…or are these situations just accidental pregnancies where the woman decides she wants to keep the baby?
I was browsing Reddit, and came across a post about a guy who recently moved in with his girlfriend and said she did a 180 on her personality and he wants out. Fair.
She is a single mom to a young kid who is not his, and the father of her kid is not in the picture. Some comments were like, “Be careful of the baby trap. You can’t trust her to take the pill… wrap it up!”
It got me thinking. Does this actually ever happen? I am genuinely asking if any of you have done it or know of someone who has. I am 38 and I do not. But… I don’t have a large social circle, and it isn’t something anyone’s ever admitted to me.
It sounds questionable though. Why would a woman want to “baby trap” someone? Usually the men who claim they’ve been baby trapped are no prize themselves.
Is it their way of offloading all the responsibiity of making a baby onto a woman, or is this a real thing?
Comments
I think it happens but it’s over exaggerated just how often it happens. And it’s possible that it’s more common for a higher tax bracket, but even then.
ETA: A family acquaintance did do this (she confirmed it with my aunts). But it was in a less developed country.
I’m a man and had one of my exes try that. We were 17 it was so insane
My roommates ex did it to him. And her last 3 boyfriends.
It happen with both sexes. Men and women have been known to do it but I think it’s over exaggerated online.🤷♀️
I believe it happens. It has to be someone that cannot be mentally stable either. To trap someone and know that they will be unhappy which will cause your unhappiness is wild to me. But each their own.
Most are because of people’s inability to use birth control. Pull out method (which is not bc at all), condom but not when drunk/busy/forgot, a pill eaten every now and then…people play roulette with this, don’t seem to care much despite it (pregnancy/getting someone pregnant! being the biggest thing probably ever happening in their lives and when also yes, the life/quality of life of their offspring is also at stake
I think it happens but not any more than men baby trap women. There’s toxic people in all genders and anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.
It does happen, yes.
When I was in my twenties, I knew several guys who had casually dated women who were in the country on working holiday Visas and “accidentally” got pregnant so they could stay in the country and be supported.
I have also overheard young women give each other pointers on how to impregnate themselves from discarded condoms and then claim that it must have leaked or broken. Seriously, I spent a three-hour bus ride listening to more info about turkey basters and beaten egg white than I ever wanted to hear.
I’m sure it does happen, but I don’t know any women personally who’d commit to something so permanent than having a baby with a guy who’s not in it. In fact, I know far more men who are willing to have kids with women they aren’t even married to. Even I’ve had guys suggest we have kids prematurely (didn’t accept the offer lol).
Sure it happens, men do it to women too. I know a couple people of both genders that have done it or had it done to themselves. I will say it (the relationship) never works out, in my experience. Everyone I know that was in that situation ended up not together with the other parent.
I feel like I was baby trapped as a women. My husband and I wanted a baby, the same week we found out I’m pregnant he cheated on me but I didnt find out till I was pregnant with our second.
My mother did this to my father, and later confessed it to me. They had been dating for 5 months, both were recent divorcees, and she wanted commitment he wasn’t ready for.
Many think that saying you would probably have an abortion, then changing your mind should you get pregnant, because SOMETIMES PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THEIR MIND, is baby trapping. But all PIV sex can create babies and women are allowed to decide they want or don’t want an abortion for any reason, even if they’ve previously said otherwise.
It happened with my aunt. Long family story, he didn’t want kids. She wanted them. Stopped taking birth control pills. Had my cousin. Totally unstable situation. My cousin has incredibly severe mental health issues now as a grown-up. It is very sad.
I know one person who probably did. I was a teacher and my co-teacher’s long term partner wasn’t interested in marriage or kids. One of our coworkers basically told my co-teacher to baby trap her partner. The coworker had recently had a “surprise” pregnancy that resulted in her and her partner getting engaged. She was insufferable. Everyone hated her
So yes it happens, but given the number of people who choose to share wild details of their lives with me I suspect it’s rare
ETA: It’s also important to note that men baby trap women too. Some people suck
I know you asked about men, and I’m a woman, but a man tried to “baby trap” me. I was adamant about using protection and he purposely took it off, without me knowing. I had just started antidepressants and thought the pregnancy symptoms were side effects. I was literally in a psych program, so it was a lot of drugs.
I had zero clue. He was the one that told me I was probably pregnant. His thinking was that he loved me more than my ex husband did, and I had babies with him, so he wanted one with me. Crazy af I know. I was down bad and clearly that reflected in who I was dating.
I barely made the time frame to have an abortion — like barely. I still get PTSD from thinking what would’ve happened had it been a few more days. My last baby was 10lbs 5oz, and I had to go to physical therapy after. Along with the potential father being a scum bag — I literally could’ve been permanently harmed by carrying a 4th child.
I had the abortion and went back to business as usual — the next day. Mind you “business” was being in a partial hospitalization program all day, because my mental health was shot after the horror show my ex husband put me through in family court.
I have been on birth control every single day since, and I’m now 46, and likely infertile — but I don’t care. I take that pill daily. The experience was so horrific that it changed me forever
I think some try to, but that they aren’t representative of any larger faction. It happened to my cousin, his long term gf and he split up over her wanting kids and not him, they had some ex sex, she wasn’t on the pill but said she was and she hoped they would get back together and that he would change his mind about kids. He didn’t. He still showed up as a co-parent, but that breech of trust made things a lot more toxic than they had to be. He wasn’t present during the pregnancy, and it took a lot of outside pressure (from my aunt) to get him to even consider showing up as a co-parent.
So that’s ONE woman out of all the women I have ever met or been acquainted with, which is like, hundreds of women.
It’s more common than we think. I have seen several examples.
Yup it happens all the time. I’ve known a handful of women who did it so their man would commit to them. Personally I think it’s messed up.
My ex wanted to end our 10 year relationship. My mom went nuts and told me I need to trap him with a baby. That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard her say, and she has no filter at all.
Some people’s impulses override any shred of logic and forward thinking.
Many men on reddit are “She baby trapped me!” but then admit they were not using a condom nor got a vasectomy LOL
In reality,it happens but same for both genders. I knew some women who kept having kids with different guys they’re with just to keep the guys stayed. And I knew some men who made their women pregnant so the women didn’t leave them. It’s just not so often that you see it as you heard on internet from social media.
I think some women want a baby so much that they don’t care too much about who ends up being the father. They will intentionally have unprotected sex in order to get pregnant.
If the guy then is irresponsible and horny enough to agree to sex without a condom, tough luck.
Quite a few women who do this have a history of making bad decisions, so it often ends up being one big mess. They don’t pick rich guys, they pick ordinary guys who are eager to get laid.
Being baby-trapped almost happened to a close male relative of mine. Ex-girlfriend who openly told all her friends that she wanted a baby called him up for some fun. She already had a known medical issue that made oral contraception more likely to fail and my dumbass relative did not wrap it up; despite knowing her medical condition and knowing that she wanted a baby. She got pregnant and lost the baby at 5 months. Otherwise he would have become a teenage father.
I know of one for sure where a woman baby trapped a man. My brother wanted to move for dental school. His wife didn’t want to leave bc both of our families were close by where they lived and she was afraid he would leave her if she refused. She got knocked up on the sly so he would agree that it was impossible for them to move. And then she got drunk at my SIL’s bachelorette party a few years later and bragged to half our family about what she had done.
My dad did whatever the opposite of baby trapping is. My mom’s mother and sister died several weeks after she married my dad. It was tragic, and she got very depressed. My father isn’t much of a caregiver and couldn’t handle being married to someone too depressed to get out of the bed. So he sabotaged her birth control and got her pregnant so that he could divorce her without worrying she would kill herself. But then she seemed really happy about being pregnant so he decided to stay after all. He told me that as if it was a totally normal thing to do to your spouse.
I used to have this friend, who told me she made holes in the condoms *while sleeping around* so she could have a baby, not necessarily to ‘baby trap’. I told her that this was crazy, dangerous even.
My one friend did this. I told her it was a bad idea. She stopped taking birth control and got pregnant. This guy wanted to leave her and he did anyway. The worst part is she never learnt her lesson and tried to do the same to another guy. She ended up losing the baby which I think was actually for the best. I do think that men are acting like all woman do this is a bit far fetched though. If men are worried about pregnancy they need to also take their own precautions.
I worked with someone who attempted this. She wouldn’t let him wear a condom and didn’t get off (she was on top) when they agreed on the pullout method. She also knew he was a good guy and wouldn’t lift a hand at her to get her off him. I’m sure she’d use that as ammo against him too. So, she did a Bridgerton rape scene.
Her reason was that she essentially wanted to force her boyfriend to be with her by baby-trapping him. Because, you know, he “couldn’t” leave if she were pregnant with his baby.
She was overall jealous, insecure, and petty when it came to HER man, even when they were “off” in their on-and-off relationship. She was not a nice person.
This is the first and only time I have heard of anyone doing that. It fucked me up that it was told as some funny story when I was shocked and disgusted by her behaviour because I don’t find sexual assault or rape funny, and men can be victims of rape, too. Thankfully, she didn’t last long at that company, and I never saw her again.
It happens, yes, but the frequency is pretty low.
it definitely happens but not to the extent people make out. i do know someone who intentionally baby trapped someone when they were in their early 20s. it did not work out the way she thought it would and while she loves her son, it didn’t take long for her to realise she had made a massive mistake (not her son but just the way she had gone around things) and regret her choices.
Men baby trap women by intentionally compromising birth control but it isn’t talked about on reddit. Reproductive coercion is a facit of men abusing women in relationships that does not get the viral clicks the reverse does.
In the US the lowest estimate of women who have experienced reproductive coercion in their lifetime is 8% according to some studies.
This is especially alarming in the context that women are at their highest risk of their partner committing acts of violence against them during pregnancy and post partum. Murder is actually one of the top causes of death for pregnant women, but we don’t get viral posts about that.
Reproductive coercion is also highly correlated with intimate partner violence.
Even in casual relationships, think about “stealthing” – sexual assault where you take a condom off mid sex knowing your sexual partner did not consent to unprotected sex, only to protected sex.
There are women who are pro choice for others who couldn’t bring themselves to have an abortion. Or they’re straight up against it. If birth control fails, which you can look up the stats for it, typical use can vary from 78% to 91% for various forms of birth control. If you’re using condoms 11 people who use them exclusively out of 100 will get pregnant per year.
Birth control pills sit at a typical use of 93%, so 7 out of 100 per year will get pregnant.
I do not doubt that there are some women out there who intentionally come off birth control without telling their partner, no gender is free from fucked up people. I can see a woman could think having a baby will tie them to the other person permanently, then acting on it. I would consider lying about your birth control a form of sexual assault if a woman is lying as I would if a man is lying.
But I also would hate to see the statistical reality of the fact that birth control is not perfect being thrown in with assault as if they’re the same thing. If birth control fails, you cannot force someone to have an abortion against their will.
There are lots of women per year who intended not to get pregnant who wound up pregnant anyway. And I am sure some of these women get accused of baby trapping, when whar really happened was an accident.
I also get how someone could when talking about hypothetical say yeah I would get an abortion then when it came down to it found they could not. Maybe they don’t have access due to legislation, maybe they’re afraid of the social and legal consequences, maybe they feel different faced with the reality.
In cases where both parties are acting with good intentions, if you are putting a penis in a vagina, you have to be prepared for a potential child. It might be statistically rare, like IUDs have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting pregnant with typical use. But the chance is there. And blaming just the woman for a statistical probability is unfair.
https://www.acog.org/womens-health/infographics/effectiveness-of-birth-control-methods
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_coercion
Agree with other comments.
I’ve heard some men talk about how it’s such a common thing.. but I think it’s just one side of the narrative that we get to hear.
Some men just aren’t ready or don’t want to be fathers when accidents happen. Whilst this is okay, it’s unfair to flip the narrative.
Some women, yes, potentially are malicious like this, but I genuinely couldn’t ever create a life out of spite for another. Seems backwards.
I knew a couple who were openly child free. They married, he did a 180 and wanted kids badly. He tampered with their birth control on purpose, and she got pregnant
He was so fucking entitled that once she was pregnant, he was totally “ah ha, got ya! I get my way afterall”
She got an abortion and a divorce.
So yes the concept of baby trapping is very real, because I do think there are people out there that will just roll over and cave and roll with the pregnancy and keeping the other parent in their lives.
But I think it’s more anecdotal than common.
Personally I hate this trope and the way men treat it like a widespread epidemic. It’s not.
THAT SAID I believe my SIL did this to my brother. SIL is very attractive. She’s much younger and was struggling with her young son after her ex went to jail.
I love my brother, but it likely wasn’t his charm/attractiveness that hooked her. They are not a good match in any way.
SIL’s mother (an addict) even moved into my brother’s ADU, an arrangement which he hated. Brother foots the bill for everything.
I believe SIL knew how badly he wanted to have children and preyed on this. I LOVE my niece, but I don’t believe for a second that the “pill failed” unless SIL means she failed to take it.
ETA: I still think the (perceived) situation with my SIL is rare, and I could be wrong they could be very much in love.
I think it’s unlikely that it happens very often, I do think some men use it as an excuse to not take responsibility for using adequate contraception.
I’m not ready to have a baby as a woman, so I’ve taken the necessary precautions to protect myself against that. I don’t see why men shouldn’t do the same. If you’re worried about getting someone pregnant, use contraception. If you choose not to use contraception and a pregnancy occurs, well then that’s the consequences of your own actions.
I know one guy that tried this, but failed
Yes. Hard to know true frequency. I know someone who did this and it worked out pretty poorly.
I know two men that it happened too. They were also idiots for having sex without condoms.
Erm…37F here and I’ve never heard of anyone I know doing this or thinking this.
What I have heard, however, is the notion that a baby might be able to fix their failing relationships/marriages.
But this is not in a “if I could secretly go off the pill” sort of thing and more of a trying to convince him, foolishly, to try for one. Sometimes, their partners do indeed agree to it.
I’d like to point out that I’ve also heard my male friends do this as well.
Don’t have sex if you don’t want to be a Dad.
My aunt did this to get with my uncle. She later “confessed” they hadn’t even had sex, he was just blackout drunk. But at that point they were already married. Conservative, patriarchal culture that didn’t believe in divorce or premarital sex.
Edit: it is definitely not common though.
Edit2: More relevant details, they were anti birth control, religious, and very much like “the women’s place is in the home.” I’m not qualified to make this judgment but I’d lay serious odds on my aunt having a personality disorder. She was very abusive to her kids and probably to my uncle as well, but at this point in his life he’s an enabler who enforces her abuse.
My “SIL” baby trapped my brother. She got pregnant by a 1-night stand with a random dude while they were on an extended break. My brother always wanted kids so he was going to 1/2 assedly help her raise her daughter. They got pregnant on a drunken “oopsie” night within the first 6 months. They’ve been living together as if married ever since. My nephew is 11 now. According to my brother she admitted to seducing him and being off Birthcontrol purpose, but I never asked her for her side. He still won’t marry her.
Yup.
My husband’s ex did to him. Full transparency, he’s a fucking idiot and should’ve used additional protection since he never wanted kids, but she said she was on birth control and he believed her (even though he was planning on breaking up with her soon, because he suspected cheating–which he later found out happened). She announced her pregnancy, and he tried to stay with her, but it didn’t work out. Not long after my stepson was born, they broke up.
6 months later, in custody court, she admitted she got pregnant on purpose in order to “have money from the government every year in taxes and from dh for CS if it didn’t work. My sister gave me the idea.”
We got together when he was almost 3, and he’s now 13. My husband went from split custody to majority custody, with him with us 75% of the time. Mom still gets minimum CS despite him living here most of the time because she doesn’t work, but it’s so minimal that we just let it go. It’s not worth spending money on attorney fees for something so minor.
She’s a shit mom, but she’s still his mom. Can’t change that. He loves her very much, so we support their relationship, but there’s a reason kiddo lives with us most of the time.
We love him very much and do our best by him. We’re glad he’s here even though we never imagined this being our lives (I also never wanted kids 😂).
I don’t think a woman would openly admit to this for obvious reasons.
As much as I hate to admit this, my mom did this to my dad. My mom was going through a divorce of her first husband and was very broke when she met my dad and she started hooking up with him. She knew my dad was looking to start a family, was a little socially awkward, and had lots of money. So, she decided to make things happen (“I guess I forgot to take my birth control…”) and that’s how my brother was born and then myself. My father also helped pay for her divorce. She also had two kids from her previous marriage. It solved a lot of her problems at once.
She admitted to all of this when we were older and after my dad had passed away, but it was really obvious in many ways that she had “trapped” my dad into marriage. He mostly stayed because he knew that divorce would mean not seeing my brother and I and that our mother would be the one who’d likely get full custody.
There’s a lot more to it, but in short, yes. It can and it does happen.
Yes but it feels like the pendulum has swung the other way. When I was a young woman, people would legitimately give this as advice to women who had partners that weren’t proposing fast enough. Ah, just get knocked up, that’ll get him motivated! As an older woman, I seem to be encountering more stories of men tampering with birth control to get their partner trapped. With either sex, it’s highly manipulative behavior and needs to be shamed everywhere you see it.
That track runs both ways
Yes, I know two women who did that. Of course it didn’t work out long term for both of them.
It definitely happens but that term is probably overused. But yes, I know women who have tried to use a baby to stay in a failing relationship
My brother was baby trapped. He wanted 2 kids max, was forced into 4. By forced I mean coerced, guilted, manipulated, thrratened. Now he’s afraid to leave her because he’s afraid she’ll make his life hell and he won’t be able to see his kids much/if at all.
As much as some men may pull the “crazy ex” card post-breakup, sometimes it’s legit. My SIL is actually crazy.
Look up the documentary Dear Zachary.
I think that it happens, but not nearly as much as people think.
I had a friend who was so concerned about this that he packed his condoms home with him after hookups.
Like, sure. Better safe than sorry I guess, but if I was going to baby trap someone I would want them to have a FT job and probably a car. You know, baby appointments.
I think it’s a sexist term that gets thrown around by men who become dissatisfied with their relationship after a baby arrives because the woman in the equation isn’t focusing all her energy on the man anymore. I think it’s far more apt to say that men regularly baby-trap women, because women still do the majority of childcare, on top of the majority of the housework and possibly caring for their own and their partner’s aging parents as well as working a full-time job and likely footing half if not more of the bills and doing all the mental work. For the same reason I think that men are far more likely to be gold-diggers than women.
I got pregnant on birthcontrol in my teens and cannot tell you how many times I’ve been accused of ‘baby trapping’ him. The same guy I was constantly trying to break up with, who was abusive to me and definitely had nothing to offer or anything enticing for anyone to ‘trap’ him.
Those subs are full of red pill guys. I can’t believe that this actually happens more than the rare crazy occasions but these guys think all unplanned pregnancies were elaborate schemes.
It does happen, but i imagine way less than is advertised. My uncle and his common law wife of…most of my life, were set to split and she came up pregnant, 21 years later now and they’re still together. So I guess successful baby trap that worked out happily for all involved.
I think some young women imagine having a baby will make their lives better, that it will love them and they will love unconditionally, and that they will be taken care of by the father. It’s some strange fantasist, Disney princess view of their lives/world not at all grounded in reality.
Men babytrap themselves by not using condoms. It’s mind-blowing how the person with the highest control over if a baby is made, likes to play victim about being “babytraped”. Dudes, use condoms. Problem solved.
I think real life situations are more complicated than that. Like I’m sure it happens in a very direct way sometimes, but other times, my experience is that when people retell stories they underplay aspects of it.
My friend recently left her abusive boyfriend and she got pregnant really early on in the relationship. It was not an accident. He’s like 20 years older than her and hadn’t had bio kids, and she was told it was difficult to conceive but they both willingly had unprotected sex for several months. She TOLD him she wasn’t on birth control. They never discussed what would or could happen if she got pregnant. It was a don’t ask, don’t tell situation and she got pregnant maybe 3 months into the relationship.
My friend I think was in a state of her life where she confused love bombing and really dramatic life changes with actual love. Which is why she moved way too fast with a man who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic who verbally and emotionally abused her, had unsecured guns in the house, and in the end almost hurt their one year old baby. She fled the house with just the clothes on her back and whatever she could fit in her car and got a restraining order.
Because he’s an abuser, he has always skirted responsibility for all his actions. Every time he yells at her, makes her cry, it’s because she “made him” feel like shit. When he drinks excessively, neglects his son, it’s because she “made him” want to tune it all out. And when we found him on dating apps, it’s because she “made him” get on there because she wasn’t showing him affection.
I would not be surprised if his story about why his baby was born so quickly into a new relationship was because this crazy young woman baby trapped him. That’s the tale he’ll tell.
I’m biased by my own experiences, but I struggle to see how a man can truly be baby trapped. I think my very young and naive mother tried to essentially do this to my father (though he was older and a fucking moron and didn’t use protection), with me, but he just … left. No contact, no child support, no nothing. So where’s the trap?
A woman who is baby trapped, however, is actually stuck with everything that comes with a baby, unless she abandons it, which is unlikely — and she is still forever changed by the pregnancy and labour.
It happened to my brother with my ex-SIL. She lied about being on the pill and he was an irresponsible dipshit for not using condoms with her when they were in a rocky relationship. They ended up divorcing and she eventually abandoned my nibling once her new man wanted to move away.
I know a couple where the dude had a good job and was sleeping with a questionable chick who locked him down into a relationship by saying she was pregnant. By the time the baby was born 12 months later, it was too late for him to escape. If that’s not an intentional baby trap I don’t what is
It happened to a male friend of mine, the woman claimed she still had her IUD but she’d had it taken out. They had been on and off for a couple months after being together for years, it was a toxic relationship. She got pregnant & told him she was keeping it. Since his dad left his family when he was little, he supported her (mostly logistically / emotionally, she’s got the better job) all through her pregnancy & has been an active coparent the kids whole life.
I don’t even entirely blame her – if he had been able to stay broken up with her & not be sucked back into a toxic dynamic, it wouldn’t have happened.
Sometimes but it’s exaggerated, no more than men baby trapping women.
I think my husband’s experience is probably much more common. He had a relationship with a woman for a long time that started out casual. In the early times, she got pregnant and they got an abortion. They eventually had the talk- according to him- to not see other people. According to my sister, who was this woman’s friend at the time, she had assumed they were exclusive without discussing it, until she found out otherwise. Then, he had to move for work. He did not ask her to go, because it was a very difficult military school. She followed him anyway, though lived an hour or so away with her mom. He was clueless and had no idea she followed him. She told my sister that she “was going to go get her man.” They saw each other fairly frequently, though her nearness did make life harder for his work/school, he was glad to see her. When he moved back to their original town, she moved back as well and they moved in together. That was mostly fine for a couple of years- then she got pregnant and immediately found Jesus. She could no longer “live in sin” and they had to get married immediately. So they did. Twice. Once right away and once planned, in front of everyone. The marriage was over before the baby was one.
There are a few who do, but most of the baby trapping is done by men. They talk about how they want kids, then the woman gets pregnant, and he can either not be an actual hands on father, or walks away altogether. Then she is left being the majority sole provider to the child.
Women in general are put into the role of main caregiver to children, because “women are more nurturing”, even if she too has a full time job.
Or she has the mental, emotional, and physical responsibility of the equivalent of over 2 full time jobs if she is a stay at home mom, while being on call 24/7, with zero days off or breaks.
He will say he works full time, so he needs to come home and relax, have some rest, and can’t do night feedings, ever, because he has to work. While she is expected to manage existing, and raising a human alone, while never actually getting rest herself.
So that is why men are the primary ones who baby trap. Men who also complain about paying child support are selfish, because even then the mom is still primary caregiver. The bare minimum the dad should be more than willing to do, is give the mom money to exist while parenting his kid who he only has the responsibility of a few days a month.
As a woman I know some who have but weirdly it’s always these absolute scrubs with like three baby mamas they have already abandoned.
These aren’t ceos these women have tried to nab, these men don’t even have JOBS.
Baffling.
Each time these women are crying that they can’t believe that this man has left them penniless with a child to support even though everyone could see it coming. ‘He said I was different…’ 🙄🙄
Of course it happens, with women and men. People do all sorts of messed up things. I’m sure most people who do it don’t go around advertising what their true motives were.
Also not for nothing I think men baby trap women since the beginning of time, because only in the last 60 years have women had access to birth control.
I was so scrupulous about birth control that I have only been pregnant once, with a planned baby. None of the women I’ve been friends with have ever told me or implied that they went behind a guy’s back and got pregnant against his will to trap him in a relationship.
I do know of a couple who broke up because she got pregnant and he didn’t want kids. She makes more that him, she got into another serious relationship within a year. He loves his kid and from what he told me, regretted the breakup in retrospect. He claims she never told him she stopped BC and felt betrayed. She swears she did tell him. Regardless, it was the opposite of trapping. And he did get alimony after the divorce.
I’m sure it happens. People are manipulative. People are emotionally immature. But I haven’t met any women who put themselves through pregnancy and motherhood with the specific goal of keeping a man. I have known a few women whose male partners convinced them to have babies and then they immediately dipped out, though.
If it’s a thought out there it’s probably true to a small degree. But I think it being this thing is more perpetuated by wanting to create negative stigma and blame on women, even if it isn’t reality. It’s more misogyny wrapped up in “advice”. It’s more ways to create an out for themselves because they can say they never wanted the kid and she’s crazy and was trying to trap them.
What is reality is that women often get the worst end of the stick when it comes to having children. You put your body through that, but we often are seen as the one who needs to be the caretaker and are often left to do that alone.
How many single mothers do you know who does not get support from the baby’s father? I know plenty.
Often the actual baby trapping I hear comes from abusive men who want to cut off a woman’s resources, support and make it harder for her to leave. This is a sad reality that children are used as a mechanism for abuse.
A very large chunk of the population doesn’t have an accurate understanding of the effectiveness of various contraceptive methods. Dudes on Reddit in particular seem to think that both oral BC and condoms are infallible, and that any pregnancy that happens while using them must be intentional.
In reality, around 7 of 100 people who solely use the Pill and 13 of 100 who just use condoms get pregnant each year.
I wish they’d stop citing perfect use rates to high school kids and explain what the percentages actually mean. I think people tend to hear “99% effective” and interpret it as “this will never happen to me.” Most people’s sex lives span decades, so someone using a method with a 7% or 13% p.a. failure rate will very, very likely experience one or more unplanned pregnancies. And young people with chaotic lives are about the least likely to perform anything you’d describe as perfect use.
Sure there are people (of all genders) who intentionally override their partners’ desires regarding pregnancy. I just don’t think they’re very common. The vast majority of unplanned pregnancies is the result of accidents, not intent.
Allegedly that happened to an ex of mine, but I wasn’t there so who knows. He was a stand up guy and great dad, so I’d like to think he didn’t make it up.
Anecdotally I did know one person who would have kids to increase her handout bennies and to get child support money to fund her life. But I don’t think it’s that common.
i mean, he wants to break up and he knows it and the men’s advice is “keep using her for sex, but make sure that no pregnancy happens” really…? if you know you’re halfway out the door but still want to have your “needs” fulfilled just cause jerking off doesn’t feel the same, then i’m sorry but i have no kindness to share with you
If men truly didn’t want to get a woman pregnant they would wear a condom or get a vasectomy. That’s on them imo. They baby trapped themselves and blamed the woman. Dumbasses.
I’m sure it happens sometimes, with people of all genders being the offenders.
I have no idea in statistical reality, but anecdotally, I have only known women who have been stealthed by men to “baby trap” the woman. Either puncturing condoms or removing them before the finale of the act. The women I have known have ended up getting the dude to confess, and broken up with them, but it’s still wild that like 3 people in my friend orbit have had men try this with them.
My best friend’s mom tried to do this when she got pregnant with my friend’s older sister. But the guy refused to be with her and then went and died so her expert plan was ruined! /s
Her mom told my friend this, like explained all of the above. I’ve never met her mom (we became friends after they were already estranged), but from what I know of her, it’s completely probable she did that and then did it again when she got pregnant with my friend.
On the contrary. I have heard stories of men baby trapping women. Especially, when they are threatened with a women’s ambition. And it makes sense. A pregnancy takes a lot out of a woman and it makes her more vulnerable. A man can harass a woman through courts for life by using a baby as a proxy. Men don’t do the heavy lifting in childcare; women are the main caretakers. So now instead of pursuing her dreams, she is with a child and a forced relationship with the father. Also, we need to take into account, that in many countries laws favour the father first.
For example, in my home country, women can’t transmit their citizenship to the child. Only fathers can.
My ex bf admitted she poked holes in the condom with her second born. Her boyfriend didn’t want to get married so she thought a second kid would lock him down. It didn’t work.
My husband’s baby mama is nuts, they had a lengthy, awful custody battle shortly after him and I got together so I’ve seen her behavior first hand. When she got pregnant she admitted that she had stopped taking her birth control and lied to him about taking it. Their relationship was on the rocks and she knew he had one foot out the door and thought a baby would be her way to keep him. When he broke up with her anyway she used their daughter as a way to try and control him. She’s a horrible, hateful person and it’s really sad because you can straight up tell she doesn’t really like being a Mom, she got pregnant to try and control a situation, not because she wanted to raise a child.
100%. This happened to my brother.
Say it with us now,
WOMEN
ARE
NOT
A
MONOLITH
👏
I know one man it definitely happened to (the woman admitted it, and the man was absolutely no prize but she was obsessed with him), and another man I suspect it happened to, given the timing.
I don’t personally know any women it’s happened to but most of my close friends are women so I’m more likely to hear an admission from a woman than a man.
I think it happens, but it’s hard to say how often it happens or which gender attempts it more. After all, having a baby is a big commitment, so I can see why it becomes a vehicle for an insecure partner to exert control or try to enforce relationship security, if that makes sense? I don’t see it as a super regular thing, though.
I’ve known a few women throughout the course of my life that have poked holes in condoms or pretended to be on the pill.
It takes two, though, for the most part. If you’re a dude and you don’t want a baby, you need to supply your own condoms and never take what anyone else says prima facie.
If a guy is obscenely rich, sometimes it can happen, if a girl is very poor. Even if a woman is poor, we aren’t automatically finding the richest man to be impregnated by.
I did date somebody obscenely fucking rich, maybe one of the richest families of that state, just obscenely wealth, a chef, gardeners, and house maids.
That type of rich…
I have zero kids. I was accused of getting pregnant every month and the 3rd time tis happened and I had to take a pregnancy test for my peace of mind. I broke up with him and left the country months later.
Otherwise there might be cases where somebody is mentally fucked and very afraid to lose their partner. But its bad strategy and everybody knows that. So no I don’t think this happens, having a kid is a lot of fucing work