The decision whether or not to have children is more fraught than ever, and at the very least, many women (and men) are preferring to wait until a bit later in life to make it.

This woman’s coworker is ready to have kids but his younger girlfriend isn’t sure, and he was taking advice on what to do.

When she piped up with her child-free perspective, nobody took it well.

All of the details are below!

AITA for giving (wanted) advice about breaking up instead of pressing girlfriend into having children?

At my work it’s not uncommon to bring personal dilemmas to discussion. Unhealthy af, but not the point.

I’m a child free 27F, my coworker is 32M and his girlfriend is 24F, they have been together for 3 years, live together, and seem to have a fine relationship.

Coworker has always wanted to be a dad. He feels like he’s “on the right age” to start having kids, and talked about it with gf.

He vents about how she said she’s “not sure” about having kids yet.

She doesn’t think he’s really thought it through.

He makes reasonable money to support a couple of adults, but not to give a child a nice life and idk what additional debts he might have; they are not homeowners and his gf never went to college, doesn’t intend to, and she makes/sells cake.

They are good but this is her only income and it’s pretty variable.

Also, he wants kids, plural. 3 or 4 kids. Said he’d be up to adopting eventually but want “some” bio children.

And she thought her coworkers were giving one-sided advice.

Everyone gave advice I considered shitty and misogynistic, like

“you should start trying, she’ll start loving being a mother along the way” (but what she doesn’t?)

“just take her to see your nephews more frequently, she’ll see how amazing it is to have kids” (yeah, taking care of a child 24/7 and visiting someone else’s kid is EXACTLY the same)

“she says that because she’s too young, of course she wants kids” (if she’s too young to know how is she old enough to care for another life?)

“the first pregnancy is so good she’ll want more kids in to time” (WTF, your experiences are not universal)

“there’s no love without giving in, you’ll find a way” (thanks captain obvious, I didn’t know you were a couple’s counselor now!)

“you should meet halfway and have only 2 children” (that’s STILL having children, dammit!)

Now, I usually don’t take part in those; my co-worker L (a woman on her 50s who’s really open minded) always gives advice I agree to, but this time, she only said he should wait a little more to see if she’ll change her mind.

So, she spoke up.

As a child-free woman, I know that a lot of times “I’m not sure” is what you say when you’re sure you don’t want children so people won’t talk shit.

It might not be the case, but he still could benefit from a different POV from everyone else, so… I said something along these lines:

“If she gets pregnant because she feels pressed, it will likely make her miserable and affect your relationship. If you two want different things in life, it’s better to break up while you don’t have a child to be affected by it. That, or maybe YOU can consider adapting for her instead”.

No one appreciated it.

Now everyone looks at me like I advised him to punch his grandmother, because they “kids are a blessing”, “really love each other” and “can make it work somehow”.

I wasn’t even harsh, I was very calm and polite. Even if my advice was shitty (which I don’t think it was!), if he asked everyone, no one should be publically upset with my advice.

AITA?

I think it was fair for her to speak her mind, too.

Let’s hear what Reddit has to say about it.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to hear the truth.

There are two sides to most issues.

Everyone else was likely wrong.

Age-gap relationships are just a red flag.

No one else was doing him any favor.

If you don’t want advice, don’t ask for it.

No one lives and works in a vacuum.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.