In my experience, social pressure to have children is such a ubiquitous experience that it's difficult for me to think it doesn't have an effect. I wonder how this might vary between men & women
I suspect it's enormously different between men and women, and of course inter-culturally. As a straight man living in Ireland, despite having extremely traditional catholic parents, I've faced literally zero pressure from family to have kids. My siblings (male and female) have both chosen to have kids (very closely together in time), and I enjoy being an uncle a great deal. But I don't have any interest whatsoever in parenting. I have some friends with kids - although they tend to fall off the radar if I'm honest, but haven't felt any pressure from them either.
Do you have kids? I find that my desire for children, and the ways in which I enjoy mine, are very “primitive” pleasures in the same way as my desires to eat or sleep are.
Maybe we eat because of social pressure, but obviously there is something deeper too.
>social pressure to have children is such a ubiquitous experience
One aspect of growing older that I eagerly can't wait for (unlike most others) is getting old enough that people will stop fucking pestering me about marriage and kids.
All those people can sincerely fuck off into their own bedrooms, pun intended.
Yes and it can be quite absurd and right on the nose.
While Putin feeds humans to the dogs of war, he will at the same time chide his countryfolk that they are not having enough children.
There is a softer version in the west where elders and the wealthy are 'concerned about birthrates' while at the same time squeezing their young on living costs(shelter+food).
