[span9]I come across this situation a lot in modern day Romanian society. Married childless couple or recently married person meets an acquaintance/not-so-close friend/friend-who-thinks-they’re-closer-than-they-really-are and inevitably gets asked, as a compulsory part of the conversation, about the expected due date of mandatory children required of them by social norms.
People, stop doing that!
If a couple has no children there’s probably a very good reason for it. Chances are your asking about it will only succeed in making you look uncivilised and uneducated, endowed with the mentality of a medieval peasant, and will likely make them feel sad, besides obviously making them feel uncomfortable.
Let’s examine a few scenarios that might dissuade you from doing that in the future:
1. One partner wants children, one does not (yet). Ask them and one of them or both will hate you. As a bonus you might just start another argument between them.
2. Couple wants children but one of them CAN’T have them. Ask them so they can feel miserable about it some more.
3. Both partners feel they’re not ready yet. They’re wrong and they’ll feel sorry about it later. Ask them so you can correct their behaviour through clever use of social pressure. Listen closely: It’s none of your business!
4. Couple forgot to have children.
Gee, it’s a really good thing you asked! We should totally have done that by now and it just slipped our minds!
– said no person EVER!
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Photo: Theodore Roosevelt and Family.
Author Unknown. Public Domain.
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c13665.
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