[Hannibal Smith]

Originally Posted by trishasaffron

Sorry in advance to the parents in this forum if this sounds a bit clinical but lets be realistic - up until relatively recently it wasn't possible to have a sexual relationship in Ireland without potentially getting pregnant and being a parent (happily or not) due to the lack of contraception.

The availability of contraception has utterly changed the entire dynamic in relation to how people live their lives.

So, mothers like my own, had children (and not a few in her case!!) because there was literally no alternative and not because she loved them. For the first time Irish people are having to consider this issue as a choice. But owing to the fact that it is such a recent development I reckon it will take a very, very long time for society (not just in Ireland) to come to terms with this massive sociological change.

I was born in the 1970s and my parents used contraception....after I was born obviously its not only down to that, its better education, better careers, variety of choices for women.

Op if you don't want children, you're not weird at all. You've made your mind up about where you want your life to go and that's great. Be prepared for the 'oh but you don't know what your missing' brigade..there's always one! Lol

[Mink]

Trishasaffron I agree. I very much doubt that the women who were regularly having 10+ kid families actually planned and fully desired each one of those kids.

Now I'm sure they loved their children & there are exceptions to the rule, but I know of a couple families where 24 kids were had The mind boggles, but it was really down to contraception, or lack of it as you say.

You don't get big families like that now, and if you do then they are on some reality show on the Home & Health channel.

I was married 10 yrs before decided to get preg, I'd never had a pregnancy scare during the 10 yrs, I just used contraception correctly and didn't get pregnant (though I know there are rare cases where it still doesn't work for some).