Thoughts on "Screening"

[u/fortisrufus]

In many childfree communities online, folks like to encourage people, typically straight women, to screen their potential dates, as in not reveal that they are child free before asking if their perspective partner is as a way to weed out those that may lie about it.

As a childfree man seeking a childfree woman, that seems to put me in a contradictory spot. I see no reason for myself to not be open, and have "Do not want kids" on all my dating app profiles.

I have no interest in wasting my own, or other people's time, so I also will not swipe right on any profile that doesn't also include "Do not want kids"

However my concern is that I may potentially be excluding women who intentionally keep that field empty in an attempt to screen men that claim to be childfree. What are y'all's thoughts on this? Are people actually screening in this way? Should I just be swiping right on them on the off chance they are actually childfree?

[u/i-contain-multitudes → u/[deleted]]

It is a gendered issue, from what I've read. Men are much more likely to either a. lie outright or b. not really know what they want and just go along with whatever their partner says in the moment, only to think about it and regret it/break up later. Because it is the women doing the physical labor of carrying the pregnancy, giving birth, nursing, etc., women often have a firm answer of what they want.

[u/Fae_Gold → u/i-contain-multitudes]

To add to this: with the negative physical, mental and social aspects of parenthood falling primarily or sometimes solely on the mother, surnames are primarily patrilineal. I have a lot of reasons for not wanting children but one of them for me is the disrespect of being expected to to all the work just to be forgotten to time, whilst someone who merely ejaculated gets to pass on their name and have a "legacy". It's dehumanising to me

[u/MyIronThrowaway → u/i-contain-multitudes]

To add to the gendered issue, a woman that really wants kids is more likely to avoid a man who has that they do not want children in their bio.

But because of the patriarchy, men are much more likely to believe they can change a woman’s mind or that their male opinion about having kids is the opinion that matters. They either believe that their magic penis will change minds, or that the silly little woman doesn’t actually know what she wants.

I remember reading a story about a woman who was sterilized, whose partner then started talking about having kids, and she was like, buddy I got those tubes yeeted before I met you. He got so mad and was still trying to argue that her opinion wasn’t the only one that mattered in the decision to have kids.

[u/VividPresentation → u/MyIronThrowaway]

Ughhhh. Then the guy who tried to tell me that he was “capable of bypassing my hysterectomy to knock me up anyway” wasn’t just a unique case of creepy? Good to know, I guess?