What makes women volunteer for childbirth?

Ubbquittious

With abortion now legal I am surprised that anyone is still having kids. The birth itself must be absolutely awful, like having to chew your own arm off to escape a rising tide.

Even the ones who go for caesarians, epidural, etc still suffer horribly. I think the sooner artificial wombs become common the better

iniscealtra

People want to have children.

Pregnancy feels great - very even moods.

Breastfeeding gives people feel good hormones - oxytocin.

Childbirth is one day. Recovery from vaginal delivery is much faster than caesarean. People forget the pain afterwards and pain relief is available.

Contraception is available for those who don’t want kids. Not everyone does but many do.

Some people do it many times.

User567363

People want to have children????

No they dont, kids are noisy, messy and expensive, if someone really wants to have kids they can have mine

tabby aspreme

There must be some positives in childbirth, it's been going on for a long time

greenspurs

for the S€x ...?

😜 - im joking ...

PaoloGotti

It’s natural selection. If they didn’t want to do it you wouldn’t be here.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121765288#Comment_121765288

Natural selection is the OP dropping out of the gene pool because they think childbirth is something horrible.

Good result all round I think

isinht

My missus will be on her back with her ankles in the air tonight.

PmMeUrDogs

Lots of people want kids and the joy from that outweighs the pain and inconvenience?

I'm not one of them, kids aren't something I want. But looking at my sibling's children, I absolutely understand why they'd go through with it

I mean if people don’t have children (and in this case women don’t give birth and opt for abortion or celibacy), well we’re pretty fecked then aren’t we once the current population dies.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121765516#Comment_121765516

Too late for that.

It is in fact something horrible but society tends to shove the gruesome reality of it under the carpet and focus on stuff like the baby being healthy and everything being OK now

Purple Mountain

Why do people partake extreme sports and run the risk of broken limbs and head injuries etc?

Once you break your leg once, you'd think they'd never go again for another slice of the action but most do.

Look at GAA players. Multiple broken digits or arm/leg isn't uncommon.

JDD

It's a very good question.

I've always wanted kids (and have them now). I felt a visceral need when I saw babies in my twenties. I can only call it something primal.

There is also the very subtle, but very real reward society grants you when you become a mother. I felt it immediately when I first became visibly pregnant. People are nicer to you. People smile at you more. It almost feels like strangers are at the point of saying "thank you for your service", like they do to people in army fatigues in America.

Once you have children, you're sort of part of this inner circle (albeit, a very wide inner circle) with other women who have children. With men, there's some truth to the old adage that women are seen as either the Madonna or the wh~~re. Once you have children you're automatically seen as a more caring, more sympathetic person. It's ridiculous that we still see people that way but it's how it is, in my opinion - the world doesn't change as quickly as we think it does. And it's very enticing from the outside, and very satisfactory when you're in it. It's like the way you are treated better, as a woman, if you are slim rather than fat. I'd say many women would go through the equivalent of a day's labour and childbirth, if they were guaranteed a figure that society deems to be acceptable.

A person who decides to buck society's expectation of them, and choose not to have children because it just isn't for them, is doing far more for the improvement of society in the long run than someone who just blindly goes into it.

But I digress. I think a lot more women are choosing not to have children nowadays. It's not only because attitudes towards "childless by choice" are changing, but mothers are far more honest about the reality of having children than they might have been in past generations. Labour and childbirth are the easy parts, i'd venture. The sleep deprivation, the way multiple pregnancies wreck your physical health, the time deprivation, the boredom and the money should be far more offputting for those considering it, than the one day of pain.

sameoldname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121765516#Comment_121765516

The nicest, most loving, most generous couple I know decided against having kids. Other sound people I know who do have kids thought long and hard about it before going ahead. The biggest shitheads I've ever known never put any thought into passing their gene's along presumably because they think they're flawless. I wouldn't be so quick to judge if I were you.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121765571#Comment_121765571

Who with ?

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121767815#Comment_121767815

Me but keep that to yourself.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121767762#Comment_121767762

I misread the "Madonna" "whore" part of that post. My first thought was she was a great show woman, not much of singer though.

--

But anyway, kids seem to do strange things to couples, they can either bring them closer the "complete happy family" or drive them apart "divorce/separation". I don't think there is much of an in-between scenario.

JupiterKid

There has to be a natural incentive/urge to have children in humans, or otherwise as a species we would be doomed if no-one wanted children.

That said, for nearly all of the vast stretch of human history, there was no contraception/family planning and women were usually treated as a man's chattel/property so they really didn't have a choice in the matter and just produced multiple offspring as a product of sex - or sadly often, rape.

Only since the early 20th Century have the technological and social/sexual revolutions resulted in woman being able to easily and reliably control their fertility - and indeed most women in the West opted for far fewer children and many opted to have none at all.

Organised religion and all its associated rubbish ideology has tried to resist these modernising/liberating trends as controlling people - and women in particular - has been a priority for them.

Children can be very hard work and very, very stressful (I have none myself, but have nephews and a niece, now grown up and many mates who are dads) but there is still an innate instinct to reproduce in both men and women.

No children, no future for humanity.

kazamo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121765571#Comment_121765571

Where will you be ?

dxhound2005

There is nothing new under the Sun. The population of the world has not reduced in modern times, despite new methods being available. Another thing that some people might consider is new is sex toys. But they have a very long history as well.

"Since ancient times, women all over the world have used a variety of methods for contraception. Prior to the introduction of the Pill, however, choices were limited and existing methods were less than perfect.

The Oldest Methods Some methods still used today have their roots in antiquity. The withdrawal method was recorded in the Bible's book of Genesis. Around 1850 B.C. Egyptian women mixed acacia leaves with honey or used animal dung to make vaginal suppositories to prevent pregnancy. The Greeks in the 4th century B.C. used natural ointments made with olive and cedar oil as spermicides. A popular Roman writer advocated abstinence. "Womb veils," a 19th-century phrase for diaphragms cervical caps, and condoms, often made from linen or fish intestines, have been in use for centuries. In the 1700s, the famous seducer Giacomo Casanova told of using half a lemon rind as a cervical cap.

Female Preparations In pre-industrial America, women used homemade herbal douches to prevent pregnancy. If a pregnancy was discovered, there were elixirs women could take to induce a miscarriage. Common ingredients in these "female preparations" were the herbs savin and pennyroyal.

The Rubber Revolution The biggest breakthrough in contraception in the nineteenth century was not a new method, but a technological improvement of existing methods. In 1839, Charles Goodyear revolutionized the rubber industry when he made vulcanized rubber. He mass produced rubber condoms, intrauterine devices, douching syringes and diaphragms. Despite federal and state anti-birth control laws, "rubbers" were enormously popular and sales were brisk."

"From unripe bananas to dried camel dung coated in resin - people in ancient Greece and Egypt turned out to be creative in finding sexual aids. Alternative materials used to carve dildos included stone, leather or wood. The world's first (discovered) dildo was found in Germany and dates back 28,000 years."

Musicrules

Should having children be a choice? I think it should be something you have to get a licence to have. For example, if you can't prove you'll be at home enough to look after your kids then you wouldn't be granted a licence.

billyhead

The wrong people are having kids nowadays and people who would make wonderful parents can't have kids biologically.

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058336089/what-makes-women-volunteer-for-childbirth

The few hours of pain is compensated by years of joy.

endacl

Mickey money.

NeonCookies

No joke, one of my first thoughts after giving birth to my daughter was "Wow, I could do that again!" - that's the power of the oxytocin rush you get when that baby is placed on your chest.

I'm now pregnant with our 2nd so guess I am doing it again 🤣 that'll be it though... parenting is seriously tough work!

Day Lewin

I had five. Always loved babies, and also revelled in the whole physical business of being female. Sex, the hormone cycle, the extraordinary power to make a person. I am an organism that has always wanted to reproduce!

Yes, the experience of childbirth is intense and often painful. The reward is wonderful, though. Like, say, skydiving - you can't have that experience if you won't jump out of the plane.

It seems to be fashionable to sneer at having children, as if the young and fresh and hopeful were nothing but a chore.

But what's the point in endlessly going through the motions of mating, but never reproducing?

This is Nature and evolution in action. I have grandchildren now, my DNA is scattered far and wide! I still love to hug and kiss the little children. and hold the marvel of the newborn tiny feet. It's absolutely worth it. Happiness!

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121768218#Comment_121768218

Of course until well into the 20th century in many places, and some places even today, many children born wouldn't see 5 years of age, and you need/needed to have adult children to support you in your old age (if you lived that long) as there was little or no state support.

Hotblack Desiato

OP you don't ask why us lads bother?

All that time effort and money chasing women when we could be having a laugh with the lads downing pints and/or watching a match. Etc etc.

Trying to decipher the strange language they speak (and the things they don't say). Gifts, holidays, maybe a wedding...

Then if you're lucky you get a few minutes of rumpy-pumpy and blow your beans (no multiple orgasms for us, nuh-uh)

Then you get a big chunk taken out of your wallet for the next 23 years.

Yet some of us choose to do it, and some of us even more than once 😁

The global population shows no sign of collapsing anway, it's continuing to increase at an unsustainabe rate.

I once read an account of a woman who absolutely refused any cannula or needle of any sort to be put in her whilst giving birth as she had a great phobia of needles! Apparently everything went fine and she didn’t need any needles before, during or after it!

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769273#Comment_121769273

Because there's far more happiness than sadness and difficulty.

Children are great, and for all the moaning from parents, there's hardly a single parent who would give up their children. You get to live your childhood through them and experience the world again through their eyes.

Honestly, at 35 there's not much more that I want to do and haven't done. Life was starting to become a bit repetitive and I'm not interested in having the same experiences that I was having at 25.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769273#Comment_121769273

I have seen a man or two having multiple orgasms, within 15 minutes 😉😁 Lean & fit types.

Hotblack Desiato

No no no Padre, MY children are great.

Nearly all other people's children are annoying little shíts 😁

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769162#Comment_121769162

The endless motions are the best craic, then children come along to ruin it

They don't ... at least not the educated ones. Factor in the costs and time, it's not worth it. However the lower economic scale with support from government, it would be worth it. In fact single mom's would be top of the housing list. So from Darwinian perspective they are the smarter ones cause their genes pass on to next generation,they will have grandchildren and will be looked after as they get older.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769275#Comment_121769275

It's not uncommon. Of the four kids I have fathered - three of them were born without any form of pain killers used at all. Went with "water births". The final child was a bit more complicated - and overdue so a bit larger that it should have been - so pain killers were opted for in that case.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769450#Comment_121769450

So educated women don't have children? Anything to back that up?

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769322#Comment_121769322

Not the same thing at all I'm afraid!

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769575#Comment_121769575

For one of them I had a couple of pints while I was waiting, does that count as a painkiller?

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770195#Comment_121770195

Not when herself is within earshot its not :)

I had a massive cigar outside after each one.

Hamsterchops

Crazy question, like who else could "volunteer' for childbirth 😀

ceadaoin.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121767584#Comment_121767584

It's not always horrible or no one would do it. I gave birth without any pain relief whatsoever and had a 30 hour labour and I felt like I could conquer the world after. Those hormones can be very powerful 😄 yes it hurt but it was an amazing, powerful experience (for me, fully aware not everyone gets that).

I mean when you're in the throes of it there's nothing to do but get on with it and think about the baby at the end of it.

YellowLead

It’s not exactly volunteering, I mean it’s the only way, if it could be passed over to the male party I’m sure in many cases it would be! You have to have a lot of money to and patience to go the surrogacy route and adoption takes so long with no guarantees so it’s less a case of volunteering and more a case of necessity when one wants children.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769349#Comment_121769349

Have to admit I am struggling to work out what your thread is even about :)

At first it seemed to be about how you can not understand why people go for the whole thing of child rearing and having a family - because the birth part itself is a bit messy and painful.

In this post however it seems more like you think Children as a whole are the problem and you do not understand why anyone wants them.

So not sure at all what your question even is at this point. In fact - I have a niggling doubt you know yourself :)

Anyway loads of people are childless by choice and have no interest in them. And there is a movement called "Anti Natalism" which espouse the idea no one should be having them. So perhaps some of their literature would be up your alley :) No doubt they have a newsletter you can subscribe to:

youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ

Esel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769322#Comment_121769322

"I saw them coming..." 🙂

Volunteer for child birth sounds more like surrogacy

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121776186#Comment_121776186

Since abortion has been legalised anyone who sits out the first 3 months of a pregnancy is essentially volunteering

YellowLead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121776917#Comment_121776917

So is your question more about why are people having kids? Because if you want to have children there’s no way of passing that job on to the man, unfortunately!

JupiterKid

If men were responsible for childbirth and going through labour, the future of the human race would be well and truly f*cked.

I remember my big sis telling me that shortly after she had my nephew in 2001. 😁

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121780401#Comment_121780401

My mother used to always say if men were to give birth no-one would have a brother or sister. If that's true it's a sure way to solve the problem of the planet being overpopulated.

Hotblack Desiato

..

pgj2015

Never got the whole passing my genes on, who cares? why would you want to do that? and who cares if people stopped having kids and humanity would die out, big deal. the animals would look after the planet better than people can.