My experience has been quite different from Hector’s; the women I’ve dated have either already had children or they wanted them at some time in the future. In fact, the main reason my last relationship ended was because she wanted children and I didn’t.

You’re trying to date below your SES (socioeconomic status). Women who already have children or want a great many of them in the future are probably of a lower average SES than you find among graduate students. When I was doing my graduate seminars, over fifty percent of each class was female, but there were very few female students who had children or wanted more than two in the future. The desire for fewer children has an inverse relationship with SES; the higher one’s education, occupation and income, the fewer children they wish to have. You’re welcome to debate that point, but the GSS (general social survey) has backed that up for the last twenty years or so. You can check with MAJeff if you doubt my research abilities, given that I have a uterus and all.

Hector seems to be experiencing the opposite problem from you, in as much as he feels that he is entitled to have three or four children (regardless of his potential partner’s wishes on the matter), and is disappointed that his dating prospects so far only want one child at the most. He needs to try dating someone from a lower SES, and he’ll have better luck finding someone who wants lots of kids because she’ll be less likely to be invested in further education and a prestigious career. It’s much more difficult to give up a professional career for childrearing if you’re $100K in debt from graduate (or law, or medical, or business, whatever) school than if you’re not.

Hector goes on with the following:

I don’t really understand the thinking of people who actively don’t like or don’t want to have children, it’s a way of thinking that is foreign to me. And I think such people are missing out on an immensely rewarding aspect of life.

You say potato, I say potahto. Do you feel the same way about athiests? How about gays and lesbians? It’s important to understand that a key element of the social compact is that there are always going to be people whose views differ from one’s own, and keeping with the compact means allowing those people their views despite how you might feel about them personally, without either side trying to cram those views down the other side’s throats. Let me worry about finding my own fulfillment and rewards in life, and I’ll let you worry about finding yours, and we’ll both be happier if never the twain shall meet. Anything less borders on intolerance.

Women who don’t want children are probably more common in the 18-25 demographic which I’ve been in (and most of my friends, women i’ve been attracted to, etc.) for the last few years. Sometimes people change as they get older. My mother didn’t want children before she had me. Of course I think that marrying someone in the hope that you can ‘change’ their views about children is more than a bit sexist and domineering. Better to be agreed about it from the beginning.

Women who don’t want children when they are 18-25 are common because that age range is too young to have children in terms of optimal social outcomes. Women of that age range are less likely to experience upward social mobility than women who have their first child when they are in the 26-34 demographic. Later childbearing allows them more time to get established economically, which is also in the GSS. I completely agree, however, about discussing the number of potential children one ways before entering into a committed relationship. I think this applies not only to hetero couples, but to gays and lesbians as well, since children is not a subject that a couple can compromise on, especially when one party doesn’t want any.

Pride, ambition, and the desire for wealth and self-aggrandizement are not values that I cherish nor are they values I’m looking for in a partner.

This could be a source of your dating troubles as well. You claim you don’t want a partner who is proud, ambitious, and expects to be credited for her achievements, yet you keep finding these women who don’t want to have children. I’d say you’re casting your nets in a league that is greatly above you, socioeconomically speaking, and that you’d have much better luck finding a woman who is complacent and mousy with low self-esteem (since that seems to be a fond desire of yours) if you looked for someone with a background more similar to your own.

I think it is sad. I can understand couples who would like to have children but decide, against the wishes of their heart, that they shouldn’t for health reasons, poverty, a desire not to overpopulate the planet, etc. those are all good reasons. I don’t really understand the thinking of people who actively don’t like or don’t want to have children, it’s a way of thinking that is foreign to me. And I think such people are missing out on an immensely rewarding aspect of life.

The Orthodox church has a teaching that a relationship as a whole should be open to children (at least one) even if each individual sex act is not, which I find compelling even if I think that there are circumstances where it might not apply.

Women who don’t want children are probably more common in the 18-25 demographic which I’ve been in (and most of my friends, women i’ve been attracted to, etc.) for the last few years. Sometimes people change as they get older. My mother didn’t want children before she had me. Of course I think that marrying someone in the hope that you can ‘change’ their views about children is more than a bit sexist and domineering. Better to be agreed about it from the beginning.

Ms. Marcotte, I don’t know what I said to get you so annoyed. Yes, I look for certain things when I’m thinking about asking out a girl, no doubt she is looking for certain things too. A sign that a woman is as you put it ‘too proud’ to have children is probably a sign that we would be incompatible in other ways too. Pride, ambition, and the desire for wealth and self-aggrandizement are not values that I cherish nor are they values I’m looking for in a partner.

I think it’s probably true that a slight majority of men (like me) are looking for a partner somewhat younger than they are, but certainly not true of all, and women in their 30s or 40s should certainly be able to find someone to be with.

And that was just fine; sure the break up was sad, but we both had made perfectly legitimate decisions regarding our futures, and those goals were not compatible.

I don’t know where all these women and men are who don’t want children. I realize the same of people I know is too small, but in my experience, people of either sex who don’t want children are rather hard to find.

I think one factor that may be in play here is that sadly, a not insignificant fraction of women (not a majority by any means, but a fair number) don’t want to have children

certainly rubbed me the wrong way.

I suspect women who say “I can’t get dates because I’m OLD! Boo-hoo-hoo!” or “I can’t get dates because I’m FAT! Boo-hoo-hoo!” are the female equivalent of the Nice Guy ™. It’s not your age, or your weight, it’s your personality and incurable “I-can’t-itis.”

And what is wrong with being a cat lady? Isn’t it better to be happily single than miserably married? Because you can bet that so many “perfect couples” have one or both who is miserable.

All I know is that

1) Women beyond 30 are “past their peak” and they are not precisely men’s most recurrent fantasy. And this woman is 40-ish.

My reply:

Have you never heard of the “cougar” phenomenon? Women in their 30s and 40s are sought after big-time, by younger men. And women are AT their peak in their 30s and 40s, from a sexual standpoint. So it only makes sense! (It seems to work from the history in my family…mom’s 8 years older that dad, and they’ve been married over 50 years).