Dear Mariella: should I marry my CF gf, when I might want kids?

Someone felt the need to ask breeder-brained Mariella what to do about a "perfect" girlfriend who doesn't want kids. I'm pretty sure why the person wrote to her - for starters, because he doesn't understand what CF means and he expects sympathy. It has it all, bingos about unhappy childhood as well as acceptance of the life script of other people's expectations. The woman is a fool if she marries him.

And then there's Mariella:

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You are definitely right on the many pluses of choosing not to procreate. Along with the financial upside and freedom it allows, there are also negative side effects – contributing to population growth, bringing innocents into an uncertain world, the increasingly unstable future and the decades of responsibility. Truly, when you look forensically at the pros and cons of parenting, there’s little that is tangible to compel any sensible person to go for it. But billions of us do. The desire to have a family tends to creep up on you and it’s almost impossible to predict whether or not it will become a priority later.

Nice how she can't be bothered to list any of the pros.

Bad advice, he can accept her decision to not have kids seriously and either live with it or move on. She is 36, the likelihood of her changing her mind about kids is pretty much non-existent at this point.

And saying he has lots of time is incorrect, he is 29. Sperm has an expiration date just like eggs do. If he sticks around for 5-6 years and gives her an ultimatum then she will break it off, he will be single and wanting kids. He'll be lucky to meet another women he likes who wants kids and have at least one before 40 at that point. And if he prefers women around his age they may have fertility issues.

He should read his own words until they sink in: "After all, without children we’d be able to become independently wealthy, retire younger and travel wherever, whenever."

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freya
Bad advice, he can accept her decision to not have kids seriously and either live with it or move on. She is 36, the likelihood of her changing her mind about kids is pretty much non-existent at this point.

Of course it is bad advice: it's Mariella. I like the bit where she suggests stringing this woman along and then dumping her if he decides he wants kids. Because whatever time and energy she may have invested in the relationship is irrelevant, since she hasn't got a biological clock involved.

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If you really love this woman, but you’re not in a hurry to have children, why don’t you just live together for a while and see how things progress?

After all, who cares about the feelings of a CF woman? What incentive is there to be honest about your doubts with someone who isn't prepared to give you children? Women are disposable, right?

"Your partner has every right to make her own choice about starting a family, but to express it as a legacy of her own childhood is the least credible argument she could present. The past doesn’t have to shape your future unless you allow it to. Suggesting that history will only repeat itself is not conducive to success. We have to believe in a better future in order to forge one at all. So I certainly think it would be worth getting her to think further on her feelings about parenting."

"Not conducive to success?" Are we talking about bringing an innocent person in the world or am I at a MLM convention? What kind of bullshit is that? Having a bad childhood IS a perfectly acceptable reason not to have kids. The world would be a better place if people with shitty childhoods didn't procreate instead of deluding themselves that they will do things differently.

But by all means let's continue to live with this woman and badger HER about her choices since wanting to carry on one's surname is a perfectly acceptable reason to bring a human into this world.

Not only is that bad advice it's just evil. She needs to tell sonny boy to man up and do the honorable thing and just break-up.

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bell_flower
"Not conducive to success?" Are we talking about bringing an innocent person in the world or am I at a MLM convention? What kind of bullshit is that? Having a bad childhood IS a perfectly acceptable reason not to have kids. The world would be a better place if people with shitty childhoods didn't procreate instead of deluding themselves that they will do things differently.

Plus he's only assuming that is why she is reluctant: she had a bad childhood, ergo she is not interested in having children. Great stereotyping right there. Plenty of people have had decent childhoods and still aren't keen to reproduce.

If Mariella was good at advice she would only want people who are capable of healthy relationships and also want kids to have them. Most people don't have the ability to magically unlearn everything they were taught in childhood and young adulthood about relationships that is unhealthy, it takes serious work and dedication to do so. There could very well be adults that will never be able to have a healthy relationship due to their past.

She needs to learn if someone doesn't want kids they shouldn't have them as no good can come out of this situation for the kids. I don't care how lame or substantial others perceive the reasoning is for their decision. No is good enough.

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freya

And saying he has lots of time is incorrect, he is 29. Sperm has an expiration date just like eggs do.

Heh, that's true, but it's significantly longer than eggs - which, I guess for the dipshit in the article is good, but bad for the CF.

Sure, we hear about selfish women carrying kids to term in their fifties, but you hear about WAY more selfish men doing it than you do women, esp. celebrities.

David Letterman fathered one at 57 or 58 in the nineties, Daniel Craig just had one at 50 and he looked 65 in the waiting room.

And Charlie Chaplin fathered a kid at eighty. EIGHTY!!!!