The Interests of a Childfree Brit Living in Toronto

Childfree people can feel some vindication. Whenever we dare to mention that having kids doesn’t necessarily make you happy, we’re usually met with the response that we can’t actually know happiness until we’ve given birth to kids, preferably a few.  It’s interesting that two people sent me this link (thank you both) so it made my decision to blog it quite easy.

As childfree men and women we could, for example, have told Lucy Cavendish that children don’t make you happy. And that happiness comes from within you, rather than some external source. But being childfree we’d have been told we can’t possibly know what we’re talking about. Of course children make you happy. Don’t they?

I love my kids but I admit I am happier on my own

Reading the article, Lucy Cavendish discovers a lot of things make her happy… and all of them make her happy because they don’t involve her kids. As she says:

“I like these things precisely because they don’t feature my children. So I am not at all surprised that a new book – Bluebird: Women And The New Psychology of Happiness by American writer Ariel Gore – has revealed precisely this fact about most mothers. When she asked most mothers what made them happy, their autopilot response was: ‘My children.’ “

Come to think of it, we could have told Ariel Gore that as well. To me, there is nothing surprising there…  or am I alone in thinking this?

Women are pressured into having children. Many don’t bother thinking about the implications of that, including the fact that for the most part they WILL be tied, for several years, to the task of raising them and a lot of it will be a total drudge. There will be no time for them to stop and smell the flowers and no time to visit the little coffee shop and read a book. However everyone gets pressure and not everyone gives into societal pressure to have kids. If you’re childfree you’ve probably withstood the pressure – only to be criticised by several of the same women who have kids, know they’ve probably been sold a bill of goods as to how wonderful parenting is and seem to want above all else to get you to join them in having kids.

It’s interesting to read the article… and  the comments.

One commentator says that Lucy must not really love her kids because she embraced the freedom from them (albeit for a short while) a little too quickly. I can’t quite see the leap myself. That comment does show that even when a taboo subject is mentioned and people largely agree there are still some who will deduce something entirely different.  I think you can still love your kids but want a break for them. I also think if a parent didn’t love their kids they would rarely admit it. The shunning would be too great to come out with that.

Young women are told that they are incomplete if they don’t have kids. I have never bought into that particular lie. So I have little sympathy for women who do buy into it, try and convince everyone else of it and then feel guilty to find it isn’t true.

What do you think?

I love my kids but I admit I am happier on my own

Thanks to the readers who sent me the link!

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