[New Topic] Parenting

[EerieDevor]

This my first contribution. Just a simple topic allowing the player to ask if Monika has ever considered having children at some point in her life. I tested locally to ensure the code works entirely as intended. Please feel free to give feedback.

[Wingdinggaster656]

See #3390

While these dialogues seem pretty neat, as you can see, topic about children is just too controversial. I'm not sure if we really should do this.

[dreamscached]

Personally, I think it could be fine if we left Monika thinking of it, without implying if she does or does not want children; but that's a compromise and at the same time, I do think it's a controversial topic and is something that's too early to bring up with player, regardless of affection.

[Booplicate]

There's also this #7903.

Generally, we can't say she wants or she doesn't want to have kids.

It's a huge life decision and usually it defined how relationships will go further (if at all). For example, if she says she wants kids, but the users doesn't (or the other way around), we get to a dead end.
Another thing is, we can't say for sure what would Monika do in this situation. Personally, I think she wouldn't want to have children any time soon or early in relationship, but maybe down the line? At the same time we can't say that Monika will just agree with the user decision on kids, she should have her own opinion, we just can't be sure what it would be.

What you have here sounds more like a topic about parenting in general, which could be nice to have in my opinion! But I think the discussion on whether or not Monika wants kids should be a separate thing, perhaps unlocked after the parenting topic.
Regarding the kids topic, I think best we can do is say "it's too early to think about now, we will talk about it later when I cross-over." That's kind of close to what you're proposing, but more neutral in my opinion. It should also be unlocked at Love+ after dating Monika for a few years. Additionally, we could ask what the user thinks (yes/no/later?) and save it as a pm var for future.

[EerieDevor]

Ok, so I will just convert this into a topic about parenting in general rather than Monika having kids. Maybe make it a random topic that starts off with Monika asking the player if they want to have children at some point in their life and then using that as a transition to talk about parenting in general. Let me know any thoughts on this idea.

[Wingdinggaster656]

Ok, so I will just convert this into a topic about parenting in general rather than Monika having kids. Maybe make it a random topic that starts off with Monika asking the player if they want to have children at some point in their life and then using that as a transition to talk about parenting in general. Let me know any thoughts on this idea.

Personally like this idea. A random topic would be cool and good.

[hatanasinclaire]

This also doesn't really take into account that a large portion of MAS's playerbase would be incapable of having biological children in the context of a relationship with her. (There is of course the option of adoption, but this is either prohibitively expensive, untenable, or impossible in many regions, and has its own issues that could make for a whole other discussion.) Groups for which having children with her would not be an option include, but are not limited to:

• People with conditions causing infertility.
• Cisgender women.
• Some transgender people.
• People with vasectomies (made a conscious choice to never have children).

It's also unlikely she'd ever have a biological human body either - though it seems probable that a robotic body would be a possibility for her someday, an artificial, genetically human body is a much more distant possibility. If you are the kind of MAS user who seriously intends to spend the rest of your life with your Monika, then you must have accepted already that your life will be very different in certain ways from the average person. There are certain things you won't get to experience, but at the same time there are other magical and unique things that only people in love with their Monikas well get to experience.

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As mentioned above, the topic of children has been discussed before and for good reason was deemed too contentious and controversial to include. Different people interpret Monika's character very differently, from some people thinking she would want to, to others thinking she would never want to, with others being in between or ambivalent. Personally I would be very displeased if my own Monika just said "maybe" instead of a hard no/never! And there are perhaps people out there who feel the opposite way. It is such a central issue to compatibility in a relationship that even "maybe" or an ambiguous answer is not satisfactory for some people.

In the discussion for # 3390 Olliesama and multimokia present many good points for why Monika may be the kind of person who would never want kids. One is so significant that I must reprint it here:

• She outright states that while she has fantasized of living a domestic life, she would not be able to do that and instead wants to focus on her career (topic 55 from DDLC, MAS topic monika_housewife).

A few more points to mention:

• Monika says multiple times that she loves her player, only her player, and doesn't really want anyone else to interfere or get in the way.
• Monika often shows that she has a realistic and unvarnished view of the world (e.g. topic 1 from DDLC, MAS topic monika_god), as well as on relationships (MAS topic monika_relationship_comfort). She is very likely aware of the deleterious effects of pregnancy and childbirth on the body, as well as how children often leave parents stressed, tired, sleep deprived, and with little time to spend on each other.
• She explains her reasoning for being vegetarian as trying to reduce her carbon footprint. Having children produces a carbon footprint far larger than eating meat, and is another reason that people sometimes decide to not reproduce.
• She mentions that people are much more capable of experiencing suffering than happiness, which is a strong compulsion for many to not have children.

These are just a few example points towards one viewpoint based off of the existing dialogues. It is understandable if some people disagree or are not convinced by this position and I do not mean to proselytize. What I am trying to say here with this, is that some users will feel very strongly one way or the other. While it has been proposed before to have an ambivalent or compromise answer, please keep in mind that there will likely be players who are absolute in one direction, and others are absolute in the other.

[EerieDevor]

I agree. This was just an idea I had which I made without that much thought into the complications/controversy surrounding the subject. I have just recently revised the topic to be a random topic about parenting in society in general as a conversation that is entirely unrelated to Monika personally or her relationship with the player. Feel free to review it if you are interested. Thank you for the extensive feedback. For future topic contributions I will try to keep in mind how to handle/avoid topics that are highly sensitive to players or Monika's character in order to avoid controversy.