Are men actually more obsessed with kids than women?

wekacuck · 2019-08-09T11:48:28+00:00

The core of it is that kids are so insignificant as a biological process for males that we just have an entirely flippant understanding of the demands of pregnancy and infancy.

If you ask me generically about wanting kids what has always come to mind is like toddlers and up where you are teaching and interacting. Even after I had kids the first 3-4 years just falls out the memory hole probably because of the sleep deprivation.

Add into the mix the threat that if you're the woman, the father might bail or flake out and I can see why women would nope the hell out.

wtffellification · 2019-08-09T11:52:54+00:00

> Most men want kids strongly and are very idealistic about it. I know guys who are not having kids because the woman doesn't want them but I rarely seen them strongly not wanting kids themselves

probably because we don't get to grow one inside us and deal with what it takes

> Is mother's instinct a myth?

definitely not. but I would say, while men generally have a more 'practical' and engineering approach to life... in terms of kids, it's women who look at it in a moreso utilitarian way. because they have to

TigerLily88 · 2019-08-09T13:40:07+00:00

I am a child free woman. I am part of a child free Facebook group and 98% of the members are women.

I wouldn’t say men are more obsessed with kids. I would say since women know more off hand the struggles with bearing and dealing with a child, the ones that don’t want them really don’t.

Aaren_Augustine · 2019-08-09T13:53:38+00:00

I'll quibble with this, slightly. IME, men don't want children, necessarily; they aren't crazy about engaging in the day-to-day grind of raising small children. Parts of it are a lot of fun and very rewarding, but there is also a LOT of scut work involved.

But I would say that most men want to have had children. Once the kids are older - say, teenagers or so - and the work/reward ratio is more appealing, men are generally very happy to have had those children. And once the children are adults and are out of the house and are out and about being successful and reflecting well on their parents, men are delighted to have had children.

I also notice it's usually men who seem more upset about declining birth rates or individual women who say they dont want kids.

I wish I had a dollar for every childless dude I've seen or heard going on and on about how women need to have more children. They often have the most hilarious excuses for why they haven't had any children, themselves.

wtknight · 2019-08-09T12:08:24+00:00

It’s women who tend to put most of the work in to raising kids, and they’re the ones who give birth to them, obviously. Becoming more adamant against having kids speaks to women’s greater obsession regarding them. Many men’s general like of kids, especially their own, doesn’t really indicate an obsession with them.

azngirl7689 · 2019-08-09T12:37:26+00:00

Men don't get pregnant or do the bulk of the childcare. They're not tethered to them via breast. Touched out/Touch overload is a thing. Men are able to have a much more idealized version of motherhood cause they're not as in the trenches as women are.

Nodoxxintoxin · 2019-08-09T11:52:05+00:00

There are some on here that definitely are, but they are outliers. The ones who are obsessed, are so because it’s extremely difficult if not impossible for them to achieve this goal on their own. Woman can now go to a sperm bank and raise a kid without a partner.

I think the social stigma of a mid thirties woman with adequate resources intentionally becoming a single mother is pretty low, much lower than the 20 year old who gets knocked up by accident by a guy who won’t marry her.

flyinghorse1 · 2019-08-09T13:23:14+00:00

Most men these days don't want kids - the current generation between 21 - 30 are so far dodging them pretty well

molarcat · 2019-08-09T14:04:03+00:00

Just my two cents from personal experience... I had guys I was talking to online and hitting it off with reject me because I said I wasn't SURE if I wanted kids. This was in my mid 20s. I was also in a long term relationship earlier on where one of the issues that broke us up was that I didn't want kids and he wanted... A. Lot. My partner's business partner was desperate to have a kid but it quickly became clear it was a status thing... And once the child was born he stayed as the office as late as possible, bc babies can be hella loud and take a lot of work (who knew?!) On the other hand I have female friends who never much wanted kids but once they got pregnant once it started a cycle until there were 3 or 4 kids! That seems like a lot for people who never talked about having kids imo. One of my friends, a scientist, told me how she could FEEL the hormones overwhelming her with the desire to have more kids while she was still in the breastfeeding phase (but not afterward!)

So I think there are status influences for men and strong hormonal influences for women, ESPECIALLY after that first child is born.

[deleted] · 2019-08-09T18:10:39+00:00

Men want kids in theory. In practice they barely bother to participate in parenting, so the mother does 90% of the work.

nevomintoarce · 2019-08-09T11:37:08+00:00

Personally I'm scared of the whole pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding shenanigans. If I were a male I would be able to be a trad con shitlord who says he wants lots of children. It would be easy for me to blow my load in a woman (or more) and just pay for them. I got money, I make money easier thanit would be to deal with pregnancy and birthing.

Kizka · 2019-08-09T13:52:20+00:00

Because men want - and often get - the Kodak picture family moments while women are the ones who actually do most of the work.

imJustmasum · 2019-08-09T15:13:26+00:00

Men want kids as in toddlers and peeps they can teach and grow with.

Women see the crying, puking, screaming part mainly I think, so that’s why they’re put off.

rus9384 · 2019-08-09T15:57:31+00:00

There was a survey showing more men than women want kids. It also was shown that more men than women were against kids. More women than men were indifferent.

geyges · 2019-08-09T11:47:19+00:00

I know quite a lot of women who maybe dont hate kids but dont really know how to interact with them and dont seek it out.

This has been mostly my experience. Especially with young girls that were never around children and didn't grow up with younger siblings.

It almost feel like they grew up in a bubble, and think of kids as something foreign, and unknown. All they heard are bad stuff, and they have no experience of their own.

Usually this is more or less reverse if they get to play with kids.

But in general, let's be honest. Everyone knows they're a bitch to take care of.

[deleted] · 2019-08-09T15:26:08+00:00

This is a really great point and mirrors my own experience with being childfree. All the guys I dated wanted at least two kids, and I wanted none. So they would try to win me over and I would leave them. There was no future in a relationship where one person is forced to compromise on such a huge issue, so I kept looking. As a woman I got a lot of flack from people over not wanting children, but as long as I stayed unmarried it was easily dismissed...but my best friend got married and received absolute hell from everyone over her childfree stance.

Men can be childfree but in my experience they are rare. Maybe because I go too church.

ArborioRice · 2019-08-09T16:48:04+00:00

I terminated a marriage over the issue of children; my ex wife thought it was a good idea in theory early on and that slowly devolved into excuse after excuse for inevitable delay along with a contrite, guilt fueled admission of getting semi-permanent birth control weeks after the fact while we were married. In short, she didn't want to be a mother, despite being fantastic with kids. That's ok for her, but not for me. We had other underlying issues to be addressed but it was useless trying to do so if kids were not an option at all. We are both better off for it now.

Is mother's instinct a myth?

Absolutely not, but it presents on a spectrum of intensity. Also, some women definitely have it and some (my ex wife) don't. For those who don't kids are very much an abstraction..."oh gee well yea who will take care of us when we're older..." vs. those who do feel the want of a baby at the core of their being. I had a coworker who had 2 kids and is nearly 40 say if she could she'd have baby after baby after baby...her body just wanted to have babies while simultaneously acknowledgment the impracticality of a growing brood in her home. Some guy on MRP is having a shit marriage and close to divorce but the wife wants another baby asap. You can't ignore the biological instinct women have.

I think men have a similar drive for kids but since we obviously can't give birth, et al it's not as apparent. Your observations jive with mine in that regard. I think it's rooted more in mission/legacy/purpose hence the idealism vs. a woman's biological imperative; men have an instinct to mold their kids into an extension of themselves and into something to be proud of, in a way. Women give birth and nurture, men raise and grow the kids to handle life...both instincts complimentary. Ideally at least...

mandoa_sky · 2019-08-09T11:30:42+00:00

i think it's more that as most ladies are more likely to have actual hands-on experience with kids, we already know how difficult it can get.

Taken250 · 2019-08-09T16:22:53+00:00

I think this true. Men are often depicted as literal tools in society. They don't much care for children, they don't much care for relationships and marriage, they don't much care for women, etc.

I'm so sick of hearing it. It's probably a big deal of why dudes are killing themselves. If they fill their lives purpose they don't see a reason and living. And no one is gonna care really if you do the deed anyway.

But enough ranting. I think males really do care for children much more than society depicts. The men I talk to tell me they always make them better people.

PrehistoricPrincess · 2019-08-09T18:47:43+00:00

This topic has come up in the childfree community before as well. I posted a similar question a long time ago on there--feel free to read the comments on it if you're curious.

The general consensus is that women are typically the majority caretakers of children, even with husbands who do their best to contribute. Far more often than not, women end up doing the grunt work of child rearing and childcare. So for a man, it makes more sense to view having kids in a positive light--they don't really have a lot to lose, other than the money it takes to raise a child (but that's not really what we're discussing here). Women are usually the ones waking up at odd hours in the morning to breastfeed or care for a sick child, getting up early to fix school lunches and set out clothes, tie shoelaces and arrange playdates, shuttle kids to and from extracurriculars, cook healthy meals, etc. etc. etc. A lot of the emotional labor is also performed by the mother, since most kids are more likely to go to Mom for consolation or whatever else than Dad. And that's all besides the physical impact that having a child has on your body.

I think these are all reasons that more women are hesitant/reluctant/completely against having kids than men are. For men, there are generally fewer drawbacks. Again, that's most cases, not all.

Almost all.people who actually cant stand kids in general are women.

I think this is because the more you try to force something on anyone who's not 100% cool with it, the more they're going to push it away. Society is constantly telling women that our purpose is to be mothers. Everyone around us reinforces that idea. Even as a little girl, most all of us have been given baby dolls to play with. (I refused to play with them, lol.) Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The more you force something we're not sure about on us, the more we're going to push away from it. Human nature. Of course that doesn't apply to the women who have always wanted to be mothers, and there are plenty of them. But I can't relate at all.

I'm like you. I'm 25. I've never felt the desire to have a baby, or the "ticking clock." I spent a while waiting for it to happen--for some baby fever to suddenly wash over me. Still hasn't happened. Thankfully, my fiancee is pretty adamant about not wanting children either. I'm lucky to have found him. Purely by chance, too--neither of us knew the other didn't want kids when we met. We were too young at the time to even consider it as a topic, I think.

As far as whether mother's instinct is a myth--I really don't know. All I can say is that I don't have it.

blackedoutfast · 2019-08-09T19:27:53+00:00

a LOT of the anti-kids women i've met seem to focus mostly on the pregnancy aspect. it's not really about hating kids, i think it's more like some kind of anxiety about the actual biological process of having kids. also, i think a lot of women who have medical issues that prevent them from having kids (or just some imaginary anxiety that they might not be able to have kids) will take up this attitude of "well i hate kids, i don't want them" as a way of trying to deal with it.

a LOT of women i know who claimed to be 100% childfree anti-kids when they were younger went on to eventually chnage their mind in their 30s and had kids and fell right into happy motherhood. none of the anti-kid men i know had a similar change of heart, but many of them were more or less forced into having kids when their supposedly childfree wife changed her mind.

planejane · 2019-08-09T13:02:16+00:00

I agree with this to an extent. I don't know if men are crazy about kids but perhaps they are more so than women especially modern women.

They say women are the nurturing ones. But every 20 year old girl is like yuck get that thing away from me. Plus I don't know a single girl my age who hasn't had an abortion lol (sometimes the pill fails aye). They don't want their lives ruined; they wanna be young wild and free.

HonestyOverCivility · 2019-08-09T13:12:52+00:00

The “I don’t want kids timeline”:

20’s: Says she does want kids because she doesn’t like kids or they’ll interfere with her career/lifestyle
30’s: still claims to not want kids, but says it with much less conviction than before. Buys a dog which she oddly enough, treats just like a child
40’s: Laments about how she would have had kids but the timing wasn’t right/her career took priority/never found the right man. Recently got her second or third dog. Treats her pets like children in a cringey way.

Ultimately, in my experience 90% of woman have a maternal instinct that will make an appearance in one way or another; if not kids than pets

Willow-girl · 2019-08-09T12:10:32+00:00

Girls tend to want kids because they’ve been essentially groomed their whole lives to view motherhood, regardless of circumstances, as a form of higher status; they subconsciously view having kids like getting a new car or home. Obviously this thinking is incorrect, and the impulsivity it creates is terrible for society—arguably one of the worst things.

Men, with the exception of cucky retards that just go along with whatever women say and irresponsible degens, tend to think critically about having children and raising them appropriately. We understand that there’s an appropriate time and place for that, not when you’re 19 and dumb as fuck without two pennies to rub together. We realize it doesn’t SOLVE problems or help you in any way until you have your life together and are ready to bear the weight of such a responsibility.

If you don’t make any money and aren’t at least pushing 30 and ready to settle down, you have no business bringing children into this world.

AutoModerator · 2019-08-09T11:23:28+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

crackrocksteady7 · 2019-08-09T13:38:31+00:00

Nope

sadomasochrist · 2019-08-09T15:08:17+00:00

Children are a woman's pride and hobby if maternal or a burden and obligation if not. Many liberal women treat their kids as obligations.

Women that complain that men don't do their fair share are showing their cards. They are the men that want get rich quick solutions.

The right woman enjoys this in the same way that entrepreneurs build a company through sweat whether or not it actually takes off. They are the women who watch someone else's kids at get togethers.

pnadlerlaw · 2019-08-09T15:39:51+00:00

I don’t actually have a strong desire to “have” children of my own.

The only strong desire I have with respect to children or younger people in general is to give them guidance and help them avoid the avoidable hardships of and mistakes they will likely make in life.

I volunteer for high school and law school mock trial competitions. I signed up to teach a class on Expository Writing recently at a local community college. If there was more money in teaching, I would have loved to have been a high school teacher.

But a strong desire to have kids of my own? No thank you.

adool666 · 2019-08-09T17:06:46+00:00

Women don't feel reproductive anxiety the same way.

Nobodykers · 2019-08-09T17:28:33+00:00

Men want to have a family because slaving away at work and comming home to nothing is suicide inducing.

Tomatoccino · 2019-08-09T23:29:39+00:00

My late husband wanted lots of children, so we had 8. He spent an awful lot of time working long hours and abroad, so he didn’t do so much of the daily grind. He just didn’t understand the physical nature of raising small children, or the constant being on call. But he loved them so very much. I would have stopped after our twins, but he was adamant that we should have more.

NewVerses · 2019-08-10T02:14:07+00:00

In broad strokes, these dudes want children because they get to be dads, not moms. If they had to handle what we do, many of them would nope out. Society/gender roles still tie women more closely with managing a household and raising kids, so this is why childfree women feel the need to be louder. Men don't get the pressure that we do.

cxj · 2019-08-09T13:01:43+00:00

Look up the behavioral sink. When a species spends too long cooped up in a prison, even a very well stocked prison as modernity undoubtedly is, it eventually becomes insane and suicidal. The experiment was first done on rats, and is now being done on us in order to create a more easily controlled, smaller population.

In the first stage of the experiment, effectively infinite food is given to the population (welfare state) but a cage is erected around them (no more frontiers to conquer). Even though there’s still plenty of room within the cage the population largely clusters in a single hellishly overcrowded area, which soon becomes riddled with every concievable social ill (urbanization and the cancer that is urban culture). We now enter phase 2.

Violent gangs form and territory ceases to be respected (open borders). Some males become herbivores and drop out of the smp (rising male virginity/mgtow). Females lose the mothering instinct and murder their young en maase (abortion and the anti natal stance of women you just described). Homosexual behavior and gender confusion become commonplace.

Eventually this behavioral rot, which in humans can neatly be encapsulated by the term “leftism”, becomes terminal and a last generation is reached. (Below replacement birthrates in most of the west and still dropping) The bloodlines of the original rats are no more. If only those rats had been able to vote Trump, all might not have been lost. But alas

chaddad9000 · 2019-08-09T12:36:03+00:00

Say what you want, men arent the ones who get biologically baby crazy.

And I have seen it happen, its a completely alien concept.

TheBookOfSeil · 2019-08-09T13:40:36+00:00

Of course men are more obsessed with children than women are. We're all pedophiles and rapists, right?

I don't think that men are any more obsessed with kids than women are. Men don't commonly seem to want to have them like women seem to, but when they do have them, they can be just as loving and nurturing as women can be.

decoy88 · 2019-08-09T16:03:32+00:00

Kodak moments is what many men (and quite a few women) think of when they picture having kids.

Reality seems to shock a great number of people when they encounter the hard grinding bits. Although I think with information this is changing

HerefortheTuna · 2019-08-09T17:45:27+00:00

Maybe. All my guy friends who don’t have kids don’t seem to want them yet. All my female acquaintances are working women who probably aren’t ready to put their lives on hold

maruthescruffydog · 2019-08-10T18:10:19+00:00

No i am man and I can't stand kids but I love women.

Robert_de_Saint_Loup · 2019-08-12T14:20:25+00:00

Not me, I can hardly take care of myself, why would i need a kid?

rokulda · 2019-08-15T21:49:48+00:00

Nowadays ya

slavicgypsygirl · 2019-08-16T01:02:54+00:00

I don't like or ever want children so any man who does is already more obsessed than me

red-sfpplus · 2019-08-09T13:54:12+00:00

Can’t stand kids. Except my own. Everyone else’s are awful 😂

banananutbranmuffin · 2019-08-09T14:06:49+00:00

Women know that they have the unearned power and privilege, if a woman wants to have kids she will, if a woman wants to get married and have a family she will. It's not really an existential angst, where as for men it is. There's a lot more uncertainty to it for men. So of course they're more obsessed with it.

For most woman it's, "who will I start a family with and who will I marry"

For most men it's, "will anyone even want to have kids with me, will anyone want to be my significant other"

I could see a woman being less obsessed with it because they know they have the unequal power and privileged in the situation.

[deleted] · 2019-08-09T15:13:14+00:00

Women have fallen so far. Good mothers and wives are basically a myth. Women are all about themselves and are the most selfish creatures on the planet. Probably universe.

Title	Are men actually more obsessed with kids than women?
Author	87AudreyHorne
Upvotes	50
Comments	191
Date	August 9, 2019 11:23 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/co10vo/are_men_actually_more_obsessed_with_kids_than/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/are-men-actually-more-obsessed-with-kids-than.254523 https://theredarchive.com/post/254523