Childfree? But How Can You NOT Want Kids?
23 01 2007You are childfree, and perfectly happy with your choice not to procreate, even though others seem to have a problem with it. But here’s a situation that one of my readers experienced and raised as one for discussion. I’ve experienced similar and would guess that many childfree people come up against it too.
You are in conversation with a friend during which you mention that you and your partner are in no way interested in having kids. Sometimes, if you’re feeling expansive, you may elaborate on the reasons why – which don’t really matter in the long run, you feel, because “We don’t want kids. End of story. Get over it”.
To your consternation, your friend (or friends) seem not only disbelieving, but almost distraught. Because they just cannot believe you really don’t want kids. Why? WHY? they ask, becoming more and more persistent and upset. You are in a stable relationship, you’re educated, positive contributors to society, well adjusted and doing well job-wise.Well-off too. In other words, to them, you’re perfect parent material.
Your friend, being a person who clearly wants kids themselves, and is perfectly poised (in their mind) to produce the world’s next saviour, cannot believe that with all these wonderful “credentials” you would not want to produce equally gifted progeny. As far as they are concerned you might as well be committing high treason, and they set about trying to convince you that you would have “such great kids” and you shouldn’t “waste it”.
What it is about parents and parents-in-waiting that they all seem to think they are going to produce the next Madonna (not the skanky one who nicked the name) or the next Messiah? Or at least a perfect child who’s going to grow up to be a wonderfully productive and well adjusted member of society? And that you would do the same? And that, with you not wanting to have kids,(worse - you’re childfree) you are somehow cheating the world of a very important person and yourself of the experience of raising this prodigy?
Given the number of dysfunctional,maladjusted and basically fucked up kids that abound (whose parents probably also had grand and equally fucked up designs for them) why do parents and parents-in-waiting not consider that, despite your best efforts, your child might become, let’s see now… a junkie? Or an arsonist? Or pregnant at 13? Or a father at 16? Or a reason to regret ever having kids? Or, and let’s be generous here – a simply less than productive member of society and a rude and ungrateful brat?
And not only are they certain that they will produce amazing, all-achieving, bright offspring (and better than anyone else’s of course), they are certain that you too will produce amazing kids, hence can you possibly not want them?
it’s blindingly obvious to me and to (several readers because it’s been said before) that there are no guarantees when you decide to produce kids. It’s equally obvious to me that the childed need to get their blinkers off instead of wasting time trying to convince childfree people to have the next saviour of the world.
Over to you.
Bravo, Britgirl! Well written. I do feel that some of this “baby=hope of the world” nonsense is perpetuated through the media as well. How often have you seen a movie/tv show/commercial showing someone’s life in shambles or in a dire situation, but then…..a baby is born! And all the world rejoices!
And somehow, everyone gets over whatever issues they had because *gasp* a new hope for the world has come forth! (case in point the new Clive Owen flick “Children of Men”).
I suppose I find this whole issue odd, because I would never do the same to anyone else. I have two adopted cats, and absolutely adore animals, but I would never assume everyone else desires to have pets or even like animals. I couldn’t see myself saying to a well-off friend, who looks like they have the perfect situation “Gee, don’t you think you need a pet to make your life complete? But, you have the perfect home for one!!” Especially if they have made it perfectly clear they have no intentions of giving an animal a home.
So why does this apply to babies? I guess that biological urge just overides most people’s sense of tact and sensibility.
Exactly. The attitude parents and wanna-be parents have concerning this issue is nothing but narcissism and ego-tripping on their part.
i know one of the reasons i will not have kids, is knowing my natural instincts, it would end up as a serial killer.
i get asked this as well and i am male, i say to them, ok, so you know my life do you, you know how i live 24/7, i have lived with me for 33 years, and i KNOW for a fact i would be A horrible father. but usually when i have said this people leave me alone. of course it helps i a 6 foot tall and 23 stone.. and look evil ;-)..
Supposedly, Hitler’s mother was set to have an abortion when she was pregnant with him. And, according to Freakonomics, the decrease in violent crime perpetrated by teenagers can be traced to the legalization of abortion.
I agree that not all children can, inevitably, grow up to be a firefighter/policeman/teacher/doctor/lawyer/president/whatever else. People who want kids should have them. They shouldn’t try to push that on other people.
Here’s my weird brush with an infertile woman. I spoke to a woman who at age 42 was distraught because she and her husband had not been able to conceive after two years of trying. She was a sister of a friend of mine, who was visiting and we were at a dinner party for 6 last Monday night.
After the party the men ended up in the rumpus room and the women volunteered to clean up. It would be an early night because we all had to work the next morning.
L commenced by saying how much she loved children and how broken hearted they were that she had yet to become pregnant. She said was told by her doctor at age 35 she was perimenopausal. Although she had reached the time in her life when menstrual periods become irregular, she had held off until what she felt was the “right time” at 40 to give her old eggs and her husband’s old sperm a go at it and she didn’t “catch”.
My friend was strangley quiet which left me talking to her sister. I listened to this woman who had to had have a career, and had to get her Master’s after that, and had to have a house, and had to a brand new car first (Honda Accord) rant and rail about the unfairness of it all. I listened to how it was going to cost them a fortune to go to the States and take fertility treatments there to try and conceive and finally I’d had enough.
I said: “Gosh, I understand there are many children in the custody of the province who are adoptable. I can’t imagine why you would waste money trying to buy a child in the States when you could adopt two right here and put all that money aside for their education. ”
She turned red as a beet and said: “But they wouldn’t be ours. It wouldn’t be the same. I would miss out on the experience of carrying a baby inside me.”
I came back with: “Bu won’t you be risking having a Down’s syndrome child or even a multiple birth?”
“Oh no,” she responded. “If it’s not perfect we can abort it and I wouldn’t have to carry more than two. They can reduce the number, you know.”
“Hmmmm…” said I.
My friend suddenly dropped some saucepans and made a clatter and I escaped down the stairs to the rumpus room. Within about 15 minutes I indicated to my husband I wanted to leave.
While driving home I told him the story and he said: “Do you mean the sister-in-law?” I responded affirmatively and he shook his head and said words to this effect: she’s really fucked up their marriage with this obsession. He’s not going to the States to enter a breeding program. He told her that doesn’t want a kid and he doesn’t want her either. She didn’t believe him and said it was just stress. He wanted her to be with her sister when he told her he’s for sure he’s filing for divorce. He’s got a lawyer’s appointment Thursday morning and figures she’ll freak right out.”
Wow. That’s when I realized what the saucepans hitting the floor was about. My friend and her husband already knew what was going to happen.
Well, it did happen on Wednesday night and my friend now has a tranquilized sister in her guest room sobbing her heart out.
I have never understood why others don’t understand when someone says they don’t want kids. It’s perfectly reasonable to me. Then again, I was lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time with brilliant older women with full lives who did not have children - and I know that not everyone has this opportunity. My students, for example, who rush to the altar upon graduation because they feel they must. (They often get divorced a few years later.)
I have one child, and I think I went into this with both eyes open, but it’s hard. I don’t regret at all that I had him, but I also think that I could easily have had a perfectly happy and full life without children. Either option is a good one (I don’t mean everyone would be happy in either case, just that having a child and not having a child are both valid, both good).
Having said that, I will also say that lately I feel incredibly guilty for only having one. This is how susceptible I am to society, I guess. Where I live, it’s very unusual to have just one child. I can only think of a couple of other children Bean’s age who don’t have siblings.
I suspect that one of the reasons that many people react so strongly against those who don’t want children is because they never felt like they had a choice. Seriously. I think there are probably a lot of angry parents out there, parents who may love their children very very much but feel in some deep, secret place that they would have preferred not to have any. And how dare anyone else get to have that option?
@plainsfeminist - welcome, and thank you for your insightful comment. I was very interested to read of how guilty you feel for having only one child and how much that’s influenced by where you live. It brings home the fact that society not only pressures women into having a child, but then puts additional pressure on women to have more than one. I think it must be very hard to withstand that kind of pressure. But I know it exists, and I think it’s a pity since where is the evidence to say your son needs siblings? I hope your choice will be what you feel is right for you rather than from guilt.
To your point about the often hostile reactions to childfree people by people with children, I think you’re right, and that they would never admit it. The interesting thing is most childfree people have sussed that this is at the root of a lot of the criticism we get for our choice. Unfortunately the resentfulness only helps to widen the chasm between parents and non-parents, as parents continue to criticise the childfree and the childfree continue to exercise and defend their choice.
@TT - Wow. I guess she missed, sorry, ignored, every single warning sign in her pursuit of a child. What a price to pay.
@Carisa - thanks
I totally agree this myth is perpetuated in the popular media - A baby appears and miraculously all is well with the world. Which plainly isn’t the case. I can only surmise that people want to buy that nonsense. As you say, I think the urge to re-produce makes some switch off both logic and common sense. If they want to believe that, fine by me. As Joy says, they just shouldn’t be trying to convince everyone else to do the same.