I think the majority of guys want kids. Or at least abstractly see themselves having a family. Dating in my mid-30s, that seemed to be the case. On the other hand, I wouldn’t say it’s been hard to find guys who don’t, or are meh.

FWIW, I’m kind of annoyed by that “want to make sure we’ll be together forever” mentality some guys have when it comes to marriage or kids. Like, no shit. But also, I think it’s really really naive. Sorry, Charlie, but you *cannot* know fore sure you’re going to be with someone forever. You can feel like you are, and you can hope, but life is long and people and circumstances change, and shit happens. You can’t predict mental illness or midlife crisis or any number of events that could break up your marriage. That needing to be certain thing can also be a crutch for indecisive guys to lean on.

I feel like it somehow plays into these stupid stereotypes that men believe… being married means you lose your freedom, and then you’ll get divorced and she’ll take half your money. That fear is like, burned into them.

@Copa I live in the burbs but dated in the burbs, in the large metro I live in and the next large city over. I believe about 90% wanted kids, 10% were unsure. I didn’t sense a coloration between burbs and baby games.

I can kind of see where the “want to make sure we’ll be together forever” statement comes from… although like Kate said, it’s a weird statement as there are no guarantees in life.

For instance, I decided quite a few years ago that I was ambivalent about having children. Like, if I met someone I was really jazzed about and we decided to give marriage a go and he wanted children, I would have done it. I think I’d make a great mom and I like kids, but the older I became, the less I wanted them, hence the ambivalence. It so happens I met someone who was also ambivalent. So… we’re not doing the children thing since neither felt strongly about it.

So, I think that statement these guys say is a lazy way to say that right now, they’re unsure, but if circumstances were right, they’d like to have children.

@MissDre I don’t think they’re absolutely sure they want kids. But they want to have the possibility. If someone is on the fence about kids and you come and tell them you downright don’t want them, it brings up a lot of questions.

I know this because I matched with a 39 year old on Tinder about two months ago. He seemed cool, we talked for a bit and then he bluntly asks (still on Tinder) “do you want to have kids?” I was surprised that question could come up so early. So I answered I don’t know… why?
And he said he had a vasectomy and he wanted to make it clear since the beginning. I was shocked at having to decide right there and then if I wanted kids. I DON’T need kids in my life but I don’t know if I’ll ever want them, so I want to have the possibility. And to just have to decide that right there shocked me. We didn’t continue talking after that.
So, I guess it comes down to three kinds of people: people who strongly want kids, people who are on the fence and people who strongly don’t want them.

I met the right guy, and we had no known barriers to having kids, could have started trying at 38, but… didn’t want to. 4 years later, 100% do not. It’s not even like, I kinda want them but there are all these reasons not to (which there are). Just 10000000000% do not want.