That was a great article and I'm glad someone else read it and appreciated it. I'll check this out :) I may end up childfree in the long run. The list of "why not to have kids" keeps getting longer and the list of "why to" well...just...doesn't. At first this may seem like that Marilyn Monroe quote that people love to hate on. However, this really resonates with me. My tore-my-life-apart-former-lover, whose wife is now pregnant, told me once that he "admired and respected" me because when confronted with the idea of raising a child I often begin by raising what I feel to be my own limitations. Selfishness is one of them. What he found admirable and respectable about this was the fact that I knew myself well enough to know that both parts of my personality and the ways I want(ed) to live my life were not going to be easily compatible with children. I have no problem with being 'selfish' when it means 'not raising a child who I will grow to resent, and who in turn will be damaged by that.' I have no problem with choosing not to have a child if it's because I don't think a child would succeed in the environment I'd be bringing it into. That applies to the tangible, like financial situation, but for me it also applies to fit parenting. I am sometimes viciously independent. I generally love it. Knowing how much I love and value my 'freedom' (and resent those who would curtail it) it is hard to think that a child would not engender some resentment, at least currently. I am open to the idea of kids given certain conditions. I accept that as time passes I will change and what I want will change. I am willing to encounter tomorrow's desires square in the face tomorrow and attempt to achieve them - then. If and when they appear. I am rambling. It is not a bad thing to know that you are selfish. It is not a bad thing to know that parenthood may present a conflict of interests for someone. It is not a bad thing to choose not to take what can be the very real risk of having a child and, because of your own inclinations, causing immense harm. I won't have a child until I'm 100% sure I want it and can raise it well, and for me that well goes beyond finances and "the right schools." Edit 2: For the record and/or interestingly, I really, really thought all I wanted was to get married, have kids, and be a SAHM/second fiddle to the breadwinner when I was in my teens. I pretty much wanted to be a Stepford wife and knew it. I'm glad I don't want that anymore. I'm glad that didn't happen. I suppose this is my "change of heart" answer to tng's question from last week. Didn't really think about it til now.8. "I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children." —Katharine Hepburn, Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg, published in July 2003
Definitely agree with you on the Hepburn quote. I have a lot of friends who want nothing more than to surround themselves with children; lots of them went into education and can't wait to have their own kids. All my life when I envisioned my perfect future, kids were never in the picture. It was always just me, sometimes a power spouse, and a huge office, sometimes of the Oval variety. I've always been the kind of person to maximize all of my options at all times and having kids is a serious limitation to that. I also don't even remotely feel maternal instincts?? I worked as a religious school teacher and a camp counselor (cuz those both paid somewhat better than min wage) and I just felt nothing protective towards the kids I taught. One of them slammed a finger in the door frame and came to me wailing and I just put a bandaid on her finger and told her to go play... :/ I feel a lot of affection and maternal instinct towards teens and women my own age though. I just don't get children (although they love me and I think that's probably because I treat them like little adults and not like idiot puppies).
I have to be honest, what I never imagined was what kind of wedding I'd have. When I was briefly engaged I tried and even then it was like meh. I babysat a SHIT ton in high school. It actually impresses me now that I think of it. Nowadays kids are mostly uninteresting, annoying (when crying, etc) or momentarily cute - when they're someone else's problem, basically. I don't mind spending time with kids, I guess, and I'd babysit again if I got paid for it, but that's kind of where the line draws. I'm fine with kids so long as they go back home to someone else at the end of the day. AND so long as they're in the appropriate social setting. On a midnight train back from Boston (8 hours) a family brought a baby who cried all night (midnight - 8 AM) and round about 5 or 6 I was no longer interested in politely refraining from calling little kids spawn and other similarly choice nouns. I kept the comments between me and my similarly-awake friend but I was more than cross.
There's really no point in rationalizing an irrational choice. I think in this case, we all have to let our emotions, beliefs, feelings, etc, decide for us. Not everything in life has to do with logic, and we're all the better for that.The list of "why not to have kids" keeps getting longer and the list of "why to" well...just...doesn't.
If I don't feel an emotional pull to have kids, then the next best justification for or against is logic. I'm sure if I felt an overwhelming emotional need to have kids I wouldn't consider these things or I'd figure "That's okay, we can overcome them" or "It's worth it." The fact of the matter is that I don't emotionally, right now, want to have kids. As a result, my reasons to have kids or not are decided by things other than emotion. Edit: I also think that you can probably tell that from my post. If I did emotionally want to have kids I think you'd see a lot more conflict in my statements, like "Oh I wish but I just don't feel..." and so on. I'm pretty unilateral about it, tbh. At minimum before I'd think about having kids I want a partner who will be there to help raise them - because I want someone who will mitigate my weak childrearing spots, and vice versa. I want someone I can trust to help me raise great kids. I want someone whose strengths compliment my flaws and who makes me feel like kids are a real viable option instead of just a thought. I don't think that's unreasonable to have as a minimum requirement before considering childrearing and raising.
I guess my point was basically that it's a personal choice, and you, I, or anyone else don't need to justify to the world our decision to have or not have children. Having to say, "I don't want to have kids, because such-and-such," essentially is a defensive position. No need to play defense, because you're legitimizing the default position, which is that we should all procreate. Nobody's muthafukn bizz.
That makes more sense. Maybe I misread your comment & if I did, my bad. I actually appreciate this thread giving me a voice to express how I feel. I typed up a big long thing and deleted it, but basically, I can trust most people and certainly my family to not want to listen to what I have to say, and also probably not to understand it. It's nice sometimes to put some of it out there. Like "these are my thoughts and I don't expect them to be your thoughts but I have them and I am sharing them." Of course I don't want to argue with people about why I'm not inclined towards having children, and putting my opinions out there can open that door. But it can also, perhaps, make me feel as if other people understand where I am coming from and why I feel the way I do. I don't want to pass my problems on to a kid. They are significant enough that I cannot imagine how I would avoid doing so. This is compounded by the idea that all parents parent as a reaction to how they were parented (whether good or bad). My parents overcompensated for some stuff. It backfired. It's a double ding: a) My personal conflicts would influence my parenting, whether I tried (effectively or not) to suppress them and b) my experience of being parented, which would inescapably impact my parenting model, did not teach me effective parenting, but instead how to pass on my issues. For the record, like, global warming's on the list, too, man. It ain't all heavy shit. I don't keep the list to show it off to others, but more a mental file: things that give me pause. But I do agree I was coming off defensively - but I'd frame it at least partially as "in defense of selfishness." I think many people see selfishness as unilaterally bad. I feel that selfishness, some amount of it, is required for self preservation. It is okay to be selfish. Sometimes, I think it can be for the better.
No problemo bb. Complicated subject, many thoughts and feels, and appreciate the validation. It just felt like you were telling me I didn't have to explain (which you were) and I was like "Oh but, I think part of this is that I want to!" IRL if I tell a casual friend or family member I don't want to have kids because I think I'd be a shit mom everyone is just like "OH NO YOU WOULDN'T" and then they coo about it, and I'm like "Dude, you guys really do not know who I am, and you're saying that because you think that everyone wants to be a mother and a good one at that." It's similar to my mother telling me I just need to raise my dating standards while I sit and think, "maybe I really am not looking to find anyone to settle down with; aka I make the dating choices I do because I am not interested in anything permanent."