Have you ever been pressured to have children?

[roboticanary]

This seems to come up a few times in aro spaces, the idea of family pushing their children to hurry up and make them some kids. Thankfully I have never had this yet (one of my uncles had kids in his forties so I suspect he took the brunt of the complaints) but it is something I am not too keen on facing if it comes up in the future. Especially as I get older and am still comfortably single.

Has anyone had this happen to them, and if so how did you respond?

[nonmerci]

Sometimes my father complain about how he hasn't greatchild yet, or how his ex colleagues have but not him. Usually he also complains about how his children are not married. But he does not necessary does that to our faces so I'm sure he complains more than I know.

I usually respond with ignorance. Which is not the best, but I am too tired to explain things to him.

[Apathetic Echidna]

My close family have known for a long long time that I'm not having kids. But recently it has been a topic coming up again with my more distant cousins and my friends. It is sort of feeling like peer pressure when it comes up in conversation every time we talk.  

[Holmbo]

My parents have said they don't have any expectations of me or my siblings having children, it's totally up to us. Although we are four so I suppose they feel their chances for grand children is pretty good.

[arofox]

My mom definetly want's grandchildren from me and my siblings. She want's us to marry the opposite gender and have a few kids, because "thats just how normal people are". Funny how they never have real arguments, only "but god wanted..." and "that's just how it is". Very hurtful actually :(

My dad told us that he wants us to be happy first, but I know that he actually expects grandchildren too.

This made me worry about my siblings orientations, since they're probably aroace too and I feel like I'll have to get kids if they dont.

God I hate heteronormativity

[Georgi]

Kind of yes. And I think my mom is kind of heart broken because of this. She kept on hinting to the idea of having grandchildren... my brother knew I hated that and she just told her that I don't want kids, because I was too chicken to tell her. After a while, I also said it to her. I still don't think she fully buys it and she may still be hoping that later I will give her grandchildren (as I'm the oldest one and also afab...?).

[Erederyn]

My family is quite traditional, so having kids is considered a must. They also think it's just sad that I don't want kids- sad for me and for them. My parents put quite some pressure on me since I was a teenager, getting really upset when I would say that I don't want kids and that I don't know what I'm talking about ("you'll change your mind as you get older"). We'd have some arguments about it, but I stood my ground and now they begrudgingly "accept" it .. for now at least. 

17 hours ago, Georgi said:

...she may still be hoping that later I will give her grandchildren (as I'm the oldest one and also afab...?).

I feel this. 

[SquishyWing]

My parents definitely think that I should have kids, and by extension get married in the future, and it's really annoying. I have no desire to raise a kid through their childhood years, and they just don't really understand that I guess

[saucewisdom]

funnily enough, my mom really doesn’t care if i’m married or not (and by extension, having children). it’s a huge sigh of relief knowing i have nothing to live up to in that regard

[Ettina]

I've felt like the opposite is true for me. I've wanted kids for a long time (and now I'm pregnant! Finally!) and I've gotten a lot of flack from people who think I shouldn't reproduce for various reasons - because I'm disabled, because I'm not planning to raise them in a stereotypical mother + father family structure, because I need assistive reproduction and "why don't you just adopt?" (as if adoption is so simple and easy), because they think aromantic means loveless, and because there's a number of people who think no one should reproduce and conveniently target anyone but the fertile heteros who are producing the majority of children.

My family has always supported me, though.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Ettina

[nonmerci]

2 hours ago, Ettina said:

I've felt like the opposite is true for me. I've wanted kids for a long time (and now I'm pregnant! Finally!) and I've gotten a lot of flack from people who think I shouldn't reproduce for various reasons - because I'm disabled, because I'm not planning to raise them in a stereotypical mother + father family structure, because I need assistive reproduction and "why don't you just adopt?" (as if adoption is so simple and easy), because they think aromantic means loveless, and because there's a number of people who think no one should reproduce and conveniently target anyone but the fertile heteros who are producing the majority of children.

My family has always supported me, though.

That's the main reason why I'm not sure I want biological anymore. My parents want me to ha e children, but me "creating a child without a dad" as my mother says? No way. I also remember how the concept of being virgin and pregnant was strange to her.

But wi admire you for doing it, and congrats fir the pregnancy!

 

[MaxIsCosmic]

my parents have been telling me I'm going to be a "great mom" since I was little I find it a bit weird considering I'm not even an adult yet. 

[Bumble_Bee_]

my parents have been talking about marriage and kids and idk how to break it to them-

6 minutes ago, Spadster said:

my parents have been telling me I'm going to be a "great mom"

also like same-

[Holmbo]

@Quinn_
i don't feel like you have to break it to them, unless you want to. It's not your fault they've made assumptions.

[BloodyBlood]

hey everyone! hope yall do well!

so. i remember since i was kid i was repulsed by marriage and children 

though right now i have soft romo partner but its more for fun i would never marry someone

and i remember some years ago my mom was talking about that she liked that i have children etc too but i glared at her and she apologized { my parents know me well and how much i would get mad about it even jk about it }

my father, he like me to stay with him so its mean he dislike i marry as well so he is on my side

my mother is recently on my side too

just sometimes stranger mention { when your daughter get older she will get marry/child } 

my parents { my mom usually } explain to them i wont getting dang marry , so yes i have experienced that and i have to say it was { still } annoying for me , though its not their fault they just did not know, but if they keep on it after i explained to them then i would get really mad

anyway sorry for being rude, hope i did not made anyone sad, have lovely day yall! <3 ?

though i really have to mention i like to have child in games or even in real but not My child , like adopting one or idk , something like that.

Edited November 19, 2021 by BloodyBlood

[Nessa]

My mother never had any problem with me not wanted a relationship or kids I am pretty lucky for that. But I had friends who couldn't accept the idea of me not wanting a relationship, for them you couldn't be happy without a relationship it was becoming unhealthy and I couldn't bare it anymore especially as I have discovered that one of them had shared a very important moment of her a life with absolutely everybody she knew except me and she dared minded my life ... I was very upset about that so I stop talking to them. I knew them for more than 20 years and they didn't even try to call me... I feel much better without them in my life and now if people don't accept this part of me well I stop seeing them. I know it is not as easy with family, I have a very big family and my aunts and uncles always ask me what I am waiting for... And I answer that is never going to happen and that it is my life I do whatever I want with it.  I don't get how people want you to be happy and can hurt you like this, if your parents want you to be happy they should just let you live the life you wanna live and not the life they want you to have and real friends should accept you the way you are otherwise they are not friends.

 

[roboticanary]

On 11/7/2021 at 9:14 PM, nonmerci said:

I also remember how the concept of being virgin and pregnant was strange to her.

just start a religion, then it will seem normal to people.

 

On 11/25/2021 at 3:03 PM, Nessa said:

I knew them for more than 20 years and they didn't even try to call me

ouch, that's a tough thing to take. 

[Nessa]

On 11/28/2021 at 11:06 PM, roboticanary said:

 

ouch, that's a tough thing to take. 

Oh yes it is!! I am still very angry at them after all this time.

[atrocious_ar0mantic]

I told my mother I’m not keen on the idea of raising children, let alone anytime soon. And it irritates me because she said she’d initially felt the same, but then she changed her mind. This is always how she responds to me, with the expectation that I could change my mind.

It’s fine if I do change my mind, it could very well happen. What’s frustrating is that only the latter is acceptable. That if I said I wanted to raise children, no one would be telling me that I could change my mind. But everyone jumps to that excuse as soon as I say that I don’t want to.

[Rook on the Hook]

Not intensely, but it's definitely something I've faced a lot of subtle, implicit pressure about from my family (especially grandparents), interspersed with the occasional explicit insinuation that I'll be missing out or that I'll change my mind. Thankfully, it has eased up a bit since coming out as trans (which is doubly good, because the fact that my body could hypothetically get pregnant is by far one of the things that causes me the most discomfort and is the source of the worst of my body related dysphoria), but it still crops up from time to time.

It's made doubly frustrating by the fact that it's not just that I don't want kids, but that, having done a lot of thinking on the topic, I am the sort of person who absolutely should not have kids. It is just not something I am physically, mentally, or situationally equipped to handle well. Like... mother... I disappear into undisclosed parts of the desert for days, weeks and even months at a time and struggle to take care of my own most basic bodily needs, why on earth do you think children are a good idea for me? Do you want feral little desert creatures for grandchildren? XD

[Max_Ali]

I had one ex girlfriend pressure me so much to the idea of getting married and having many children that even for a moment I fooled myself enough I really thought I wanted that. 

I’m older now and my parents start to make comments here and there about how they want grandkids and when I tell them I don’t want to they just respond that I’m crazy and that I will for sure have them. Which makes me very uncomfortable.

It’s annoying really, but the person I feel more pressured by is myself. I’m an only child and also adopted, I don’t know anything about my birth family so I’ve never in my life seen someone that resembles me, that has my facial or physical traits. I think is something many people take for granted. And it pains me a lot that if I never find my birth family and decide to never have children of my own I will never see myself reflected in someone else. I’ll never feel I belong or have something that is inherently “mine”.

[Collie]

Not really. But one of my friends, who happens to have autism and has a hard time understanding social stuff, asked me if I would ever get married and I had to clarify several times that I don't want to get married, no, not even when I'm 50.