As long as I can remember, I've heard the term "we're pregnant" used by both men and women.
It has always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
It's everywhere.

Years ago, when I was in my late 20s, a friend's father told me that since I was an educated woman, I had an "obligation" to have children.
I thought, on one hand, that it made sense. I knew there were more stupid people procreating, and educated people would probably make better parents. I was still figuring shit out, and hadn't experienced enough of the world to understand that line of "reasoning"
wasn't actually reality.
On the other hand, and this was my motivating viewpoint, that statement was incredibly fucked up and wrong.
Granted, I just said I was still figuring out life in general.
I've known all types of good parents and really bad parents.
There is nothing that signifies who will be a successful parent or who won't.
I don't know what kind of parent I would have made. I just know that, at some point, I made the conscious decision not to become one.
I had so many people tell me that I would change my mind, or live to regret not having a child.
So far, I haven't. Changing my mind is no longer an option.
That ship has sailed. To which I say, bon voyage. No regrets.

I still get asked if I regret the decision, and I always say, "fuck no".

I have an abundance of nieces and nephews. All "adopted".
Most of them have children of their own now, and I'm Aunt Kerry to all of them. I haven't missed out on a bloody thing.

Our society still tries to impose antiquated ideals on us, and it still tries to demonize those of us who eschew those "ideals".
It's still throwing out the old tropes of home and family.
It's everywhere.

I like your thoughts .
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The idea of having kids was on the table for me for about 2 yrs . Very early on the game I realized that I am lazy . Also I had opinions , and still do , about what the right parenthood should be . Oh I have opinions alright . My ways of thinking require a lot of devotion, time , selfness , and brains . And I realized I had none of the above early in the game . Also I am chicken shit heart .
Also anxious and overprotective . If I had a child , he / she couldnt wait to break free from my endless fears , helicopter has nothing on me
My dad was cool cat . ( I never met my mother )
I on the other hand , “ the sky is falling “.
So birth control pills served me from 19 to 42 .
My husband of 13 yrs wasn’t big fun of babies either . Especially bcz this idiot here was bringing a lot of money home . I made clear , if I have a child , I am not working another day until the child is in college . Apparently , my salary was more important than fatherhood, so
42 to 53 ( today ), I thank my brains every day that I opted out . 2 abortions too .
People are giving me the pitty eye every week at least .” U don’t have kids , u don’t know “.
Unfortunately I know . I see them at ER . I see them b4 shipping them over to behavioral centers . I see them at woman / child shelter that I volunteer since 2003 . I see them at basketball courts . I have not met an “ evil “ child yet . But I have met “ evil “ parents . Stupid too .
At shelter , I can be my self . Nobody pays me to be polite . At work , I take breaths and looking my staff in the eyes , like “ someone rescue me b4 I open my mouth or I slap a Motherfucker “. Is never the kid so far . The parents . Probably the same idiots that are portrayed at tv shows u describe .
At the store , at restaurants , I am the one that has no cute stories about kids or grandkids . The selfish one . They are right . I knew my limitations , that’s my f excuse .
If I could go back 30 yrs , I will had opted out AGAIN . I have nothing good to teach a young human about this world . Definitely not about usa . I will not want to bring a child and feed it lies .

Here's my two cents. First, TV and movies aren't really an accurate reflection of reality. They're escapism... made to be fun, exciting, dramatic, and/or amusing. It's like how the majority of people in TV and movies are good-looking and rarely seem to have any financial problems and nearly any problem can be resolved in the course of a few hours or days.

I don't think Roe v Wade has anything to do with it, in my opinion. Maybe it's your own worries/concerns that are shaping what you're watching? I don't really think that Hollywood is collectively putting pro-birth political messages into movies and TV.

Regardless of which side a person is on, abortion is never an enjoyable topic. I think its rarely depicted in movies and TV for that very reason same as other unpleasant topics such as child molestation and rape. These are uncomfortable ultra-serious topics that aren't likely to bring in viewers.

So, maybe the awful things that are happening in this country are negatively affecting your perceptions. I can certainly understand how bleak and frustrating things can seem sometimes. I hate what conservatives are doing to this country... from their war on women's medical rights to their attempts to restrict the rights of trans and gay people, their oppression of blacks, banning of books and history, etc, etc.

If it makes you feel any better, you'll probably be dead before things completely go to shit.

Watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix, or go back a few years to Sex and the City, where children are not a prominent feature, and aren't considered the reason for having sex in a relationship, or what one should want.

My son and his wife are not going to have children and I'm good with their decision. I don't watch any of the movies you describe and I wouldn't want to but that's just me.

Question: is porn anything like actually making love or even like having real sex?
so why do you assume these movies reflect real life in any way, or are attempting to influence real life?
movie/TV watchers love feel-good endings, so that's what they are given. the facts are, 50% of all marriages end in divorce, but do people want to see That as an ending? (or even a possibility?)

I think my whole romantic ideology formed with those doo wop songs from the 50s and early 60s.
Mel Carter - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me , Tommy Edwards - It's All in the Game, etc.
First 8th grade dance but Lesley Gores's You Don't Own me sure made an impact.
Having kids was never high on my to do list.
But nothing is ever explained in sex ed and parents don't seem able to talk about it BUT DO NOT come home preggers!
I figured out most of it from medical books my mom had and a friend's sisters medical library.
I think I was damn lucky we were not allowed to watch much TV as kids so I did not really gravitate to watching it once I was on my own.
Since the pandemic I have been watching more shows, all the free stuff with ads on YouTube or Freevee.
The old series Bones, The Saint with Roger Moore. Really enjoyed the old Mike Hammer series with Darren Mcgavin.
Not much into the romance movies, some of the comedies are okay but life really IS NOT like the movies.

A lot of the weekly series and movies follow what's happening in the culture and politically. It's just what they do.

The TV and film companies, and their bankers, often use trending advice and advice companies to make their output topical. Because they feel that being on trend will help them sell more of their product. The trending companies all tend to give out the same message, because they all swim in the same cesspit of pseudoscience and a limited number of public opinion stats, which like most futurology is little better than astrology. While the film and TV companies also watch the others, and think that what worked for them, may work for us.

That they all look and sound alike therefore, may not be because of some grand conspiracy to manage public opinion, but is probably just a lack of imagination, courage and creativity.

We must watch totally different kinds of shows. The types of shows I tend to watch are geared toward women, stupid romance movies, mysteries and such, that most men wouldn't have patience to watch. They are sappy and predictable, not something I'm proud to watch, chick flicks I guess, but they do show empowered women who are not necessarily looking to have babies, just a fulfilling career and a happy love life. My TV is something to have in the background as I work. Perhaps a different message is being pushed on women's programming versus men's shows?

For years I avoided movies with Hollywood’s formulaic plots and endings.

For movies with better plots and real life endings, I search public library movie databases for their Criterion Collection movies.

I can also use other search terms, such as Janus films, Argos films, Eclipse films, and Como films. When I omit the word “films” I may get book referrals too.

BTW, my blu-ray player also reads DVDs.

Extremely astute observation and the way you express your thoughts is nothing short of captivating. People are influenced by TV and movies so we must pay attention to the implications of them.

Motherhood is one potential life goal but shouldn't be assigned. I was taught to write using as few words as possible to get to the point. Sometimes a point is more powerful when written in your style. I think you should seriously consider writing a book.

I binge watched both seasons of the new Perry Mason. Nothing like the Raymond Burr version. This Perry is a far cry from Burr's Dudley Doright. In this one DA Hamilton Berger is gay, Della Street is a lesbian and Paul Drake is black. Unlike the 60s TV version, this Perry Mason's favorite saying: “No one ever confesses on the stand”. I can't wait till season 3.

Other than the expression "we're pregnant" (which was an unfortunate attempt to involve fathers in the experience), I've had the theme of getting married and having children pushed on me since before I can remember. It was the gold standard of goals for girls, and was promoted as such in books, shows, and movies, so I don't find this to be a new phenomena.

What may be happening is a bit of Baader-Meinhof syndrome, where once you're aware of something, you notice it all around you. It becomes an unconscious bias. For instance, after my husband's heart attack, it seemed that heart attacks were in all the shows I watched, and in advertising, and in news articles ... it was like I couldn't get away from thinking about heart attacks. I think the loss of abortion rights, and possibly birth control, may be in the forefront of your thinking as it dramatically changes how we view relationships. This has been happening for me as well, and it becomes harder to watch shows where the choice of parenthood is clearly not there. It's not that they're now showing relationships for women differently, it's that we now see how flawed it always was.

The type of show(s) you described, seem to pretty much match every show I remember watching as a kid back in the 1960's. So, it isn't really new.

I have not been watching TV for the last few years, so I can't really say if the inclusion of LGBT+ characters is still happening or not. If such characters are once again excluded or absent from new shows, then I might say you are probably correct about the trend being politically motivated.

There is one thing for sure, and that is streaming services and TV Networks tend to purchase the shows that are least expensive. Shows produced by or underwritten by Christian based groups will cost less, and therefore there may be more of that type of programming.

In 2010, I gave up on my acting ambitions because "reality TV" had taken over and there really wasn't any work for legitimate actors anymore. The big increase in reality TV was that the shows were cheap to produce. In my view it exploits the absolute worst aspects of human nature and passes it off as "entertainment". I think reality TV is crap, with no redeeming aspects. However, people watched enough of it, that it was more profitable to air reality crap shows than it was to produce quality shows with legitimate actors. Still, the reality shows were generally scripted, and the participants were told to behave in certain ways to increase "drama". Those shows were pretty much fake and in no sense resembled actually reality.

My point is that streaming services and TV networks wwant to pay the least amount of money for shows as they can, and so shows underwritten by Christian groups will get disproportionately aired, even though their production values are usually pretty low and the writing is crap, and so you will get the kind of shows you described, and lots of them.

One of my favorite shows ever was "Northern Exposure", which was a drama-comedy set in Alaska, which had great writing, but no streaming service has been willing to have to pay for the high quality of the show, so it has never been offered on a streaming service. It isn't like "Murphy Brown", another show which hasn't been on a streamign service, which although it had great writing, that show is also very dated and tied to current events that took place during the show's production, and so it would not play as well today, and so I can see why that show wasn't desired.

My thoughts on it are almost exclusively outside the realm of the sexual, I am thinking like this: In the 1970's, the media was much more localized and free, they were not controlled by massive corporations and government, which surely, anyone who is well informed is aware of. If you recall, one of the things that lead the masses to follow Hitler was the Nazi parties use of radios and newspapers . . . . the centralization of the media . . . lead to the growth of the Nazi party, the dominance of the Nazi party, and all that followed. What we are seeing today is literally the same thing, only by far, much, much worse. Bad actors, plutocrats and corporations are in full control of the media, fascist-like control, and they are using it all to impose their world-views on everyone who is naïve enough to not be aware of it. This is extremely dangerous. When people start talking about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, my immediate thought is, it is NOT artificial intelligence that is the danger, it does not have pride, an ego, an urge to dominate, an urge for revenge . . . . no, it is the humans who are the danger, and when you have groups of ultra-wealthy, ultra-militaristic, ultra-racists together, or just individuals in positions where they can gain maximum control of the media, it is like killing yourself, because it gives up power, it creates passive sheep who accept what they are told and do not see through the manipulation that they are being subjected to. We live in a dangerous age.

Wow, you been married 4 times. What did you learn from those marriages?

Humans are allegedly the only creatures who have sex for pleasure. And I can't find anything wrong with that concept. We have EVOLVED to a level where we can control whether or not we want our sexual pleasure to result in offspring. Personally, I never had any marital relationship (except the first, 60 years ago) where procreation was intended. Sex is wonderful, and I'm not good parenting material. I see a LOT of sex on the streaming channels I watch, and MOST of it is relatively free from religious undertone. Great! Sex is healthy.

Then, immediately after my marriage #2, I had a vasectomy which put all that controversy about possible pregnancy to rest. My only regret now is not getting fixed a lot sooner. The world has way too many people anyway.

As for folks who are coping with a unintended pregnancy, a woman MUST have domain over her own body, and it must be her choice whether she wants to carry it. I'm somewhat comforted by the Buddhist belief that the soul enters the fetus between the 4th and 5th month. Although I'm not a believer in any religion, I like the idea that, if you don't get your abortion by the 4 or 5th month, then you ought to carry it to term. If you can, and if it's viable.

I agree about the plot choices for many shows lately. I see they are also adding lots of alternative narrative too. I've been watching European short series on Netflix because I can't stand commercials and at least it's something different.

I get enough reality everytime I try to stand up from the couch or bed. Lots of pain.
So when I was a teenager my friend and I decided not to have children based solely on an article about thalidomide. There were pages of photos of lots of deformed monster looking kids and neither of us wanted to incubate one of them. I came close to no kids and truly wasn't emotionally stable enough to have them, what a lot of work and money. It may sound romantic but it's the opposite.
I lost a boyfriend at 19 and decided THEN I wanted children but only 2 and had my tubes tied. Done with that. My friend never had kids. She was smarter than me. I wasn't a touchy feely kiss the kids all the time person. I actually had to force myself to kiss them both good night. I was so not a good parent. I was mediocre and not proud of it.
I watch a ton of action movies, I like Ryan Phillipe, Vin Diesel, and end of world type stuff. Nothing to brainwash me into wanting romance even. Never was one for romance and flowers and all that ceremonial stuff. You mow the lawn I'll create flower gardens.

I haven't noticed that. Additionally since Hollywood is not exactly a proponent of "family life" I am not sure there are too many examples of past family structure being presented.

Are you watching older movies?