So You Don’t Have Kids? Be Grateful.
4 12 2007My post was going to be about something entirely different. But spending time with a couple of friends I really admire and like made me change my mind and not for the first time be grateful that I’m childfree. Both are my friends, and both have kids. Both are great parents. And they always give me an eye opener about the trials and tribulations of having and bringing up kids. I laughingly, but seriously, tell them I don’t need kids – and I am definitely not having them.
And if I want a reminder as to why, all I have to do is listen to their stories and I, not for the first time, that I am glad I don’t have kids.
There are some childed people who say, “well you couldn’t possibly understand – you don’t have kids.” False. True. In that order. Here are some things I do understand:
That when you have kids, even with the best intentions, you will have little or no time for yourselves as a couple. Even if you want to. Everything and every minute is for the children.
And though it can be fun, it’s also very tough.
That you can be the best parent in the world, and try your very best, but your kids can still get into trouble. Big trouble. It can simply be because they fall in with the wrong crowd. The problem is, the “wrong crowd” happen to be your kid’s peers. No amount of telling them is going to do a blind bit of good.
Of course, you still have to be there to pick up the pieces. You have no choice.
That you can’t watch your kids every single minute or know what they are up to. So when they are “suddenly” arrested for a misdemeanour, it just might be a shock to you. Yep, you really might have had no idea. By then it’s too late, as your nightmare is just beginning – and by the way, you aren’t going to wake up from it any time soon. Mean while, life must go on, even if your child has practically ruined their lives.
That one day it’s entirely possible that your spouse ups and leaves you holding the baby – or at least two small children – for no other reason than they feel like it. Suddenly you’re single, but the job you thought was shared all this time, because your spouse and you wanted kids is all yours. Forget about yourself. You’ve got to hold it together for the kids. They’re not even three years old.
These are some of the realities. I have heard much worse.
No one said to me “oh but it’s worth it.” Respect. No one was complaining either, lest I give that impression. No one said to me “Oh, you should have kids, you’re not fulfilled without them”. Some one did say nothing would convince them to have another one.
You know why you are childfree. When some ignoramus tells you you should have kids, or you’ll change your mind or you need kids to feel fulfilled, or it’s wonderful, or it’s so wonderful think of some way to tell them to politely f*ck off. Really. Because they are more than likely lying to you big time. Giving you mostly a load of bullshit.
I know why I’m childfree. You know why you’re childfree. It’s nobody’s business. I’m grateful that I am, as I’m grateful for many things in my life. I wake up each day in charge of my day and of my life and happy that I could make a choice.
I know that I’m also grateful for my friends who are super parents, hardworking parents and honest people – and whom I can ask about how their kids are doing without being barraged with admonitions to reproduce; who tell it like it is.
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I really like this entry. It reminds me of my everyday existence. Most of the time I don’t give my ChildFree status any thought, because I’m just too busy enjoying my life.
After 10 years of telling people I don’t want to have children, I still get into minor altercations with strangers and acquaintances, and sometimes even people who should know better. However, most of my friends and family have come to realise that I’m not judging them for wanting to have children.
They are mostly very honest about what they like and dislike about parenting, and I can tell that, for them, the good stuff still outweighs the bad. Some of them might even be starting to come to terms with the fact that I view the good/bad stuff differently to them. (Most of what they list as the good stuff about being a parent I would include under the list of bad stuff, or perhaps with a list titled ‘Good for a maximum of 2 hours’.)
Even though I don’t understand it and will never personally feel the same way about parenting, I feel happy for them that they are doing what they (mostly) enjoy.
I am grateful that I have my ChildFree life though, and I know that my childed friends are sometimes a little bit jealous.
Hi Britgirl,
I really liked this post. One thing I might quibble with, if only because my parents provided such an opposite example. You wrote:
That when you have kids, even with the best intentions, you will have little or no time for yourselves as a couple. Even if you want to. Everything and every minute is for the children.
I think this is only true if parents or couples refuse to carve out their own time. My parents absolutely refused to have the three of us ever interfere with their Friday night date. They went out to a church social dance each and every Friday night, and my parents always had lots of friends over for dinners and parties, or went out to do the same. We were watched by others (grandma, aunts, uncles, older friends) in exchange for the reciprocity of favours, and I even remember my parents leaving us for 3 weeks in the middle of winter when I was 9, my sister 7, and my brother 11 so they could catch some sun in Haiti. We stayed with family friends, and didn’t find anything strange in that since their son went to school with us. This was the norm we grew up with, and what I aspired to when I didn’t know I’d end up unable to conceive.
It may well be a challenge to buck the norm, but there’s no reason everything has to be about the children. I’d even suggest it would be a far better world out there if everything was not about them. We learned to get along without them, and turned out quite independent and rather normal.
Decided - thanks :). I think that parents who are 1) honest and 2) completely respectful of childfree choices and non-judgemental are really like gold dust, there are very few of them in my opinion. I enjoy listening to my friends who are parents because they never bring their kids up first, only if and when I ask about them, but I think the key is that they are my friends first and parents second and that’s why it works.
I’m not interested people that go on and on about their kids, nor people who complain, nor parents that see themselves as exalted beings pitying poor little kidless me. Like you, I’ll never feel the same way about parenting. It just made me doubly grateful for my childfree life ;). There’s no price you can put on freedom.
Anne- Marie - maybe so, I can see your point there especially when you’ve experienced it something different. And believe me my view (and my advice to my friend) was that they needed to take some time to be together as a couple.
Response “they can’t see that happening for quite a while.” They told us why. But they do want to. And even though I may feel they should get away (in fact they need to) and be by themselves for a bit, I can see it isn’t quite as straightforward as that. Especially when you have a 1 year old and a 3 year old, work full time to name just a couple of responsibilities. I don’t think it’s a case of refusing, or at least they don’t see it that way, and neither did I.
Perhaps time out will be a possibility later, when the children are older for example - but for now it’s very much on the back burner for these fairly young parents. It’s about the children. And it’s precisely one of the reasons I decided against having kids… I knew that no matter how much I wanted to have time when I wanted to, it would be very hard to achieve the same level of non-kid togetherness if children were there. It was something I did not and do not want to trade.
It appears that the happier parents realize that they have to have their time away from the kids. The ones who base their lives on and around their kids seem to be disappointed a majority of the time, especially if the kids turn out horrible.
I have developed more sympathy over time for divorced, single female parents. Many are in that situation through no fault of their own. My mother was one, and my late dad did nothing to ease her load of three kids after he divorced her. Ma had limited time and limited income, and she still resents that to this day. I just don’t get why any woman would want to be a single parent by choice. It is her choice, if she chooses to do that, but based on what I observed of my mother’s tribulations, single parenting is not any kind of fun.
Being childfree, especially in terms of mental and emotional benefits, is just a better choice for me personally. I can’t make it my problem that other people can’t or won’t understand that.
“Being childfree, especially in terms of mental and emotional benefits, is just a better choice for me personally. I can’t make it my problem that other people can’t or won’t understand that.”
Hillari - very true! Because it really isn’t our problem, it’s theirs.
My wife and I never wanted children. We simply had no interest in them, and were smart enough to realize we didn’t have to have them just because everybody else does. Her three sisters all had babies, and babies, and babies, and at family gatherings there were always the questions and teasing about when we were going to “start a family”, along with the guilt-laying about how “lucky” we were not to have children, as though they had not had the same choice we had.
Their kids are all in their late teens or early adulthood now, and the way they have turned out only reinforces my conviction that my wife and I made the right decision. Some of them have grown into rude little tarts who leach off of their parents and apparently have no intention of ever amounting to anything other than losers. One is an academic achiever, yet is as much of a nasty twit as the others. One thing they all have in common is that they were raised in families where it was “all about the children”.
I do see children once in a while who I think are nice little human beings–intelligent, well-behaved, mature for their age, and pleasant to know. But they are few and far-between.
When I went to college I was forced to waste some time in a stupid socialogical life-experience course in order to graduate (a preposterous requirement, since at the time I was 38 years old, had been married for 12 years, and had been working full time since I was 14). One of the discussions was about the decision to have or not to have children. The class was nearly unanimous that not having children is “selfish”. I was the only person who would speak out in favor of being child-free, and I asked some of the others to list good reasons for having children. They came up with gems like “because I love babies”, “so you’ll have someone to take care of you when you’re old”, and “because children make you happy”. When I pointed out that these are all rather selfish reasons, I was pounced upon with great verbal anger.
So, being child-free means frequently having to deal with morons, but it’s worth it.
The latest social research shows that people who have children are significantly less happy than their childless peers that most childless people never regret not having any children. Parents report feeling that they feel as if their child gives their life purpose and meaning, but at the cost of happiness. Additionally, UN statistics show that if people continue to keep having children at the same high rates, that our planet will not be able to sustain itself after 2050.
I frankly get kinda pissed when I see people having more kids. The diapers go to landfills. The old toys (usually plastic that breaks down and ends up in the ocean) go to landfills. The kids grow up to be teenagers and want cars, electronics, etc. all of which poison our air and water. Society makes the kids want to be massive consumers, otheriwse their peers will ridicule them. When you live in apartment, your neighbors decision to have a baby means that you too will be woken up when it starts screaming and crying at night for several months straight. Not to mention when people bring their children to restaurants that don’t have a childrens menu or to the theatre or to the ballet, who let themselves and their kids be disruptive. It is messed up when they think the childless are the assholes just because they want to watch the $200 ballet in peace if you dare ask them to be quiet. Why do parents have to punish non-parents so much with this crap?