As a male I would never intentionally do that, there's a tiny part of me that might under the right circumstances but I'd have to feel very sure about her and I never have. Anytime I've had a scare with a girlfriend it was like holy shit, no, not with her! But even if I wanted to marry her I wouldn't do that intentionally before marriage because the male has seriously limited parental rights in those cases. It's bad enough after a divorce, but in that situation the male is looked at as some kind of careless predator that knocked up an innocent lady and he must pay. I'd want to support my kids of course, but I also want to be active in their lives not have everything default to the mother if shit hit the fan between us. Which it usually always does not matter how good it is at any given point. At least in my experience.
I respect that. He said he wanted to wait til we were married for similar reasons, he didn't want people to think of him in the light you expressed or that we were being forced to be together. I also want my child to grow up knowing they weren't an accident, or an oops by any means. Of course we know in our hearts that we both want it, but I don't want there to be a shadow of doubt for the little person we raise. I want them to know they were conceived in love, and we wanted them and loved them long before they came into the world. I don't think the position of being unmarried diminishes the amount of love a parent has for their child, whether the child was intended or not. I can imagine the feeling, but I've yet to experience it. My best friend has told me her first child gave her meaning to live. I respect that and highly regard that type of love.
I hear you and as long as your name is listed as father and it can be verified by DNA you have the same rights as a married partner. The key here is to pick a lady that is a mother not a blood sucker. When I divorced the main focus was the kids as they are what matters. I love my ex to this day and each time I look at my two kids I see him. If I hurt then it is him, if I hurt him it is them. We could not make it work but I have done everything to make sure that it works for my kids and so has he. There have been no battles and no issues. We still parent together and make decisions as a team. He supports the kids and so do I not only financially but emotionally. Know your partner and respect them, no matter what happens as life moves on. In other words, either way it plays out if you do not respect the person you are with then it never will work. If you do you will make it work.
Yeah, I think so too. I've been wanting a kid for a couple years now because of the feeling that everything you do is for something greater than yourself. It's not something I'm rushing into though. My last ex and I broke up a little over a year ago and she found the first idiot she could to knock her up, she's due anytime now and I'm just waiting to get a call when the shit show starts. It's a game changer for sure. Shit, I've rescued two dogs from serious abuse over the last 10 years one of them 10 years ago and the other one 4 years ago. The 4 year ago one was a 'love pup' with a different ex. She wanted to keep him but I was like hell no this dog needs a stable home not someone who's tripping balls or going to Orlando to be a groupie every other weekend. That was enough of a custody battle for me. But I digress. They are like my kids and I love them to death, they've saved my life many times but I can't deny that they have seriously held me back over the years in more ways than I can list. As far as unplanned I don't think it matters if you provide a stable and healthy environment for them. I'd even tell them at the right time/age, yeah you were unplanned but you were the best thing to happen to me. Even if their mom was a total bitch I'd still love her for giving me that. And to me that is better than being married and having them in a dysfunctional environment like so many people do. It's just something I wouldn't do out of passion intentionally, even if and when I get married it will be a mix of passion and pragmatism. I've had enough disappointment in my life to bring in that pragmatic side. But if you aren't on the pill or patch and he's not pulling out.. lol this discussion is really moot. To be honest I'm surprised you don't already have a love child.
That's a story I like to hear, that's definitely how I would want it if things didn't work out. I've had a lot of thoughts about this because I've dated a lot of blood suckers. I'm currently a monk basically, and it's lonely at times but I'm trying to step back and figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong. Like maybe focusing on the wrong aspects initially and ignoring red flags, I know I'm great at that. Either way just tired of wasting my time with people that put on a front. It's great to hear stories about people that step up to the plate even if it doesn't end up like some fairy tale.
The simple way of not having your kid ever think that is to tell them the truth about your relationship with their father, conception, birth, etc. My daughter asks me often to tell the birth stories, about when I was pregnant, and if and why I wanted a baby, even though I've told the stories tons of times. As they get older they will know that I always knew when I conceived, they'll know how I charted my fertility and who I learned from about pregnancy. They'll know all about the doulas and midwives(which they know a little bit about and love hearing those stories). They'll know more about my relationship with their father when they can understand it better. We've watched birth videos of mine and others and it becomes clear after awhile, how loved they are and how seriously you took the creation of them. The only thing I would warn against is...if you have just started wanting to have a baby, to wait a little while...do some research on pregnancy, birth, parenting, spend time with people with varying family structures and take care of some kids and befriend pregnant families. You cannot possibly be overprepared! When I first wanted to get pregnant, it was such a completely shocking thing to me, because I had wanted to wait until I was at least 30 and then I felt like I had already waited so long, because other people were pregnant or had kids and it was so cute and inspiring. What I'm saying is, don't underestimate the power of just being involved in that world and don't let your environment or your friends happiness define your own motivations. I'd just say, walk in that world from a distance and slowly get to that place, especially with your partner. There's so many things you're going to have to go through together once you're pregnant and it will never end. Going through some of those ideas and being in that environment from a distance for a while is invaluable. I thought that whole marriage thing was unimportant when I conceived my first child and my reasoning was pretty similar to yours. When we broke up I did have this idea that I think it is actually important. Not that it's mandatory and I'm not even sure how or why it would've been more useful than not, but I just think I have a very different idea of marriage now, and it is largely because of the fact that I have kids.
Also, I think a good point to consider is that the term love child, as far as I know came from a song and came from a time in which, men married women who were pregnant with their child. If they didn't, then that meant the men were completely abandoning the situation of being a father and it also made things look like the mother was a whore and only useful in a sexual sense. So a love child, was just a nice way of saying, a child born by a surface level sexual relationship in which the man thought nothing of the mother besides someone to have sex with. Meaning he had no respect for her, meaning she would not be respected in her community either, meaning the child would be seen as proof of her promiscuous worthlessness, meaning it was just a form of slut-shaming. I don't think it applies at all these days and especially it doesn't apply to the act of trying to conceive.
Usedtobehoney thank you so much for your thoughtful post. Your first paragraph reminded me that I need to get a baby book when the time comes. I definitely want to track all of our experiences. I can also relate to the calendar tracking as well as my fiancé, it's really funny how excited he gets during that time of the month. guerillabedlam - there is no misunderstanding when it comes to the term bastard or love child. I wanted to know your intent for posting, which you never explained - instead you began an onslaught of insults via "rep" in private to insinuate my level of unintelligence and illiteracy. I don't see the importance of supporting a defense against this baseless attack, but I will say you're a very feeble minded person and I pity you. Because you must live a sad life, trolling and insulting innocent people unprovoked. Oh and your beloved "green dots" don't mean anything to me so go throw your weight around with someone else.
Then you would have articulated that instead of responding by insulting me in private. Listen, your green dots obviously mean a hell of a lot to you. But you're not earning any by your contributions here.
That's how I see marriage a matter of personal growth with another person spiritually with or without legal parameters. (Sometimes I think God might consider, what society would consider a boyfriend and girlfriend, married if it's a lifelong kinda of commitment thing, regardless of a ceremony or lack thereof) Yeah adding to what that other guy said, if the relationship if solid anyway, it only makes financial and legal sense to add the legal label of being married in the event of real life scenarios: 1. taxes 2. medical benefits (At least in the USA, it makes sense, in some European countries because healthcare is universal, it explains why their societies have different marriage statistics, VS just saying at the boyfriend/girlfriend level. I'd be willing to guess that we'd see a similar trend in the USA, if the law treated long term proven steady healthy relationships with girlfriends/boyfriends with the same rights as married couples get. But that's another conversation for another time...
Very interesting point you make with regard to marital rates varying between countries. I do wonder if the implication of government programs caused an influx in the average number of marriages over the last century - considering this is when many of our social betterment programs really came about i.e.: social security, tax breaks for married couples, and all the hoopla nowadays with healthcare etc. We are such strange people when you think about it. At the end of the day, its comforting to know born conversely out of wedlock do not face any disabilities in the US. As Heat said, they're given the same rights as any conversely born within a marriage. I've also researched the term "love child" a bit more. Its definitely more widely accepted in the US and UK while "bastard" really is a vulgar term that most respectful people wouldn't use. I was born a year after my parents nuptual ceremony, though I still feel insulted on behalf of those referred to as "bastards". It's just not a nice thing to say in today's society. So to anyone who may be reading this, please take note and remove it from your vocabulary.
Any child born within the confines of mutual LOVE making = a LOVE child I don't think the question is, To have a """love child" or not""" it is moreover, Does the necessity of a 'binding' (for what that is worth these days) piece of paper make the difference? LOVE (and all that comes from/with it) is an Emotion Not, a Calculation - methinks
I personally would never do it. It may be "just a piece of paper," but for legal reasons (taxes, guardianship, custody, etc.) I would want that legal bond before procreating. That being said, accidents happen and it bugs the hell out of me when people get married just because they get knocked up.
Some US states also have (or allow banks to have) restrictions on unmarried couples buying a house together or having a joint credit card. Worse yet, if one partner is lying comatose in a hospital bed, the other partner may not be allowed to visit. I used to have a living will listing my live-in boyfriend as the primary contact person for all important medical decisions that might be needed to be made on my behalf, but my lawyer said the local hospital would most likely disregard it, and try to track down my father. He said legally, they could just tell my boyfriend, "HIPPA regulations do not allow us to confirm or deny that Karen is a patient here, since you are not a family member." I think it's extremely rude to hang that title on an innocent child who is wanted by both parents. A nice person wouldn't do that.
This is actually really good advice. The first several months of parenthood for me was mainly filled with insecurity and doubt. It didn't really help that my boyfriend is mr superdad - he took to parenthood much more naturally than I did. I had only been around one baby before my son and that was my nephew, who was born when I was 14 years old. So basically I had zero idea of what it was going to be like to have a baby. I read books, parenting forums, etc, but that does nothing to prepare you for the emotional and physical stress you'll go through those first few months. I'm only now getting to the point where I realize I actually am going to be a really kickass mom. I always thought of myself as a very maternal person so it threw me for a loop that first year when it didn't necessarily come as naturally as I expected it. So yeah, it definitely helps to prepare by putting your feet into that world a bit. Your whole life completely changes overnight and you can never, ever fully prepare yourself for that but the more you hang around friends with children, the less of a shock it will be. I think this kind of goes with what Heat said earlier in the thread, that respect and not legality is what really makes the difference. I know that as a woman I have the power to fuck my boyfriend completely over if we ever split up, but he and I both know I would never do that. I'm actually not even okay with him ever being a weekend dad. It would make me feel guilty to keep him away that long because I know it would break my heart if I could only see our baby on weekends. We've joked before that if we split up we have to buy houses next door to each other so we can truly have joint custody.
