Lipstick Mystic--good points!  Especially about the "Ooops!" factor.  How stupid and evil.

Until Later

Many people have kids and act as though they're a nuisance afterward.  To me, those who have children should want to have them for the children's sake, not their own ego's.  That's the problem I have with people who work so hard at infertlity treatments just to propogate thier own genetic material.  It seems as though they want badges, not children.

It is even funny my internal “war" like when happened to cross an interesting
attractive woman who may want something and some part of me says “go go go"
and the other says “no no no". 
It is something like Jim Carrey in the movie ‘LiarLiar’
So difficult to deprogram, not fair…

Yes, guys, please get the old clip and tie if you don't want children.  Never put your reproductive fate into anyone else's hands.  I personally drove my sweetie to get the snip, and it was a "committment" thing, just as marriage or deciding to have children is.  We later joked about every male in the house needing to be suspicious when I drive them to the "vet", because they all come back fixed!

Poked my head over here for a minute to see how things are going over here and saw this thread. Good subject for discussion.

As part of my work creating a syndicated column that combines real astrology with pop cultural (ie: celebrity) news, I am unfortunately forced to stay on top of all celeb news events. And over the three years I've been writing Lipstick Mystic Stars I have noticed a HUGE shift toward programming young girls into following Britney Spears' footsteps - get married at 20, get knocked up with two kids before you turn 25, and make sure you've married a selfish jerk so you'll be divorced by 26.  Very sad stuff. It's this weird inverted type of programming - on the one hand getting girls all excited about the COOL aspects of having kids - yet also encouraging them to mindlessly procreate and screw up their lives before they have built a true foundation of "self" as an adult. 

I think what's going on in so much of  the Hispanic community - women wanting to "get having kids out of the way before they go to college" - is starting to leak over into more "mainstream" Anglo culture.  Yet there is some other decidedly twisted stuff being added to the mix.

I have to agree with the boys in this thread...this societal programming seems to be about convincing slaves to make more slaves (and more loosh harvest) for the Fatherland.  (or Motherland.)

Self-aware, cool ladies having babies I have no problems with - we need more of these enlightened would-be mums coming to the forefront.  You go, girls!  And let me know when the baby shower is so I can treat you to a spa gift. I support you wholeheartedly.

But "baby as cool accessory" programming is scary stuff, especially when you overhear a bunch of 14-year-olds talking about this in the ladies room in all seriousness, as I did last night (when I went to see the X-men - fun film, that.)

Their conversation, I kid you not, went from the importance of having an Ipod on you at all times, even at the movies ("in case the movie is boring or it's too scary"), to "how many kids are you going to have and when?" The concensus answer being "Before I get too old, like 20 or so." Like it's all the same cool accessory - Ipod and baby.

These girls were about 13 or 14.  Suburban, whitebread, Anglo here in New Jersey. Bright kids from the local high school. And since teen sexuality is increasing to the point of 10year olds all knowing how to give blowjobs these days, this is a scary thing to overhear.

On a side note, I want to warn the guys out there who want to remain childfree.  You will meet women, otherwise perfectly sane and loving, who will attempt to "oops" you on purpose.

I counselled over 10,000 clients, mostly women, in private practice for about ten years.  I lost count of the amount of women who "oopsed" their significant others on purpose - but it has to be in the hundreds at least. At least 500 or more. And in my own social circle I know many who have done this. 

It falls along the lines of "I'll get him to make a commitment, one way or another; a baby will be the perfect solution!" (most common) to "We've been married for a while now, so I'm the one who is going to have to make this move, because obviously it is the "purpose of marriage." (Plus her parents keep asking her when the grandkids are coming, her sisters and brothers already have kids and she feels pressured to keep up with them, yada yada.)

A lot of people really feel that the purpose of marriage is procreation - traditional "Christian" or not.

Funny, I always thought marriage was for entering into a loving spiritual union with someone you adored so you could work as a team to do really cool things on the planet together. I thought it was about the adults, not about their ova or sperm  

Oh, the things you have the privilege of hearing and observing when you are the primary confidante of thousands of women!

(And oh, the horror as well - this is why I no longer do this for a living

I never seemed to have any luck breaking through the sheer selfishness of this particular type of woman.  Most of their significant others didn't want kids, but their girlfriends/wives "knew what was best for them."

This was especially prominent among Italians and Polish folks I counselled, who were culturally programmed to believe that having children was the only way to maintain respect and honor within the larger family tribe.  Very sad stuff. I knew so many brilliant, educated, unique women whose spirits were crushed - and who immediately descended to the poverty level as single moms after these (unwanted by the men) babies were born and the  men left, deserted them, or filed for divorce.

What was up with that?  Would-be moms sentencing their future children to lives without dads because they failed to take into account the desires of the men they were partnered with - thus creating horrible fights, lifelong bitterness, and unwanted financial and personal obligation from these men for the next twenty years.

I have to say, I am not impressed with the majority of my fellow women because of all of this repeated, systemic, behavior of the "oopsing the men" thing, which I consider the most vicious form of abuse that you can commit upon a) the man in your life whom you profess to love and b) the soul of that future child who is not going to have a daddy - just a sperm donor who is angry and bitter at the woman who oopsed him. (And rightly so.)

The "war of the sexes" that was so programmed into society into the 60's and 70's (via the feminist movement which was so manipulated by the powers that be) is now becoming, in my opinion, "the war over sex."  Who determines the act of procreation, when it happens, under which conditions, and with the participation of which people.

This power is in women's hands for the most part (except in the case of rape,) and I have to say I'm very saddened at all I see happening around this issue for men.

Men on this board who wish to remain childfree, I can say from observation that the best thing for you is to get a vasectomy now - then it's a done thing.  The men I know with vasectomies are SO happy.  And they can focus on loving others without worrying about becoming a victim of a deceptive woman's biological clock.  (Because women can get REALLY insane when that kicks in. I know many who had one night stands without protection just to get the sperm donation.  So casual dating isn't safe, either!  Do you want to have child support payments and have your paychecks garnished if you don't fork up just because you met some woman in a bar whose sole agenda was to get some guy to knock her up? Latest estimates say that is takes about $750,000 to raise a child to adult age.  Do you have that money sitting around? )

A HUGE number of women I've observed go into relationships with men who are saying that they don't want kids and are completely disregarding this man's ability to make decisions about his procreating or not procreating......going INTO the relationship with the agenda of "I'll change his mind later, one way or another." If talking about kids doesn't make the guy more receptive, she'll have an oops.

Especially common is "But I thought you were on the Pill? How could you get pregnant?" and her saying "I was on the Pill - but in a small percentage of  cases, you still get pregnant." And the guy going, "Oh well."

Women can get pregnant on the Pill.  But usually when they tell men this, it's a lie in my observation. You'll find that they haven't been taking it for a while. And did you know that in the first three months after a woman stops taking the Pill, she is EXTREMELY fertile?  The hormones are adjusting to the change and snap back in a BIG way.  So if the woman goes off the Pill for just ONE MONTH her chances of getting preggers go way up.  One month of lying to their partner, or their partner not evening noticing that she's throwing the pills away, is all it takes, guys.

So - moral of the story, childfree guys? Get snipped. 

And if a woman isn't into you enough to enjoy the idea of spending a life together with you as her sole soulmate, and she needs kids to be happy and fulfilled, then she's not right for you (if your intention is to remain childfree.) Be clear about this.

Personally, I love my guy way too much to share him with anybody else, rugrat or not!

PS There are a lot of cool childfree by choice groups and forums on the Net - if the childfree reading this thread are looking to connect with others who share the childfree by choice outlook. 

Childfree by choice is different from "childless."  "Childless" implies the loss of something. "Childfree" connotates liberation from something - i.e. liberation from contributing to the slave state

And I have a bit of antipathy toward people who have the drive to have babies.  The problem is when it's a drive-- as in you're not in control, you're driven.  I work for a Christian company, and I watch couples have 4, 5-- even 8-- kids, and it makes me sick.  Think of the resources that's wasting!  Even if you can afford to have them, each one is still a burden on the Earth.

I also get irritated with people who, for whatever reason, are unable to concieve, and use unnatural therapies to have 8 babies at a time rather than adopt the unwanted.  Yeah, like YOUR genetic material is so freaking important.

Sorry, that's my rant.

Almost snarfed your coffee!  Yay!  At least I got a laugh out of ya!

A lot of these things I just say for effect.  If it rings true then hey.

Little menaces!  Now that's a good one.  Tell your brother I approve!

By the way, lyra, you're fun!

Those kids and your co-worker's sister were sent there to you by the Matrix to counteract any anti-baby thoughts you may have been entertaining.

I can see how that could be, although I'm not going to cave in and have any regardless of any possible manipulated situations.  The financial strain and the juggling act that's required to manage their lives once they hit junior high and high school is obnoxiously out of control.   All I have to do is stop and think about the families I used to check into the hotel I worked at last year, the ones that had teenagers specifically.  When they're little it's all fine and good.  But when they're 15, 16, 17 years old...yuck.  No thanks.  I'd watch the families in action and cringe from behind the front desk.  I wasn't a normal teenager at all myself, so I don't know how I'd ever handle raising one that was, with all their loud, silly, obnoxious "friends" and all the stuff they'd always be wanting, the parties they'd want to go to, and just the all around craziness that is the teenage years.   Can't even imagine. 

Okay.  Blushing. 

This is terrible to admit, but the level of pessimism in that statement was so over the top I almost snarfed the coffee I was drinking back at the coffee house.     "Cannon fodder."  Too funny.  I laughed out loud.   It reminded me of my brother (an Aquarius, same as yourself....)   He thought of kids as "little menaces."   It was so pessimistic it was funny.  "When I see kids, I just see little menaces, that's what I see!"  Must be an Aquarius thing. 

How's that for a Dark of the Moon rant!
TP

We've noted here on this end that Charlottesville has some of THE happiest cutest kids you've ever seen.  Just really happy happy babies, with a lack of crazy dysfunctional parents yanking them around, yelling, hissing, hitting, threatening and carrying on the way you see elsewhere. 

Possibly a negative attitude towards kids happens when one sees miserable, angry, bitter people with crying, unhappy kids all around.   But when you're around what seems to be genuinely happy people with really cute, cool kids, it all seems a bit different I guess.

Anyway, back to the conspiracy -  Let me ask this - Wouldn't the idea of a conspiratorial compaign to encourage more babymaking run counter-productive to the conspiracy which wants to dissolve and destroy the family unit and cull the Earht's population?

So many agendas.......so much working at cross-purposes!!     haha