There is a viral trend on Tik Tok where Mothers post videos about how their child broke them, and proceed to ask where "the girl with the list" is.
The girl with the list is a girl https://www.tiktok.com/@yuniquethoughts/video/7066906757213244719 who does stitches with Mom's, and documents their hardships on this running list. The full list can be viewed here: https://yuniquethoughtslist.wixsite.com/yuni-s-pros-and-cons/the-list
This is a good education for a childless woman like me, who considered having children in my marriage, but ended in divorce when I realized I was not married to fatherhood material.
One thing this list overlooks is what a man's role is in all of this hardship faced by mothers. It's really sad and disgusting how contemptuous men become of their partners once children come into the picture.
There could literally be another section on this list just for all the things that men do to sabotage women's parenting efforts and shirk their own parenting responsibilities. Like how they just want to be the Disney Land Dads, while the women do all the daily routines and get a bad rap with their kids for maintaining any order in the home.
I have a heard of men who while in the relationship would purposely work longer hours to avoid parenting. When the mother ultimately separates from him, he avoids child support by reducing his hours or going unemployed so he doesn't have to pay up.
I once had a coworker who had to quit her job because her husband kept forgetting to feed their baby while she was at work, and and she said the only reason she got a job was because he kept throwing in her face that he made more money than her and she wasn't contributing.
I have heard of men who had the responsibility of dropping their children off at daycare only to forgot their child was asleep in the backseat of the car, drove all the way to work, and left their kid locked in the car for the majority of the day (TW: death). https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/baby-dies-in-car-after-father-forgets-to-bring-child-to-montreal-daycare-police/wcm/ea8edf67-d4f4-45da-baf1-99342f7b1d85/amp/
The amount of incompetent and neglectful men that have children is astonishing.
As much as I love kids, raising children with a man that does not value mothers or children is the sole reason I have opted out of motherhood this far.
Men that are bad with kids, even if you are both CF, ARE NOT HV.
For ladies who want to be mothers, remember you aren't just dating to find a husband but the future father of your kids.
For women who want to be mothers, you don't need to do so within the confines of a nuclear family arrangement. I always encourage women who really want to be mothers to: 1) EARN/ ACQUIRE A LOT OF MONEY; and 2) WORK ON HAVING A STRONG GROUP OF FEMALE FRIENDS/ FAMILY THAT WILL HELP YOU (even better if they also have money). Even HVM are not as good parents as the mother is because being a HVM doesn't magically turn you into a female. Fathers, no matter how wonderful and decent men they are, don't have the same level of attentiveness as mothers and just can't be as invested in children as mothers are (in their defense, having a child is an external event for a man while -for women- it is internal . .. your body and mind literally change to accomodate the existence of the child).
If you don't have your own funds and you don't have female friends/family who will be around to help you, having/ raising children will most likely be miserable regardless of how great your man is.
I didn’t read the Cons but some of the Pros are disgusting. Some of the pros are dehumanizing to women and disgusting to children.