I don't really have advice about this, but I just wanted to note that I really related to this post. I am the only person in a group of mostly female friends (all highly educated, career-motivated, late 20s/early 30s) who is interested in having kids one day. It's difficult when this conversation comes up because the other girls get somewhat defensive when I say I want to have them one day. The same things happen: assumptions that anyone who wants kids is an automaton from the 1950s, jokes about how kids are "viruses", the environmental concerns.

When I offer reasons for my decision, they also get defensive and have accused me of "trying to change their mind," which I'm not. I was just sick of the one-sided, babies-are-awful conversation. You can forget ever bringing up the idea that someone might one day change their mind about parenthood. You are a total monster who loves old-fashioned gender norms for raising that idea (I am certainly not). I'm just tired of my point of view immediately getting dismissed, as well as seeing my otherwise intelligent friends close their minds.

I have a theory about this. They saw their moms/older women get socially pressured into having kids, or saw movies/TV where women are nagged for when they're going to have kids. They felt put off, so they overcorrected HARD, like they have something to prove. I also think that many young, educated women equate having kids with being old-fashioned, housewifey, closeminded, and lacking independence. I am sympathetic to both these views and understand where they're coming from; however, I do think they've they are now ironically the people most likely to criticize others' life choices and the people most likely to be close-minded to other perspectives.

These days, to be honest, the common-sense attitude of our culture seems to be 'You don't have to have kids if you don't want to.' Outside of Hollywood, subreddits about awful in-laws, and small, conservative towns, I haven't heard much about parents nagging their daughters for grandkids. It isn't the zeitgeist anymore. I wish we supported women's choices, regardless of what that choice is.