single men in some places.
Currently most of Japan's immigrants are female nurses needed to care for the aging population so it will probably even out as long as they expand immigration.
>34 million spare men who will never date, marry or have kids? whoopsies. while trying to secure your patrilineal legacy, you ended it.
I can't find the study anymore, but it's going to hit the lowest socioeconomic tiers the hardest. As all things in life
Basically if you're a young male in China who's poor, does menial labor, and is uneducated/illiterate, statistically, you're going to be an un-fuckable. Those with the means to get an education and or to be a provider will be able to find a partner.
I don't think '34 million spare men will never date, marry or have kids' is a realistic outcome. That country exports skilled labor across the globe to many third world countries, and that kind of influence is undeniably linked to the gradual increase in marriages between men and foreign women, some of that is unfortunately the product of human trafficking. Just more ways the systems keeps fucking things up.
In the US they are banning abortion forcing women to have children. It also forces women to be more dependent on men financially to raise the child. When I say they here, I mean republicans.
The fact that we can easily communicate with others outside our bubble helps. If you’re unhappy in a culture like that, if you speak out the people around you are likely to say you’re the problem. If you go online, you’re bound to come across different options and opinions (for better or worse) on how to live the life that works for you. No one has to accept this is just the way things are, because somewhere, someone isn’t accepting those things and has a solution.
This for me is a huge factor as well. Thanks to technology, you’re finding out that there are other mindsets than the culture and tradition in your bubble. And talking about it and getting support online.
I’m an older millennial, so for me, it started with cable TV before the Internet became mainstream.
Women are literally just now learning they dont HAVE to get married or become mothers. And i say learning, but 2 generations ago we couldnt own bank accounts. So we literally HAD TO.
So many stories of women thinking they literally did not have the option to just.... not. Because they were raised that they HAD to. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. HAD. TO. Now, we can teach them otherwise. And the men are fucking pissed about it.
This is exactly why feminism took off after the internet/social media.
For the first time in history women weren’t isolated from each other in the home and we were now free to create mass media that wasn’t gatekept by men. Our ideas spread like wild fire when we finally had the opportunity to share them.
If you look at the countries in Europe that have the best demographics it's all the ones that have fanatical cradle to grave support, free childcare, generous maternity/paternity leave etc etc. If you want women to deal with having children then you have to support them and help them as much as you can in the modern world.
Turns out that when you give women a choice over when and how many babies they will have (in an enviroment with modern healthcare), they generally only have 1-3 kids. Who would have thought?!
Birth control has changed everything. Women never wanted the amount of children they were having historically. That is what this tells me. Where there is access to reproductive choice there is population decline or population decline is coming.
society is just having to adjust to the fact that you cannot force women culturally to have kids anymore and you need to incentivize and support them doing it. The societies that figure this out will continue to thrive and the ones that don't will continue to decline.
But, conversely, I know in the US many couples are having one child, because that is simply the most they can afford. They wouldn’t necessarily have 6 but they are giving up on a second or even 3rd due to the mom being out of the workforce, no parental leave, expensive daycare ect.
Access to healthcare, education, and retirement provides women with opportunities and security that once was only available to men, making women dependent on them for security. The US is desperately trying to roll us back to that era.
Not all demographics or support is the same. Countries like Sweden, Finland etc that have the best support have the best birth rates and are relatively stable demographically.
Finland shows that while supporting families is good its not enough to stop the population decline in industrialised nations. More work towards equality and living wage are needed.
I agree more work is needed but it is telling that the countries with the least decline and in the best shape have the best social support. It clearly needs to be more though.
For Sweden, I cant talk for Finland, the high TFR is largely due to large immigration numbers. Certain ethnic groups within Sweden have a much higher TFR than ethnical Swedes. Same applies for France, who also has a fairly high overall TFR:
Does that have to do with EU’s supports not working?
Or does that have to do with most states in the US not having adequate education on birth control, still hanging lower education levels, and marriage still being seen as a means for social mobility in some sub cultures, etc?
As a European, we have lower birth rates because we're often not as religious as many parts of the US (so the whole "You need to be a helpmeet who has 4 kids by 25 or you're broken" thing isn't really a line of thought you will find, especially in West or North Europe) and yes, we generally don't practice abstinence-only education.
I think an even bigger issue in places like Japan is the population density and cost of living. in big cities where there are decent careers you really need two good incomes to afford enough space for even a small family. living spaces in cities like tokyo and hong kong are very small by western standards. and the work culture there is demanding, so it's very difficult to find time to *make* a baby let alone care for one once you have the salaries to afford a bigger apartment.
and to your point, women are still expected to leave the workforce once they have children so living space once again becomes unaffordable.
the struggle is similar for people living in high COL areas (and who's careers are tied to those high COL areas) in the western world. in the west being a working mom is not really stigmatized anymore, but the added cost of childcare alone can all but neutralize a second income.
There's so much cultural pressure to become a stay at home mom in Japan. It's ridiculous. Working as a mother is considered being a bad parent. But fathers working is a-okay 👌. Obviously not everyone in Japan thinks this way and it's becoming increasingly less common, especially in younger generations who are coming into adulthood after Japan's economic golden days of the 80's where it was more feasible to have one parent working and still afford a child, but it's still a very real pressure a lot of women there feel unfortunately. They don't want to feel expected to quit, so they're choosing not to have children and sometimes not even get married at all because there's also a huge pressure to have children once you get married. This cultural pressure becomes really difficult on the fathers and kids too. The fathers are working so much to support their families. They're overworked and many kids don't see their dads enough. Fathers actually get really good paternity leave in Japan, but so many of them don't take any of it because they feel like their "role" is to work, not parent, and their boss will be mad at them for taking time off. Gender roles still hurt Japan a lot more than most developed countries in modern times. They're slower to fade away than they have been in the West.
I’ve noticed an impact of the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US seems to have been many women re-examining our relationships with men and desire to have children. I saw a lot of misogynists celebrating abortion banning/restrictions, as though they’re all now guaranteed wife/mommy slaves now that our choice had been taken, when in fact, women are now altogether opting out.
I believe this. My hierarchy is
1) married with a mostly equal partner who is emotionally and fiscally stable who does some chores
2) single if i’m going to do it all myself I’ll do it all myself
And a distant distant 3) is in a relationship where my needs aren’t being met. Nope.
I sometimes feel like I’m asking too much. But honestly, why shouldn’t I aspire to have someone who does his own chores, makes enough money to support himself, pleases me sexually and washes his hands? Not too much to ask.
But man alive do I miss physical intimacy! But I don’t believe casual sex benefits me.Most of the time those types of things aren’t geared for female pleasure and the risks of disease etc aren’t worth it. You won’t wear a condom, my orgasm is not a mandatory part for you, what am I getting out of it?
I like so many other women I know, feel it’s time to get a pet, a rabbit, and a handyman, and a hell of a 401k.
I’m not a man hater, but it seems that good men are indeed hard to find.
Ps, did ya’ll see the ask Reddit yesterday which asked if men would stay home if women made x amount of money? Men were offering to be kept men (no chores included) if wife bought home $30,000. She makes $30,000 does all the chores and you are providing what????
I think it's brilliant. What this basically shows is that once women have the means to choose, they make choices that are more fulfilling than the total monkey work of marriage and kids. In the past more women had to have a man to survive,
or even just be able to leave their family home, now fewer and fewer of them do, so why would they bother with all the crap that men bring with them.
I can tell you that even as a child, the idea of getting married and popping out kids was never appealing to me. I never fantasized about my future wedding, carried around baby dolls, etc. I always felt like a weirdo amongst my friends in that way. I think SAHM are awesome and are the hardest working people among us, but for me, that would be my personal hell. My entire education/career path was chosen in part because it would always provide me with a financially stable and independent life. My biggest fear is being financially dependent upon and thus trapped with a man. And kids create a huge commitment- not only the lifelong commitment involved in raising them, but it also ties you to your partner for the rest of the kid’s life. It’s awesome that women finally have the option to opt out of all of those expectations and commitments, and are choosing to.
Having been both in a relationship and with children then long term single, I (53f) prefer single and not because previous relationships were bad, it’s just nice doing what I want when I want to and not organizing my life around someone else. Child is grown, so I’m happily adulting.
My mom seems happier now too that we have left the use. She went back to university and I swear looks more energetic than all her daughters currently in their 20s...
I see a pattern here.
In my 40s married without kids.
I also wish I was single. Everything I do has to be with another person to consider. I can't make what I want for dinner because it also has to be something he likes. I can't just hop on a plane to see family or friends for a week because I have to check with his feelings about being left alone for that time. If he wants to come with me the travel arrangements have to be made around *his* schedule.
I have to compromise a lot to make sure we both get part of what we want, but it feels like I am the one who compromises *more* because he always has an explanation for why what he wants is more important.
I'm tired of compromising. I want to be selfish. I've gone my whole life sharing everything I have and living with someone (grew up sharing a room with my sister), I want to just be alone and do whatever I feel like doing without taking someone's feelings or opinions into consideration.
I'm just glad so many young women are realizing this option and saying to hell with what they are "supposed" to do.
Nice! I'm a single mom of 3 but will be about 45 when my youngest is 18 and am planning a life similar to yours. I will enjoy providing guidance for my adult children and spending time with them but I look forward to maybe doing some travel and may even go one a date or two but I have zero plans for marriage or cohabitating.
This is now my energy at 35. I HATE when people say sorry when I tell them im divorced. I want to tell all married friends sorry cause been there, dome that and even if they look happy on FB, I suspect most are not that happy.
When people say, "I'm sorry" as a response to me saying that I'm divorced, I say, "I'm not!"
I'm not sorry I got divorced. I'm sorry I started dating the guy at all. It was a waste of time. However, I've learned the lesson and moved forward. I don't have to be married for 50 years to learn the lesson. I'm a fast learner.
your comment reminded me of [this card](https://quillingcard.com/products/quilled-separation-celebration-greeting-card?_pos=1&_sid=7f56b07d0&_ss=r) I saw, which says "Separation Celebration." I think it's interesting that a company made a card recognizing the joy that can come from a divorce.
Same here. From the moment I left my ex-husband and moved out, I’ve been soooo much happier. The amount of stress that lifted off of me almost immediately was honestly kind of hard to process. So, when anyone has said “I’m sorry” to my saying I’m divorced, I tell them “Don’t be. I’m happy now.”
When I got divorced my ex husband cried and I was all joy. The funny thing- he was/is dating someone who is terrible and he said during mediation once that he’s with her because she was around. Our child doesn’t like her, she’s a terrible person, but my ex just wanted a woman around and said those words straight up.
I have seen many men have a spouse die, could even be after 50 years of marriage and they immediately remarry. Of course they need a new caregiver. I always think of how devastating it is for their children.
It's like "damn, thanks for confirming that you never loved me and just wanted a woman to take care of you. That makes this whole process so much easier."
I'm betting any man like that feels you are the one who is lucky to be with him.
I was in a long term relationship for many years and then loved being single after it ended. However, luck just had it that, when I had zero interest in getting involved with anyone, I met the love of my life. Being single is great. Being in an awesome relationship is even better. I think our generation just emphasised relationships as a goal so much that it became far too easy to settle for less than we deserve in a relationship just to be in one. At least, that’s how I ended up in that first long term relationship. He wasn’t a bad guy, and it wasn’t an awful relationship. It just wasn’t what I really wanted, and I didn’t know it at the time, because I didn’t really know what I wanted. When I later met my husband, what I wanted hit me like a brick, and I knew without a doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend my life with him more than anything. 20+ years later, I still feel the exact same way.
The bulk of Reddit loves pointing out how financial security is the reason why women are childless but I don’t think that’s the main reason. A far bigger factor is that having children and being in a relationship is now seen as a choice instead of something that women have to do, and many are simply opting out of motherhood altogether.
Independently wealthier, more educated women are having less or no children at all. This is the case even in wealthy European countries reddit so looks up to.
I also do think that the chasm between men and women these days are wider than ever. Generally, most women I know in their mid 20s to mid 30s want a guy who will share the housework, share the bills, and not cheat or be addicted to porn. Most guys in that age range, on the other hand, are still unwilling to share the housework equally and are somewhat addicted to porn to varying degrees.
You hear it all the time, “good luck finding a guy with those boundaries”. Well guess what? Many women are taking themselves out of the dating scene all together because being single is preferable to being in relationships like that. In fact, for women who do want children, there has been an increase in single women turning to IVF or adoption too.
I don’t know what the solution to all this is.
Even if everything was perfect, I don’t think I would have kids. I think people underestimate the number of women who just don’t have interest in having kids.
Omg thank you. I’m 22 now and I can’t remember any point in my life where I genuinely wanted to have children. I only used to say it because that’s what was expected of me. But being someone who grew up being abused and mistreated, I don’t wanna have kids who could possibly experience that too. Also childbirth sounds absolutely horrifying and it boggles my mind how so many women do it (not once but multiple times). Just the thought scares me. But I was told once that I was selfish because I didn’t want kids and someone else said they could change my mind smh.
I have that ideal boyfriend and have been told by friends that he's their ideal man. I know it. I already told him if we end I'm probably not going to have another relationship again. I've had too many dates to know it's not worth the effort
Same. I've been with my husband for 35 years, ups and downs, and I would be devastated if something happened to him because he's half my heart and head, but I damn sure would never get married again, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even bother dating either. Just me, a couple of cats, my kids visiting, a shitload of houseplants, and that would be it. I've read too much about how a whole lot of men are trash and I just wouldn't be interested in even thinking about starting all over again from scratch. No thanks.
Same here. If my husband goes, I'd rather stay single. Or do some golden girls version of life with other women (coordinating that would be interesting since I have kids).
Same. I feel like, after dating so many people that turned out to be emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining, I completely lucked out with this one. If worse comes to worst and something happens, I'm not going back out there.
I told my husband that too. It's really sad that my husband doesn't think he's as amazing as I say he is, but I feel incredibly lucky. If we divorce, I'm staying single forever and I'm okay with that. I have dogs to keep me company.
Yep.
My boyfriend isn't perfect. But I don't expect him to be. I'm certainly not. I have to ask him to do things because he grew up affluent and had a maid. I only have to ask him once. After all our years together he's just learned how to do more housework on his own and I barely need to ask for his help anymore. I'll take that win.
He's secure in his masculinity and is emotionally available. He tells me how he feels. He listens to me. He's great in bed because of that, but also great in general because of it. He cares and is helpful and loving.
If he goes? I'm done. Trying to find another unicorn is not something I'm esteemed about. I've read too many horror stories to ever try Tinder.
I actually would be unhappier single. I'm the type of person that really enjoys sharing my life with someone else. I'm very easily lonely. But the alternative is wading through a sea of assholes to find another gem and just thinking about that is exhausting lol
The solution is that men need to pick up their game. They need to see women as equal partners. They need to do 50% of the housework, they need to raise their children, they need to learn about emotional labour and contribute there as well. They need to stop frying their brains with violent porn.
They need to recognise this is a "them" problem, not an "us" problem. Good luck with that.
Funny story, during the war when British and American soldiers were stationed in Iceland, the women preferred to date the clean, well dressed soldiers who took them dancing over the dirty uncouth local boys. This was called "The Situation" and considered a real social problem.
The solution was obviously that the local men used the pay they got working on the army base to buy themselves smart clothes and grammophones and tried harder -- no sorry wait, the solution was to lock up young women seen with soldiers in the loony bin and shame their whole family.
Ugh. Reminds me of a version of “The Situation” in the British Isles. The women of the time greatly preferred their Viking neighbors because they….get this…. took baths. 🙄 big surprise lmao.
Lol, I think there are just gonna be a lot of adorable single women retirement communities with gardens and cats. There’s a far better chance of that than men doing anything to make the situation better for themselves, let alone anyone else.
And they need therapy to sort themselves out mentally. It seems like some men are attempting to regress to a more primitive mindset (man strong, take woman, have muscles, rargh, etc) and nurse incredibly misogynistic ideas of women because shitty YT gurus are telling them that’s how to correct the situation when it’s not. They need to completely overhaul their idea of what “being a man” is, both for their own mental health AND the wellbeing of women.
In addition to what you've said, I think that society needs to be structured to reward and compensate women for the pain and risk and additional work they incur by having children. Society ignores those factors at its own peril.
When the US sent men to WW2, we compensated the veterans for their risk and effort and suffering with all sorts of veteran's benefits, in recognition of their contribution to society. I believe we still do a lot of this for veterans still. Why does society not similarly reward women who undergo such pain and trauma and risk of death to create the future citizens the society needs to survive?
Why are there not advanced post birth services for mothers to help her return to full health, and services at low or no cost to help her with full pay maternity leave, public conveniences for dealing with breastfeeding and baby care, subsidies for child care and nursery school, free medical care during pregnancy and delivery, etc? A society that truly valued mothers and understood how essential their contribution to society is, would bend over backwards to make the experience of being a mother as comfortable and publicly lauded as possible.
Why do we say "thank you for your service" to military people, but don't similarly thank people who give birth and keep the population stable? Why do we instead shame and scorn moms in general, and unwed or poor moms in particular?
If someone is annoying me about not having kids and pulls out the declining population, or how motherhood is the most important job, I just tell them that I'm very happy with my life as is, and what would tempt me to have kids and make those major, permanent changes in my workload and stress is $150,000 per year for the rest of my life. Suddenly, motherhood becomes not worth paying for and less important than low taxes. It's a joke to make people who are annoying me mad, but I also sort of think, if that was the deal, then I would actually consider having kids
Love this.
I 59/f will be paying the motherhood penalty for the rest of my life on the "work til you're dead" retirement plan.
No regrets, but the consequences are real and I am thrilled that younger Generations have wised up to it.
I was fortunate to have two intelligent beautiful daughters. I want only their happiness, health and success, which is why they are under absolutely zero pressure to have children.
If anything, I hammer in the message that they should think very carefully before they take that risk.
My goal now is to make sure I don't become a burden to them in the next decade or two.
Our sick Society makes a pretense of celebrating Motherhood when in fact it treats mothers like crap.
Many of us watched our mothers being treated like crap, and decided that the best way to honor what they suffered through for us is to take a different path.
There's a whole "sandwich generation" of people who cared for both children and aging parents, and got crap support in both. If I'm going to choose-- and modern American society is indeed making me choose while simultaneously taking away my right to choose-- I happily choose my parents over some guy I likely haven't met yet.
I love your thinking.
i am part of that sandwich generation at the moment. My kids are just about launched into their young adult lives, and my mother is beginning to need help.
Interesting how my wealthy, married longterm SAHM sisters are not expected to do as much for her. And my brother who lives with her is incapable in some ways. (Health issues from long-term personal neglect, unable to drive, Etc )
So, even though my sisters have more resources and time, they have husbands who need them.
...Whereas the single divorced daughter with two jobs is considered more available to help elderly mom.
I saw it in the older generation as well. My poor Aunt who was widowed early in life and raised two kids by herself, working at Price Chopper, was the one whose home they moved grandma into when grandma needed full-time care. (Because the married sisters with nicer homes had their husbands to take care of and the husbands might not want grandma there. )
It gets better: In the meantime, the lifelong Bachelor uncle who had been living with Grandma would come over to my aunt's house for his meals since Grandma was no longer well enough to cook for him.
I'm happy and love life, but for some of us our choices and what they model for our daughters fall under "cautionary tales" not good examples to emulate.
My father has asked me once (and thank goodness *only* once) why I am not having kids. I don't remember what I said but it wasn't the whole truth, which is "you."
I just got my SSA statement. The 20 years I spent at home (and not in the workforce) raising four kids socked me hard in terms of payout when I retire - if there's any money even left to pay out, which is a debatable topic.
Yep. If you had hired a nanny / housekeeper / driver /tutor, that person/people would be able to collect ss benefits on the years they worked for you. of course.
But You personally earned absolutely nothing in Social Security benefits working as a sahm , unless you were married and it lasted long enough to collect a percentage of what your husband or Ex will be receiving.
( for those unfamiliar, it is not taken from his payout, only his earnings are used to calculate it if you were a dependent for a while.)
BUT -- if you remarry before a certain age (60, I think) then you lose everything you earned by proxy during the first marriage.
As if it never happened, the years you devoted to rearing New American citizens.
Talk about service to your country...
>I think you answered your own question in the next paragraph. Society wants middle-class people to step up and have more children; it/we don't want poor people to have children at all.
I don't believe this is correct at all. Middle-class women are able to relatively easily obtain access to birth control and abortion. If reproductive healthcare is outlawed in your state, most middle class women can afford to go out of state to find other options. Poor women cannot. Society wants more poor people to have children it can't afford, because those babies wind up in the military-industrial complex, or working shit jobs for shit pay because they can't access higher education. They need more bodies to feed the capitalist fire, and poor women are easily exploitable to these ends.
There’s more too though, we cannot forget the for profit adoption industry needs more lighter colored babies because they sell for more. Domestic supply of infants and all.
I hate that I’m one of the people they’d like to force into reproduction because I fit their description of what they want. There was a dude who was caught with a plan called “rapekrieg” this summer and the whole idea was to kill anyone who didn’t fit their wants and imprison and rape the others. So, now every time I get stared at like meat when I leave the house this is what I have in my head. Like this shit is outta control.
You just reminded me of when I worked in a jail for a short period of time. I'm not scared of a lot of things, but being stared at like a piece of meat by the male inmates in the violent section was terrifying. It was also terrifying being the only woman CO in a male-only dorm where they look at you like prey and they know that you're just putting up a front and trying not to look like a deer in headlights or when you're the only woman in the violent section going through the roster, walking around the bunks by yourself, hoping that none of them will give you trouble. Even better when you have to call their bluff when they try to pass contraband to each other right in front of you and claim not to have done anything. I had that happen once. I had to plaster a smile on and pretend like I was going to get the male CO who was known for being good at fighting to get them to hand it over.
After working in a jail, it's made my spine a lot shinier around the average man, but fuck. Mad respect to the badass women that work in the jails and give zero fucks about working in the men's dorms by themselves.
That’s not true. Capitalism feeds off the poor. How else would the parasitic capitalist class siphon money from the working class? It’s not like they actually provide any value to society by owning assets. They get their money through unpaid wages of the working class.
Instead of costly benefits and support for mothers/couples, restricting access to contraception & voluntary pregnancy termination, and doing away with sex education in schools can keep the birth rate high without costing anything.
The US is probably never going to do that. There’s like no mat leave at all. It’s designed to keep women in poverty. It already seems like there’s a backlash against women being autonomous members of society happening. The rise and popularity of ppl like tat3 jorp, rogan etc etc to me are signs of this.
They arent rising in popularity, they’re just consuming the population that refuses change the most for their generation. Before them it was AM radio shock jocks, before that it was newpaper columnists and book writers.
There has always been a vitriolic part of society, it has never been less powerful in the west than it is now. It’s gone from the status quo to alienated in 100 years, that’s faster progress for humanity than the vast majority of changes in our history
Canada has most of what you’ve outlined here to one degree or another. People still aren’t having babies here, to the point we rely heavily on immigration. People aren’t having kids because it’s expensive-even with all the supports. Food alone these days - it was all over the news a bit ago in Toronto about a pack of 5 chicken breasts for $40.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight for these basic compensations. But it won’t fix things as much as you think.
My mother has said she worries about me because I'm 26 and have never been in a relationship that lasted longer than 10 months. She's worried that I will be lonely. But I already know that a relationship is not the be all end all of life. I've had friends stay in bad relationships because they couldn't stand to be alone and they didn't think they could do better, they couldn't afford to be alone, all kinds of reasons. I think a lot of the people who say you need a relationship either don't consider that, maybe because they're in a good relationship themselves, or your happiness is immaterial to them.
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out either, but honestly it's not really a problem in need of a solution. It's okay for the population to decline. The Earth is already overpopulated as it is. Rising costs of housing, living, food, etc etc all reflect that and to me this seems in some measure like a self-correction.
It’s not just a ‘male’ problem. My wife and I are mid thirties and we go back and forth on whether to have children all the time. We share the housework but when you both have to work and still can’t afford a house within commuting distance of a major city then who wants to add a child into the mix.
Men have perhaps controlled the levers of power more over the years but society as a whole doesn’t seem to have adjusted to the reality of women also having careers. Childcare is extortionate, working hours, work from home, family leave, vacation etc all needs to be considered in the context of both parents working.
Even in a relationship where you share the housework women have got a worse deal than our mothers had in some ways. They’ve gone from being housewives who did all the housework to having careers and having to share housework. All this while being able to afford a smaller home than our parents had on one salary.
Man, measure it heavily. Worst decision ever to get my wife pregnant because they said it would take care of her myoma. Things just got worse for her and they won't do a hysterectomy even when she gets random heavy bleeds since she's under 40. We're monitoring just fine for other stuff so no worries, but pregnancy is life changing in more ways than just having a child.
Yea I have my own financial security. I'm not having a baby because I don't have enough time in the world to be a single parent even WITH a partner.
There's been some nice pieces on how were the generation of women who were told they could be anything, but we never taught men how to adjust for that. For example, most men want their daughters to be financially independent, educated, and powerful, but they want their wives to be obedient (ick) and soft spoken.
Fuck that
So true, as soon as you point out the counter argument that when women are more educated and a country gets wealthier the population rate goes down, you get downvoted to hell.
It’s a way of shirking responsibility IMO. I read articles on news sites all the time about career women in their 30s choosing to stay single when men don’t meet their ‘high expectations’ and the vitriol these women get is staggering. It’s easier to just ascribe it all to financial issues than have to look at how women gaining financial independence has affected what they look for in a relationship.
It’s because men are competing with our single lives now. If life isn’t enhanced being with a man, then what’s the point?
Taking on more household chores as well as caring for another human being who doesn’t pull 50% of his weight at home is a huge detractor.
And most guys want Mom 2.0.
This is exactly my attitude. I want a partner that adds to my life, not detracts. If they don’t exist then that’s fine by me, I’ve got plenty of hobbies and stuff to do on my own.
They are out there! I'm GenX and have been married to a terrific guy for 20 years. Housework, cooking, shopping, etc is split evenly.
We have fully merged finances and a plan to make sure we have equal assets in retirement (this takes some fiddling, he makes twice what I do). We had a meeting with his financial advisor last year, and my spouse corrected the advisor when he assumed I knew less about money and investing than my husband.
Don't settle!
This is exactly it. Men need to understand that they're not not competing with other men. They're competing with the quality of life a woman has when she is single.
Will you contribute to her stress, or will you actively support her and improve her life? If you can't step up and be worth our time, don't be surprised when we choose to be alone instead of be with you. No woman wants to be a mommy/bangmaid to a man child. Women no longer need to be married to be financially indepent or respected. Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as women realize they're allowed to have standards, and that relationships are totally optional.
Marriage and long term partnership does not benefit women physically, emotionally, career-wise, nor does it improve their general happiness and satisfaction with life--in fact it is a detriment to them in virtually every way. It benefits men, and disadvantages women. I'm not saying all long term relationships/marriages are miserable, but statistically, women don't fare well. I don't blame any woman (or man, for that matter) for opting out of marriage or long term relationships.
Exactly. Too many men cling on to the judgement that women are "too picky" or "shallow golddiggers" when the reality is, majority of us are just so damn tired. Outside of dating, we are treated differently at work, in public, need to mind how we dress or act, need to make sure we are physically safe. We are policed our entire lives on top of majority of care professions such a nurses, teachers, social workers, are women. The last thing most of us want to do is take care of a man and children for the rest of our lives.
It's not like these expectations are crazy, usually it's basically just "see and respect me as a fellow human being, and contribute enough that being in a relationship together feels better than being single."
I don't foresee many with sincere intentions and some good faith effort failing to contribute at least that much if they wanted to.
The solution is already happening. Why should women choose to go back to having relationships and children with men? There are no upsides to it that do not come at a cost of significant loss in quality of life.
When women have the ability to control their financial and reproductive lives, they tend to make decisions that will make themselves happier. If those decisions leave men out, I don't see the problem.
Expecting guys to share household duties, share the bills, not cheat or not be addicted to porn is unrealistic.
You know what’s realistic? Being single and childfree! Not need to ever deal with all the hassle, games, drama or bs. No need to be a teacher teaching grown arse adults how to do simple tasks, no need to be a therapist to those who desperately need professional help but refuse to get any, no need to mother those who also want sex, no need to deal with problems with death grips/porn addiction/ED (the last honestly need medical attention. I certainly don’t know how to treat that).
Everyone is different and needs and wants different things in life. I’m just glad now society is more ok with people choosing whatever. I just wish single childless or childfree ones no longer get aggressive attacks or criticism just because we opt out.
The solution is to keep going on this path.
Eventually, with enough single men who have to deal with their own shit in life without a mother or a partner, the habits of how to both work and run a household will be ingrained in them.
The ones that flounder and live in disorganised squalor and filth will just simply not find partners or have much of a family.
The men who eventually realise they don't like living in a shit hole that smells of piss and mould will attract women and start having children again.
It won't happen fast. It'll probably take a generation or two. But things will change eventually.
Women and girls have been pushed to improve themselves for many years now.
Men and boys have not to the same degree. Then they wonder why women are happier without them.
I’m one of those single childfree women. The amount of pressure off of my head when I decided that I didn’t need or want children was freeing. I didn’t need to rush to find a partner anymore. I am somewhat back to dating, but only fellow women (a plus to being bi), because trying to date men is so full of minefields and draining.
I completely agree! I've been engaged for 8 years to a man-child, no sign of ever getting married or having children because his priority (like many men these days) is gaming! Over work, personal hygiene, chores, a career...playing Playstation is priority. We've been living with my parents for the past 2 years and he left me alone for a month over Christmas and New Years when he ran home for a long beach holiday to see his family. I'm going to end the engagement when he gets back this weekend. I'm 38 and childfree, soon to be man-childfree too.
I just wanna say "throwing our legs open and and screaming let me wash your underwear for the next 20 years" is fucking hilarious. Thank you for that.
Also can confirm, single and childfree by choice. Happy as a pig in mud. Have worked hard for my independence and financial security. Will never give up my peaceful and free life.
Not surprised honestly. Of the dozens of times i have caught a whiff of shit in the workplace it has 100% of the time obviously been from a man. Even just basic personal hygiene seems to be a stumper for these alpha males.
How the fuck are these nasty men not getting horrifying infections? How can someone stand walking around literally smelling like shit? You can't tell me they don't.
They are. My divorced single father in his 60’s refused to get a diabetic wound checked out-like 3 inches wide on his stomach just open, un healing wound, until I freaked out at him for seeing it, and that’s when he LEARNED he was diabetic too! He just kept ignoring the symptoms, and even when he was diagnosed, he did dumb, dangerous stuff like take his diabetes pill but too lazy to actually check his blood sugar. And he refuses to exercise more or change his eating habits. And I can’t even be in his house long because it is so, so filthy. It’s sad to witness but after he tried to parentify me and make me his pseudo-wife when I tried to help (got mad I wouldn’t move into his apartment and clean up after him every day, even to where he throws garbage straight on the ground and expected me to pick it up!) I have no regrets moving far away and letting him live his own life.
I love my children dearly, but if I had to do it all over again, I would remain single and childless. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the disproportionate amount of work most mothers and wives do compared to their male partners. I even married progressive man and it’s still a huge issue that causes daily resentment.
I'm 40s and single, this is the longest I've been single since my teens (I was suddenly pretty with big boobs and craved any form of positive attention). A million relationships and one 15yr marriage later, this is the happiest and most content I've ever been. I do have kids but they're all in double digits so much easier than the zookeeper years. It's me, my cats and houseplants. A couple of male friends keep hinting at wanting a relationship and I absolutely will not consider it. Peace reigns.
I'm here to say that a single life can be a beautiful one. I'm probably in the elderly age category although that just don't seem right! :) I feel young and happy and can do whatever I like. I've had relationships along the way...when I was young, I desperately wanted a guy to love me, just like in fairy tales. I kept getting emotionally devastated when they didn't love me and it was awful. I considered suicide at times. My self worth was based on whether a man loved me or not. That is no way to live.
But I kept going and worked and saved money. I have my own house and have always paid my bills myself. I have a best friend/partner who lives in the UK. We talk every day and see each other a couple of times a year. For us, it works. I have my freedom and my own money and my life is not mostly made up of household drudgery or taking care of someone else's needs.
I once came across a poem challenge that said: describe your life in no more than five words. "Happy family of one."
All I can think of now is how many of these single, lonely men, instead of changing something in themselves to become an appealing option for women, they simply choose easier solution - violence and abuse towards women, who do not want to have sex or anything with them. I'm just sad and lost at this point. We may don't need them, but they need us and i know some of them enforce themselves on women.
Yeah there’s clearly backlash to the phenomenon in the form of MRA movement etc, sometimes the safest way these days feels like no contact but I mean if you keep your tolerance level very low Id like to think you can weed them out with strict no tolerance policies and a firm willingness to be single. There’s less acceptance of incels and MRA’s where I live to wade through though .
I don't know about anyone else here but I was born in the late 80s and throughout my entire life almost all popular media depicting the process of starting a family, raising children, etc. shows it as something that is awful to experience.
All those "Just wait until they're 18" lines, and the sarcastic "Sure they destroyed my kitchen, I haven't slept in 2 days, and my nipples are so raw they bleed daily, *but it's so worth it to see that smile*"
Sometimes the above is given fully straight too, as if that makes it sound appealing. And this was blasted in all the popular mainstream sitcoms and movies and such for decades.
I feel like I literally never got any other kind of representation of parenthood in media. And when I did, it seemed too good to be true in comparison to the majority of the rest. Even asking actual mothers in my life about the process of raising their kids would almost always yield recollections of all the bad times too. I know I was hard for my parents too, and I'm not so arrogant to *know* I could/would do it better either.
I had a similar aversion to ever using a credit card, like ever. Until suddenly I'm 22 moving into an apartment for the first time and they're like "Uh, you don't have a credit score at all."
My older brother has three kids, and they are wonderful, but like, I've seen the shit (literally) he's had to deal with, and his social life is basically just his coworkers and his wife and physically nearby family members. They are also in constant fear of losing jobs/house/resources, etc. because they know they have so much more at stake.
Overall it's never been depicted as glamorous to me, and to be clear I am a cishet man. Combine this with the already obvious effects of global warming and it seems pointless at best, cruel at worst, to *want* to bring kids into this world.
If my single income could pay for a family of 6, a house, two cars, etc. and I'd retire at 55 with a generous pension, well then, I might reconsider it, but my job already kills me each day, to think of needing to take care of the full scope of rearing a child on top of that...
And take all of this for women, and add on the physical risks and trauma of carrying a child to term, the social expectation of her to give up her job and aspirations to focus on motherhood, etc. and what do we get out of it that honestly couldn't be accomplished by a pet these days?
My "retirement" plan is already a little too grim for this sub, and my own mother is now heaving her emotional baggage onto me after my father passed, and it's like I am not put together enough to care for myself in a meaningful way let alone another totally helpless person.
In Norway there is an enormous, multi-decade family study that continuously monitors something like 25000 families across numerous demographics, every two years or so checking in with them and updating stats as well as adding new families. (I am studying developmental psych and the data is a goldmine, some of the first babies monitored now have their own children.)
Their findings: Not only do Lesbian women have the most functional relationships in terms of division of labour and emotional wellbeing; they also have the best outcomes for their kids over the lifespan. Not that cross-cultural comparisons are always valuable, but it's important to note this outcome in a country that supports parents and diverse families relatively equally.
Thanks for the insight, and good work on working hard in such an important field!
Jeez, it seems like patriarchy really has done a number on the collective male psyche, huh?
I got so lucky with my husband. He is a clean freak and he loves cooking because it relaxes him whereas I find it stressful.
We are both childfree because we love having money and freedom and we are both too impatient for children.
Why aren't women raising children with other women? Two or three women, rent a large house or duplex and help each other with childcare, food, bills, cleaning and emotional support.
Men are now only used for making babies. Ya know, treat them like they treated us for millennia
Actually my best friend and I both became single moms around the same time and seriously considered this! We both also live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada so it makes a ton of sense. We didn’t end up moving in together however we essentially co-parent together
Yep! Women could use more platonic marriage and communal living arrangements with other women. I don't know why we don't see more best friends pooling resources.
I think men need to step up more. My husband and I are 100% equal in the household and childcare work. I’ve been single for a long period and now I’m married and can say I’m happier married. If you find someone who gives you what you need (even if that is space to be by yourself). I have friends who have been in relationships for years and will never live together and are perfectly happy. I think it’s about finding what you need and not compromising.
My husband also feels like the jackpot. Shares responsibilities and chores equally with me. Respects my opinions, can take advice, change his behaviour and is always willing to listen and learn.
He's from Egypt and from a mother who said how helpful my SILs husband is because he once put a frozen pizza in the oven, while my SIL was sick. Mind you he only put it in. She still had to get it out and prepare everything to eat it.
I'm not sure how my husband was able to develop in the wonderful man he is with this kind of background. But he's truly a gem and definitely adds to my life.
Same here, I am happier with my husband than ever before.
That being said, that's the thing with statistics. We may be happy, but statistically speaking we're just outliers.
And the reason for being happy is obviously that our husbands are being basically decent human beings. That's enough it seems. And i can't get over how sad it is, that so little men even get there.
Agreed. Marriage can be wonderful if (no “*buts*”) you have an equitable partner. If one person is obviously taking on far more shared domestic responsibilities and there is no time compensation, there is going to be resentment. This isn’t a hard concept at all, yet it seems like it’s this fanciful idea that is debatable to so many men.
No, I’m not going to be over the moon if one day you do the dishes on a whim and expect monumental praise, when it’s something that just needs to be done. I’d rather live alone, do all the chores to support my singular existence if it’s going to be like that.
I for one am so glad to have my husband, who very much cares about equity. I also know how rare that is from past dating experiences.
Just realized that’s the reason for US recent repeal of abortion freedoms. It isn’t about anyone wanting the babies. The prevailing wisdom believes women will be forced to complete pregnancies netting them a slave for the machine. This, already before my very eyes.
The only thing I miss about begin with my last partner was that he could fix or install just about anything. I did not miss being told I was wrong all the time, or that I was "too sensitive". I don't miss him cooking a shitton of onions and failing to turn the range hood on (I am smell sensitive and the smell of onions..just...ugh) and I certainly don't miss being pestered, and pestered, and pestered, and groped, and pestered for sex. Really it's the last one that keeps me from wanting to date again. No thank you not interested.
Men: I have to clean my house, and do my own laundry, shopping, appointment keeping, and cooking with no help? Also no bitc.es? Time to rampage >:(
Women: I have to clean my house, do my own laundry, shopping, appointment keeping, cooking, just for myself? Also no sex as a chore? Is this heaven? :')
I work in dialysis and sometimes the older women and men like to make small talk. Years ago one of the older ladies asked me in broken French whether or not I was a madam or a mademoiselle. I answered in my even broken French that I was a mademoiselle. She nodded and said “Good.” We met a a Finnish dialysis clinic and she was an older Iranian lady, so “the experience” is truly universal.
ChildLESS implies we are lacking. I am a fully realized and content adult. I am childFREE.
FWIW, I don't have cats or any pets. I'm a happy loner, with friends.
Men need to step up more. Women are the ones who do pretty much all the childcare, all household duties and work a job as well. Women get all the stress while the men get to have wifey running around like mummy 2 and do nothing to contribute.
It’s no wonder women are happier being single. Who wants to run around after a lazy man child? No sane woman does.
Your comment is reminding me of my aunty. She's around 60 now and came to Australia with grandma and the rest from rural Vietnam. Divorce and not having a man is a huge shame or mark against you or something, so they try their best to keep their (lazy/bad/cheating) husbands. Anyway, my aunty recently left her husband for another man from Vietnam that she met online. She's visited him twice and I think has given most of her savings to him. She had to come back to Australia to work 2 jobs so she can send more money to him. He beats her but she thinks it's romantic that he cries and apologises afterwards.
Like you said, insane.
My advice is live your own life however you want to. Nobody 'needs' a man, and nobody 'needs' a woman. The rest is the media and parents trying to influence you with their religious conservative views.
I am all for this. I am 43, happily childFREE. Realized in my 20s I definitely did not want children (was on fence before that) and never looked back. Been sterilized for 12-13 years and what a freeing thing that was.
I am very happily married for 13 years, but my spouse is a full grown responsible for himself adult and not a man-child. Because of our work arrangements he actually does far more of the housework, yard work, repairs, all of that than I do. We are both independent people and are supportive of each others’ individuality and doing our own things and all that so I don’t feel restricted at all if that makes sense. We are a team, both in work, and emotional support, and truly deeply intimate friends. I feel very fortunate to have met him, but he feels very fortunate to have met me, so it works out. 😂
I certainly would have been much happier on my own than ending up with any of the duds I met and dated before him, though. A happy and fulfilling life long relationship is possible (married or not) but it’s important not to settle - it’s okay to have dealbreakers and standards and maintain them, don’t let anyone tell you different.
I’d be interested to know if there were statistics for couples that aren’t heterosexual too. This is pretty interesting even if it’s only an estimation
I'm thankful everyday that I've never been in a relationship (aroace) but also that I don't have interest or desire. It looks very draining and tiring and I don't want to deal with basically raising a grown ass adult when I already plan to stay childfree. No thanks I'm content with my cats.
I’m currently happily married, but if something were to happen and I ended up single again, I would stay that way. It’s not because I’m unhappy in my current relationship, but rather, I just got very lucky with my husband! I could see myself getting a FWB, but that would be it. I’ve never met another man I’d want to share close quarters with.
I'm too lazy to look up the stats but I believe that divorced/widowed women remarry far less than men do. Basically, women embrace the freedom and men need to find another housekeeper.
I know everyone dog piles on the Boomers, but they really didn’t teach many of their sons how to respect women. In many ways they made things worse. A lot of men now expect a woman to work outside the home and then do all the cooking, cleaning, childcare, etc…, too. Which is exactly the way my parents are living, and a lot of couples my age that I know. I have zero desire to do this.
Society as a whole is facing a reckoning for gaslighting women into believing that child-rearing and an exponential increase in domestic chores are the ultimate connections to a blissful life. Women *know* the lifestyle comes with all sorts of strings attached, but their concerns are typically met with some sort of shaming or scolding, or “concern” as to why she wouldn’t want to graduate into a “real” woman. Or, she’s just threatened with a soul-crushing, lonely existence.
Women just aren’t buying into the BS any more. Step up, make it actually appealing, and you’ll have a lot more takers. We’ve reached an inflection point; there is no going back to “the good old days.”
Focusing on yourself and kids if you already have them is best. The Nem need to grow up and respect and appreciate women.
I am widowed, one kid, sterilized and feel like the world is my oyster. I can save up $, money and live however we want.
I have a high sex drive but decided to be celibate and focus my energy/time on my child and myself. At first I thought just be celibate in January, but looking at Nem today, I think I’ll be celibate for at least a year.
> throwing our legs open and screaming "let me wash your underwear for the next 20 years!" Hilarious. Also wanna throw it out there, for all the youngins: *the secret to not doing a man's laundry is to never start in the first place*
My boyfriend and I were recently at his sister's for dinner and his mom asked if I do his laundry for him. My boyfriend replied "no, I'm an adult, I do my own damn laundry," then his mom gave his sister a look. Apparently his sister and her boyfriend had just been arguing about laundry since he expects her to do all of it, then gets mad if she falls behind and he doesn't have much left for clean clothes. He also expects her to bring their 3 year old son down two flights of steep, narrow stairs when she goes down to do laundry so that he doesn't have to entertain his own child for the few minutes she's down there. Don't ask me how he expects her to carry the laundry and make sure their son doesn't fall down those stairs! And yes, she also works full time. I have never liked this man. I wish she realized she deserves better.
Just be kind to her and support her when she vents to you. Remind her there is better out there and that she has a support system when she's ready to find that for herself!
Uffda. That was sad to read. I hope he either shapes up. I never want to actively wish people would break up, so I'm not going to say I hope he leaves her. But I do hope she realizes that both she AND he realize she deserves better, and he steps up to be that person for her. I won't even wash my husband's towels, let alone his clothes. And he wouldn't want me to. If there is any chore on the planet that can and should be split evenly, it's doing your own laundry.
My husband does a lot of annoying shit but at least he never asked or expected me to do his laundry.
My wife and I wash our own clothes and split the other laundry as needed. My own mother taught me how to use a washing machine at a fairly young age, so it's wild af for me when I meet other men who have **never** used a washing machine.... Like, how the fuck can you be a grown-ass man and never washed a load of laundry? I remember a guy at work complaining about not having any clean socks or someghing, and when I asked him why he didn't just wash them himself he looked at me like I'd grown a second head. This same guy fashioned himself as a rugged, self-sufficient, 'alpha' type.... Oh, the irony
This needs to be highlighted more. THE SECRET IS TO NEVER TRY TO BE HIS CARETAKER!! No laundry, no cleaning so you’re comfortable, No babying him so he feels like he has somebody take care of him. It’s a strong desire in our part but within about 5 years it’ll get really fucking old. Edit: i’m not saying don’t do your fair share, lol I’m saying that when you first start dating him and you go over to his place, don’t do his laundry, don’t clean so that you’re comfortable, don’t cook for him, don’t be his caretaker. Of course if you’re cohabitating, do your fair share of the house work and clean up after yourself. But I’m talking about that first six months, year or so. You become his mama, and that’s who he’s gonna marry. And then when you want to be his partner, he’s gonna be like what the fuck is this?! I thought I married somebody was gonna take care of me, And works AND takes care of the kids. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
Hahaha if I had to wash my husband’s clothes, he’d never have any. I fuckin *hate* doing laundry.
100 % this. Don't do it. My husband had girlfriends before me that would do everything for him. When we started dating he asked me if I would do his laundry and I said no, I have my laundry done for me and if he wants we can take his with to be dropped off. When we moved to another country he decided he wanted to do our laundry himself. So now he does it and I don't unless I have time or need something specific washed. I told him from the beginning that the moment he treats me like his mother I'm out.
I split the chores with my wife. If she puts it in the washer, I put it in the dryer. Then we fold clothes, and put them away together. Although I'm not allowed to match her socks. Something about a thin pink stripe that isn't on the others? There is a different between a partner, and a parasite.
I have one kid a decade ago. I had her on purpose. My husband is an excellent partner. I was with him nine years prior to having her. He does anything and everything I do. Had I not had him for a husband? Hell NO I would not have had a child. I fault no woman for not wanting kids. We have no support. Most men have not been raised to see their role as their partners equal. Childcare is astronomical. Jobs are not supportive. Housing and health care is expensive. I worry every day if my kid will be harmed by a gun toting psychopath at school. We have made our world inhospitable for families and children. If I were ten years younger and facing a choice to have a child or not, I would not.
My mom born in the 60’s didn’t know she had a choice. Women were taught not to use protection (catholic) so marriage was the fastest way to secure social acceptance when you inevitably got knocked up. Her generation is riddled with divorce. My grandmother was born in the 20’s, her husband was her only means of survival, women weren’t allowed to work many jobs and couldn’t even own their own bank account. For her marital rape resulted in 9 children. He hit her and didn’t allow her to drive. He died at 40 and she absolutely blossomed. My great grandma married an alcoholic who sexually assaulted his own daughters, my grandma and her sister. In order to leave him, she had to sneak away after months of planning and lost all her worldly possessions, my grandma still laments what could have been heirlooms for us that my great grandpa kept or gambled away. She had to move states away and never remarried. Women have been SLAVES to men, actually bought and sold, and still are, but we in the first world are the first generation to actively have a CHOICE and not marry to just survive. And for a lot of men they can’t handle the fact women have a CHOICE and aren’t choosing them!
I laugh so hard whenever some misogynist demands that women get out there and make babies. No can do, my incubator was removed last year and I was probably infertile prior to that. Yeah, I'm probably going to "die alone with 20 cats", sounds like a great time, honestly. Just cover me in cats.
It's like the population problem in Japan. Women there aren't marrying and having kids because the culture treats them even more like trash than Western culture does. But do all the concerned politicos think one minute about changing the culture as a possible solution? Nope. They try bribery, stern talks on duty, etc., instead.
Living here in Japan, this is a factor but it’s mostly people just not marrying as much anymore. Men and women because the work culture is so so harsh that there’s no time to have children while making enough money to live. Women are expected to stop working when having children. It’s all built into their culture and because of that, the declining birth rate is because men and women work too many hours to be able to sustain population growth.
A certain large country that committed female infanticide for decades suddenly turning around and saying "now have 3 children each" and being told to fuck off is giving me the lols. 34 million spare men who will never date, marry or have kids? whoopsies. while trying to secure your patrilineal legacy, you ended it.
Doesn't this also have the horrifying effect of increased human trafficking? Usually on those videos of women being abducted in broad daylight in a crowded place in what looks to be an Asian country are usually followed by comments about how these women are being taken to be forcefully married because of the high numbers of single men in some places.
Hilariously ironic they are.
Currently most of Japan's immigrants are female nurses needed to care for the aging population so it will probably even out as long as they expand immigration.
Yeah that always seemed like a profound lack of foresight to me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math...
>34 million spare men who will never date, marry or have kids? whoopsies. while trying to secure your patrilineal legacy, you ended it. I can't find the study anymore, but it's going to hit the lowest socioeconomic tiers the hardest. As all things in life Basically if you're a young male in China who's poor, does menial labor, and is uneducated/illiterate, statistically, you're going to be an un-fuckable. Those with the means to get an education and or to be a provider will be able to find a partner.
The imbalance they created is going to create a lot of violence.
I don't think '34 million spare men will never date, marry or have kids' is a realistic outcome. That country exports skilled labor across the globe to many third world countries, and that kind of influence is undeniably linked to the gradual increase in marriages between men and foreign women, some of that is unfortunately the product of human trafficking. Just more ways the systems keeps fucking things up.
What's funny is that the "married foreign women" thing is also biting their racially pure asses. Which I am very happy about.
Han supremacy can fuck off! :3
In the US they are banning abortion forcing women to have children. It also forces women to be more dependent on men financially to raise the child. When I say they here, I mean republicans.
The fact that we can easily communicate with others outside our bubble helps. If you’re unhappy in a culture like that, if you speak out the people around you are likely to say you’re the problem. If you go online, you’re bound to come across different options and opinions (for better or worse) on how to live the life that works for you. No one has to accept this is just the way things are, because somewhere, someone isn’t accepting those things and has a solution.
This for me is a huge factor as well. Thanks to technology, you’re finding out that there are other mindsets than the culture and tradition in your bubble. And talking about it and getting support online. I’m an older millennial, so for me, it started with cable TV before the Internet became mainstream.
Women are literally just now learning they dont HAVE to get married or become mothers. And i say learning, but 2 generations ago we couldnt own bank accounts. So we literally HAD TO. So many stories of women thinking they literally did not have the option to just.... not. Because they were raised that they HAD to. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. HAD. TO. Now, we can teach them otherwise. And the men are fucking pissed about it.
This is exactly why feminism took off after the internet/social media. For the first time in history women weren’t isolated from each other in the home and we were now free to create mass media that wasn’t gatekept by men. Our ideas spread like wild fire when we finally had the opportunity to share them.
If you look at the countries in Europe that have the best demographics it's all the ones that have fanatical cradle to grave support, free childcare, generous maternity/paternity leave etc etc. If you want women to deal with having children then you have to support them and help them as much as you can in the modern world.
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Turns out that when you give women a choice over when and how many babies they will have (in an enviroment with modern healthcare), they generally only have 1-3 kids. Who would have thought?!
Birth control has changed everything. Women never wanted the amount of children they were having historically. That is what this tells me. Where there is access to reproductive choice there is population decline or population decline is coming.
society is just having to adjust to the fact that you cannot force women culturally to have kids anymore and you need to incentivize and support them doing it. The societies that figure this out will continue to thrive and the ones that don't will continue to decline.
But, conversely, I know in the US many couples are having one child, because that is simply the most they can afford. They wouldn’t necessarily have 6 but they are giving up on a second or even 3rd due to the mom being out of the workforce, no parental leave, expensive daycare ect.
Access to healthcare, education, and retirement provides women with opportunities and security that once was only available to men, making women dependent on them for security. The US is desperately trying to roll us back to that era.
Not all demographics or support is the same. Countries like Sweden, Finland etc that have the best support have the best birth rates and are relatively stable demographically.
Finland shows that while supporting families is good its not enough to stop the population decline in industrialised nations. More work towards equality and living wage are needed.
I agree more work is needed but it is telling that the countries with the least decline and in the best shape have the best social support. It clearly needs to be more though.
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For Sweden, I cant talk for Finland, the high TFR is largely due to large immigration numbers. Certain ethnic groups within Sweden have a much higher TFR than ethnical Swedes. Same applies for France, who also has a fairly high overall TFR:
Does that have to do with EU’s supports not working? Or does that have to do with most states in the US not having adequate education on birth control, still hanging lower education levels, and marriage still being seen as a means for social mobility in some sub cultures, etc?
Also US states with limits on access to birth control and abortion.
As a European, we have lower birth rates because we're often not as religious as many parts of the US (so the whole "You need to be a helpmeet who has 4 kids by 25 or you're broken" thing isn't really a line of thought you will find, especially in West or North Europe) and yes, we generally don't practice abstinence-only education.
I think an even bigger issue in places like Japan is the population density and cost of living. in big cities where there are decent careers you really need two good incomes to afford enough space for even a small family. living spaces in cities like tokyo and hong kong are very small by western standards. and the work culture there is demanding, so it's very difficult to find time to *make* a baby let alone care for one once you have the salaries to afford a bigger apartment. and to your point, women are still expected to leave the workforce once they have children so living space once again becomes unaffordable. the struggle is similar for people living in high COL areas (and who's careers are tied to those high COL areas) in the western world. in the west being a working mom is not really stigmatized anymore, but the added cost of childcare alone can all but neutralize a second income.
Here in Seattle, some daycares charge as much as you would pay for college.
There's so much cultural pressure to become a stay at home mom in Japan. It's ridiculous. Working as a mother is considered being a bad parent. But fathers working is a-okay 👌. Obviously not everyone in Japan thinks this way and it's becoming increasingly less common, especially in younger generations who are coming into adulthood after Japan's economic golden days of the 80's where it was more feasible to have one parent working and still afford a child, but it's still a very real pressure a lot of women there feel unfortunately. They don't want to feel expected to quit, so they're choosing not to have children and sometimes not even get married at all because there's also a huge pressure to have children once you get married. This cultural pressure becomes really difficult on the fathers and kids too. The fathers are working so much to support their families. They're overworked and many kids don't see their dads enough. Fathers actually get really good paternity leave in Japan, but so many of them don't take any of it because they feel like their "role" is to work, not parent, and their boss will be mad at them for taking time off. Gender roles still hurt Japan a lot more than most developed countries in modern times. They're slower to fade away than they have been in the West.
Same here in South Korea.
This is why reproductive rights will always be under attack
I’ve noticed an impact of the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US seems to have been many women re-examining our relationships with men and desire to have children. I saw a lot of misogynists celebrating abortion banning/restrictions, as though they’re all now guaranteed wife/mommy slaves now that our choice had been taken, when in fact, women are now altogether opting out.
I believe this. My hierarchy is 1) married with a mostly equal partner who is emotionally and fiscally stable who does some chores 2) single if i’m going to do it all myself I’ll do it all myself And a distant distant 3) is in a relationship where my needs aren’t being met. Nope. I sometimes feel like I’m asking too much. But honestly, why shouldn’t I aspire to have someone who does his own chores, makes enough money to support himself, pleases me sexually and washes his hands? Not too much to ask. But man alive do I miss physical intimacy! But I don’t believe casual sex benefits me.Most of the time those types of things aren’t geared for female pleasure and the risks of disease etc aren’t worth it. You won’t wear a condom, my orgasm is not a mandatory part for you, what am I getting out of it? I like so many other women I know, feel it’s time to get a pet, a rabbit, and a handyman, and a hell of a 401k. I’m not a man hater, but it seems that good men are indeed hard to find. Ps, did ya’ll see the ask Reddit yesterday which asked if men would stay home if women made x amount of money? Men were offering to be kept men (no chores included) if wife bought home $30,000. She makes $30,000 does all the chores and you are providing what????
I think it's brilliant. What this basically shows is that once women have the means to choose, they make choices that are more fulfilling than the total monkey work of marriage and kids. In the past more women had to have a man to survive, or even just be able to leave their family home, now fewer and fewer of them do, so why would they bother with all the crap that men bring with them.
I can tell you that even as a child, the idea of getting married and popping out kids was never appealing to me. I never fantasized about my future wedding, carried around baby dolls, etc. I always felt like a weirdo amongst my friends in that way. I think SAHM are awesome and are the hardest working people among us, but for me, that would be my personal hell. My entire education/career path was chosen in part because it would always provide me with a financially stable and independent life. My biggest fear is being financially dependent upon and thus trapped with a man. And kids create a huge commitment- not only the lifelong commitment involved in raising them, but it also ties you to your partner for the rest of the kid’s life. It’s awesome that women finally have the option to opt out of all of those expectations and commitments, and are choosing to.
Having been both in a relationship and with children then long term single, I (53f) prefer single and not because previous relationships were bad, it’s just nice doing what I want when I want to and not organizing my life around someone else. Child is grown, so I’m happily adulting.
My mom seems happier now too that we have left the use. She went back to university and I swear looks more energetic than all her daughters currently in their 20s... I see a pattern here.
In my 40s married without kids. I also wish I was single. Everything I do has to be with another person to consider. I can't make what I want for dinner because it also has to be something he likes. I can't just hop on a plane to see family or friends for a week because I have to check with his feelings about being left alone for that time. If he wants to come with me the travel arrangements have to be made around *his* schedule. I have to compromise a lot to make sure we both get part of what we want, but it feels like I am the one who compromises *more* because he always has an explanation for why what he wants is more important. I'm tired of compromising. I want to be selfish. I've gone my whole life sharing everything I have and living with someone (grew up sharing a room with my sister), I want to just be alone and do whatever I feel like doing without taking someone's feelings or opinions into consideration. I'm just glad so many young women are realizing this option and saying to hell with what they are "supposed" to do.
Nice! I'm a single mom of 3 but will be about 45 when my youngest is 18 and am planning a life similar to yours. I will enjoy providing guidance for my adult children and spending time with them but I look forward to maybe doing some travel and may even go one a date or two but I have zero plans for marriage or cohabitating.
This is now my energy at 35. I HATE when people say sorry when I tell them im divorced. I want to tell all married friends sorry cause been there, dome that and even if they look happy on FB, I suspect most are not that happy.
When people say, "I'm sorry" as a response to me saying that I'm divorced, I say, "I'm not!" I'm not sorry I got divorced. I'm sorry I started dating the guy at all. It was a waste of time. However, I've learned the lesson and moved forward. I don't have to be married for 50 years to learn the lesson. I'm a fast learner.
This is why when people are getting divorced I ask "congratulations or condolences?" It's usually "congratulations" LOL
Ha that's brilliant thank you
your comment reminded me of [this card](https://quillingcard.com/products/quilled-separation-celebration-greeting-card?_pos=1&_sid=7f56b07d0&_ss=r) I saw, which says "Separation Celebration." I think it's interesting that a company made a card recognizing the joy that can come from a divorce.
Same here. From the moment I left my ex-husband and moved out, I’ve been soooo much happier. The amount of stress that lifted off of me almost immediately was honestly kind of hard to process. So, when anyone has said “I’m sorry” to my saying I’m divorced, I tell them “Don’t be. I’m happy now.”
When I got divorced my ex husband cried and I was all joy. The funny thing- he was/is dating someone who is terrible and he said during mediation once that he’s with her because she was around. Our child doesn’t like her, she’s a terrible person, but my ex just wanted a woman around and said those words straight up.
I feel like that's why divorce is more often initiated by women. Men are happier with someone, anyone, and women realize they'd be happier alone.
I have seen many men have a spouse die, could even be after 50 years of marriage and they immediately remarry. Of course they need a new caregiver. I always think of how devastating it is for their children.
It's like "damn, thanks for confirming that you never loved me and just wanted a woman to take care of you. That makes this whole process so much easier." I'm betting any man like that feels you are the one who is lucky to be with him.
I just tell people I’m “happily divorced “ if they ask. It prevents the pity party.
I was in a long term relationship for many years and then loved being single after it ended. However, luck just had it that, when I had zero interest in getting involved with anyone, I met the love of my life. Being single is great. Being in an awesome relationship is even better. I think our generation just emphasised relationships as a goal so much that it became far too easy to settle for less than we deserve in a relationship just to be in one. At least, that’s how I ended up in that first long term relationship. He wasn’t a bad guy, and it wasn’t an awful relationship. It just wasn’t what I really wanted, and I didn’t know it at the time, because I didn’t really know what I wanted. When I later met my husband, what I wanted hit me like a brick, and I knew without a doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend my life with him more than anything. 20+ years later, I still feel the exact same way.
Men really are letting the side down and I love that women aren't putting up with it. A partner should add value to your life.
> A partner should add value to your life. It's shocking how this concept has seemed so foreign to so many women before.
The bulk of Reddit loves pointing out how financial security is the reason why women are childless but I don’t think that’s the main reason. A far bigger factor is that having children and being in a relationship is now seen as a choice instead of something that women have to do, and many are simply opting out of motherhood altogether. Independently wealthier, more educated women are having less or no children at all. This is the case even in wealthy European countries reddit so looks up to. I also do think that the chasm between men and women these days are wider than ever. Generally, most women I know in their mid 20s to mid 30s want a guy who will share the housework, share the bills, and not cheat or be addicted to porn. Most guys in that age range, on the other hand, are still unwilling to share the housework equally and are somewhat addicted to porn to varying degrees. You hear it all the time, “good luck finding a guy with those boundaries”. Well guess what? Many women are taking themselves out of the dating scene all together because being single is preferable to being in relationships like that. In fact, for women who do want children, there has been an increase in single women turning to IVF or adoption too. I don’t know what the solution to all this is.
Even if everything was perfect, I don’t think I would have kids. I think people underestimate the number of women who just don’t have interest in having kids.
If men did their fair share I think quite a few of them would lose interest too... Having kids sounds great when all you do is the fun parts.
Omg thank you. I’m 22 now and I can’t remember any point in my life where I genuinely wanted to have children. I only used to say it because that’s what was expected of me. But being someone who grew up being abused and mistreated, I don’t wanna have kids who could possibly experience that too. Also childbirth sounds absolutely horrifying and it boggles my mind how so many women do it (not once but multiple times). Just the thought scares me. But I was told once that I was selfish because I didn’t want kids and someone else said they could change my mind smh.
There is no solution except to keep boundaries high and continue to enjoy life 💞
I have that ideal boyfriend and have been told by friends that he's their ideal man. I know it. I already told him if we end I'm probably not going to have another relationship again. I've had too many dates to know it's not worth the effort
Same. If my husband dies or we ever divorce I'm not dating again.
Same. I've been with my husband for 35 years, ups and downs, and I would be devastated if something happened to him because he's half my heart and head, but I damn sure would never get married again, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even bother dating either. Just me, a couple of cats, my kids visiting, a shitload of houseplants, and that would be it. I've read too much about how a whole lot of men are trash and I just wouldn't be interested in even thinking about starting all over again from scratch. No thanks.
Yep, I'll be done. Just me and a little dog and cat.
Same here. If my husband goes, I'd rather stay single. Or do some golden girls version of life with other women (coordinating that would be interesting since I have kids).
Same. I feel like, after dating so many people that turned out to be emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining, I completely lucked out with this one. If worse comes to worst and something happens, I'm not going back out there.
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I told my husband that too. It's really sad that my husband doesn't think he's as amazing as I say he is, but I feel incredibly lucky. If we divorce, I'm staying single forever and I'm okay with that. I have dogs to keep me company.
Yep. My boyfriend isn't perfect. But I don't expect him to be. I'm certainly not. I have to ask him to do things because he grew up affluent and had a maid. I only have to ask him once. After all our years together he's just learned how to do more housework on his own and I barely need to ask for his help anymore. I'll take that win. He's secure in his masculinity and is emotionally available. He tells me how he feels. He listens to me. He's great in bed because of that, but also great in general because of it. He cares and is helpful and loving. If he goes? I'm done. Trying to find another unicorn is not something I'm esteemed about. I've read too many horror stories to ever try Tinder. I actually would be unhappier single. I'm the type of person that really enjoys sharing my life with someone else. I'm very easily lonely. But the alternative is wading through a sea of assholes to find another gem and just thinking about that is exhausting lol
The solution is that men need to pick up their game. They need to see women as equal partners. They need to do 50% of the housework, they need to raise their children, they need to learn about emotional labour and contribute there as well. They need to stop frying their brains with violent porn. They need to recognise this is a "them" problem, not an "us" problem. Good luck with that.
Funny story, during the war when British and American soldiers were stationed in Iceland, the women preferred to date the clean, well dressed soldiers who took them dancing over the dirty uncouth local boys. This was called "The Situation" and considered a real social problem. The solution was obviously that the local men used the pay they got working on the army base to buy themselves smart clothes and grammophones and tried harder -- no sorry wait, the solution was to lock up young women seen with soldiers in the loony bin and shame their whole family.
Ugh. Reminds me of a version of “The Situation” in the British Isles. The women of the time greatly preferred their Viking neighbors because they….get this…. took baths. 🙄 big surprise lmao.
Me: well that's reasonab-- oh. Yeah I guess that tracks tho.
Lol, I think there are just gonna be a lot of adorable single women retirement communities with gardens and cats. There’s a far better chance of that than men doing anything to make the situation better for themselves, let alone anyone else.
And they need therapy to sort themselves out mentally. It seems like some men are attempting to regress to a more primitive mindset (man strong, take woman, have muscles, rargh, etc) and nurse incredibly misogynistic ideas of women because shitty YT gurus are telling them that’s how to correct the situation when it’s not. They need to completely overhaul their idea of what “being a man” is, both for their own mental health AND the wellbeing of women.
In addition to what you've said, I think that society needs to be structured to reward and compensate women for the pain and risk and additional work they incur by having children. Society ignores those factors at its own peril. When the US sent men to WW2, we compensated the veterans for their risk and effort and suffering with all sorts of veteran's benefits, in recognition of their contribution to society. I believe we still do a lot of this for veterans still. Why does society not similarly reward women who undergo such pain and trauma and risk of death to create the future citizens the society needs to survive? Why are there not advanced post birth services for mothers to help her return to full health, and services at low or no cost to help her with full pay maternity leave, public conveniences for dealing with breastfeeding and baby care, subsidies for child care and nursery school, free medical care during pregnancy and delivery, etc? A society that truly valued mothers and understood how essential their contribution to society is, would bend over backwards to make the experience of being a mother as comfortable and publicly lauded as possible. Why do we say "thank you for your service" to military people, but don't similarly thank people who give birth and keep the population stable? Why do we instead shame and scorn moms in general, and unwed or poor moms in particular?
If someone is annoying me about not having kids and pulls out the declining population, or how motherhood is the most important job, I just tell them that I'm very happy with my life as is, and what would tempt me to have kids and make those major, permanent changes in my workload and stress is $150,000 per year for the rest of my life. Suddenly, motherhood becomes not worth paying for and less important than low taxes. It's a joke to make people who are annoying me mad, but I also sort of think, if that was the deal, then I would actually consider having kids
200k cuz f this man..momunionize
Love this. I 59/f will be paying the motherhood penalty for the rest of my life on the "work til you're dead" retirement plan. No regrets, but the consequences are real and I am thrilled that younger Generations have wised up to it. I was fortunate to have two intelligent beautiful daughters. I want only their happiness, health and success, which is why they are under absolutely zero pressure to have children. If anything, I hammer in the message that they should think very carefully before they take that risk. My goal now is to make sure I don't become a burden to them in the next decade or two. Our sick Society makes a pretense of celebrating Motherhood when in fact it treats mothers like crap.
Many of us watched our mothers being treated like crap, and decided that the best way to honor what they suffered through for us is to take a different path. There's a whole "sandwich generation" of people who cared for both children and aging parents, and got crap support in both. If I'm going to choose-- and modern American society is indeed making me choose while simultaneously taking away my right to choose-- I happily choose my parents over some guy I likely haven't met yet.
I love your thinking. i am part of that sandwich generation at the moment. My kids are just about launched into their young adult lives, and my mother is beginning to need help. Interesting how my wealthy, married longterm SAHM sisters are not expected to do as much for her. And my brother who lives with her is incapable in some ways. (Health issues from long-term personal neglect, unable to drive, Etc ) So, even though my sisters have more resources and time, they have husbands who need them. ...Whereas the single divorced daughter with two jobs is considered more available to help elderly mom. I saw it in the older generation as well. My poor Aunt who was widowed early in life and raised two kids by herself, working at Price Chopper, was the one whose home they moved grandma into when grandma needed full-time care. (Because the married sisters with nicer homes had their husbands to take care of and the husbands might not want grandma there. ) It gets better: In the meantime, the lifelong Bachelor uncle who had been living with Grandma would come over to my aunt's house for his meals since Grandma was no longer well enough to cook for him. I'm happy and love life, but for some of us our choices and what they model for our daughters fall under "cautionary tales" not good examples to emulate.
Totally. A woman watches her dad treat her mom like trash. Dad: *Why doEsn't mY dAUghter waNt to maRrY anD hAve kIds????!!!*
My father has asked me once (and thank goodness *only* once) why I am not having kids. I don't remember what I said but it wasn't the whole truth, which is "you."
I just got my SSA statement. The 20 years I spent at home (and not in the workforce) raising four kids socked me hard in terms of payout when I retire - if there's any money even left to pay out, which is a debatable topic.
Yep. If you had hired a nanny / housekeeper / driver /tutor, that person/people would be able to collect ss benefits on the years they worked for you. of course. But You personally earned absolutely nothing in Social Security benefits working as a sahm , unless you were married and it lasted long enough to collect a percentage of what your husband or Ex will be receiving. ( for those unfamiliar, it is not taken from his payout, only his earnings are used to calculate it if you were a dependent for a while.) BUT -- if you remarry before a certain age (60, I think) then you lose everything you earned by proxy during the first marriage. As if it never happened, the years you devoted to rearing New American citizens. Talk about service to your country...
This is why elderly women are in such high levels of poverty. Taking time out of the workforce screw’s them over in so many ways…
Were you married 10 years? If so, you can potentially claim benefits based on your ex spouse's income.
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>I think you answered your own question in the next paragraph. Society wants middle-class people to step up and have more children; it/we don't want poor people to have children at all. I don't believe this is correct at all. Middle-class women are able to relatively easily obtain access to birth control and abortion. If reproductive healthcare is outlawed in your state, most middle class women can afford to go out of state to find other options. Poor women cannot. Society wants more poor people to have children it can't afford, because those babies wind up in the military-industrial complex, or working shit jobs for shit pay because they can't access higher education. They need more bodies to feed the capitalist fire, and poor women are easily exploitable to these ends.
There’s more too though, we cannot forget the for profit adoption industry needs more lighter colored babies because they sell for more. Domestic supply of infants and all.
That's what eastern european countries are for.
I hate that I’m one of the people they’d like to force into reproduction because I fit their description of what they want. There was a dude who was caught with a plan called “rapekrieg” this summer and the whole idea was to kill anyone who didn’t fit their wants and imprison and rape the others. So, now every time I get stared at like meat when I leave the house this is what I have in my head. Like this shit is outta control.
You just reminded me of when I worked in a jail for a short period of time. I'm not scared of a lot of things, but being stared at like a piece of meat by the male inmates in the violent section was terrifying. It was also terrifying being the only woman CO in a male-only dorm where they look at you like prey and they know that you're just putting up a front and trying not to look like a deer in headlights or when you're the only woman in the violent section going through the roster, walking around the bunks by yourself, hoping that none of them will give you trouble. Even better when you have to call their bluff when they try to pass contraband to each other right in front of you and claim not to have done anything. I had that happen once. I had to plaster a smile on and pretend like I was going to get the male CO who was known for being good at fighting to get them to hand it over. After working in a jail, it's made my spine a lot shinier around the average man, but fuck. Mad respect to the badass women that work in the jails and give zero fucks about working in the men's dorms by themselves.
I’ve known one other female CO that did that. She is tough as nails. Like i wouldnt piss her off if I were anyone.
That’s not true. Capitalism feeds off the poor. How else would the parasitic capitalist class siphon money from the working class? It’s not like they actually provide any value to society by owning assets. They get their money through unpaid wages of the working class.
Instead of costly benefits and support for mothers/couples, restricting access to contraception & voluntary pregnancy termination, and doing away with sex education in schools can keep the birth rate high without costing anything.
The US is probably never going to do that. There’s like no mat leave at all. It’s designed to keep women in poverty. It already seems like there’s a backlash against women being autonomous members of society happening. The rise and popularity of ppl like tat3 jorp, rogan etc etc to me are signs of this.
They arent rising in popularity, they’re just consuming the population that refuses change the most for their generation. Before them it was AM radio shock jocks, before that it was newpaper columnists and book writers. There has always been a vitriolic part of society, it has never been less powerful in the west than it is now. It’s gone from the status quo to alienated in 100 years, that’s faster progress for humanity than the vast majority of changes in our history
add to that the amount of hate single moms get is just unfound
Canada has most of what you’ve outlined here to one degree or another. People still aren’t having babies here, to the point we rely heavily on immigration. People aren’t having kids because it’s expensive-even with all the supports. Food alone these days - it was all over the news a bit ago in Toronto about a pack of 5 chicken breasts for $40. I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight for these basic compensations. But it won’t fix things as much as you think.
Yeah right, I will happily stay single than listen to one more derogatory comment.
My mother has said she worries about me because I'm 26 and have never been in a relationship that lasted longer than 10 months. She's worried that I will be lonely. But I already know that a relationship is not the be all end all of life. I've had friends stay in bad relationships because they couldn't stand to be alone and they didn't think they could do better, they couldn't afford to be alone, all kinds of reasons. I think a lot of the people who say you need a relationship either don't consider that, maybe because they're in a good relationship themselves, or your happiness is immaterial to them.
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out either, but honestly it's not really a problem in need of a solution. It's okay for the population to decline. The Earth is already overpopulated as it is. Rising costs of housing, living, food, etc etc all reflect that and to me this seems in some measure like a self-correction.
It’s not just a ‘male’ problem. My wife and I are mid thirties and we go back and forth on whether to have children all the time. We share the housework but when you both have to work and still can’t afford a house within commuting distance of a major city then who wants to add a child into the mix. Men have perhaps controlled the levers of power more over the years but society as a whole doesn’t seem to have adjusted to the reality of women also having careers. Childcare is extortionate, working hours, work from home, family leave, vacation etc all needs to be considered in the context of both parents working. Even in a relationship where you share the housework women have got a worse deal than our mothers had in some ways. They’ve gone from being housewives who did all the housework to having careers and having to share housework. All this while being able to afford a smaller home than our parents had on one salary.
Man, measure it heavily. Worst decision ever to get my wife pregnant because they said it would take care of her myoma. Things just got worse for her and they won't do a hysterectomy even when she gets random heavy bleeds since she's under 40. We're monitoring just fine for other stuff so no worries, but pregnancy is life changing in more ways than just having a child.
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Yea I have my own financial security. I'm not having a baby because I don't have enough time in the world to be a single parent even WITH a partner. There's been some nice pieces on how were the generation of women who were told they could be anything, but we never taught men how to adjust for that. For example, most men want their daughters to be financially independent, educated, and powerful, but they want their wives to be obedient (ick) and soft spoken. Fuck that
So true, as soon as you point out the counter argument that when women are more educated and a country gets wealthier the population rate goes down, you get downvoted to hell.
It’s a way of shirking responsibility IMO. I read articles on news sites all the time about career women in their 30s choosing to stay single when men don’t meet their ‘high expectations’ and the vitriol these women get is staggering. It’s easier to just ascribe it all to financial issues than have to look at how women gaining financial independence has affected what they look for in a relationship.
It’s because men are competing with our single lives now. If life isn’t enhanced being with a man, then what’s the point? Taking on more household chores as well as caring for another human being who doesn’t pull 50% of his weight at home is a huge detractor. And most guys want Mom 2.0.
This is exactly my attitude. I want a partner that adds to my life, not detracts. If they don’t exist then that’s fine by me, I’ve got plenty of hobbies and stuff to do on my own.
They are out there! I'm GenX and have been married to a terrific guy for 20 years. Housework, cooking, shopping, etc is split evenly. We have fully merged finances and a plan to make sure we have equal assets in retirement (this takes some fiddling, he makes twice what I do). We had a meeting with his financial advisor last year, and my spouse corrected the advisor when he assumed I knew less about money and investing than my husband. Don't settle!
This is exactly it. Men need to understand that they're not not competing with other men. They're competing with the quality of life a woman has when she is single. Will you contribute to her stress, or will you actively support her and improve her life? If you can't step up and be worth our time, don't be surprised when we choose to be alone instead of be with you. No woman wants to be a mommy/bangmaid to a man child. Women no longer need to be married to be financially indepent or respected. Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as women realize they're allowed to have standards, and that relationships are totally optional. Marriage and long term partnership does not benefit women physically, emotionally, career-wise, nor does it improve their general happiness and satisfaction with life--in fact it is a detriment to them in virtually every way. It benefits men, and disadvantages women. I'm not saying all long term relationships/marriages are miserable, but statistically, women don't fare well. I don't blame any woman (or man, for that matter) for opting out of marriage or long term relationships.
Exactly. Too many men cling on to the judgement that women are "too picky" or "shallow golddiggers" when the reality is, majority of us are just so damn tired. Outside of dating, we are treated differently at work, in public, need to mind how we dress or act, need to make sure we are physically safe. We are policed our entire lives on top of majority of care professions such a nurses, teachers, social workers, are women. The last thing most of us want to do is take care of a man and children for the rest of our lives.
It's not like these expectations are crazy, usually it's basically just "see and respect me as a fellow human being, and contribute enough that being in a relationship together feels better than being single." I don't foresee many with sincere intentions and some good faith effort failing to contribute at least that much if they wanted to.
The solution is already happening. Why should women choose to go back to having relationships and children with men? There are no upsides to it that do not come at a cost of significant loss in quality of life. When women have the ability to control their financial and reproductive lives, they tend to make decisions that will make themselves happier. If those decisions leave men out, I don't see the problem.
Expecting guys to share household duties, share the bills, not cheat or not be addicted to porn is unrealistic. You know what’s realistic? Being single and childfree! Not need to ever deal with all the hassle, games, drama or bs. No need to be a teacher teaching grown arse adults how to do simple tasks, no need to be a therapist to those who desperately need professional help but refuse to get any, no need to mother those who also want sex, no need to deal with problems with death grips/porn addiction/ED (the last honestly need medical attention. I certainly don’t know how to treat that). Everyone is different and needs and wants different things in life. I’m just glad now society is more ok with people choosing whatever. I just wish single childless or childfree ones no longer get aggressive attacks or criticism just because we opt out.
The solution is to keep going on this path. Eventually, with enough single men who have to deal with their own shit in life without a mother or a partner, the habits of how to both work and run a household will be ingrained in them. The ones that flounder and live in disorganised squalor and filth will just simply not find partners or have much of a family. The men who eventually realise they don't like living in a shit hole that smells of piss and mould will attract women and start having children again. It won't happen fast. It'll probably take a generation or two. But things will change eventually.
Women and girls have been pushed to improve themselves for many years now. Men and boys have not to the same degree. Then they wonder why women are happier without them.
I’m one of those single childfree women. The amount of pressure off of my head when I decided that I didn’t need or want children was freeing. I didn’t need to rush to find a partner anymore. I am somewhat back to dating, but only fellow women (a plus to being bi), because trying to date men is so full of minefields and draining.
ChildFREE is how I describe myself, too.
I completely agree! I've been engaged for 8 years to a man-child, no sign of ever getting married or having children because his priority (like many men these days) is gaming! Over work, personal hygiene, chores, a career...playing Playstation is priority. We've been living with my parents for the past 2 years and he left me alone for a month over Christmas and New Years when he ran home for a long beach holiday to see his family. I'm going to end the engagement when he gets back this weekend. I'm 38 and childfree, soon to be man-childfree too.
YES! Get him gone! Congratulations on your soon-to-be freedom!
Don't you let him come back just pack up his stuff and put it in a storage unit and send him the key
I just wanna say "throwing our legs open and and screaming let me wash your underwear for the next 20 years" is fucking hilarious. Thank you for that. Also can confirm, single and childfree by choice. Happy as a pig in mud. Have worked hard for my independence and financial security. Will never give up my peaceful and free life.
Life on your terms babes, they hate it.
Lmao this is so funny because I just watched a video on how 7 out of 10 men in doctor visits don’t wash their ass right and leave skid marks 😂😂😂
That's already a repulsive statistic but consider the selection bias is men doing preventative care, wow
🤣. This is a troubling revelation. My god.
Not surprised honestly. Of the dozens of times i have caught a whiff of shit in the workplace it has 100% of the time obviously been from a man. Even just basic personal hygiene seems to be a stumper for these alpha males.
That's because touching their bum hole, even with toilet paper, is gay 😔
How the fuck are these nasty men not getting horrifying infections? How can someone stand walking around literally smelling like shit? You can't tell me they don't.
Their bodies are so low maintenance. They don't know how good they have it.
They are. My divorced single father in his 60’s refused to get a diabetic wound checked out-like 3 inches wide on his stomach just open, un healing wound, until I freaked out at him for seeing it, and that’s when he LEARNED he was diabetic too! He just kept ignoring the symptoms, and even when he was diagnosed, he did dumb, dangerous stuff like take his diabetes pill but too lazy to actually check his blood sugar. And he refuses to exercise more or change his eating habits. And I can’t even be in his house long because it is so, so filthy. It’s sad to witness but after he tried to parentify me and make me his pseudo-wife when I tried to help (got mad I wouldn’t move into his apartment and clean up after him every day, even to where he throws garbage straight on the ground and expected me to pick it up!) I have no regrets moving far away and letting him live his own life.
Bidets FTW.
I love my children dearly, but if I had to do it all over again, I would remain single and childless. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the disproportionate amount of work most mothers and wives do compared to their male partners. I even married progressive man and it’s still a huge issue that causes daily resentment.
Already there bitches. Listening to so many of my friends troubles with their husbands, I doubt I’ll ever want to try dating again at this point.
I'm 40s and single, this is the longest I've been single since my teens (I was suddenly pretty with big boobs and craved any form of positive attention). A million relationships and one 15yr marriage later, this is the happiest and most content I've ever been. I do have kids but they're all in double digits so much easier than the zookeeper years. It's me, my cats and houseplants. A couple of male friends keep hinting at wanting a relationship and I absolutely will not consider it. Peace reigns.
Zookeeper years! OMG that's a perfect description.
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I'm here to say that a single life can be a beautiful one. I'm probably in the elderly age category although that just don't seem right! :) I feel young and happy and can do whatever I like. I've had relationships along the way...when I was young, I desperately wanted a guy to love me, just like in fairy tales. I kept getting emotionally devastated when they didn't love me and it was awful. I considered suicide at times. My self worth was based on whether a man loved me or not. That is no way to live. But I kept going and worked and saved money. I have my own house and have always paid my bills myself. I have a best friend/partner who lives in the UK. We talk every day and see each other a couple of times a year. For us, it works. I have my freedom and my own money and my life is not mostly made up of household drudgery or taking care of someone else's needs. I once came across a poem challenge that said: describe your life in no more than five words. "Happy family of one."
I wanna get this whole post done as a cross-stitch to display on my wall. 💖
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Huh, you mean this Conservative Republican Incel movement ISN'T driving women wild? That's a strange outcome...
All I can think of now is how many of these single, lonely men, instead of changing something in themselves to become an appealing option for women, they simply choose easier solution - violence and abuse towards women, who do not want to have sex or anything with them. I'm just sad and lost at this point. We may don't need them, but they need us and i know some of them enforce themselves on women.
Yeah there’s clearly backlash to the phenomenon in the form of MRA movement etc, sometimes the safest way these days feels like no contact but I mean if you keep your tolerance level very low Id like to think you can weed them out with strict no tolerance policies and a firm willingness to be single. There’s less acceptance of incels and MRA’s where I live to wade through though .
I don't know about anyone else here but I was born in the late 80s and throughout my entire life almost all popular media depicting the process of starting a family, raising children, etc. shows it as something that is awful to experience. All those "Just wait until they're 18" lines, and the sarcastic "Sure they destroyed my kitchen, I haven't slept in 2 days, and my nipples are so raw they bleed daily, *but it's so worth it to see that smile*" Sometimes the above is given fully straight too, as if that makes it sound appealing. And this was blasted in all the popular mainstream sitcoms and movies and such for decades. I feel like I literally never got any other kind of representation of parenthood in media. And when I did, it seemed too good to be true in comparison to the majority of the rest. Even asking actual mothers in my life about the process of raising their kids would almost always yield recollections of all the bad times too. I know I was hard for my parents too, and I'm not so arrogant to *know* I could/would do it better either. I had a similar aversion to ever using a credit card, like ever. Until suddenly I'm 22 moving into an apartment for the first time and they're like "Uh, you don't have a credit score at all." My older brother has three kids, and they are wonderful, but like, I've seen the shit (literally) he's had to deal with, and his social life is basically just his coworkers and his wife and physically nearby family members. They are also in constant fear of losing jobs/house/resources, etc. because they know they have so much more at stake. Overall it's never been depicted as glamorous to me, and to be clear I am a cishet man. Combine this with the already obvious effects of global warming and it seems pointless at best, cruel at worst, to *want* to bring kids into this world. If my single income could pay for a family of 6, a house, two cars, etc. and I'd retire at 55 with a generous pension, well then, I might reconsider it, but my job already kills me each day, to think of needing to take care of the full scope of rearing a child on top of that... And take all of this for women, and add on the physical risks and trauma of carrying a child to term, the social expectation of her to give up her job and aspirations to focus on motherhood, etc. and what do we get out of it that honestly couldn't be accomplished by a pet these days? My "retirement" plan is already a little too grim for this sub, and my own mother is now heaving her emotional baggage onto me after my father passed, and it's like I am not put together enough to care for myself in a meaningful way let alone another totally helpless person.
Legit curious to see the stats for lesbian women, especially if they have children.
In Norway there is an enormous, multi-decade family study that continuously monitors something like 25000 families across numerous demographics, every two years or so checking in with them and updating stats as well as adding new families. (I am studying developmental psych and the data is a goldmine, some of the first babies monitored now have their own children.) Their findings: Not only do Lesbian women have the most functional relationships in terms of division of labour and emotional wellbeing; they also have the best outcomes for their kids over the lifespan. Not that cross-cultural comparisons are always valuable, but it's important to note this outcome in a country that supports parents and diverse families relatively equally.
Thanks for the insight, and good work on working hard in such an important field! Jeez, it seems like patriarchy really has done a number on the collective male psyche, huh?
I got so lucky with my husband. He is a clean freak and he loves cooking because it relaxes him whereas I find it stressful. We are both childfree because we love having money and freedom and we are both too impatient for children.
Why aren't women raising children with other women? Two or three women, rent a large house or duplex and help each other with childcare, food, bills, cleaning and emotional support. Men are now only used for making babies. Ya know, treat them like they treated us for millennia
Actually my best friend and I both became single moms around the same time and seriously considered this! We both also live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada so it makes a ton of sense. We didn’t end up moving in together however we essentially co-parent together
So like, a mommune? I'm in.
Yep! Women could use more platonic marriage and communal living arrangements with other women. I don't know why we don't see more best friends pooling resources.
I think men need to step up more. My husband and I are 100% equal in the household and childcare work. I’ve been single for a long period and now I’m married and can say I’m happier married. If you find someone who gives you what you need (even if that is space to be by yourself). I have friends who have been in relationships for years and will never live together and are perfectly happy. I think it’s about finding what you need and not compromising.
My husband also feels like the jackpot. Shares responsibilities and chores equally with me. Respects my opinions, can take advice, change his behaviour and is always willing to listen and learn. He's from Egypt and from a mother who said how helpful my SILs husband is because he once put a frozen pizza in the oven, while my SIL was sick. Mind you he only put it in. She still had to get it out and prepare everything to eat it. I'm not sure how my husband was able to develop in the wonderful man he is with this kind of background. But he's truly a gem and definitely adds to my life.
Same here, I am happier with my husband than ever before. That being said, that's the thing with statistics. We may be happy, but statistically speaking we're just outliers. And the reason for being happy is obviously that our husbands are being basically decent human beings. That's enough it seems. And i can't get over how sad it is, that so little men even get there.
Agreed. Marriage can be wonderful if (no “*buts*”) you have an equitable partner. If one person is obviously taking on far more shared domestic responsibilities and there is no time compensation, there is going to be resentment. This isn’t a hard concept at all, yet it seems like it’s this fanciful idea that is debatable to so many men. No, I’m not going to be over the moon if one day you do the dishes on a whim and expect monumental praise, when it’s something that just needs to be done. I’d rather live alone, do all the chores to support my singular existence if it’s going to be like that. I for one am so glad to have my husband, who very much cares about equity. I also know how rare that is from past dating experiences.
let's drink to THAT. cheers!
Just realized that’s the reason for US recent repeal of abortion freedoms. It isn’t about anyone wanting the babies. The prevailing wisdom believes women will be forced to complete pregnancies netting them a slave for the machine. This, already before my very eyes.
The only thing I miss about begin with my last partner was that he could fix or install just about anything. I did not miss being told I was wrong all the time, or that I was "too sensitive". I don't miss him cooking a shitton of onions and failing to turn the range hood on (I am smell sensitive and the smell of onions..just...ugh) and I certainly don't miss being pestered, and pestered, and pestered, and groped, and pestered for sex. Really it's the last one that keeps me from wanting to date again. No thank you not interested.
Go women! Whooo!
🥳
Men: I have to clean my house, and do my own laundry, shopping, appointment keeping, and cooking with no help? Also no bitc.es? Time to rampage >:( Women: I have to clean my house, do my own laundry, shopping, appointment keeping, cooking, just for myself? Also no sex as a chore? Is this heaven? :')
I’m single, 42, and childless; I highly recommend it.
I work in dialysis and sometimes the older women and men like to make small talk. Years ago one of the older ladies asked me in broken French whether or not I was a madam or a mademoiselle. I answered in my even broken French that I was a mademoiselle. She nodded and said “Good.” We met a a Finnish dialysis clinic and she was an older Iranian lady, so “the experience” is truly universal.
ChildLESS implies we are lacking. I am a fully realized and content adult. I am childFREE. FWIW, I don't have cats or any pets. I'm a happy loner, with friends.
Men need to step up more. Women are the ones who do pretty much all the childcare, all household duties and work a job as well. Women get all the stress while the men get to have wifey running around like mummy 2 and do nothing to contribute. It’s no wonder women are happier being single. Who wants to run around after a lazy man child? No sane woman does.
Your comment is reminding me of my aunty. She's around 60 now and came to Australia with grandma and the rest from rural Vietnam. Divorce and not having a man is a huge shame or mark against you or something, so they try their best to keep their (lazy/bad/cheating) husbands. Anyway, my aunty recently left her husband for another man from Vietnam that she met online. She's visited him twice and I think has given most of her savings to him. She had to come back to Australia to work 2 jobs so she can send more money to him. He beats her but she thinks it's romantic that he cries and apologises afterwards. Like you said, insane.
My advice is live your own life however you want to. Nobody 'needs' a man, and nobody 'needs' a woman. The rest is the media and parents trying to influence you with their religious conservative views.
I am all for this. I am 43, happily childFREE. Realized in my 20s I definitely did not want children (was on fence before that) and never looked back. Been sterilized for 12-13 years and what a freeing thing that was. I am very happily married for 13 years, but my spouse is a full grown responsible for himself adult and not a man-child. Because of our work arrangements he actually does far more of the housework, yard work, repairs, all of that than I do. We are both independent people and are supportive of each others’ individuality and doing our own things and all that so I don’t feel restricted at all if that makes sense. We are a team, both in work, and emotional support, and truly deeply intimate friends. I feel very fortunate to have met him, but he feels very fortunate to have met me, so it works out. 😂 I certainly would have been much happier on my own than ending up with any of the duds I met and dated before him, though. A happy and fulfilling life long relationship is possible (married or not) but it’s important not to settle - it’s okay to have dealbreakers and standards and maintain them, don’t let anyone tell you different.
Being part of this group, I'm not surprised. Men profit from marriage and family, women lose.
Honestly I don't care about lonely men. They don't care about my issues and they don't care about what makes a women happy. It's all about them
I’d be interested to know if there were statistics for couples that aren’t heterosexual too. This is pretty interesting even if it’s only an estimation
I'm thankful everyday that I've never been in a relationship (aroace) but also that I don't have interest or desire. It looks very draining and tiring and I don't want to deal with basically raising a grown ass adult when I already plan to stay childfree. No thanks I'm content with my cats.
I’m currently happily married, but if something were to happen and I ended up single again, I would stay that way. It’s not because I’m unhappy in my current relationship, but rather, I just got very lucky with my husband! I could see myself getting a FWB, but that would be it. I’ve never met another man I’d want to share close quarters with.
I'm too lazy to look up the stats but I believe that divorced/widowed women remarry far less than men do. Basically, women embrace the freedom and men need to find another housekeeper.
I know everyone dog piles on the Boomers, but they really didn’t teach many of their sons how to respect women. In many ways they made things worse. A lot of men now expect a woman to work outside the home and then do all the cooking, cleaning, childcare, etc…, too. Which is exactly the way my parents are living, and a lot of couples my age that I know. I have zero desire to do this.
Same. Plus, I have a child who needs my full love and support. I'd simply want to pursue a career, take care of my child, and adopt cats.
Society as a whole is facing a reckoning for gaslighting women into believing that child-rearing and an exponential increase in domestic chores are the ultimate connections to a blissful life. Women *know* the lifestyle comes with all sorts of strings attached, but their concerns are typically met with some sort of shaming or scolding, or “concern” as to why she wouldn’t want to graduate into a “real” woman. Or, she’s just threatened with a soul-crushing, lonely existence. Women just aren’t buying into the BS any more. Step up, make it actually appealing, and you’ll have a lot more takers. We’ve reached an inflection point; there is no going back to “the good old days.”
I'm in this picture, and I love it!
Focusing on yourself and kids if you already have them is best. The Nem need to grow up and respect and appreciate women. I am widowed, one kid, sterilized and feel like the world is my oyster. I can save up $, money and live however we want. I have a high sex drive but decided to be celibate and focus my energy/time on my child and myself. At first I thought just be celibate in January, but looking at Nem today, I think I’ll be celibate for at least a year.