The one thing I'd say from this is I think everyone who's posted has a fair point.
I also think people's circle of friends depends on their views. Am guessing if ford_prefect had copied your post onto his lj rather than most people supporting you most people would be attacking you there. Certainly from Facebook friends they seem to be split between the yay no kids group (the majority) and the wanting kids / have kids and see how many baby/kids photos they can post in a day. What I've noticed is most of the group who want to have kids / have gotten kids and continually post pictures of them is with nearly all of them I got to know them as a partner of one of my friends rather than someone who I made a friend with without encouragement. Which just goes to show I pick a lot of my friends by having some similar views to me.
My best friend's wife (who is constantly posting baby pictures and is taking a maternity break from being a lawyer) said when she was at uni there were plenty of women in her year who didn't want children but one by one all of them got pregnant. So changing mind does happen for some people (which is why others are so convinced everyone will change their mind). Certainly I can think of a few people I was interested in who did change their mind later and I was very glad I didn't go out with them.
I've had a lot of "you'll change your mind" from a lot of people, especially mum. Personally I worry about turning into my dad parent style wise (which'd be no good for anyone) but more to the point I have a few things that are hereditory wrong with me (eg severe eczema - thanks, dad) that I would really need to hate a person to give them it. That is usually the way I silence the people who keep going on at me to have kids. Certainly when my mum was cooing over my sister being pregnant she was all "you'll change your views on children when you have ones you are closely related to". I think one is 8 and the other is 6 and have seen one once and the other twice and have no interest in seeing photos of them, something that stunned my mum. She usually tries to show them to me by claiming she needs help viewing them because of technical problems. Having said that once I was very proud of her eldest - he was bullied at school by a lot bigger kid a lot and Sonny used karate on the bigger kid and knocked him out cold. My sister was put in the awkward situation of being called in to see the head who expected her to be sorry when she was quite proud of him for what he did.
One thing that I reckon for blokes who are broody about having children they should "try before they buy", ie go out and live with someone who does have them for a while and see if that changes their mind. A lot of people who have rosy views of being parents often find their views shattered by something like that. Certainly I know of a couple who was considering having a kid after getting married, but the couple in the flat above them did so. 8 months of sleepless nights caused by screaming babies and hearing a lot of arguments from upstairs seemed to have put them off it.
no subject
I also think people's circle of friends depends on their views. Am guessing if ford_prefect had copied your post onto his lj rather than most people supporting you most people would be attacking you there. Certainly from Facebook friends they seem to be split between the yay no kids group (the majority) and the wanting kids / have kids and see how many baby/kids photos they can post in a day. What I've noticed is most of the group who want to have kids / have gotten kids and continually post pictures of them is with nearly all of them I got to know them as a partner of one of my friends rather than someone who I made a friend with without encouragement. Which just goes to show I pick a lot of my friends by having some similar views to me.
My best friend's wife (who is constantly posting baby pictures and is taking a maternity break from being a lawyer) said when she was at uni there were plenty of women in her year who didn't want children but one by one all of them got pregnant. So changing mind does happen for some people (which is why others are so convinced everyone will change their mind). Certainly I can think of a few people I was interested in who did change their mind later and I was very glad I didn't go out with them.
I've had a lot of "you'll change your mind" from a lot of people, especially mum. Personally I worry about turning into my dad parent style wise (which'd be no good for anyone) but more to the point I have a few things that are hereditory wrong with me (eg severe eczema - thanks, dad) that I would really need to hate a person to give them it. That is usually the way I silence the people who keep going on at me to have kids. Certainly when my mum was cooing over my sister being pregnant she was all "you'll change your views on children when you have ones you are closely related to". I think one is 8 and the other is 6 and have seen one once and the other twice and have no interest in seeing photos of them, something that stunned my mum. She usually tries to show them to me by claiming she needs help viewing them because of technical problems. Having said that once I was very proud of her eldest - he was bullied at school by a lot bigger kid a lot and Sonny used karate on the bigger kid and knocked him out cold. My sister was put in the awkward situation of being called in to see the head who expected her to be sorry when she was quite proud of him for what he did.
One thing that I reckon for blokes who are broody about having children they should "try before they buy", ie go out and live with someone who does have them for a while and see if that changes their mind. A lot of people who have rosy views of being parents often find their views shattered by something like that. Certainly I know of a couple who was considering having a kid after getting married, but the couple in the flat above them did so. 8 months of sleepless nights caused by screaming babies and hearing a lot of arguments from upstairs seemed to have put them off it.