Desperate not to have children
bbc.com
bbc.com
In hindsight, I was an insufferable fool. What people like the former me fail to realize is that burning your health and your years on the hedonic treadmill is its own kind of prison, and arguably far less "free" than choosing parenthood.
Being childfree doesn't mean you have to be self-destructive. Maybe you were self-destructive, and maybe you wouldn't have been if you had kids, but that's you. It doesn't mean that it isn't possible to have a healthy, productive, child-free life; it only means that it didn't work for you.
Not knowing exactly how to raise kids "correctly" is not a very good reason to avoid raising kids.
On the other hand, feeling no calling whatsoever to raise kids, and/or not being in a stable relationship with a partner to share the burden, are pretty decent reasons not to have kids right this minute.
I kind of wish I had, like, years 6-12 again; I'd trade another 6 years of not being able to go out absolutely any time I want to for that. I'd have to think about it but I might even trade a few years of that for a couple more teenage years.
Maybe I'll feel differently once I "have my freedom back". :P
Worth remembering: the diaper changing thing is over in the blink of an eye (it doesn't feel like that at the time, but you will look back and be amazed at how quickly it shot by), and by the time your kids are teenagers they're pretty low-maintenance --- at least in terms of being able to go out drinking when you want to.
Makes me feel like a vegetarian at a bbq
And, equally obviously, I hope, it's pretty easy to stay on the treadmill even after you have kids, which is a trap worth knowing about and avoiding. It took me a bunch of years to figure that out (we had our first when I was 22).
You can tell by the reasons they give: want more time for job, want more money for travel, want more X for Y, and a kid would subtract a ton from X and therefore ruin the desired end, Y. I'm sure they're right by their standards of the moment in most of these equations, but given the pedestrian X's and Y's which they usually mention, I assume that they do not take "meaningfulness" or "fulfillment" into their calculus. It's shortsighted, but I can't blame them too much, since it's easy to forget to be human.
I also assume they don't understand the re-prioritization that occurs when people have children. I don't know first hand, but I've heard enough people squawk about parenthood to know that it reorganized their existence drastically.
It seems like parenthood is a fundamental human experience. I suppose that people can reject it, but I'm not convinced it's much different than people who reject romantic interaction and choose celibacy for essentially the same stated reasons. A valid life choice that we should accept fully, to be sure-- but a product of our fiercely competitive time rather than Platonically apriori, I think.
OTOH, why "meaningfulness" and "fulfillment" are related to parenthood? The latter is probably quite the opposite, the all too natural reproduction step that any animal can do.
Wasn't Mozart's, Newton's, Turing's, etc life "meaningful" because? (Or Jesus', if one's included to that kind of thing).
>I also assume they don't understand the re-prioritization that occurs when people have children. I don't know first hand, but I've heard enough people squawk about parenthood to know that it reorganized their existence drastically.
It's also that later "remorse" about parenthood makes you considered a monster -- so most people would spin the experience as something amazing for that reason too.
But in practice if one counts how many sad family stories with bad parenting this "new priorities" thing is not always true.
I just used the examples that would make it easier for all to agree -- from them, it's all about what one considers a meaningful achievements.
Some people could not care less for either Jesus or Mozart, but could see that e.g. building a business or being a scientist or whatever can be meaningful too.
"Remorse" about parenthood is more like "remorse" about having bought a Ferrari. People might curse the maintenance and expense, but push come to shove, few would actually give it back.
With "remorse" I wasn't going for the "I want to give it back" scenario, but the "Hmm, this is great, but it isn't the all roses profound experience people tout it to be. Heck it isn't even the best thing to have ever happened to me, actually I liked life with my wife before more.".
It's not uncommon to know someone who was childfree for years and years, only do a complete reversal when they have children late in life.
That said, it's one of those topics of conversation where I might just say (to myself), "I hope you're right." To them I'd say, "oh, cool" and drop it. It's really nobody else's business.
To RIMR's point above, I'm sure there are plenty who disavow children for reasons other than going racing on the hedonic treadmill.
The point of this type of attention is to highlight the validity of making this choice in the hope that it might reduce the cultural pressure. I'm sure many men don't care, since the pressure is generally placed on women.
As a man with a mother who asks when she'll get grandchildren at every opportunity, I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
While women have a cultural and physicall biological clock that ticks men aren't really in the clear. Society needs procreation to survive and women still haven't mastered asexual reproduction.
Also, men have a huge legal disincentive to have kids anymore. If the relationship doesn't work out, you're on the hook for ~18 years of child support payments, and that whole system is designed to make men out to be nothing but a paycheck.
I also believe that child support should be for the child, the mother should not be able to use it for anything which isn't directly related to childcare, and it should be in it's base a flat amount based on living costs rather then a percentage of your income (unless you willingly want to pay more).
That said men have very easy way to avoid children and that's to use a condom or to pick a partner who does not want them, if you are both willingly make one or take on the decision to keep it own up to it the child should not suffer because of that.
Forcing women to have an abortion will never happen, forcing them to give the child up for adoption will never happen, men and women are not identical and so will never be truly equal in every regard, it's not like women can force sperm out of you without assault or rape.
And if there's some extreme case when fraud has actually been committed e.g. she intentionally sabotaged contraception or went "Satisfaction" on you taken your sperm while you were unconscious (which is technically rape) you should be able to sue for a weaver.
That's not nearly as easy as it sounds, as condoms are not 100% effective and the partner may not be truthful when they say they don't want children. Women hold all of the power in these situations, as if contraception should fail they have the opportunity to abort or give the child up for adoption, meaning they can change their mind at any point. Men don't have such "second chance" options, as they are completely beholden to the woman's choice from conception on.
In an ideal and fair system, a man should be given adequate opportunity to declare their intent not to support the child, after which the woman will then have the opportunity to abort or put the child up for adoption, or know that if they keep the child then they will be raising it alone or with a different partner.
The problem is that there won't be a system that will allow for men to say "I don't want it" which won't be exploited, and children suffer, it suck yes, but we should rather focus on ensuring that both parents will have fair access to the child and act in it's best interests.
BTW if the woman gets another partner who becomes the legal parent of the child then you are in the clear for child support in most cases.
> The problem is that there won't be a system that will allow for men to say "I don't want it" which won't be exploited, and children suffer
Exploitability holds less weight to me than legal fairness. "Think of the children" is more often than not used to justify facilitating unfair actions, in my view.
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the topic of children should not be brought up before marriage between two people in a relationship? Or do you mean that the topic gets brought up by family members before you're married?
Within a relationship, though, discussing kids and such are definitely something that should be done well before marriage.
As for your actual meaning, that is definitely a weird yet amusing trend. I haven't really heard much of either from my family
(I am over 30, single and dating, and I expect it to come up naturally after you've spent enough time talking. Fourth date sounds reasonable.)
The only unfortunate part is that the pressure falls disproportionately on women.
imo, yes. saying there are "social instruments" just adds another ring around the kernel.
more economically developed countries tend to have lower birth rates. could be causal?
funny this was posted around thanksgiving when many people in the united states -- both male and female, albeit in different forms and degrees -- will be feeling it.
Pretty much the whole of western civilization is organized around and dependent on families having kids.
It's odd that everyone believes we have developed a lot of miracle drugs in the last 30 years.
yep. i'm glad someone else said this. i deleted several sentences of rant about it from my previous post.
You're asking him to "grow a thicker skin" about close relatives bickering him (and the related social pressure), when you can't even hold from expressing your annoyance about mere ARTICLES that you don't have to read and can simply skip.
Parents, co-workers, friends, discriminating employers, even random acquaintances...
Everyone trying to pressure these people into having children, apparently.
Be a grown up and tune it out.
"Desperate to not volunteer for military service"
"Desperate to not eat meat"
These are all things that to varying degrees (and varying by locale) run contrary to social expectations and will be met with external pressure. I still don't see anyone writing up the grandiose titles above with a straight face.
(You'd think the BBC needed advertising revenue, the way they carry on at times...)
MY gene line traces back all the way to when I was born, and no further. My family's gene line (the one that traces back to the first living cell) is being carried forward through other people (cousins, etc.). If I really want MY genes carried on, I'll go donate sperm...
Some of us don't romanticize the idea of having genetically-related children. My wife and I both have mothers who were adopted, so we have always felt that IF we decided to have a child, we would adopt, despite being fertile, simply because it would be better to give an orphan parents than to create another human life. Our mothers sure appreciated it when they were adopted into loving families.
Also if we all were polite and politically correct we would still be living in the dark ages, it was impolite to say the least to criticize the church, it was impolite to talk about ending slavery, integration, human rights, women's rights, gay rights and every other social movement that made our society what it is today. Social changes can only be created when people act radically in direct opposition to the norms of society.
That notion of "new generations [are required] to support us" can go die in a fire. (was that sufficiently impolite to prevent living in the dark ages?)
Having evolved consciousness, we now have the ability to spread ideas, inventions, values, etc. -- memes if you will. This is why humanity has beat all other species, and what drives progress on a societal scale. Memes evolve much faster than genes.
The intelligent career driven people are busy replicating memes -- inventions, discoveries, institutions, influence, etc. The best memes survive and evolve. Is it better for humanity to discover penicillin or preserve a single bloodline?
Here's just one paper:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/585126?seq=1#page_scan_tab_conte...
Individual women who happen to be relatively well known have nothing useful to tell you about social trends.
ps. edit gender
I think it's really nothing more than people who have experienced happiness with children want other people to not miss out on that happiness. Since a woman's parents usually have had children, they are among the intersection of people who hopefully have experienced happiness with children and like you.