Depends on denomination - it sure wasn’t in my (Episcopalian) rite, and I sure as bloody hell wouldn’t have gone through with it if it had been.
I started getting official pressure to reproduce from my family this past Christmas. I was holding my sister’s new baby (and feeling very uncomfortable) when my aunt said, “Hey, that looks pretty good on you. When are you guys gonna have one?” To which my grandfather added, “You’ve got a big responsibility there, you know,” referring to the fact that I’m the only male heir to the family name.
There were a number of ways I could have responded. “My wife’s family only produces girls, so what’s the point?” “We’re probably infertile anyway.” “WE DON’T WANT KIDS!!!” etc… I managed to come up with the diplomatic, “We have no plans to have kids at this time.”
Clearly my side of the family has a problem with the notion of us not making babies, in spite of the fact that I’ve never shown any interest in kids. But frankly, I don’t care. Our house contains a happy couple who are just barely able to support ourselves and bringing a child into the equation when neither of us want one would be a gross disservice to the baby and to us. I put it to you that it is a far greater sin to bring a child into the world when you don’t want one and can’t afford one than to not have one at all.
Only a little santorum, but a whole lot of Dr. Laura on the sound system. Overall, I’d almost rather have the santorum.
Besides, santorum involves lube. 
What else can I say but “amen.”
“My dad flipped out when I came out to him. He said, ‘Oh my God, who’s going to carry on the family name?!’ I said, ‘Dad, our name is Williams! Someone else will do it!’” - Danny Williams
How about a Babylon 5 quote?
“I used to think it was a terrible thing that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘what if life were fair, and all of the terrible things that happen to us came because we really deserved them?’ Now I take great comfort in the general unfairness and hostility of the universe.” -Marcus Cole
Sigh.
I go on another board (heresy!)
And I had asked them HOW.
How, since everyone thinks so, would ssm hurt “regular” marriage?
Finally, someone gave me a linked story that gay marriage would lead to polygamous marriage, which is bad because marriage involves monogamy.
Well, I am all for monogamy in marriage so they almost had me convinced.
But what if it Doesn’t lead to multiple marriages?
What if gays can be married and monogamous?(not impossible)
What shoiuld they do then? Stay alone forever?
Change?
I just had to rant about that.
On topic, I never wanted children; in fact, stayed a virign til age 26 (and my guy had a vasecotmy) because I didn’t want to take a chance.
Once I married and was in “love” with hubby, I wanted his child.
A normal reaction, but its also normal not to want kids.
My friend was married about 10 years. She fortunately didn’t have children, since she is divorced.
Why subject kids to that?
Maybe someday, thanks to science, women who don’t want children can take the embryos of women who’ve gotten pregnant and dont want to be and implant that.
I’m sorry for your loss, Baker, but I also wanted to compliment you on your good sense for not butting into your aunt and uncle’s reproductive choices; it’s so very rare for someone to take that road, it really stood out to me, and I just had to commend you on it. Additionally, Steve Wright, you also mentioned a recent loss, and my sympathies are also with you.
Everyone else, carry on with this very good and deserved rant. I have had it up to here gestures wildly with people inquiring about what’s going on in my womb and with people trying to deny others a loving union. Is there so little a supply of love in the world that the straights think they need to keep it all locked up? Grrr!
thankfully, I had already eatne supper before I read that. :mad:
Umm qts? Christian marriage rite supports fertility? Where?? I was married in a Southern Baptist church with all due pomp and circumstance and nowhere in the ceremony did the preacher say anything about popping out spawn. Maybe it’s implied (inferred?) in the better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health part. But I’m childfree, after 10 lovely years of marriage, and will stay this way.
I am infertile - as is my husband. And believe me, we deserve to be married to each other. As do my friends John and Ted, Tammy and Lisa, and Patty and Jim. Being married does not hinge on having only 1 penis per couple. It’s about love.
And the only person who can talk to me about the “sanctity” of hetero-only marriage must have been married before ever having sex and have never been divorced. And be an adult and never had an affair. So, how many adults do you know that married as virgins and are still uncompromisedly married to their original spouse?? That aren’t grandparents? <<insert sound of crickets chirping here>> All the other hypocrites can bite my barren ass.
I’m divorcing my husband. It’ll be final this summer.
I’m having a hysterectomy in a week and a half.
But, I’ve also already had kids. So, does this mean I get grandfathered? I can remarry, because I’ve already reproduced?
Either way, it’s not fair. It’s just not fair that I can divorce a second time, when some of my friends aren’t allowed to get married once.
Oh, I just love this argument :dubious: First you let gays get married, then that leads to polygamy. What next? People wanting to marry outside their species? Then, after we make it legal to marry the goats and other farm animals, before you know it, folks’ll want to be marrying inanimate objects, fergodssake!
Gee, when you put it like that, it sounds kinda silly, don’t it?
I will happily marry chocolate.
Someone even claimed then that bestiality is legal in Scandinavia(I think).
Is that so?
If so, thats baaaaaahhhhd.
Some people want kids…but…hell…whatever…we’ll just keep trying and keep getting another year older, with that thing going on in our heads about being older each year…then if it finally happens you can berate us for being tooo old to be parents…oh well…
Beastiality has been legal in Texas for several years, IIRC. Y’know, the place where they had to sue to get the sodomy law overturned?
Yeah. Damn Texans
Where the men are men and the sheep are scared.
Well, there is a woman in Sweden who is in a long-distance marriage with the Berlin Wall. And the two of them have overcome some obstacles along the way–during a period of estrangement, she had a long-term relationship to a guillotine.
Testify, brother! My last name is Flannery, which is a little less common than Williams, but I’m pretty sure there are one or two left back in Ireland (such as the twin cousins of mine I met a few years back). Hell, if it was such a big deal, why didn’t my grandfather berate my uncle for stopping after he and his wife had two girls. “You MUST produce a male heir, boy! Didn’t I raise you right?!?”
Personal feelings and/or opinions aside, it’ a perfectly logical opinion for someone to have. I’m not saying its right or wrong, just eminently simple and direct, and perfectly self-consistent.
Originally Posted by LVgeogeek
<snip>I got married in October last year (so I have been married for 4 whole months now) and people me and husband know are giving us grief because we are not working on starting family yet- WTF!!
Four months, that’s a long time to be allowed to go without interference! We had been married THREE WEEKS when new MIL telephoned me and asked “Has your period come yet, are you pregnant?”
At that point I wondered what the hell sort of family I had gotten myself into… (Turns out they are all nutters except FIL and my husband, sigh. But regarding the OP, they are all still my family.)
She called every month for about six months, and when I got angry and told her we weren’t having children yet, I had to put up with monthly phone calls bitching about how selfish I was. (She is Japanese, from a very rural farming family, and she is uneducated, ignorant, and obsessed with family line and descendents, so there is little we can do about her.)
In the end my husband said I was going the wrong way about this, and to tell her that we were really trying hard to get pregnant. I was hesitant to use such an argument because I want to be honest, and also I felt bad on behalf of couples who really are trying to have children. But I was sick of the crap every three or four weeks, so I used his suggested tactic, and it took TWO phone calls before she stopped asking!
It seems that you can be as unpleasant as you like to a couple who have voluntarily given up the chance of getting pregnant, but if you know that there are difficulties conceiving then a modicum of discretion is required. Just pity the couples who don’t want to either lie or broadcast their fertility status to the world.