"My partner didn't want children. I did."

Just what the world needed: another story of "he changed his mind once he saw the baby" to give people false hope. Granted, the guy was an idiot if he was being lax about contraceptives with someone he knew wanted to breed. But I loathe people like her that trot out this tired fairy-tale when the more common story is "he didn't change his mind." Stories like this make me stabby because they're always used as evidence against taking CF people seriously.

If this story was the norm, then why so many single moos? Loading people's minds with false hope is a genuinely retarded thing to do.

And to add to the great big pile of selfishness, in the comments there's mention of a memoir called Happiness, wherein you find out that the first child was born with a lethal blood disease so they had a second child in the hopes of him being a blood donor to the first one.

Lovely.

Jeeze, does this ever take me back! I used to watch CSI Las Vegas when it was still old school and Grisham was head of the place.

There was an episode, a young girl was murdered. Apparently at the end of the episode the killer was the terminally ill older brother. The parents had had the girl to basically save the favorite child, her brother. Her only value was to be a donor for him, everything from blood to marrow and even organ donation. The parents hated that this lovely girl had hobbies, a boy she liked, and professional dreams for her future. This poor kid had to keep everything secret or they went ballistic and would take it away.

The twist of the whole thing was the only one who truly loved her was the brother. Ironically the murderer as well. He had made peace about dying, the ass parents couldn't be happy with a daughter. No, it had to be the son. They were going to carve her up like a turkey just to prolong his suffering to keep themselves happy. When they found out what the kid had done, they covered it up and dumped the body of their daughter like trash. To keep their son out of jail.

At the time, it kinda shocked me, but seeing more and more parents like this nowadays. It doesn't surprise me anymore.

Quote
lurker-derp
And to add to the great big pile of selfishness, in the comments there's mention of a memoir called Happiness, wherein you find out that the first child was born with a lethal blood disease so they had a second child in the hopes of him being a blood donor to the first one.

Lovely.

Happiness? For whom? I would imagine that the kid that's being used as a blood farm might have something else to say about it.

I'd love someone to do a study on the real numbers-- how many people changed their mind when they saw the precious sprog, and how many fucking didn't.

Quote
kittehpeoples
I'd love someone to do a study on the real numbers-- how many people changed their mind when they saw the precious sprog, and how many fucking didn't.

Yep. I've often wondered the same thing.

I'd also like to see a breakdown by gender...how many moms feel that way compared to dads?

I think there's a lot of parents out there who are in this gig only because they caved to their spouse's wants. They teach themselves to keep up a good front, but honestly could take or leave the whole parent thing, if not downright hate it.

Quote
randomcfchick

Quote
kittehpeoples
I'd love someone to do a study on the real numbers-- how many people changed their mind when they saw the precious sprog, and how many fucking didn't.

Yep. I've often wondered the same thing.

I'd also like to see a breakdown by gender...how many moms feel that way compared to dads?

That's also an excellent question. I think it'd be really hard to get accurate numbers, though, because women are so brainwashed to twine their self-worth with raising children. I think even the ones who know damn well they regret it would be afraid to say so-- either because of the flak we all know they'd take, or because they'd believe it meant they were failures as women.