I had a tubal ligation when I was 27 because my husband and I had decided we did not want to be parents (whichI thnk is not the same motivation as not wanting to have kids). I’ve never been the least bit sorry. And to all those people (e.g., my mother) who kept saying “but what if you’re wrong about having kids”, we would just say “better that than to have the kids and find out we were right.”
Pseudo-Adrienne: This really bugged the piss out of me before I had my daughter, and you know what? It still does. Being a woman over 25 in the Midwest and saying that you not only don’t have any children, but have no plans for them either, makes people look at you as if you’ve said, “…and in my spare time, I like to grill up filet of child.”
The flip side of this is, of course, that once you have that child, you don’t gain that aura of “legitimacy” that mothers supposedly have….no, you just segue into a “bad mama” stereotype if you don’t resemble June Cleaver (and who does?).
Just shows you how many battles we still have left to fight, ya know?
Y’know, thinking about body parts that aren’t being used….. we need more news items about the poor unused nipples on most men. One assumes, if one assumes such things, that the gods put them there for a purpose, so get to it! While we’re at it, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other anatomical parts that aren’t being used….
La Lubu is right! Right before we got married, I was appalled at number of so-called friends who were angry when I explained that we weren’t sure about having kids. I thought explaining that my husband is a cancer survivor would shut them up–hey, I’m glad he’s alive, so I’m not going to bitch about fertility problems–but they continued to look like I also “grill up filet of child.”
Now that we want to have kids, this talk is equally painful. It would be so much easier if people minded their own damn business. Instead we get comments like why haven’t you had a child yet? Don’t you like kids?
I’m amazed at the pressure on females to have babies. I had no real interest in marriage and babies until I hit my early-mid 30’s (which shocked the shit outta me, to be honest). I thought the folks who were quick to pressure kids were in my parents’ generation, and thought the folks who grew up in the 50s/60s wouldn’t put the same pressure on their children. My cousin is 48, her older daughter is 24 (and not in a committed relationship). . .just last week my cousin’s ex husband told the daughter that he doesn’t want to wait too much longer for grandchildren. (My cousing and I both flipped when the daughter mentioned this at our Seder on Saturday - what the hell is worng with this man??!?)
Argh. I’m only 22, out of college a year and still unemployed, and people ask me when I’m going to settle down and have children. Why am I single? Don’t I like children? If I dare explain that I happen to prefer being single, and no, actually, I don’t like children… well, you’d think I’d just confessed to being the genetically-engineered love child of Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Then comes the “It’s different when it’s your child” comments. Yeah, maybe so. But if it isn’t, I don’t want to find out the hard way.
It doesn’t help, of course, that I know 6 or 7 people my age who are getting married within the next year, and two women younger than me who already have kids. Not to mention two brothers who are similarly disinclined, which makes my mother put extra pressure on me. It’s my job, after all, as I’m the sentient incubator.
I agree with AndiF and Suzanne about not wanting to find out the hard way that I’m not mommy-material. Children are not sweaters that we can return to the store if we decide we don’t want them after all.
A married woman I know found out that she was infertile. She (and her husband I presume) thought for a moment about fertility treatment - and then decided that she would do just fine without having children.
More people should resist the pressure to have children.
Is there anything more irritating than hearing people say “you should have a baby,”? “why haven’t you had a baby,”? “you’ll make a great mother,”? “have a baby already, sheesh,”? and/or “have more babies!”?
Yes. Hearing people say “Why did you have a baby?” or “Did you have to have so many babies?” or “There are already too many babies in the world,” which they generally do in earshot of your baby.
I notice that some people are saying, “We’ve had that said to us,” whereas Pseudo-A’s post spoke of women in particular. Men, by themselves, just don’t get asked that, except as part of a couple (”When are you guys . . . “). It’s particularly troubling when it comes from feminists: a feminist celebrity in her Seventies asked me and my wife, “Have you had children yet?” At that point, I was on the verge of making one of the unforgivable remarks mythago cites above. At least my wife and I are lucky in that our parents all think we are too immature to raise children and don’t ask us to.
You can’t imagine the shit my husband and I get–
We did want a baby, but rather than pump myself full of fertility drugs and spend thousands of dollars on in vitro, we just opted to adopt. Now, you would think that just having a baby would be good enough for the baby police, but no. Everyone was just tremendously appalled that we weren’t even going to try fertility treatments so we could get pregnant and have our “own” baby. We not only got this from annoying family members, but also from nurses, acquaintances, etc. When I tell these clods how much I love adoptive parenting, and how glad I am that I didn’t have to go through pregnancy, they all think that I am either a pathetically deluded liar or an unfeminine monster. And since our child is a different race than we are, even strangers who have no idea whether we tried fertility aids or not get to comment. If I had a nickel for every time a complete stranger asked me why I don’t have “real” children, I’d be rich enough to hire a great lawyer to defend me against the charges of the well- deserved assaults I’d like to make to these morons. : )
Oh…. and I almost forgot the icing on the cake:
I am the sole bread-winner of my family while my husband is a stay at home dad. Imagine the hell I get when I tell people that, no, this is not just a temporary arrangement, that I choose to work, and have no desire to stay home with our daughter. Again, I’m either a liar or a monster.
Someone did make the “you’re pregnant AGAIN?” comment to me when I was carrying my (gasp) second baby.
Along with women having the freedom to choose not to be mothers, or to postpone motherhood until after a career, I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to.
More flexible schedules and on-site day care in businesses and colleges. More support for telecommuting and job sharing. And less expectation for employees to work tons of overtime and take work home in order to get ahead professionally.
I don’t have children because I live alone and can afford to support myself only and save a little. There is no way I could buy an infant clothing and diapers let alone pay for its medical etc bills. So I just don’t have someone I can’t afford to support.Plus I do shift work which would make daycare difficult.
I’m 20 and I’ve been quite vocal about not wanting to get married/ have children. Yet, no one believes me. They all roll their eyes and pat me on the head and say “when you grow up you’ll feel different” blah blah blah. I’m pretty sure I’m already grown up, and my oppinion’s not gonna change.
Why does anyone feel they have a right to an opinion about anyone else’s choices in this area? Even before I considered myself a feminist, I would have considered such nosiness rude. Shut up, stupid people.
I do remember Miss Manners addressing such questions with this advice: when people ask you an inappropriate question such as this, you respond with a smile “Why do you need to know?” and just keep repeating it. They have no good reason to know, and if they offer a lame one, you can just say “Oh, that’s just not something we feel comfortable talking about!” and don’t cave.
What I find hard is when you’re not prepared for such rudeness; one person asked me if my pregnancy was “planned” which, if you think about it, is none of their damn business. I mean, what if it wasn’t, and I was scared shitless? Anyway, in my surprise at being asked I just blurted out “Yes” instead of sidestepping the question.
I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to
I’d like our society to make it more convenient for everyone to combine professional, educational and family life.
I can imagine, emma. I recommend the Icy Stare of Death.
You know, I get baby pressure from people, and I’m not even married. There have been a few times when people have gone off on me for having the gall to answer their rather inappropriate question (Do you want children?) honestly (No, I don’t.).
Not my parents, who don’t think it’s their business or anyone else’s. They’d be pleased as punch if I got married and had a kid if that’s what I wanted. As long as I’m happy and I’m living ethically, they’re happy for me.
Now, if only I could get some other people who aren’t even related to me to follow their example. . .
I am a proud childless, husbandless concert flautist and want to remian so. There is nothing selfless about not wanting to have a child. Hell, there is just as much about having a baby that is selfish . I am a transsexual anyway, and I won’t have my uterus for long. It enrages me the lack of respect for women’s personal choices. Women are looked down upon a great deal more often for having an abortion than for have seven kids they can barely care for? *Vomits.*
Pro-choice, people, whatever that choice is. Love it and leae it be.
Actually, I have had quite a few people ask me that, including my father when he is in a sentimental fervor, and needless to say, my nuclear family-obsessed peers. Of course, I just stick to my convictions that I have a different goal in life. And I’m lovin’ it! A major in flute and pipe organ, plus a large home all to myself with the occasional visitor.
Agreed with everybody. I do think that the world could stand to be less populated; but from what I’ve read, that seems to have less to do with the people who choose to have a couple kids than it does with people who can’t get family planning services, or are pressured by their culture into not using them. And yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system. [What worries me is the possibility that it might never end: in 30 years, I might be 58 and postmenopausal, and getting constantly asked why I didn’t have children when I had the chance.]
I too get tired of being asked when I’m going to get married and reproduce, and of hearing the “it’s different when they’re yours” spiel [yeah, but is it different enough?] and the “you’ll regret it if you don’t” spiel [what if I DO and regret it? I can’t put it back]. On occasion, I’ve been asked if I don’t like children, and responded by asking the person if they owned a lion; upon hearing “no,” I’d ask them if they hated wildlife, the point being that not everybody that likes lions likes them enough to take care of one. Sometimes that works. If it doesn’t, I just tell them I can’t handle the noise, which is true, and leave it at that. Either they can deal with it or they can’t.
I’ve read people’s reasons for having children, and for not having children, and I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both. And those reasons weigh differently for everybody, so you can’t decide for somebody else what they should want, or presume to be able to predict–better than they can–how they’ll cope with parenthood.
I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both.
What exactly are the “selfish” reasons to not have a child? In order to make this claim, you’d need to assume that there’s a person out there that would be disappointed if you didn’t give birth to it. You can’t be “selfish” unless you’re depriving someone of something, and seeing that the child you might have had does not exist, it’s logically impossible to be “selfish” in choosing not to have kids.
I suppose one could claim that a woman who decides not to have kids is depriving society of something, but that still assumes the existence of something that doesn’t exist–namely, the child you might have had who might have improved or contributed to (or destroyed, for that matter) the world.
I’ve always been pretty vocal about my aversion to motherhood, and I don’t know why people think this is one thing they are free to comment on.
Just this evening my 22 y.o. neighbour said to me ‘oh, in five years you’ll change your mind’. How would she know? If I said I was making any other type of life choice (where to live, career, etc) I wouldn’t get any of these comments.
As if motherhood or the biological clock is something women have to succumb to, regardless of what our personal choices might be.
“But give me the crappy studio apartment in NYC, . . . ridiculously high rent, . . . and the 9 to 5 job any time over children.”
Pseudo-Adrienne — if you don’t have children you can work 9-5 and afford an apartment in New York City? Damn where have I gone wrong? If I had known being childless can allow me to work 9-5 . . .
I have to go now. I have to get rid of my kids. I guess my wife will have to go also. Oh and anyone else for whom I have a responsibility. I can’t believe I fell for that crazy “duty to produce good citizens for the betterment of society” crap my mother, grandmother, and teachers told me about. I knew they were wrong. Dammit! I knew I should have just done what was be for me and f**K everyone else. I guess it is all for the best since I “procreated” with a mate of good genetic makeup :-)
(I hope no one takes this seriously — East Coast Cynicism).
[From Pseudo-Adrienne–I have no clue as to what you are trying to say. I have East Coast relatives by the way, so I know that particular brand of cynicism, but I have no idea as to what you are trying to say. Elaborate, please…]
IAnd yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system.
Sentence #2 is the same as sentence #1–telling somebody “you shouldn’t have kids” IS telling them what you think they should do with their reproductive system.
I think it’s possible that people say “Oh, you’ll change your mind” because it happens so often. This does not reduce the annoyance factor of someone saying it, of course, but it’s something to keep in mind. I’ve been a personal witness a few times to people doing a complete 180 about kids. So while I would never say “you might change your mind” to anyone directly, I have started thinking it.
People change their minds about things all the time in their life, both about having kids and deciding not to have kids.
Maybe the best answer to someone who says such a comment is “Perhaps you’re right, but there are plenty of women out there who’ve lived their lives and never regretted not having kids. I could easily be one of those women.”
Or, depending on the context, the best answer could be “mind your own beeswax”. :o)
I know someone who changed her mind about wanting kids when in her 40s (she fought her way into a tubal ligation in her early 20s). She still didn’t regret having had the operation, and she chose to adopt.
Leslie Stalh had a very insulting piece about silly young women who don’t have babies when they are young after Hewlett’s book came out. She had a panel of rich successful New Yorkers saying how they had all been duped by feminism into losing their fertile years at work. I was furious! And when I tried to stir up controvery about it at a family gathering, everyone agreed with Leslie Stahl-”these girls think they can just wait”, etc… It was crazy- they didn’t have kids because they weren’t ready, and they were foolish for not being ready? Huh? Women have always had children in their 30’s and 40’s, only it usually wasn’t their first. My husband’s mom had him at 45.
But childless people should cut the pro-fertile people some slack, and roll their eyes instead of being offended. They love their children, and want to spread the joy, and it is a joy, around. Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them. This coming from a mother of an only child ( talk about social disapproval!).
My paternal grandparents had my dad when they were in their forties, my maternal grandparents had one of my aunts in the forties as well. My mother has (or had) uncles who were younger than her,as my great grandmother was still having children when my grandmother married etc. They were RC and didn’t use contraceptives
I would like a baby now, but it would be selfish if I did,as my financial resources would not support one.
I’d have to disagree with your paradox since I believe that our ideas about why we weren’t suited to be parents would quite right which means that we would have not made good parents. OTOH, we’ve often thought that if most people put the effort into thinking about being parents that we did, there would be no kids.
Re Brooks: I’m not all at suspicious, I’m certain that they are worried that white women won’t have enough babies and they will be outnumbered.
To all of you who are tired of being asked about having children, people will eventually stop because after you hit a certain age, they figure you don’t have kids because there is something wrong and they don’t want to be hurtful. Of course, this does not include your mother who will keep bringing it up until you hit menopause (apparently, in my case, believing that she could make my tubes grow back through the proper application of guilt. But I would just remind that she used to always tell me that “some day I would have kids of my own and then I’d be sorry”. So clearly this was all her fault).
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”
There are those of us who do not wish to fertilize the earth with our spawn. And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
Humans are only DNA’s way of reproducing itself. Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive. Somehow, humans have internalized this molecular message.
I have never wanted kids. I didn’t like kids when I was one. When I outgrew some toy or other and it was offered to a cousin for her smaller child, she said ‘oh, no, you should hang on to that for her kids.’ Little five-year-old me piped up something along the lines of ‘I’m not going to have kids, and anyway we can’t keep everything or we’ll not be able to get in the door.’
I’ve pretty much stopped getting asked, now, by people I know, but my mother gets it. ‘Got any grandchildren yet?’ She’s got so fed up with saying no and explaining to the ‘oh she’ll change’ people that she’s perfectly fine with me *not* sprogging and that she really doubts I will change my mind, that she’s started to tell them about the beautiful 2-year-old with her black hair and big brown eyes. She then pulls out a picture of my boyfriend’s rottie. It upsets them less than saying ‘well she might change her mind about jumping off tower bridge as well.’ Not by much, apparently.
Most of the people asking seem to think that working is something you do until you manage to breed and the state has to keep you. I encountered more than one young girl who thought having a kid would be *easier* than working on a supermarket checkout. I told her I was far too lazy to have a kid, five minutes after telling her about the week of 16 hour days I’d just done and she thought I was joking. 9 months later, she understood.
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”?
Eeeeugh! No, that is completely wrong. It is the opposite! Having children makes you much more unhappy about the state of the environment and the world, because we’re leaving it to them (and we all bear a minute amount of the responsibility for the world’s fucked-upness.)
But pseudo-Adrienne, you fall into a trap when you cite career and college as an argument for remaining childless. Note this isn’t an argument either way for having kids / not having them - but if you don’t have them in order to further your career or enable you to study, that is not a 21st century solution- that is the nineteenth century solution! Men don’t have to choose between having children (if they should want them) and having a career or getting a degree, and neither should women.
The sad think is that having a child doesn’t get you off the hook with the baby police. As soon as the baby is one people start asking you when you’re having a second. You can’t (gasp!) mean to have an only child! (Actually, yes, I do. My pregnancy was 9 months of nausea and fatigue and I don’t want to repeat it. The kid seems happy, I’m happy, my partner is happy, where’s the problem?)
Somehow, humans have internalized this molecular message.
You know, if this were really true, there wouldn’t be so many happy childless people out there. There wouldn’t have been so many happy childless people all through the ages, either.
I really don’t buy into the attempts to impose genetic/biological explanations on human behaviour (except for things like breathing, eating, sleeping etc.), because there is far, far too much variation in that behaviour to make them plausible.
Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, I have never not once heard my biological clock ticking or had an uncontrollable urge (or even controllable, really) to get myself impregnated. Never. If I had some sort of genetic coding driving me towards reproduction, wouldn’t I have had at least a few twinges? Like, lots of them instead of, well………none?
Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive.
DNA is a molecule. It doesn’t have a ‘perspective.’ From the standpoint of evolution, your siblings share your genes, so if you’re helping your nieces and nephews it’s all good. In fact, it may be better.
And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
And then there are those of us who are happy to let you decide whether or not you wish to spawn, but would prefer that you were happy in your choice without sneering at everyone else’s. As Elena said, “Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them.”
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind” is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
By the way, why is everyone talking about getting into extended discussions about whether you will or won’t want kids? Anyone who tries to argue your choices is being an ass.
Yes, but if someone’s harassed, daily, about having children, sooner or later they’ll have a long conversation about it.
Does the “selfish gene” argument remind anyone else of what Marx said about commodity fetishism? That is, talking about the decisions of actual people as if they were the decisions of non-sentient or abstract entities?
Does anybody else feel suspicious whenever David Brooks and others talk about the dangers of falling fertility rates?
Elena: you bet your sweet ass I do! I’ve debated “Pro-lifers” who keep pointing this out and am perplexed by the implication that having more babies will, indeed, save this country. It was a faulty argument when it was used in Romania and it’s equally erroneous now.
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind”? is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
Mythago - I agree wholeheartedly. I (truly) had no interest in marriage and babies. It’s not that I didn’t like children, it was that I fully planned on being married to the lab and feared that I would not be a good parent. When I first started having thyroid problems as an adolescent, my doctor ruled out exposure to radiation because it could lead to significant fertility issues and he was sure that, since I was 13, I would change my mind about wanting to have children (he completely ignored my assertion that if I did change my mind about having children, I’d adopt - 25 years later I still don’t understand some people’s need to have a biological connection to hteir child). This being said, I was careful about my terminology even back then . . .it wasn’t never, it was I don’t expect/plan, I can’t imagine, I doubt I’ll change my mind, etc. When I got pregnant at 19 and was considering my options I came to the realization that I would be willing to re-consider parenthood if I was in a stable, loving relationship conducive to raising a child in a warm, nurturing environment. I’m still single, therefor still childless (unless psycho the wonder puppy & barfo the cat count as children). I don’t rule out single parenthood completely, I’d just limit it to adopting a child that doesn’t seem to have the option of what I’d consider a more ideal environment. Sadly, it’s taken my family ages to understand and respect that.
I think another related issue to this one is the people who do NOT have children but feel they have the right to involve themselves in issues regarding children…that’s never discussed much…
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
For instance, I know many men and women who chose NOT to have children themselves, yet have non-stop opinions on laws and public policies that will affect the rest of us who have chosen to take the leap of faith and have children ourselves…
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
You don’t need to be a parent to care about children. Even if you don’t have nieces and/or nephews, and even if your friends and neighbors don’t have children, and even if you don’t work in a field that affects children, you can still be concerned about them. In fact, parents may be too close to their children to really understand what’s good for them; it may take an objective outsider’s perspective to make sure they get what they need. (I don’t really believe that, but it’s the parallel argument.)
Besides, if we limited (valid) opinions only to experts, well, we might as well dismantle our society. Most people vote without knowing much, if anything, about their party’s platform and legislative history and what real impact their agendas will have on their lives.
Also, we as a culture tend to criticize people who think, “Well, this issue doesn’t affect me, so I won’t bother getting involved in it.” Lots of things that affect children affect a society as a whole–early childhood education and health care for kids are the ones that have been getting the most attention lately. It’s actually irresponsible to dismiss these concerns just because you don’t have children.
I understand what NYMOM was getting at, though I do have to agree with Hestia that we shouldn’t take the attitude that only those things that concern us personally should interest us.
I do think there are a lot of people who are childless by choice because they *dislike* children, and then feel they shouldn’t have to pay for public schools or other services that benefit children and parents. Or who are constantly criticising parents when they have no idea what caring for a child is like. That I find wrong.
But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children–and people who are parents–should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way.
“But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children”“and people who are parents”“should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way. ”
But then people can say the same thing about a women’s decision NOT to have children…It doesn’t affect them directly but it affects us ALL in some way. For instance, fewer people paying into the social security system for a pension (which they are now estimating might require 9 McJobbers paying taxes in the future for ONE decent pension)…
I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????
Fewer nurses, police, firemen, etc., are all repercussions of these private choices.
Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…
I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…
This is what leads to men having an unfair advantage since they speak for their own gender neutralized interest and then have many women, who have opted out of childbearing, speaking for their interest too…
I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge. I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant, I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black, I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc. Apparently I will have to limit my concerns to those that directly involve short, post-menopausal Jewish women who live in Indiana.
Well, I think not. However, I would agree — if this is what you are getting at — that the opinions and ideas of those who are directly affected by an issue have more value and authenticity than those of individuals who are not.
NYMOM:“I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????”
*****
most of the people i know who do not have children do not live in this life of luxury that you imagine. i don’t have children #1 because i don’t want them and #2 because i have a parent to support. it’s not ALL tropical vacations and convertible BMWs for those of us without children. i actually live paycheck to paycheck and supporting a child would throw us both out on the street.
NYMOM:“Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…”
******
i don’t know of ANY feminists who support laws that harm women and their children. in fact, i would think that’s the exact OPPOSITE of what feminists support.
NYMOM:“I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…”
*****
actually, i think EVERYONE has a stake in the ultimate outcome of children. i choose not to have children of my own but i still have a stake in how other children turnout because they will eventually be the adults running the show. therefore we ALL have a stake in making sure that other people’s children are taken care of, fed, housed, educated, nutured, respected, etc.
it’s not like all people who don’t have kids wish the worst for everyone elses. in fact, it seems to me that the majority of people making policies that negatively affect women and children are those people who DO have children and don’t feel like they should have to sacrifice their own children’s abundance to share with those less fortunate.
(just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too.)
“I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge.
I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant”
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
“I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black”
Again, you can care but surely you would agree with most African-Americans who want to be the final decision-makers on their own programs and communities…
“I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc.”
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????
By this logic, I, a childless persyn, should not have to pay higher property taxes* everytime teachers need to buy pencils. As a matter of fact, all taxes should be individualized so I don’t have to pay taxes for any services I don’t use. Itemizing *everyone’s* taxes, that’ll fix the problem! /sarcasm
Nio
*In NH, where I live, school funding comes from property taxes. Towns such as Hollis, NH, where the cheapest house is $300,000 and property taxes are incredibly high, have fantastic school systems. Funding from this source creates a disparagy (sp?) in education. But, hey, I don’t need to worry about that, I don’t have kids! /sarcasm
“…just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too…”
Not at all…I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
Why should we live and be judged by women who have chosen to be childfree…Yet have no problem forcing other women to place our kids in all kinds of gender-neutralized custody arrangements, MANY of them approved and implemented by feminists and MRAs supporters…
As, you must admit, that feminists are the authors of our current gender netural custody laws and thus the ‘mothers’ of the fathers rights movement…
Chosing not to have children yourselves ,you should NOT be leaving other mothers to labor under the burden you’ve place on us by your ideas on children…
That’s all I’m saying, it works BOTH ways…
No, people should NOT be pressuring women who wish to be childfree to have children, that is wrong. But the flip side of that is you should forfeit your rights to force those of us who DO chose to be mothers to follow your gender neutralized ideas about motherhood…
However, I do NOT think you are cruel or heartless if you chose NOT to be a mother…it’s your decision and should be respected…
NYMom, I don’t care if someone has children. I’ve followed this discussion mostly just to see how people assess this issue in their own lives. I’ve seen women change their minds, and I’ve seen women stay the course with decisions they made early in life not to be parents.
But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children.
I am a mother and I can’t sit here and say that I am the better parent or that I would deserve primary let alone sole custody of my daughters. Not all fathers can say this, but my husband more than stepped up to the plate to share equal parenting duty. How will men ever be encouraged to become stronger parents if they are legally presumed to be inferior?
But women who choose not to have children–particularly the career women you keep referring to–sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them? If you as a mom decide to quit your job because it’s perfectly legal for your employer make your job unbearable, would you then lose the right to complain about the laws?
As, you must admit, that feminists are the authors of our current gender netural custody laws and thus the ‘mothers’ of the fathers rights movement…
And this is just plain inaccurate. Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. Blaming feminists for them is like blaming NARAL for Operation Rescue. And no feminist has ever said that women should be treated as though their circumstances were in all respects equal to men’s. If that were true, EC and abortion wouldn’t be feminist issues, because feminists would be incapable of recognizing the unique impact of both on women’s lives. They wouldn’t even be able to recognize the problem of sexism overall, since the impact of misogyny is nothing if not disparate. Nor do any of the feminists here seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that parenting carries the same social meaning for women as for men.
I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any. Feminists support women’s choices regardless of whether they’re mothers or not. I think you’re speaking from a stereotype that simply isn’t true.
I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
I wholly disagree. You’re suggesting that even though I support public schools and parental leave and tax credits for dependents, you’d dismiss my opinion if my neighbor, who’s a mother, opposes all these things. You’re also implying that, for example, people who aren’t actually involved in politics (including you, I assume) shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Right?
I believe, on the other hand, that an individual’s personal life is basically a moot point (until you get to hypocrisy, but that’s something else). What matters is the argument itself and the issue in question. There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.
(For the record, I don’t have kids but I work in the field of early childhood education.)
Never wanted children. Never regretted not having them. I’m glad other women want them and have them, but that’s their choice. That’s what fminism is about: choices that are right for the individual, and not imposed by outsiders.
however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch.
The U.S. in general has a nosey culture. I guess the Europeans are right when they say we are square! In one corner, we have the people who think they are the center of the universe and therefore everything they think and do needs to be broadcast to the masses. In Corner #2, we have the people who think they are entitled to know everything about anyone they decide to be interested in. In Corner #3, we have the people who fiercely protect their privacy. And in Corner #4, we have the people who try to keep from knowing too much about those around them. At one time or another, most people live in each of these corners. The conflicts arise when people from opposite corners try to interact.
I tend to live in corner #4 most of the time, with visits to #3 as necessary. Maybe I’m sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t really want to know what The Runaway Bride has to say, or what form of sexual gratification my neighbor prefers. So even though I’m occasionally curious about when or if I’ll be an aunt, I wouldn’t dream of asking my siblings or their partners about their baby status is. This decision should be theirs alone, and so what if they keep it to themselves.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter to people living in corners #1 and #2 what life stage you’re in - they have an opinion they want to “share” with you (which of course means you have to agree with them, which gives them positive strokes and a pleasant feeling of superiority because they’ve enlightened you). If you’re a teenager, you have to know what you want to do when you grow up. When you’re in your twenties, you have to settle down with someone. If you haven’t had kids by the time you’re in your thirties, then you hear all about how you have to have babies. (One thing I find sad and amusing at the same time is how some parents are so desperate for grandchildren that they don’t actually seem to care how many parents the poor things will have.) If you actually do get pregnant, then you hear about childbirth; once the baby actually appears on the scene, then you hear about how it should be brought up. And so on.
I agree that women should be able to build a career independent of her childbearing choices. I also think that men should be able to fold family obligations in their worklives. It’s just as condescending and discriminatory to tell a woman she has to cut back at work or quit her job when she has kids as it is to tell a man he can’t take time off from work to take care of his children. I also think it’s discriminatory to expect someone to work overtime or handle the high-maintenance projects at work just because they have no children. People should be able to do their jobs independently of their home lives but also with consideration for whatever their home lives happen to be. And it shouldn’t be anybody’s business what your choices are, unless you’ve filled out your tax forms wrong, of course. :)
On the public policy level, obviously what we decide impacts society as a whole. If I decide to reproduce and am successful, I have added another human being to the pool, for good or for ill. If I don’t have children, then that affects the future of the pool as well. Ms. Jared is right that we all have a stake in what happens to the children. But children aren’t sacred objects - they are human beings. We shouldn’t idolize babies and children to the point where the whole culture is obsessed with making life perfect for them; that’s impossible. And being a parent shouldn’t entitle us to High Priest(ess) status, either. We should just do our best to make the world a better place for everyone, and the rest will follow.
“But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children. ”
No…if you look back on early feminists writing, you’ll see that gender neutral treatment of men and women vis-a-vis children has been around long before our legal system began treating mothers and fathers exactly the same…and feminists were the first ones to push the idea…
“But women who choose not to have children”“particularly the career women you keep referring to”“sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them?”
Well we were discussing women who has decided not to have children more or less permanently as I understood the discussion…not ones who had delayed to get laws changed…
“Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. ”
No…fathers rights advocates are strong supporters of gender neutral custody as are feminists. The Fathers right movement is NOT part of the anti-feminist backlash (not on the surface anyway) but the logical conclusion to feminists pushing for gender neutral treatment of mothers and fathers…
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Of course, I have no right to say anything about other people’s decisions about their kids or their pregnancies but that’s true whether or not I have kids or can get pregnant. But no, I don’t see that being able to get pregnant makes anyone the final authority on abortion rights — she is only the final authority on whether she has an abortion or not. And no, I don’t being a parent makes you the final authority on education; I think it makes you the final authority on the education of your children.
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ]
“I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any.”
No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…
Feminists must accept responsible for this, on every level, even giving intellectual support to the fathers’ rights movement as well as actual support through female judges, attorney and other public policy makers who have assisted men in this area…
As I said earlier, feminists are the mothers of the fathers’ rights movement….they spawned it by their rhetoric…it’s not a backlash at all but a logical outgrowth of feminist rhetoric…
“…however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch…”
Yes, bonding with teenagers as infants makes raising them later, tolerable…I can’t imagine interacting with a surly teenager without the early memories of mellow babyhood to tide you over…
“Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ] ”
No…I thought the point of the thread was women who chose to remain childless being annoyed that others felt they had the right to comment on their decision…and I agreed with them, no one had the right to make a comment on another women’s decision to remain childless…
I was just curiously as to why so many professional women, who chose NOT to have children think it’s okay to be so intimately involved with the lives of mothers and their children…making public policies, laws, etc., writing columns, etc., when they chose to NOT take the leap of faith to have children themselves…
It works both ways was my point…
Also with fathers…one of the most popular fathers rights advocates has no children himself (Angry Harry) yet he’s constantly telling other men who are fathers about how they should live their lives…
I kind of think it’s the sort of thing you need to experience first before giving advice to others on this aspect of life.
“There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.”
I missed this…
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
“No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…”
NYMOM: Divorce causes parents to be separated from their children. You give no chronology for your statistics, you give no source (other than unspecified US Census data) but even if it is true, I am trying to understand why I or anyone should accept your apparent presumption that the mother child bond is more important than the father child bond. Early feminists did agree that gender neutral custody arrangements were appropriate, however, more than one state law imposing a presumption in favor of the mother was overturned by state courts on their own in keeping with the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. And if a child free woman is a teacher (like my sister) can she still have a say in policies affecting children? What about aunts and and other assorted friends and relatives?
“And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. ”
That many of the women making these decisions like Judge Arlene Goldberg (of Bridget Marks’ fame) for instance, are feminists who never married or had any children…probably Goldberg’s best friend is her cat. Thus I feel women like this should have NO right to participate in decisions that impact mothers or their children…
I don’t consider it just a ‘legalism’ as you appear to paint it when this happens…but a sundering of the most important bond any child has or probably will ever have, the mother/child one…
Feminist support of gender neutral custody under this ‘equal protection’ clause is wholly responsible for these developments in western civilization….Even the language of ‘equal protection’ serves as a smoke screen really to obscure what is really happening….That many feminist women, who have nothing at stake as they have chosen NOT to have children themselves, persist in making and enforcing public policy that supports a vast gender-neutral social-engineering experiement, which has been foisted off on mothers and their children.
So my initial point is that if you haven’t invested anything in motherhood, you should NOT be allowed to impose any of the rules on others women who have… you have no rights in this area…I don’t care how many degrees you have been awarded…
most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children
You keep saying this, but provide absolutely no evidence that it’s true. Since everything I’ve heard is to the contrary, I can’t believe this unless you give some real, contemporary (versus “early feminism”) examples.
You don’t seem to understand that feminism isn’t about supporting all women all the time, regardless of the situation. If that’s what you think it is, then of any time a woman opposes another women you’re going to blame feminists. That’s unfair and plain wrong.
I don’t buy the “MRA derived from feminism” argument. Just because it was created in response to feminism does not mean that feminism is to blame for MRA’s actions. Are you responsible for every decision your (adult) children make?
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
Despite what you think, I did not take a low-paying job in the non-profit sector to further my “career.” I actually want to help people. Why are you trying to alienate someone who’s on your side?
You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers.
Hmmm, an interesting possibility just occurred to me: why is it that NYMOM thinks child free women have no right to make decisions that affect mothers but hasn’t said anything about men, child free or otherwise making such decisions? Most judges were and still are men. Were literally none of them involved in this miscarriage of justice and wholesale evisceration of the sacred mother child bond? (And where is that explanation of why the mother child bond is so much more important than the father child bond?) No, it’s the fault of a female judges (only one of whom is named) — who not only didn’t have children, but apparently had no concept of the most important social relationship in the history of mankind (what an irony that is): the mother child bond — what, did they have no mothers either?
“You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers. ”
You’re right and many of my neighbors DO make this argument and I have no rebuttal…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…and just because I decided to ignore them and have children anyway doesn’t make their entire argument invalid…
“…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…”
I mean to say many of them feel NO ONE in western society should have children…
NYMOM, you should be grateful to all of those pioneering feminists (male and female) who gave you any rights at all with respect to your children. The mother child bond has not been sacred throughout history, in fact, it barely gained a nod of acknowledgement through the course of time.
From that bastion of radical female judges, the Alabama Supreme Court (most citations are omitted.)
At common law, it was the father rather than the mother who held a virtual absolute right to the custody of their minor children. n1 This rule of law was fostered, in part, by feudalistic notions concerning the “natural” responsibilities of the husband at common law. The husband was considered the head or master of his family, and, as such, responsible for the care, maintenance, education and religious training of his children. By virtue of these responsibilities, the husband was given a corresponding entitlement to the benefits of his children, [**7] i.e., their services and association. It is interesting to note that in many instances these rights and privileges were considered dependent upon the recognized laws of nature and in accordance with the presumption that the father could best provide for the necessities of his children
* * *
By contrast, the wife was without any rights to the care and custody of her minor children. By marriage, husband and wife became one person with the legal identity of the woman being totally merged with that of her husband. As a result, her rights were often subordinated to those of her husband and she was laden with numerous marital disabilities. As far as any custodial rights were concerned, Blackstone stated [*689] the law to be that the mother was “entitled to no power [over her children], but only to reverence and respect.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 453 (Tucker ed. 1803).
By the middle of the 19th century, the courts of England began to question and qualify the paternal preference rule. This was due, in part, to the “hardships, not to say cruelty, inflicted upon unoffending mothers by a state of law which took little account of the
April 29th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
I had a tubal ligation when I was 27 because my husband and I had decided we did not want to be parents (whichI thnk is not the same motivation as not wanting to have kids). I’ve never been the least bit sorry. And to all those people (e.g., my mother) who kept saying “but what if you’re wrong about having kids”, we would just say “better that than to have the kids and find out we were right.”
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Pseudo-Adrienne: This really bugged the piss out of me before I had my daughter, and you know what? It still does. Being a woman over 25 in the Midwest and saying that you not only don’t have any children, but have no plans for them either, makes people look at you as if you’ve said, “…and in my spare time, I like to grill up filet of child.”
The flip side of this is, of course, that once you have that child, you don’t gain that aura of “legitimacy” that mothers supposedly have….no, you just segue into a “bad mama” stereotype if you don’t resemble June Cleaver (and who does?).
Just shows you how many battles we still have left to fight, ya know?
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 3:35 pm
Y’know, thinking about body parts that aren’t being used….. we need more news items about the poor unused nipples on most men. One assumes, if one assumes such things, that the gods put them there for a purpose, so get to it! While we’re at it, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other anatomical parts that aren’t being used….
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April 29th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
La Lubu is right! Right before we got married, I was appalled at number of so-called friends who were angry when I explained that we weren’t sure about having kids. I thought explaining that my husband is a cancer survivor would shut them up–hey, I’m glad he’s alive, so I’m not going to bitch about fertility problems–but they continued to look like I also “grill up filet of child.”
Now that we want to have kids, this talk is equally painful. It would be so much easier if people minded their own damn business. Instead we get comments like why haven’t you had a child yet? Don’t you like kids?
Argh!
This comment was written by Lisa.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
I’m amazed at the pressure on females to have babies. I had no real interest in marriage and babies until I hit my early-mid 30’s (which shocked the shit outta me, to be honest). I thought the folks who were quick to pressure kids were in my parents’ generation, and thought the folks who grew up in the 50s/60s wouldn’t put the same pressure on their children. My cousin is 48, her older daughter is 24 (and not in a committed relationship). . .just last week my cousin’s ex husband told the daughter that he doesn’t want to wait too much longer for grandchildren. (My cousing and I both flipped when the daughter mentioned this at our Seder on Saturday - what the hell is worng with this man??!?)
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Argh. I’m only 22, out of college a year and still unemployed, and people ask me when I’m going to settle down and have children. Why am I single? Don’t I like children? If I dare explain that I happen to prefer being single, and no, actually, I don’t like children… well, you’d think I’d just confessed to being the genetically-engineered love child of Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Then comes the “It’s different when it’s your child” comments. Yeah, maybe so. But if it isn’t, I don’t want to find out the hard way.
It doesn’t help, of course, that I know 6 or 7 people my age who are getting married within the next year, and two women younger than me who already have kids. Not to mention two brothers who are similarly disinclined, which makes my mother put extra pressure on me. It’s my job, after all, as I’m the sentient incubator.
Not that I’m bitter.
This comment was written by Suzanne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
Now, I do like to grill up filet of child. Is this a bad thing?
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Me, I prefer toddler ghanoush.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
God, it’s too late in the week to even make a decent pun.
Can we just all pretend I got that right? Please?
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April 29th, 2005 at 7:03 pm
piny: sure :)
Amanda: deep fried would be a bad thing, grilled is perfectly fine
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2005 at 8:04 pm
I agree with AndiF and Suzanne about not wanting to find out the hard way that I’m not mommy-material. Children are not sweaters that we can return to the store if we decide we don’t want them after all.
A married woman I know found out that she was infertile. She (and her husband I presume) thought for a moment about fertility treatment - and then decided that she would do just fine without having children.
More people should resist the pressure to have children.
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April 29th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
Is there anything more irritating than hearing people say “you should have a baby,”? “why haven’t you had a baby,”? “you’ll make a great mother,”? “have a baby already, sheesh,”? and/or “have more babies!”?
Yes. Hearing people say “Why did you have a baby?” or “Did you have to have so many babies?” or “There are already too many babies in the world,” which they generally do in earshot of your baby.
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April 29th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
I notice that some people are saying, “We’ve had that said to us,” whereas Pseudo-A’s post spoke of women in particular. Men, by themselves, just don’t get asked that, except as part of a couple (”When are you guys . . . “). It’s particularly troubling when it comes from feminists: a feminist celebrity in her Seventies asked me and my wife, “Have you had children yet?” At that point, I was on the verge of making one of the unforgivable remarks mythago cites above. At least my wife and I are lucky in that our parents all think we are too immature to raise children and don’t ask us to.
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April 29th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
You can’t imagine the shit my husband and I get–
This comment was written by emma.We did want a baby, but rather than pump myself full of fertility drugs and spend thousands of dollars on in vitro, we just opted to adopt. Now, you would think that just having a baby would be good enough for the baby police, but no. Everyone was just tremendously appalled that we weren’t even going to try fertility treatments so we could get pregnant and have our “own” baby. We not only got this from annoying family members, but also from nurses, acquaintances, etc. When I tell these clods how much I love adoptive parenting, and how glad I am that I didn’t have to go through pregnancy, they all think that I am either a pathetically deluded liar or an unfeminine monster. And since our child is a different race than we are, even strangers who have no idea whether we tried fertility aids or not get to comment. If I had a nickel for every time a complete stranger asked me why I don’t have “real” children, I’d be rich enough to hire a great lawyer to defend me against the charges of the well- deserved assaults I’d like to make to these morons. : )
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April 29th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
Oh…. and I almost forgot the icing on the cake:
This comment was written by emma.I am the sole bread-winner of my family while my husband is a stay at home dad. Imagine the hell I get when I tell people that, no, this is not just a temporary arrangement, that I choose to work, and have no desire to stay home with our daughter. Again, I’m either a liar or a monster.
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April 30th, 2005 at 2:45 am
Someone did make the “you’re pregnant AGAIN?” comment to me when I was carrying my (gasp) second baby.
Along with women having the freedom to choose not to be mothers, or to postpone motherhood until after a career, I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to.
More flexible schedules and on-site day care in businesses and colleges. More support for telecommuting and job sharing. And less expectation for employees to work tons of overtime and take work home in order to get ahead professionally.
This comment was written by LAmom.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 5:18 am
LAmom: from your keyboard to G-d’s eyes!
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 9:12 am
I don’t have children because I live alone and can afford to support myself only and save a little. There is no way I could buy an infant clothing and diapers let alone pay for its medical etc bills. So I just don’t have someone I can’t afford to support.Plus I do shift work which would make daycare difficult.
This comment was written by Janice.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
I’m 20 and I’ve been quite vocal about not wanting to get married/ have children. Yet, no one believes me. They all roll their eyes and pat me on the head and say “when you grow up you’ll feel different” blah blah blah. I’m pretty sure I’m already grown up, and my oppinion’s not gonna change.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Why does anyone feel they have a right to an opinion about anyone else’s choices in this area? Even before I considered myself a feminist, I would have considered such nosiness rude. Shut up, stupid people.
I do remember Miss Manners addressing such questions with this advice: when people ask you an inappropriate question such as this, you respond with a smile “Why do you need to know?” and just keep repeating it. They have no good reason to know, and if they offer a lame one, you can just say “Oh, that’s just not something we feel comfortable talking about!” and don’t cave.
What I find hard is when you’re not prepared for such rudeness; one person asked me if my pregnancy was “planned” which, if you think about it, is none of their damn business. I mean, what if it wasn’t, and I was scared shitless? Anyway, in my surprise at being asked I just blurted out “Yes” instead of sidestepping the question.
This comment was written by emjaybee.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to
I’d like our society to make it more convenient for everyone to combine professional, educational and family life.
I can imagine, emma. I recommend the Icy Stare of Death.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 30th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
You know, I get baby pressure from people, and I’m not even married. There have been a few times when people have gone off on me for having the gall to answer their rather inappropriate question (Do you want children?) honestly (No, I don’t.).
Not my parents, who don’t think it’s their business or anyone else’s. They’d be pleased as punch if I got married and had a kid if that’s what I wanted. As long as I’m happy and I’m living ethically, they’re happy for me.
Now, if only I could get some other people who aren’t even related to me to follow their example. . .
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
May 1st, 2005 at 12:02 am
It’s very easy: don’t answer their questions.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
May 1st, 2005 at 6:02 am
I am a proud childless, husbandless concert flautist and want to remian so. There is nothing selfless about not wanting to have a child. Hell, there is just as much about having a baby that is selfish . I am a transsexual anyway, and I won’t have my uterus for long. It enrages me the lack of respect for women’s personal choices. Women are looked down upon a great deal more often for having an abortion than for have seven kids they can barely care for? *Vomits.*
Pro-choice, people, whatever that choice is. Love it and leae it be.
This comment was written by Lucio.Report this comment to the moderators
May 1st, 2005 at 6:54 am
Lucio you’re 15, I sure as shit hope nobody has actually had the audacity to ask when you plan to have children!
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
May 1st, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Actually, I have had quite a few people ask me that, including my father when he is in a sentimental fervor, and needless to say, my nuclear family-obsessed peers. Of course, I just stick to my convictions that I have a different goal in life. And I’m lovin’ it! A major in flute and pipe organ, plus a large home all to myself with the occasional visitor.
This comment was written by Lucio.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:27 am
Another kind of baby policing.
This comment was written by Emily.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 9:51 am
Agreed with everybody. I do think that the world could stand to be less populated; but from what I’ve read, that seems to have less to do with the people who choose to have a couple kids than it does with people who can’t get family planning services, or are pressured by their culture into not using them. And yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system. [What worries me is the possibility that it might never end: in 30 years, I might be 58 and postmenopausal, and getting constantly asked why I didn’t have children when I had the chance.]
I too get tired of being asked when I’m going to get married and reproduce, and of hearing the “it’s different when they’re yours” spiel [yeah, but is it different enough?] and the “you’ll regret it if you don’t” spiel [what if I DO and regret it? I can’t put it back]. On occasion, I’ve been asked if I don’t like children, and responded by asking the person if they owned a lion; upon hearing “no,” I’d ask them if they hated wildlife, the point being that not everybody that likes lions likes them enough to take care of one. Sometimes that works. If it doesn’t, I just tell them I can’t handle the noise, which is true, and leave it at that. Either they can deal with it or they can’t.
I’ve read people’s reasons for having children, and for not having children, and I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both. And those reasons weigh differently for everybody, so you can’t decide for somebody else what they should want, or presume to be able to predict–better than they can–how they’ll cope with parenthood.
This comment was written by Frida.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:04 am
Minor quibble:
I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both.
What exactly are the “selfish” reasons to not have a child? In order to make this claim, you’d need to assume that there’s a person out there that would be disappointed if you didn’t give birth to it. You can’t be “selfish” unless you’re depriving someone of something, and seeing that the child you might have had does not exist, it’s logically impossible to be “selfish” in choosing not to have kids.
I suppose one could claim that a woman who decides not to have kids is depriving society of something, but that still assumes the existence of something that doesn’t exist–namely, the child you might have had who might have improved or contributed to (or destroyed, for that matter) the world.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:23 pm
I agree with pretty well everyone here!
I’ve always been pretty vocal about my aversion to motherhood, and I don’t know why people think this is one thing they are free to comment on.
Just this evening my 22 y.o. neighbour said to me ‘oh, in five years you’ll change your mind’. How would she know? If I said I was making any other type of life choice (where to live, career, etc) I wouldn’t get any of these comments.
This comment was written by Katrina.As if motherhood or the biological clock is something women have to succumb to, regardless of what our personal choices might be.
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May 2nd, 2005 at 4:05 pm
“But give me the crappy studio apartment in NYC, . . . ridiculously high rent, . . . and the 9 to 5 job any time over children.”
Pseudo-Adrienne — if you don’t have children you can work 9-5 and afford an apartment in New York City? Damn where have I gone wrong? If I had known being childless can allow me to work 9-5 . . .
I have to go now. I have to get rid of my kids. I guess my wife will have to go also. Oh and anyone else for whom I have a responsibility. I can’t believe I fell for that crazy “duty to produce good citizens for the betterment of society” crap my mother, grandmother, and teachers told me about. I knew they were wrong. Dammit! I knew I should have just done what was be for me and f**K everyone else. I guess it is all for the best since I “procreated” with a mate of good genetic makeup :-)
(I hope no one takes this seriously — East Coast Cynicism).
[From Pseudo-Adrienne–I have no clue as to what you are trying to say. I have East Coast relatives by the way, so I know that particular brand of cynicism, but I have no idea as to what you are trying to say. Elaborate, please…]
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 9:58 pm
IAnd yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system.
Sentence #2 is the same as sentence #1–telling somebody “you shouldn’t have kids” IS telling them what you think they should do with their reproductive system.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 5:36 am
I think it’s possible that people say “Oh, you’ll change your mind” because it happens so often. This does not reduce the annoyance factor of someone saying it, of course, but it’s something to keep in mind. I’ve been a personal witness a few times to people doing a complete 180 about kids. So while I would never say “you might change your mind” to anyone directly, I have started thinking it.
People change their minds about things all the time in their life, both about having kids and deciding not to have kids.
Maybe the best answer to someone who says such a comment is “Perhaps you’re right, but there are plenty of women out there who’ve lived their lives and never regretted not having kids. I could easily be one of those women.”
Or, depending on the context, the best answer could be “mind your own beeswax”. :o)
This comment was written by Barbara Preuninger.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 8:37 am
I know someone who changed her mind about wanting kids when in her 40s (she fought her way into a tubal ligation in her early 20s). She still didn’t regret having had the operation, and she chose to adopt.
This comment was written by wolfangel.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 8:45 am
Leslie Stalh had a very insulting piece about silly young women who don’t have babies when they are young after Hewlett’s book came out. She had a panel of rich successful New Yorkers saying how they had all been duped by feminism into losing their fertile years at work. I was furious! And when I tried to stir up controvery about it at a family gathering, everyone agreed with Leslie Stahl-”these girls think they can just wait”, etc… It was crazy- they didn’t have kids because they weren’t ready, and they were foolish for not being ready? Huh? Women have always had children in their 30’s and 40’s, only it usually wasn’t their first. My husband’s mom had him at 45.
But childless people should cut the pro-fertile people some slack, and roll their eyes instead of being offended. They love their children, and want to spread the joy, and it is a joy, around. Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them. This coming from a mother of an only child ( talk about social disapproval!).
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 9:09 am
My paternal grandparents had my dad when they were in their forties, my maternal grandparents had one of my aunts in the forties as well. My mother has (or had) uncles who were younger than her,as my great grandmother was still having children when my grandmother married etc. They were RC and didn’t use contraceptives
I would like a baby now, but it would be selfish if I did,as my financial resources would not support one.
This comment was written by Janice.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 9:26 am
Modern paradox: the thoughtfullness that makes some people childless would also make them great parents.
Does anybody else feel suspicious whenever David Brooks and others talk about the dangers of falling fertility rates?
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:36 am
Elena,
I’d have to disagree with your paradox since I believe that our ideas about why we weren’t suited to be parents would quite right which means that we would have not made good parents. OTOH, we’ve often thought that if most people put the effort into thinking about being parents that we did, there would be no kids.
Re Brooks: I’m not all at suspicious, I’m certain that they are worried that white women won’t have enough babies and they will be outnumbered.
To all of you who are tired of being asked about having children, people will eventually stop because after you hit a certain age, they figure you don’t have kids because there is something wrong and they don’t want to be hurtful. Of course, this does not include your mother who will keep bringing it up until you hit menopause (apparently, in my case, believing that she could make my tubes grow back through the proper application of guilt. But I would just remind that she used to always tell me that “some day I would have kids of my own and then I’d be sorry”. So clearly this was all her fault).
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Elena:
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”
There are those of us who do not wish to fertilize the earth with our spawn. And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
This comment was written by Nio.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 8:00 pm
Humans are only DNA’s way of reproducing itself. Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive. Somehow, humans have internalized this molecular message.
Just tell that nagging bit of DNA to bugger off.
This comment was written by Ruby2.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:41 pm
I have never wanted kids. I didn’t like kids when I was one. When I outgrew some toy or other and it was offered to a cousin for her smaller child, she said ‘oh, no, you should hang on to that for her kids.’ Little five-year-old me piped up something along the lines of ‘I’m not going to have kids, and anyway we can’t keep everything or we’ll not be able to get in the door.’
This comment was written by Random.I’ve pretty much stopped getting asked, now, by people I know, but my mother gets it. ‘Got any grandchildren yet?’ She’s got so fed up with saying no and explaining to the ‘oh she’ll change’ people that she’s perfectly fine with me *not* sprogging and that she really doubts I will change my mind, that she’s started to tell them about the beautiful 2-year-old with her black hair and big brown eyes. She then pulls out a picture of my boyfriend’s rottie. It upsets them less than saying ‘well she might change her mind about jumping off tower bridge as well.’ Not by much, apparently.
Most of the people asking seem to think that working is something you do until you manage to breed and the state has to keep you. I encountered more than one young girl who thought having a kid would be *easier* than working on a supermarket checkout. I told her I was far too lazy to have a kid, five minutes after telling her about the week of 16 hour days I’d just done and she thought I was joking. 9 months later, she understood.
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May 4th, 2005 at 4:17 am
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”?
Eeeeugh! No, that is completely wrong. It is the opposite! Having children makes you much more unhappy about the state of the environment and the world, because we’re leaving it to them (and we all bear a minute amount of the responsibility for the world’s fucked-upness.)
But pseudo-Adrienne, you fall into a trap when you cite career and college as an argument for remaining childless. Note this isn’t an argument either way for having kids / not having them - but if you don’t have them in order to further your career or enable you to study, that is not a 21st century solution- that is the nineteenth century solution! Men don’t have to choose between having children (if they should want them) and having a career or getting a degree, and neither should women.
This comment was written by Helen.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 5:49 am
The sad think is that having a child doesn’t get you off the hook with the baby police. As soon as the baby is one people start asking you when you’re having a second. You can’t (gasp!) mean to have an only child! (Actually, yes, I do. My pregnancy was 9 months of nausea and fatigue and I don’t want to repeat it. The kid seems happy, I’m happy, my partner is happy, where’s the problem?)
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 8:06 am
You know, if this were really true, there wouldn’t be so many happy childless people out there. There wouldn’t have been so many happy childless people all through the ages, either.
I really don’t buy into the attempts to impose genetic/biological explanations on human behaviour (except for things like breathing, eating, sleeping etc.), because there is far, far too much variation in that behaviour to make them plausible.
Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, I have never not once heard my biological clock ticking or had an uncontrollable urge (or even controllable, really) to get myself impregnated. Never. If I had some sort of genetic coding driving me towards reproduction, wouldn’t I have had at least a few twinges? Like, lots of them instead of, well………none?
Nahhhh, I just do not buy it.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 8:48 am
Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive.
DNA is a molecule. It doesn’t have a ‘perspective.’ From the standpoint of evolution, your siblings share your genes, so if you’re helping your nieces and nephews it’s all good. In fact, it may be better.
And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
And then there are those of us who are happy to let you decide whether or not you wish to spawn, but would prefer that you were happy in your choice without sneering at everyone else’s. As Elena said, “Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them.”
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind” is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
By the way, why is everyone talking about getting into extended discussions about whether you will or won’t want kids? Anyone who tries to argue your choices is being an ass.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 9:48 am
Yes, but if someone’s harassed, daily, about having children, sooner or later they’ll have a long conversation about it.
Does the “selfish gene” argument remind anyone else of what Marx said about commodity fetishism? That is, talking about the decisions of actual people as if they were the decisions of non-sentient or abstract entities?
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Does anybody else feel suspicious whenever David Brooks and others talk about the dangers of falling fertility rates?
Elena: you bet your sweet ass I do! I’ve debated “Pro-lifers” who keep pointing this out and am perplexed by the implication that having more babies will, indeed, save this country. It was a faulty argument when it was used in Romania and it’s equally erroneous now.
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind”? is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
Mythago - I agree wholeheartedly. I (truly) had no interest in marriage and babies. It’s not that I didn’t like children, it was that I fully planned on being married to the lab and feared that I would not be a good parent. When I first started having thyroid problems as an adolescent, my doctor ruled out exposure to radiation because it could lead to significant fertility issues and he was sure that, since I was 13, I would change my mind about wanting to have children (he completely ignored my assertion that if I did change my mind about having children, I’d adopt - 25 years later I still don’t understand some people’s need to have a biological connection to hteir child). This being said, I was careful about my terminology even back then . . .it wasn’t never, it was I don’t expect/plan, I can’t imagine, I doubt I’ll change my mind, etc. When I got pregnant at 19 and was considering my options I came to the realization that I would be willing to re-consider parenthood if I was in a stable, loving relationship conducive to raising a child in a warm, nurturing environment. I’m still single, therefor still childless (unless psycho the wonder puppy & barfo the cat count as children). I don’t rule out single parenthood completely, I’d just limit it to adopting a child that doesn’t seem to have the option of what I’d consider a more ideal environment. Sadly, it’s taken my family ages to understand and respect that.
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 10:12 pm
Yes, but if someone’s harassed, daily, about having children, sooner or later they’ll have a long conversation about it.
Preferably with the idjits doing the harassing.
Brooks’s spew isn’t novel. Anyone else remember The Birth Dearth?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 7:21 am
I think another related issue to this one is the people who do NOT have children but feel they have the right to involve themselves in issues regarding children…that’s never discussed much…
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
For instance, I know many men and women who chose NOT to have children themselves, yet have non-stop opinions on laws and public policies that will affect the rest of us who have chosen to take the leap of faith and have children ourselves…
So that’s the flip side of this issue…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 8:00 am
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
You don’t need to be a parent to care about children. Even if you don’t have nieces and/or nephews, and even if your friends and neighbors don’t have children, and even if you don’t work in a field that affects children, you can still be concerned about them. In fact, parents may be too close to their children to really understand what’s good for them; it may take an objective outsider’s perspective to make sure they get what they need. (I don’t really believe that, but it’s the parallel argument.)
Besides, if we limited (valid) opinions only to experts, well, we might as well dismantle our society. Most people vote without knowing much, if anything, about their party’s platform and legislative history and what real impact their agendas will have on their lives.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 8:08 am
Also, we as a culture tend to criticize people who think, “Well, this issue doesn’t affect me, so I won’t bother getting involved in it.” Lots of things that affect children affect a society as a whole–early childhood education and health care for kids are the ones that have been getting the most attention lately. It’s actually irresponsible to dismiss these concerns just because you don’t have children.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 8:29 am
I understand what NYMOM was getting at, though I do have to agree with Hestia that we shouldn’t take the attitude that only those things that concern us personally should interest us.
I do think there are a lot of people who are childless by choice because they *dislike* children, and then feel they shouldn’t have to pay for public schools or other services that benefit children and parents. Or who are constantly criticising parents when they have no idea what caring for a child is like. That I find wrong.
But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children–and people who are parents–should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 10:00 am
“But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children”“and people who are parents”“should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way. ”
But then people can say the same thing about a women’s decision NOT to have children…It doesn’t affect them directly but it affects us ALL in some way. For instance, fewer people paying into the social security system for a pension (which they are now estimating might require 9 McJobbers paying taxes in the future for ONE decent pension)…
I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????
Fewer nurses, police, firemen, etc., are all repercussions of these private choices.
Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…
I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…
This is what leads to men having an unfair advantage since they speak for their own gender neutralized interest and then have many women, who have opted out of childbearing, speaking for their interest too…
Sorry, but THAT should NOT be allowed…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 10:40 am
NYMOM,
I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge. I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant, I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black, I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc. Apparently I will have to limit my concerns to those that directly involve short, post-menopausal Jewish women who live in Indiana.
Well, I think not. However, I would agree — if this is what you are getting at — that the opinions and ideas of those who are directly affected by an issue have more value and authenticity than those of individuals who are not.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 10:42 am
NYMOM: “I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????”
*****
most of the people i know who do not have children do not live in this life of luxury that you imagine. i don’t have children #1 because i don’t want them and #2 because i have a parent to support. it’s not ALL tropical vacations and convertible BMWs for those of us without children. i actually live paycheck to paycheck and supporting a child would throw us both out on the street.
NYMOM: “Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…”
******
i don’t know of ANY feminists who support laws that harm women and their children. in fact, i would think that’s the exact OPPOSITE of what feminists support.
NYMOM: “I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…”
*****
actually, i think EVERYONE has a stake in the ultimate outcome of children. i choose not to have children of my own but i still have a stake in how other children turnout because they will eventually be the adults running the show. therefore we ALL have a stake in making sure that other people’s children are taken care of, fed, housed, educated, nutured, respected, etc.
it’s not like all people who don’t have kids wish the worst for everyone elses. in fact, it seems to me that the majority of people making policies that negatively affect women and children are those people who DO have children and don’t feel like they should have to sacrifice their own children’s abundance to share with those less fortunate.
(just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too.)
xoxo, jared
This comment was written by ms. jared.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 11:16 am
“I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge.
I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant”
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
“I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black”
Again, you can care but surely you would agree with most African-Americans who want to be the final decision-makers on their own programs and communities…
“I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc.”
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 11:25 am
NYMOM wrote:
By this logic, I, a childless persyn, should not have to pay higher property taxes* everytime teachers need to buy pencils. As a matter of fact, all taxes should be individualized so I don’t have to pay taxes for any services I don’t use. Itemizing *everyone’s* taxes, that’ll fix the problem! /sarcasm
Nio
*In NH, where I live, school funding comes from property taxes. Towns such as Hollis, NH, where the cheapest house is $300,000 and property taxes are incredibly high, have fantastic school systems. Funding from this source creates a disparagy (sp?) in education. But, hey, I don’t need to worry about that, I don’t have kids! /sarcasm
This comment was written by Nio.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 11:28 am
“…just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too…”
Not at all…I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
Why should we live and be judged by women who have chosen to be childfree…Yet have no problem forcing other women to place our kids in all kinds of gender-neutralized custody arrangements, MANY of them approved and implemented by feminists and MRAs supporters…
As, you must admit, that feminists are the authors of our current gender netural custody laws and thus the ‘mothers’ of the fathers rights movement…
Chosing not to have children yourselves ,you should NOT be leaving other mothers to labor under the burden you’ve place on us by your ideas on children…
That’s all I’m saying, it works BOTH ways…
No, people should NOT be pressuring women who wish to be childfree to have children, that is wrong. But the flip side of that is you should forfeit your rights to force those of us who DO chose to be mothers to follow your gender neutralized ideas about motherhood…
However, I do NOT think you are cruel or heartless if you chose NOT to be a mother…it’s your decision and should be respected…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 11:43 am
NYMom, I don’t care if someone has children. I’ve followed this discussion mostly just to see how people assess this issue in their own lives. I’ve seen women change their minds, and I’ve seen women stay the course with decisions they made early in life not to be parents.
But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children.
I am a mother and I can’t sit here and say that I am the better parent or that I would deserve primary let alone sole custody of my daughters. Not all fathers can say this, but my husband more than stepped up to the plate to share equal parenting duty. How will men ever be encouraged to become stronger parents if they are legally presumed to be inferior?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 11:59 am
But women who choose not to have children–particularly the career women you keep referring to–sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them? If you as a mom decide to quit your job because it’s perfectly legal for your employer make your job unbearable, would you then lose the right to complain about the laws?
And this is just plain inaccurate. Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. Blaming feminists for them is like blaming NARAL for Operation Rescue. And no feminist has ever said that women should be treated as though their circumstances were in all respects equal to men’s. If that were true, EC and abortion wouldn’t be feminist issues, because feminists would be incapable of recognizing the unique impact of both on women’s lives. They wouldn’t even be able to recognize the problem of sexism overall, since the impact of misogyny is nothing if not disparate. Nor do any of the feminists here seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that parenting carries the same social meaning for women as for men.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any. Feminists support women’s choices regardless of whether they’re mothers or not. I think you’re speaking from a stereotype that simply isn’t true.
I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
I wholly disagree. You’re suggesting that even though I support public schools and parental leave and tax credits for dependents, you’d dismiss my opinion if my neighbor, who’s a mother, opposes all these things. You’re also implying that, for example, people who aren’t actually involved in politics (including you, I assume) shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Right?
I believe, on the other hand, that an individual’s personal life is basically a moot point (until you get to hypocrisy, but that’s something else). What matters is the argument itself and the issue in question. There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.
(For the record, I don’t have kids but I work in the field of early childhood education.)
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Never wanted children. Never regretted not having them. I’m glad other women want them and have them, but that’s their choice. That’s what fminism is about: choices that are right for the individual, and not imposed by outsiders.
however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch.
This comment was written by it.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
The U.S. in general has a nosey culture. I guess the Europeans are right when they say we are square! In one corner, we have the people who think they are the center of the universe and therefore everything they think and do needs to be broadcast to the masses. In Corner #2, we have the people who think they are entitled to know everything about anyone they decide to be interested in. In Corner #3, we have the people who fiercely protect their privacy. And in Corner #4, we have the people who try to keep from knowing too much about those around them. At one time or another, most people live in each of these corners. The conflicts arise when people from opposite corners try to interact.
I tend to live in corner #4 most of the time, with visits to #3 as necessary. Maybe I’m sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t really want to know what The Runaway Bride has to say, or what form of sexual gratification my neighbor prefers. So even though I’m occasionally curious about when or if I’ll be an aunt, I wouldn’t dream of asking my siblings or their partners about their baby status is. This decision should be theirs alone, and so what if they keep it to themselves.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter to people living in corners #1 and #2 what life stage you’re in - they have an opinion they want to “share” with you (which of course means you have to agree with them, which gives them positive strokes and a pleasant feeling of superiority because they’ve enlightened you). If you’re a teenager, you have to know what you want to do when you grow up. When you’re in your twenties, you have to settle down with someone. If you haven’t had kids by the time you’re in your thirties, then you hear all about how you have to have babies. (One thing I find sad and amusing at the same time is how some parents are so desperate for grandchildren that they don’t actually seem to care how many parents the poor things will have.) If you actually do get pregnant, then you hear about childbirth; once the baby actually appears on the scene, then you hear about how it should be brought up. And so on.
I agree that women should be able to build a career independent of her childbearing choices. I also think that men should be able to fold family obligations in their worklives. It’s just as condescending and discriminatory to tell a woman she has to cut back at work or quit her job when she has kids as it is to tell a man he can’t take time off from work to take care of his children. I also think it’s discriminatory to expect someone to work overtime or handle the high-maintenance projects at work just because they have no children. People should be able to do their jobs independently of their home lives but also with consideration for whatever their home lives happen to be. And it shouldn’t be anybody’s business what your choices are, unless you’ve filled out your tax forms wrong, of course. :)
On the public policy level, obviously what we decide impacts society as a whole. If I decide to reproduce and am successful, I have added another human being to the pool, for good or for ill. If I don’t have children, then that affects the future of the pool as well. Ms. Jared is right that we all have a stake in what happens to the children. But children aren’t sacred objects - they are human beings. We shouldn’t idolize babies and children to the point where the whole culture is obsessed with making life perfect for them; that’s impossible. And being a parent shouldn’t entitle us to High Priest(ess) status, either. We should just do our best to make the world a better place for everyone, and the rest will follow.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
“But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children. ”
No…if you look back on early feminists writing, you’ll see that gender neutral treatment of men and women vis-a-vis children has been around long before our legal system began treating mothers and fathers exactly the same…and feminists were the first ones to push the idea…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
“But women who choose not to have children”“particularly the career women you keep referring to”“sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them?”
Well we were discussing women who has decided not to have children more or less permanently as I understood the discussion…not ones who had delayed to get laws changed…
“Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. ”
No…fathers rights advocates are strong supporters of gender neutral custody as are feminists. The Fathers right movement is NOT part of the anti-feminist backlash (not on the surface anyway) but the logical conclusion to feminists pushing for gender neutral treatment of mothers and fathers…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
NYMOM,
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Of course, I have no right to say anything about other people’s decisions about their kids or their pregnancies but that’s true whether or not I have kids or can get pregnant. But no, I don’t see that being able to get pregnant makes anyone the final authority on abortion rights — she is only the final authority on whether she has an abortion or not. And no, I don’t being a parent makes you the final authority on education; I think it makes you the final authority on the education of your children.
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ]
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
“I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any.”
No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…
Feminists must accept responsible for this, on every level, even giving intellectual support to the fathers’ rights movement as well as actual support through female judges, attorney and other public policy makers who have assisted men in this area…
As I said earlier, feminists are the mothers of the fathers’ rights movement….they spawned it by their rhetoric…it’s not a backlash at all but a logical outgrowth of feminist rhetoric…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
“…however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch…”
Yes, bonding with teenagers as infants makes raising them later, tolerable…I can’t imagine interacting with a surly teenager without the early memories of mellow babyhood to tide you over…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:29 pm
“Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ] ”
No…I thought the point of the thread was women who chose to remain childless being annoyed that others felt they had the right to comment on their decision…and I agreed with them, no one had the right to make a comment on another women’s decision to remain childless…
I was just curiously as to why so many professional women, who chose NOT to have children think it’s okay to be so intimately involved with the lives of mothers and their children…making public policies, laws, etc., writing columns, etc., when they chose to NOT take the leap of faith to have children themselves…
It works both ways was my point…
Also with fathers…one of the most popular fathers rights advocates has no children himself (Angry Harry) yet he’s constantly telling other men who are fathers about how they should live their lives…
I kind of think it’s the sort of thing you need to experience first before giving advice to others on this aspect of life.
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
“There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.”
I missed this…
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
Sorry…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
“No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…”
NYMOM: Divorce causes parents to be separated from their children. You give no chronology for your statistics, you give no source (other than unspecified US Census data) but even if it is true, I am trying to understand why I or anyone should accept your apparent presumption that the mother child bond is more important than the father child bond. Early feminists did agree that gender neutral custody arrangements were appropriate, however, more than one state law imposing a presumption in favor of the mother was overturned by state courts on their own in keeping with the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. And if a child free woman is a teacher (like my sister) can she still have a say in policies affecting children? What about aunts and and other assorted friends and relatives?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
“And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. ”
That many of the women making these decisions like Judge Arlene Goldberg (of Bridget Marks’ fame) for instance, are feminists who never married or had any children…probably Goldberg’s best friend is her cat. Thus I feel women like this should have NO right to participate in decisions that impact mothers or their children…
I don’t consider it just a ‘legalism’ as you appear to paint it when this happens…but a sundering of the most important bond any child has or probably will ever have, the mother/child one…
Feminist support of gender neutral custody under this ‘equal protection’ clause is wholly responsible for these developments in western civilization….Even the language of ‘equal protection’ serves as a smoke screen really to obscure what is really happening….That many feminist women, who have nothing at stake as they have chosen NOT to have children themselves, persist in making and enforcing public policy that supports a vast gender-neutral social-engineering experiement, which has been foisted off on mothers and their children.
So my initial point is that if you haven’t invested anything in motherhood, you should NOT be allowed to impose any of the rules on others women who have… you have no rights in this area…I don’t care how many degrees you have been awarded…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children
You keep saying this, but provide absolutely no evidence that it’s true. Since everything I’ve heard is to the contrary, I can’t believe this unless you give some real, contemporary (versus “early feminism”) examples.
You don’t seem to understand that feminism isn’t about supporting all women all the time, regardless of the situation. If that’s what you think it is, then of any time a woman opposes another women you’re going to blame feminists. That’s unfair and plain wrong.
I don’t buy the “MRA derived from feminism” argument. Just because it was created in response to feminism does not mean that feminism is to blame for MRA’s actions. Are you responsible for every decision your (adult) children make?
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
Despite what you think, I did not take a low-paying job in the non-profit sector to further my “career.” I actually want to help people. Why are you trying to alienate someone who’s on your side?
You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
Hmmm, an interesting possibility just occurred to me: why is it that NYMOM thinks child free women have no right to make decisions that affect mothers but hasn’t said anything about men, child free or otherwise making such decisions? Most judges were and still are men. Were literally none of them involved in this miscarriage of justice and wholesale evisceration of the sacred mother child bond? (And where is that explanation of why the mother child bond is so much more important than the father child bond?) No, it’s the fault of a female judges (only one of whom is named) — who not only didn’t have children, but apparently had no concept of the most important social relationship in the history of mankind (what an irony that is): the mother child bond — what, did they have no mothers either?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
“You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers. ”
You’re right and many of my neighbors DO make this argument and I have no rebuttal…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…and just because I decided to ignore them and have children anyway doesn’t make their entire argument invalid…
OR mine…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
“…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…”
I mean to say many of them feel NO ONE in western society should have children…
Typo…
This comment was written by NYMOM.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
NYMOM, you should be grateful to all of those pioneering feminists (male and female) who gave you any rights at all with respect to your children. The mother child bond has not been sacred throughout history, in fact, it barely gained a nod of acknowledgement through the course of time.
From that bastion of radical female judges, the Alabama Supreme Court (most citations are omitted.)
At common law, it was the father rather than the mother who held a virtual absolute right to the custody of their minor children. n1 This rule of law was fostered, in part, by feudalistic notions concerning the “natural” responsibilities of the husband at common law. The husband was considered the head or master of his family, and, as such, responsible for the care, maintenance, education and religious training of his children. By virtue of these responsibilities, the husband was given a corresponding entitlement to the benefits of his children, [**7] i.e., their services and association. It is interesting to note that in many instances these rights and privileges were considered dependent upon the recognized laws of nature and in accordance with the presumption that the father could best provide for the necessities of his children
* * *
By contrast, the wife was without any rights to the care and custody of her minor children. By marriage, husband and wife became one person with the legal identity of the woman being totally merged with that of her husband. As a result, her rights were often subordinated to those of her husband and she was laden with numerous marital disabilities. As far as any custodial rights were concerned, Blackstone stated [*689] the law to be that the mother was “entitled to no power [over her children], but only to reverence and respect.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 453 (Tucker ed. 1803).
By the middle of the 19th century, the courts of England began to question and qualify the paternal preference rule. This was due, in part, to the “hardships, not to say cruelty, inflicted upon unoffending mothers by a state of law which took little account of the