• Vreyan31@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    13 hours ago

    No, some people get a thrill out of the power of making more people, of having a huge family, even if they don’t take good care of them.

    I personally don’t get it. But I have a friend who is a really incompetent person - when we hang out, we have to make extra sure she doesn’t do dangerous things like she is a child. She is a sweet person, but very oblivious in a way that is hard to put a pin on. She is married, and her husband takes care of her and has always seemed to kind of like the responsibility. To each their own. But they now have 2 kids and he is completely overwhelmed. But she wants more and keeps talking about trying to talk him into it or ‘oops’ getting pregnant again in a few years. We all yell at her when she says stuff like that.

    It is the perfect flip-flop of the usual gender roles - where Dad has all the responsibility and doesn’t want more, and Mom just sees it as some kind of power trip about her self image and is oblivious or just doesn’t care that it would break her partner.

    • velma@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      13 hours ago

      There are certainly people who choose to do this. But in the time period pictured, it is more likely that this woman had no other choice.

      • Vreyan31@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 hours ago

        Oh absolutely. Women were basically property then and no one had any concept of ‘spousal rape’.

        I was more addressing the mentality when people do it now - that it shouldn’t be assumed to be ignorance about birth control

        • velma@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 hours ago

          That’s fair, there certainly can be a power dynamic shift within a relationship with regard to number of children.