One of the biggest things that kills me about parents are when they act like getting pregnant and having kids is just an unavoidable, inevitable fact of life. Like there’s nothing they could have done to prevent it and it just sporadically happened. Just woke up one morning and, oops, pregnant (again)!
I’m in my early 30s and have been adamantly childfree since my early 20s (vasectomy done as soon as I found a willing doctor in my mid-20s). Myself and the majority of my friends and larger social group (coworkers, acquaintances, etc.) are on the upper side of middle class, highly educated, solid professional jobs, all that good stuff - people that generally make well thought out decisions. Lots of them had a planned pregnancy or two in their mid/late 20s, good for them, you do you, all that.
But now apparently we’re all at the point of the unexpected ones. In the last couple years I’ve lost count of how many couples I know that have announced a new pregnancy, and virtually every single one of them admits it was unplanned and that they’re not super happy about it.
“This is going to seriously mess up my career track.”
“There’s no way I can finish up my PhD with a newborn.”
“Finances were tight already, we don’t even know how we’re going to handle this.”
“We’re doing to have to move out of <big city we live in> to <rural area near their parents> so they can help out.”
And I genuinely just do not understand. They all have solid health insurance. We’re all in a blue area where there are no issues accessing various forms of birth control, male/female sterilization, or abortion (which, somehow despite them already admitting they’re unhappy with the new pregnancy and recognizing how it’s going to radically change their lives, is a complete non-starter to them). So how did you get pregnant again in the first place?? it is *literally* one of the easiest things in the world to avoid, especially in their situations. Mind boggling. How can anyone be so absurdly passive when it comes to such a huge thing? I just don’t get it.