I work 70 hour weeks and usually leave the house by 8.30 in the morning and often don’t get home until 10 at night. It is not uncommon for me to wake up on a Saturday morning and say “Let’s go here this weekend” jump in the car and take off. I love him dearly and would do damn near anything for him, but he was asking the impossible of me. He kept hoping I would change my mind and when it didn’t happen after four years he decided to end it and frankly, my first question if a guy is interested from now on is going to be “Do you want children” and if the answer is “yes” or “maybe one day” I’m heading home. When it’s something that is so fundamental to someone’s life choices (he thinks if you don’t have children you are a failure at life) it’s not going to work out.

I also think it’s the height of selfishness for a guy to demand children from a woman who doesn’t want to have them. The guy isn’t going to have to be pregnant or worry about his uterus drooping. HE won’t be getting fat or having his body permanently changed. Statistically speaking, he won’t even be doing the majority of the child rearing tasks.

You could always volunteer & help kids who are already here and might want a big brother/sister or need some adult mentor in their lives. You could even babysit for small children & thereby do something nice for some stressed out parent. There are plenty of kids who are already here who could use help.

Otherwise, I don’t see it not leading to serious resentment later on. Children aren’t toys & don’t ask to be born. If you can’t give them 100%, you have no business bringing one into the world & causing it torment through resentment, abuse, or whatever else gives that child psychological trauma that society has to deal with at some point. I may be childfree but I sure don’t hate children. I think they deserve to be wanted & not viewed as an inconvenience or a means to hurt the other parent.

I do not think it is wrong to try to “persuade” each others from their opinion (of course in healthy ways. There are – although we hate to admit, and it is bad for us – people who think they are childfree, but are just childless, insecure and unstable (financially, psychologically, etc). And there are people who just never thought that having babies is a CHOICE. They take that as a default of life, and assumed they will have babies, but when give it a second and deeper thought, they do not want it (Google is full of those cases).

Sometimes we need to be there for our partners, make sure their decision is only theirs, not based on family and society´s pressure, make sure they are ready to take it (therefore the idea of renting a baby, imo, is awesome). Talk about the full costs – including moving out to more child-friendly zone neighborhood – also helps to wake people up from ideas that are, sometimes brainwashed and unreal. That should not be taken as a cold shower or pushing down on their choice, that is what partners should do to each others when a independent decision will change the whole relationship, like moving to another country, taking a big loan for something, buying a house, etc.

If, in the end of all, both keep on with their opinion, you know you helped that person to be more aware of what really means to have a baby, you helped that person to grow. Splitting up is probably for the best (which would also be if one decide to move to another country and the other does not want it, etc).

But, as it happens in some cases, you might be surprised^^ I would take the chance if it was a very important relationship.

As for the way I proposed we should persuade each other, I hope it adequately comes across that I’m being sarcastic. Renting babies is all well and good, but decisions this big don’t always have clear cut answers. That’s where humor becomes a coping mechanism. Sometimes, in the midst of trials and tug of wars, it’s good to throw up your hands and just have a laugh about it.

My partner realised that I didn’t want to have kids but we are still together. I am quite happy but I know deep down that he would have liked his life to be different. I used to blame myself for his occassional sadness but not anymore. When he made the decision to stick with ne he took responsibility of the consequences.

Me.