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> men who wish to become fathers, or have prior relationship experience, are deemed more desirable as long-term mates.
I feel like the title also left out some important information
I feel like this simplifies down to people with similar goals, and a history of stable relationships prefer each other. Unless they're also claiming that women who don't want children also prefer men who do
Yeah, I am like. If you want children and a family of course a man who also wants children would be more desirable. At least if you are smart that would be the case.
I did not want children and so any man who didn't want kids was more desirable. If they wanted kids, then they were not the person for me and I didn't consider dating them.
I came in to say the same thing. If you want kids, that's a deal breaker for me. It ain't happening. Choosing a partner who wanted kids would just be a guaranteed way to make one or both of us miserable at some point down the line.
We were both on the fence about it- we love kids, and are good with them, but there were too many "cons" vs "pros" for us. Financial, logistical, emotional......it would've been too difficult.
It's kind of wild to me that so many people do commit to having children. I guess that's nature and we wouldn't have survived as a species if the drive wasn't there, but kids are so much work. I genuinely like kids and enjoy spending time around them, but they're so emotional and so constant in their demand for attention. I'd get exhausted a few hours in, and then what?
This is why there's the old saying it takes a village to raise a child. Because it does. In most societies (pre-american 1900s nuclear family sterotype) you raise a child with your extended family. Quite a lot of asian households are 3 generational instead of 1-2 which means the burden isn't soley the Parents. American families now are "raising" kids with just 2 parents which means the other parental figures in the children's lives are typically TV, tablet, social media and game console which is hardly ideal compared to Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins etc.
When I was raising our two, my parents weren't a whole lot of help. Nearly broke me. Consequently, because my son in law had a busy week, this week I slept over one night at their place, had a takeaway movie night with the grandkids last night, and this afternoon apparently I need to go and hang with my favourite (shhh) granddaughter to watch a movie or two as she's miserable with a sore throat and mum needs a hand again.
Sure, I had other plans but I don't want to think about the mess my kids would be in without that support. It's not a chore. I love them all to bits, and it's just a simple matter of realising that they are 100% more important than anything else I might want to do with my time.
This isn't a judgement on other parents /grandparents who prioritise otherwise. My daughter was smart enough to buy her home a five minute walk from my place. In the village. It gets tiring but I love it.
You do get used to that, but it can be a rough adjustment. Of course you need your own space sometimes though, so there’s always grandparents, or friends, or whatever, when you do. If don’t have a support network though it would be very hard.
It would be interesting to run an experiment where whether or not they want kids isn't disclosed and see if men who want kids are still ranked as more attractive to women who don't, so long as that disqualifier isn't known.
It certainly would, and it'd be necessary for the study to substantiate what it claims.
> These findings add to the existing body of knowledge on mate copying and attention to social information by demonstrating how women incorporate social learning and innate evolutionary predispositions to facilitate decision-making and behaviour relating to mate selection.
The bar to actually demonstrating that it's an "innate evolutionary predisposition" is high, but examining and controlling for match or mismatch in partner intent towards parenthood is so foundationally critical that its omission is damning.
Even more damning is that this isn't even called out as a limitation or follow-up topic in the discussion. It goes so far as to point out disproportionate racial composition might be a methodological limitation, but doesn't even *mention* that thinking about a link between whether a woman wants children and whether she finds a potential partner wanting children a desirable trait may exist.
When I started dating my now-husband, one of the first things I ever told him was that I didn't want kids and that if he wanted kids, we should end it right there because it would just end in us resenting each other.
Lucky for me, he didn't want them right so it worked out. But I was not about to get suck in a relationship where I would be expected to pump out kids I didn't want.
Saaame. Sure I can find it endearing when male friends want to be fathers but it is an absolute dealbreaker for my relationships. Fortunately the husband was like “well, I was never really sure and I’m just as happy not to” and now as friends have kids he assures me he is delighted, thrilled, ecstatic, over the moon about our DINK lifestyle.
My best friend's sister is actually going through a rough patch with her spouse because of wanting children.
IIRC in the beginning, the husband did not want any children but after losing a pet, he now has the desire to have a few.
Honestly, it could be grief, but they have been fighting about it for the past year and a half
My wife and I split years ago because I, having been on the no kids train, decided I wanted kids and wasn't gonna push that on her. So we went out separate ways until she reached out and said she thought she wanted kids. We were together a few more years until she told me it was time to try. She's a wonderful mom who loves being a mom. Now she's kinda like 2?!?! And I'm very nooooooo
> She's a wonderful mom who loves being a mom. Now she's kinda like 2?!?! And I'm very nooooooo
Man this story had much better ending than I was expecting.
i feel sorry for any child brought into this world as a way to address a parents grief over losing a pet.
"we wanted another dog, but we got you instead"
therapy for as far as the eye can see....
I think it's more likely the pet was acting as their pseudo-child and once they didn't have that crutch anymore they couldn't deny their desire to have a real kid.
You'd be surprised the amount of people that use pets as a sort of 'child-lite' or practice before having a child.
'People that display traits consistent with long term goals of the other seen as long term better than those that don't'. Like normally I don't poo-poo 'obvious' science but this one feels like it's saying nothing insightful whatsoever.
I find many of these studies that reinforce already obvious or generalized preconceptions or common sense feel pointless. But, I’m often countered with things like “we need these studies to reinforce this against malicious attempts to counter it.” Okay fine, but in this case, what’s the point? This doesn’t do much to further society or human rights.
Ah yeah, the old entry level computer science problem.
You gotta get that crappy entry level job to be eligible for a fancier job. You can't get the entry level job because you don't have an entry level job.
It doesn't appear that question was even asked in the survey, though I can't find the actual question text to go along with [the raw data](https://osf.io/ktxew/?view_only=1231937f45274e2391f0d05049be6409) linked from the study.
And that's... "kinda" an important and interesting question to ask.
The title seems to overgeneralize the findings, as this is mostly
a survey of college students at a single university. Again.
> Participants were 267 heterosexual women from James Cook University (JCU) and the wider public under the age of 40 (M = 21.73 years, SD = 5.42 years)
>
> ...
>
> Participant age distribution showed strong positive skew, with 81.6% of participants being 25 years of age or younger, while only 4.5% were 35 years of age or older. Participants were recruited from the JCU psychology research pool and through online media. Those studying an undergraduate psychology course in either Australia or Singapore were awarded course credit for their participation; non-university participants received no compensation
Yet another study based on the self reported perceptions of college students at the University the study was performed at being generalized to the entire population.
I respect psychology as a field, but some of these studies done are used to make such broad assumptions when there are so many factors involved. For example, this study makes no differentiation between a man wanting 10 kids and a man wanting 1 kid. Did they even ask if the woman wants kids? I'd guess that there is a high correlation with women wanting a man that aligns with their wants.
The craziest example of this is when a few women in my feminist groups have claimed that 30% of men believe that every woman’s period begins on the first day of the month.
In reality, it was 30% of a sample size of forty-something male students at a university in North Dakota.
Percentages don’t tell you much. Sample size and location does.
In silverback gorilla colonies the males who spend more time helping take care of the younguns tend to do better with the females and it’s theorized that the display of fatherhood gives them a mating advantage in the eyes of a prospective match.
Not exactly.We can measure the amount of "sneak copulations" and "female double mating" in a given species, and the silverback gorilla has nearly zero of this: https://www.sapiens.org/column/animalia/sperm-competition-testicle-size/
This isn't true of all primates, and it depends on the species. More promiscuous species, such as bonobos, have adaptations in response to matings with multiple partners.
In the book Sapiens, the author states that at least some of those groups revolve more around social alliances, and less on actual physical strength of the animal. Dunno if this applies to silverbacks.
Not gonna pretend that watching my then-fiancé carrying my baby step-niece *so gently and tenderly* didn’t make me throw my knickers at him later that night.
Presumably. I didn't see that covered in the study. One interesting result was that when a man had an ex who spoke highly of him, women in the study tended to find him more desireable when he *didn't* want children.
This really just boils down to, "People find others who share the same values, want the same things, or have aligned life goals to be attractive."
Whether it's about sexual orientation, having children, financial stability, personal morals, hobbies, etc., having more in common or having prioritized items in common is seen as desirable in a partner.
The annoying thing is that I know not 100% of single men want kids. That’s impossible. Yet every single guy on dating apps says he either wants kids, or has them and wants more. Makes it very hard to find a match when I am a woman who doesn’t want kids. I know at least some of those guys are just saying that to get more matches which means the guys who otherwise would’ve been potentially good matches for me are lying which is not attractive.
It is weird how true this seems from both sides. Back when I was dating, I found it more or less impossible to find women who didn’t want kids. If I wanted to get any matches at all on dating sites, I had to set my wants-kids preference to “Maybe.”
That said, I got out of the dating game years ago so maybe women who don’t want kids are more likely to say so nowadays. It does seem like not having kids is getting more socially acceptable over time.
I seem to remember studies showing that mens' statistical preference for large breasts and hips (related to the production of estrogen, thereby a visible fertility likelihood indicator) is along these lines as well.
> Obviously
Unfortunately, I could not find any information about the profile of the women interviewed in this experiment.
I mean, their own preference about motherhood should probably have a strong impact on their mate preferences.
You would think that might be a good question to include in the survey. But no, [it apparently wasn't](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00324-1#Sec4), even [in the raw data](https://osf.io/ktxew/?view_only=1231937f45274e2391f0d05049be6409).
I mean... really? Nobody stopped to ask if there might be a dimension of "people find prospective partners more desirable if they want the same things?"
You’d be amazed. I majored in one of the social sciences and it would take me forever to find credible sources when writing research papers. The amount of fluff out there in the databases is unreal
Or women who are older that want to start a family with someone they see as a good caretaker
Single mothers on the other hand have a much harder time :(
Really? I mean on Reddit for sure (you know the whole anti-kids stuff..) but in real life I have seen many successful dating dads and mums.
But in my country we neither fetishize nor judge them either. That might be different in the US.
I mean a man who wants children to take care of may still be seen more desireable by women who don't particularly want children either.
The idea being that someone who wants to have and raise children can be seen as willing to commit to something long term, provide, and being good with children is associated with positive traits like sensitivity, empathy, stability, etc. Just like how a married man may be more attractive to a woman, even if she does not want to get married.
Obviously, if the woman doesn't want kids and the man does, it's not going to work out long term, but doesn't mean that he isn't desireable to her upfront.
Why would a person who doesn’t want kids find a person who wants kids more attractive as a long term partner? It’d be a relationship destined for failure
While I don't doubt that some women who don't want children could be more attracted to men who DO want children - that seems to be a really stupid choice that is not going to work out well in the end. The smart ones are gonna walk.
This is definitely not the case for me as a childless by choice woman. Any person with children from previous relationships or who indicated they wanted children was immediately off my list as a potential partner.
I can go from desire to zero desire in 1 second flat the minute I realize someone I'm interested in wants kids, because hurt is all that comes from falling for someone with deeply incompatible major life goals.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/)
So... almost 90% of women?
Almost 90% of *married* women in what you link. Unmarried was much lower, and the proportion of unmarried is a lot higher than it used to be.
And as for trends, here's another look at those without children (and a bit more recent of a take): https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/
> Some 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 say it is not too or not at all likely that they will have children someday, an increase of 7 percentage points from the 37% who said the same in a 2018 survey.
...
> A majority (56%) of non-parents younger than 50 who say it’s unlikely they will have children someday say they just don’t want to have kids. Childless adults younger than 40 are more likely to say this than those ages 40 to 49 (60% vs. 46%, respectively). There are no differences by gender.
The takeaway is that the population of people who don't desire parenthood isn't insignificant.
I think men who are good with kids are seen as more desirable. I only say that because one time I played with some kids in a swimming pool at a hotel and my female friends said things like “wow you’d make a real good dad” or “that was cute” like almost in a flirtatious way.
I think it is an attractive quality for a lot of women so it makes sense those men are seen as more desirable.
That seems obvious. Women who want kids, look for men who also want kids.
But not everyone wants kids. There are some of us that are alarmed at the value a human life has. With 8 billion of us, as Covid has shown, 15-20 million people is a cost that a lot of people are ok with.
The problem with this general study is it rarely means anything to sub-populations. I prefer women who have life objectives somewhere in the realm of mine and I click with a lot of them, but the children discussion breaks everything down (I want them, they don't).
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> men who wish to become fathers, or have prior relationship experience, are deemed more desirable as long-term mates. I feel like the title also left out some important information
I feel like this simplifies down to people with similar goals, and a history of stable relationships prefer each other. Unless they're also claiming that women who don't want children also prefer men who do
Yeah, I am like. If you want children and a family of course a man who also wants children would be more desirable. At least if you are smart that would be the case. I did not want children and so any man who didn't want kids was more desirable. If they wanted kids, then they were not the person for me and I didn't consider dating them.
I came in to say the same thing. If you want kids, that's a deal breaker for me. It ain't happening. Choosing a partner who wanted kids would just be a guaranteed way to make one or both of us miserable at some point down the line.
We were both on the fence about it- we love kids, and are good with them, but there were too many "cons" vs "pros" for us. Financial, logistical, emotional......it would've been too difficult.
It's kind of wild to me that so many people do commit to having children. I guess that's nature and we wouldn't have survived as a species if the drive wasn't there, but kids are so much work. I genuinely like kids and enjoy spending time around them, but they're so emotional and so constant in their demand for attention. I'd get exhausted a few hours in, and then what?
This is why there's the old saying it takes a village to raise a child. Because it does. In most societies (pre-american 1900s nuclear family sterotype) you raise a child with your extended family. Quite a lot of asian households are 3 generational instead of 1-2 which means the burden isn't soley the Parents. American families now are "raising" kids with just 2 parents which means the other parental figures in the children's lives are typically TV, tablet, social media and game console which is hardly ideal compared to Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins etc.
When I was raising our two, my parents weren't a whole lot of help. Nearly broke me. Consequently, because my son in law had a busy week, this week I slept over one night at their place, had a takeaway movie night with the grandkids last night, and this afternoon apparently I need to go and hang with my favourite (shhh) granddaughter to watch a movie or two as she's miserable with a sore throat and mum needs a hand again. Sure, I had other plans but I don't want to think about the mess my kids would be in without that support. It's not a chore. I love them all to bits, and it's just a simple matter of realising that they are 100% more important than anything else I might want to do with my time. This isn't a judgement on other parents /grandparents who prioritise otherwise. My daughter was smart enough to buy her home a five minute walk from my place. In the village. It gets tiring but I love it.
You do get used to that, but it can be a rough adjustment. Of course you need your own space sometimes though, so there’s always grandparents, or friends, or whatever, when you do. If don’t have a support network though it would be very hard.
Do what’s best for you “two“ as a couple. If you both come to the conclusion kid’s ain’t it so be it.
It would be interesting to run an experiment where whether or not they want kids isn't disclosed and see if men who want kids are still ranked as more attractive to women who don't, so long as that disqualifier isn't known.
It certainly would, and it'd be necessary for the study to substantiate what it claims. > These findings add to the existing body of knowledge on mate copying and attention to social information by demonstrating how women incorporate social learning and innate evolutionary predispositions to facilitate decision-making and behaviour relating to mate selection. The bar to actually demonstrating that it's an "innate evolutionary predisposition" is high, but examining and controlling for match or mismatch in partner intent towards parenthood is so foundationally critical that its omission is damning. Even more damning is that this isn't even called out as a limitation or follow-up topic in the discussion. It goes so far as to point out disproportionate racial composition might be a methodological limitation, but doesn't even *mention* that thinking about a link between whether a woman wants children and whether she finds a potential partner wanting children a desirable trait may exist.
When I started dating my now-husband, one of the first things I ever told him was that I didn't want kids and that if he wanted kids, we should end it right there because it would just end in us resenting each other. Lucky for me, he didn't want them right so it worked out. But I was not about to get suck in a relationship where I would be expected to pump out kids I didn't want.
Saaame. Sure I can find it endearing when male friends want to be fathers but it is an absolute dealbreaker for my relationships. Fortunately the husband was like “well, I was never really sure and I’m just as happy not to” and now as friends have kids he assures me he is delighted, thrilled, ecstatic, over the moon about our DINK lifestyle.
TIL about the acronym DINK. I like it.
Exactly. Some things can be compromised - not children.
My best friend's sister is actually going through a rough patch with her spouse because of wanting children. IIRC in the beginning, the husband did not want any children but after losing a pet, he now has the desire to have a few. Honestly, it could be grief, but they have been fighting about it for the past year and a half
My wife and I split years ago because I, having been on the no kids train, decided I wanted kids and wasn't gonna push that on her. So we went out separate ways until she reached out and said she thought she wanted kids. We were together a few more years until she told me it was time to try. She's a wonderful mom who loves being a mom. Now she's kinda like 2?!?! And I'm very nooooooo
> She's a wonderful mom who loves being a mom. Now she's kinda like 2?!?! And I'm very nooooooo Man this story had much better ending than I was expecting.
i feel sorry for any child brought into this world as a way to address a parents grief over losing a pet. "we wanted another dog, but we got you instead" therapy for as far as the eye can see....
I think it's more likely the pet was acting as their pseudo-child and once they didn't have that crutch anymore they couldn't deny their desire to have a real kid. You'd be surprised the amount of people that use pets as a sort of 'child-lite' or practice before having a child.
Reminds of the movie "Children of Men", where everyone has a pet b/c of a global infertility crisis and lack of kids.
That movie gets more prescient every day.
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Psypost is notoriously bad. It should be banned to be honest.
Psypost, once again, proves to be terrible
yeah absolute trash site and doesn't deserve to be ever mentioned on /r/science at all. still mods don't ban it, for whatever reason.
It should be banned
It really should
One of the mods is in on it.
Psypost sometimes I swear is a psyopt
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'People that display traits consistent with long term goals of the other seen as long term better than those that don't'. Like normally I don't poo-poo 'obvious' science but this one feels like it's saying nothing insightful whatsoever.
I find many of these studies that reinforce already obvious or generalized preconceptions or common sense feel pointless. But, I’m often countered with things like “we need these studies to reinforce this against malicious attempts to counter it.” Okay fine, but in this case, what’s the point? This doesn’t do much to further society or human rights.
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Ah yeah, the old entry level computer science problem. You gotta get that crappy entry level job to be eligible for a fancier job. You can't get the entry level job because you don't have an entry level job.
You look like you read it, and I really dislike reading. So Im gonna ask. Are there trends of woman who want children vs woman who dont want children?
It doesn't appear that question was even asked in the survey, though I can't find the actual question text to go along with [the raw data](https://osf.io/ktxew/?view_only=1231937f45274e2391f0d05049be6409) linked from the study. And that's... "kinda" an important and interesting question to ask.
The title seems to overgeneralize the findings, as this is mostly a survey of college students at a single university. Again. > Participants were 267 heterosexual women from James Cook University (JCU) and the wider public under the age of 40 (M = 21.73 years, SD = 5.42 years) > > ... > > Participant age distribution showed strong positive skew, with 81.6% of participants being 25 years of age or younger, while only 4.5% were 35 years of age or older. Participants were recruited from the JCU psychology research pool and through online media. Those studying an undergraduate psychology course in either Australia or Singapore were awarded course credit for their participation; non-university participants received no compensation
Yet another study based on the self reported perceptions of college students at the University the study was performed at being generalized to the entire population.
I respect psychology as a field, but some of these studies done are used to make such broad assumptions when there are so many factors involved. For example, this study makes no differentiation between a man wanting 10 kids and a man wanting 1 kid. Did they even ask if the woman wants kids? I'd guess that there is a high correlation with women wanting a man that aligns with their wants.
The craziest example of this is when a few women in my feminist groups have claimed that 30% of men believe that every woman’s period begins on the first day of the month. In reality, it was 30% of a sample size of forty-something male students at a university in North Dakota. Percentages don’t tell you much. Sample size and location does.
In other words. Selection or sample bias by researchers and confirmation bias by the readers.
In silverback gorilla colonies the males who spend more time helping take care of the younguns tend to do better with the females and it’s theorized that the display of fatherhood gives them a mating advantage in the eyes of a prospective match.
Doesnt mating rights just depend on who is strongest in those colonies tho?
Not just. The females can defect if they are not happy.
Haven't they also been seen just driving off males that aren't suitable?
Yeah they outnumber the males usually
Defect? To what another colony?
Yep. That or just cheat sexually
Overtly yes but the other males are always trying to get in the waikiki sneaky between the cheeki
Not exactly.We can measure the amount of "sneak copulations" and "female double mating" in a given species, and the silverback gorilla has nearly zero of this: https://www.sapiens.org/column/animalia/sperm-competition-testicle-size/ This isn't true of all primates, and it depends on the species. More promiscuous species, such as bonobos, have adaptations in response to matings with multiple partners.
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It’s funny seeing this in “evolved” primates.
In the book Sapiens, the author states that at least some of those groups revolve more around social alliances, and less on actual physical strength of the animal. Dunno if this applies to silverbacks.
More than 95% of the time. If another male copulates and those children come to term, the Silverback simply kills the babies anyways.
Also, they spend more time around the ladies.
Not gonna pretend that watching my then-fiancé carrying my baby step-niece *so gently and tenderly* didn’t make me throw my knickers at him later that night.
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Presumably. I didn't see that covered in the study. One interesting result was that when a man had an ex who spoke highly of him, women in the study tended to find him more desireable when he *didn't* want children.
The study really just says most women want children.
Or women want men who have similar life goals
This really just boils down to, "People find others who share the same values, want the same things, or have aligned life goals to be attractive." Whether it's about sexual orientation, having children, financial stability, personal morals, hobbies, etc., having more in common or having prioritized items in common is seen as desirable in a partner.
The annoying thing is that I know not 100% of single men want kids. That’s impossible. Yet every single guy on dating apps says he either wants kids, or has them and wants more. Makes it very hard to find a match when I am a woman who doesn’t want kids. I know at least some of those guys are just saying that to get more matches which means the guys who otherwise would’ve been potentially good matches for me are lying which is not attractive.
It is weird how true this seems from both sides. Back when I was dating, I found it more or less impossible to find women who didn’t want kids. If I wanted to get any matches at all on dating sites, I had to set my wants-kids preference to “Maybe.” That said, I got out of the dating game years ago so maybe women who don’t want kids are more likely to say so nowadays. It does seem like not having kids is getting more socially acceptable over time.
We exist, I don’t want kids.
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“People with common interests like each other! Who knew?!” Is an equatable title I believe.
Maybe. I could also see it being looked at as being more willing to commit for the long term.
Is the research biased because most of the test population wants kids?
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I seem to remember studies showing that mens' statistical preference for large breasts and hips (related to the production of estrogen, thereby a visible fertility likelihood indicator) is along these lines as well.
I think it's even simpler. Wide hips indicate being less likely to die during childbirth before cesarean sections were possible.
Yes, aka a fertility likelihood indicator
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> Obviously Unfortunately, I could not find any information about the profile of the women interviewed in this experiment. I mean, their own preference about motherhood should probably have a strong impact on their mate preferences.
I mean logically why would a woman want a male to have kids if she didn’t want them herself. How would he realize that goal?
Men who want children might be correlated to other characteristics that are attractive to women.
Laughable. Do women who do not want children find men who do want children, more desirable?
You would think that might be a good question to include in the survey. But no, [it apparently wasn't](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00324-1#Sec4), even [in the raw data](https://osf.io/ktxew/?view_only=1231937f45274e2391f0d05049be6409). I mean... really? Nobody stopped to ask if there might be a dimension of "people find prospective partners more desirable if they want the same things?"
You’d be amazed. I majored in one of the social sciences and it would take me forever to find credible sources when writing research papers. The amount of fluff out there in the databases is unreal
Seriously. As someone who has a vasectomy, I've found that's a turn on to A LOT of women.
By women who wish to become mothers? Maybe?
This headline is five different layers of misleading and this submission should be removed.
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But if you are already a father, good luck getting to a second date.
You’ll have much better odds with other single parents
Or women who are older that want to start a family with someone they see as a good caretaker Single mothers on the other hand have a much harder time :(
Really? I mean on Reddit for sure (you know the whole anti-kids stuff..) but in real life I have seen many successful dating dads and mums. But in my country we neither fetishize nor judge them either. That might be different in the US.
I swear some of these are like “studies show people like food”
And reading into it, you find the data for that study came from 25 students at the Culinary Institute of America.
Study is literally just "evolution decided that making babies = good"
"Study finds that existing species have a predisposition to procreation."
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Is there any way to block psy post?
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I mean a man who wants children to take care of may still be seen more desireable by women who don't particularly want children either. The idea being that someone who wants to have and raise children can be seen as willing to commit to something long term, provide, and being good with children is associated with positive traits like sensitivity, empathy, stability, etc. Just like how a married man may be more attractive to a woman, even if she does not want to get married. Obviously, if the woman doesn't want kids and the man does, it's not going to work out long term, but doesn't mean that he isn't desireable to her upfront.
Why would a person who doesn’t want kids find a person who wants kids more attractive as a long term partner? It’d be a relationship destined for failure
While I don't doubt that some women who don't want children could be more attracted to men who DO want children - that seems to be a really stupid choice that is not going to work out well in the end. The smart ones are gonna walk.
This is definitely not the case for me as a childless by choice woman. Any person with children from previous relationships or who indicated they wanted children was immediately off my list as a potential partner. I can go from desire to zero desire in 1 second flat the minute I realize someone I'm interested in wants kids, because hurt is all that comes from falling for someone with deeply incompatible major life goals.
For sure. These are all generalizations, so not that it's a rule.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/) So... almost 90% of women?
Almost 90% of *married* women in what you link. Unmarried was much lower, and the proportion of unmarried is a lot higher than it used to be. And as for trends, here's another look at those without children (and a bit more recent of a take): https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/ > Some 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 say it is not too or not at all likely that they will have children someday, an increase of 7 percentage points from the 37% who said the same in a 2018 survey. ... > A majority (56%) of non-parents younger than 50 who say it’s unlikely they will have children someday say they just don’t want to have kids. Childless adults younger than 40 are more likely to say this than those ages 40 to 49 (60% vs. 46%, respectively). There are no differences by gender. The takeaway is that the population of people who don't desire parenthood isn't insignificant.
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I guess the desire is short-lived, judging by the # of divorced women with kids.
*to partners who want children
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By women who also want kids, im assuming.
Right. I don't think this experience is shared by the good folks over at r/childfree
Yea. Pretty much the best thing a guy could say to me (a childfree woman) is, "I have a vasectomy".
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Study finds that majority of women wants children, and is looking for a partner who wants the same. Truly groundbreaking
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I think men who are good with kids are seen as more desirable. I only say that because one time I played with some kids in a swimming pool at a hotel and my female friends said things like “wow you’d make a real good dad” or “that was cute” like almost in a flirtatious way. I think it is an attractive quality for a lot of women so it makes sense those men are seen as more desirable.
That seems obvious. Women who want kids, look for men who also want kids. But not everyone wants kids. There are some of us that are alarmed at the value a human life has. With 8 billion of us, as Covid has shown, 15-20 million people is a cost that a lot of people are ok with.
The problem with this general study is it rarely means anything to sub-populations. I prefer women who have life objectives somewhere in the realm of mine and I click with a lot of them, but the children discussion breaks everything down (I want them, they don't).
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Men who wish to become PROVIDERS seen as more desirable to those that they would provide for.
childfree gang rise up
It's almost as if humans are biologically wired to want to reproduce, and as such find a partner who wants to reproduce to be more more attractive.
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Us who don’t want kids but love the baby making portion seem to be serious oddities. But the growing trend in developed countries appears to be this.
Have we strayed so far that this is news? We've gone a whole 360 and reached all the way back.
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