"A male coworker once told me it's our whole purpose as women. Somehow, he thought he was empowering women when he said it."

"I board airplanes without kids, and I promise it is infinitely less stressful. I see how my sister-in-law struggles."

"It's an extreme version of 'Clean your plate. There are kids starving in Ethiopia.'"

"The number one cause of death for pregnant women is being murdered by their husbands."

"Me drinking a bottle of wine every weekend and surviving on instant ramen three days in a row when I'm lazy: 'When I'm what?'"

"Misery loves company? It sounds like 'I had to, so you should too,' in my opinion."

"A male coworker once told me it's our whole purpose as women. Somehow, he thought he was empowering women when he said it."

"My dad loved kids. Being a dad was all he ever wanted, and he excelled at it. I remember the day he sold our childhood train set โ€” the family buying it came over, and he got so excited showing the kid how it all worked. He just loved kids.

Before he died, I apologized that he'd never had any grandkids. I felt guilty. He snorted and said, 'Look, I'm just glad you're happy. It's much better for me that I have happy kids than if I had grandkids, but my kids were unhappy.' I'll always remember that."

"Similar situation here, except they said having a baby might fix some of my symptoms. I was 21 and single, and I went to the doctor because of debilitating exhaustion and chronic pain so bad that I could barely take care of my basic needs.

Sure, adding a baby to that sounds like a great idea. Later, I learned that with the combination of symptoms I had, pregnancy actually would have been more likely to cause a severe flare-up of my illness."

Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.