Spending a couple hours with my neice really drives home how much I don’t want kids. I’ll take my kitty any day.

Some more on contraceptive efficacy or lack thereof: one of my stepdaughters has three kids, the first one despite the pill, the second despite the patch and the third despite condoms.

She wanted to have her tubes tied after the second but for some idiotic reason they didn’t do it then.

She’s finally ‘fixed’ and very happy about it.

I wanted my tubes tied from my late teens, but since I hadn’t born a child and ‘would probably change my mind’, I was refused time and again. I never quite understood why I had to have a kid to be able not to have kids!

I’m 37 and never had the slightest inclination to procreate, biological clock all nice and silent, no fuzzy feelings when I see a baby, but give me a kitten any day and I’ll go ‘awwww’…

Of course they were using latex, Teddy. One of them was using a latex condom in conjunction with spermicidal foam. I myself got pregnant with my third child while using the contraceptive sponge-AND he pulled out before ejaculation. I have also gotten pregnant while on the pill. And yes, I always follow the directions.

But then, my mother managed to get pregnant on the first try four times with only one ovary. And I still have nightmares about my OBGYN’s assertion that despite my tubal, there is still a 3 in a thousand chance of getting pregnant. Knowing my family, I could statistically be all three of those women…

I also have a friend from highschool who married a man who has a sperm count in the tens–they have four children, and never had to “try” to get pregnant. Fertility rates among women vary widely. Sometimes all you need is one swimmer to get through, and you’re boned.

Going only by the facts given, but extrapolating through my own experience, I do believe this woman would be a bad mother. Perhaps not a terrible mother, but definitely not one to put the child first.

Why? Because it appears she is considering foisting the child on her husband without full disclosure. If the child turns out to be her lover’s, chances are the first medical emergency (mild or not) would open that can of worms. Can you imagine what it would do to both husband and child to learn this that way? Way to *love* her husband, and way to saddle the poor kid with severe trust issues.

If nothing else, that makes her bad mother material in my mind.

What the hell were they using? It must not not have been latex then…

The breakage rate for condoms is two out of 100. Of every 100 couples who use condoms incorrectly and inconsistently, 14 will experience a pregnancy during the first year of use. Of every 100 couples who use condoms correctly and consistently, only three will experience a pregnancy.

Even when it’s the best solution, I still don’t consider it a *good* one. It comes at an emotional and physical cost that many don’t consider until after the fact. Even coming from a pro-choice position, I honestly do not feel it is ever a good choice, even when it’s the only one you can make.

Teddy said: “Actually I think the BEST solution is a condom.
I am totally amazed at people having pregnancy surprises when HIV/AIDS is a far worse surprise.”

I am constantly amazed by the number of supposedly intelligent people who believe a condom offers total protection from pregnancy. It is roughly 80% effective. That means that out of one hundred women using condoms *properly* for one year, 20 will get pregnant. Both my sisters got pregnant (at age 37 and 38, if you’ll believe), despite using condoms, and in both cases nothing tore, leaked or slipped.

And yes, there are some kids out there who would be better off having never been born–at least, not being born into the families they were–but it’s a stretch to claim that every woman who has an affair (even with a player) is going to be an emotionally abusive parent who tells her kids she hates them and burns them with cigarettes. None of us have perfect parents. There’s a big difference between bad parents and heinous ones. Is this woman destined to be a passive-agressive mother whose punishments are sometimes more commensurate with the time of the month than the severity of the crime and who would rather go out and party on Fridays than have board game night with the kids, or the one who sits and drinks while a string of boyfriends abuse her kids? There isn’t enough information here to predict which one she’ll be.

I would say that understanding your own value also means valuing every part of yourself – including your own healthy, natural and normal sexuality and sexual expression. I don’t think abstinence education (along with its gross failure rate) teaches that important fact

Yes, some unwanted children grow up and break the cycle. Some don’t. But it’s an individual’s choice whether they want to bring a child into the world, and both the child and themselves need to be considered.

So what? Are you celibate because you don’t believe in marriage? You are advocating teaching abstinence, but acknowledge that marriage doesn’t work for you? Sounds like a double standard to me. I don’t believe in marriage, either. But your comment was “teach them to keep their legs closed until marriage”. And yes, like I said, safe sex should be practiced. But shit happens, and that’s why people fought for the right to have an abortion. People should not have to live in celibacy because birth control might fail. Some people don’t want a commitment. They would rather keep it casual than do something they don’t like, or lie to someone, and risk hurting them. So should they never be allowed to have sex? No. That’s ridiculous. They should be smart about it, and that’s why I fully support fact-based sex ed, but it’s their choice.

My point is to teach people that they have value in themselves and it that value does not come from having some one else validate you.

I doubt that most of the parent will do this since they haven’t got a clue but it can be taught in school at church even in some after school clubs.

It has to start some where some people who grew up in crappy household did looked around and knew that there was some thing more than being an unwed mom but most of those kids had some one in their corner from the get go.

@ West yes I know not everyone believes in marriage (I’m one of them) I thinks it great for some but not for me.

“Many people, like my friend, are adults, who are in relationships, or even just attracted to the person.
They have the right to engage in sex if that’s what they want. They should be smart about it, but it’s their right.”

Yes its their right but they also have to think of the “what if I get pregnant? what it this great looking guy has a STD that either kills me or shortens my life span or its a gift that keeps on giving, that is what happens when you have sex just for the attraction sake because.

Just because you can have sex does not mean you have too.