Do people need children to feel fulfilled?
Do women and men need children to be fulfilled? In times when people can increasingly choose whether or not to have children and women as well as men can pursue fulfilling lives beyond the domestic life, the question of whether people need children to be fulfilled is an interesting one. Yet increasing numbers of women are not having children, although whether this is involuntary due to postponement of starting a family or because they don’t want them - is less clear. How strong is the need to have children and what bearing does state support have on these decisions? Traditionally it was argued that women need children to be fulfilled. For generations it was the main duty of women to stay at home and raise children. It might be argued that this would apply less to men, for whom roles outside the home were traditionally more important. Whilst these attitudes might be changing they are still fairly well embedded in our culture. Although these are traditional vi