I love/hate science fiction.

[featherynscale]

So, I'm reading this book called Mockymen. It's not a good book. Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that the author took all that writing advice about showing, not telling, and decided it was so much crap. Let's also leave aside the fact that it appears to have plot enough for several unrelated novels, all jammed together in one short book (this feat largely being accomplished by taking out all the motivation and most of the transition between plot points).

Aside from that stuff, what I don't like about this book is that the main character (so far) is female, and the (apparently male) author has decided that it will make her a more realistic female character if she thinks about having a baby, and when would be the right time to have a baby, and why she and her partner haven't had a baby, and so on, about once every three pages.

Now, as you might be aware if you know me, or even if you read my journal regularly, I gave up trying to be female when I realized that a) it was sort of a crap game, and b) I was never going to be any good at it anyway. So I'm willing to believe that it's possible that women really do constantly think about having babies, and that's normal for the population. Therefore, I'm seeking further data. If you're a female-type person with female-type biology (or you used to be and/or used to have same), please enlighten me by making the clicky on the poll, below.

[Poll #1095206]

Comments

[otterkin.livejournal.com]

Why limit this to people with ovaries? Guys should think about this, too.

For a while, I went through the "do I want to have kids/should I have kids/will I regret not having kids" thing for months on end. I'd come to a conclusion, then second-guess myself. Part of my "final answer" was that if the best I can come up with is ambivalence and concern that I might regret it one day, that's a "NO." So I checked the "every couple months" box, even though it seems your intent was to ask how often I wonder if now's the time to start, as opposed to how often I ask myself the question "should I have kids, yes or no?"

Some friends have a theory: people have a "baby switch." The switch gets flipped for different people at different times, and for many, the switch never gets flipped. Once the switch is flipped, you really, really, really want kids. People whose switches aren't flipped shouldn't have kids. Period.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The question is only posed to people with ovaries because I'm trying to assess whether the sort of behaviour the particular character is engaging in is the sort of thing that actually happens in the brains of people with a lot of estrogen, or if the author is just assuming that logically all women must constantly think about having kids, because he's heard that women are maternal or something.

It is, of course, a reasonable question for anyone to consider, regardless of sex or gender. For me, personally, if there is a baby switch, it's superglued in the off position. :)

[otterkin.livejournal.com]

Huh. No, I'd have to go with "addled author brains" on this one.