I’ve never run out of ideas for living. We have plenty of fun. We just got back from skiing, and we can’t wait until our daughter is old enough that we can take her SCUBA diving with us. Having kids doesn’t mean trading in the snowboard for an afghan and a rocking chair, you know. It’s FUN to do the things I mentioned. It’s FUN to re-read some of those books I read as a kid. It’s FUN to be able to go back into the grade 3 classrooms and look at the art on the walls.
Frankly, I think it’s the people that see children in a ‘one nail in my coffin’ sense that are really not getting the point.
Lots of people agree. Lurk here a little longer; this comes up all the time.
Most of your reasons are personal; if they’re good enough for you, so be it. Obviously, they don’t work for other people; personally, I don’t find our kid expensive at all as compared to the entertainment and joy we get. And I don’t really understand youre reason #4; my youth was over a long time before we had Madeline. But that’s my personal utility function, and yours is different; put in your situation those reasons might be 100% logical.
Reason #3, though, is pretty silly; overpopulation has long been discredited as being some apolcalyptic problem. Human beings are the most valuable resource we have, and there’s really no likelihood at all the human race will become dnagerously large.
If you don’t want kids, be honest about it; you don’t want them because you don’t want them. That’s a good enough reason. No point making up socioeconomic reasons that don’t hold water.
I think parenthood is an amazing “job”; I also think it’s admirable when someone realizes they are not cut out for that job, and chooses a different route.
If I may just expand on this and get out a rant that’s been bugging me.
An example of this happened recently to someone I know. This girl is 29 and has 4 kids under the age of 10, and just announced she is pregnant again. Of course, she said it was a “surprise!” baby, but I am certain she knew full well what she was doing. This would make it her 3rd “ooops!” pregnancy too - the first and second unintended pregnancies pressured two foolish guys to marry her.
Anyway, this girl has done nothing since she was 18 except sit on her ass, leech off these guys and shit out babies. She’s never worked a day in her life or gone to college, even though husband #1 repeatedly offered to pay for it.
Now husband #1 pays a gigantic (relatively) amount of child support which allows her to continue not to work and live in a nice house. Husband #2 works his ass off to support her. But they are certainly not rich, they live paycheck-to-paycheck just barely scraping by (they would do better if they didn’t live above their means with fancy vacations and a very nice house).
So why have another kid? That is just less resources and time that will go towards the existing kids. The answer is because she’s just plain selfish, and has nothing else in her life except having kids to make her feel good about herself. As it is, the kids she already has don’t get enough attention, and now another baby. It makes me really really sad.
We adopted. A suprisingly large number of stranger like to commend us for our unselfish act in adopting and rescuing a poor child. We adopted for completely selfish reasons - and when you adopt (or at least when I adopted and when my friends and all the adoptive parents I’ve talked to adopted) they make a really big deal about “you can’t do this to ‘save’ a child - you need to recognize that you are being driven to do this because its what YOU want.”
At the same time, it is a sacrifice. I don’t expect people to thank me for it, or even acknowledge it. But it is a sacrifice. I have friends who teach. Its an incredibly demanding job. They could make a lot more money and have a lot fewer headaches in other professions. Teaching is their choice - they are making sacrifices, but they do it because they are called to do it. A lot of professions are like that - you sacrifice something because you are “called” - and sometimes, if you do your job well, you give more to the world than you put in and your sacrifice matters. Parenting is like that.
There is no reason why it can’t be both a sacrifice and a selfish act.
Oh, and I don’t bring up it being a sacrifice so people thank me. I bring up it being a sacrifice so no one EVER gets pregnant thinking “gee, I might want to have kids, I might as well do it, it seems easy.” It is very true that parenting is HARD when done well, and that some kids are more challenging than others, and that you’d better gain your happiness through internal rewards, because people don’t thank you and sometimes its your own kids who don’t appreciate you. One of the things I hold close to my heart is that no one has kids who doesn’t truly WANT them. I hope New Girl doesn’t change her mind on a whim (she may indeed change it, people do, but I hope if she does, its through a realistic vision of what parenting is like, and not some hormonal blur with at a girlfriends baby shower looking at the adorable little sleepers as sometimes happens).
This? Is silliness. You don’t stop being yourself once you have kids. You’ve listed your mother’s personality flaws here. You dislike your mother precisely **because ** she stayed exactly who she was, and didn’t change to be the perfect parent to you.
There’s a possibility that your friends, your spouse, and your boss will all end up hating you for your flaws (depending on your flaws, of course). There’s an equally good possibility that your kids, like your friends, your spouse, and your boss, will like/love and respect you based on your more admirable qualities. It is, in fact, entirely likely that every person in each category mentioned above will have complex and mixed feelings about you. Why do you assume that one’s children are incapable of seeing their parents as human, and capable of the human spectrum of behavior?
More silliness. Your life certainly can revolve around your children, if you wish it to. It doesn’t have to if you don’t. Hell, you seem a bit put out that *your * mother’s life revolves around Pecan.
Hurt always plays some role in *any * emotionally charged relationship. Life is like that.
My daughter is fifteen, and she likes me just fine, most of the time*. I’ve even overheard her tell other, similarly aged people that I’m pretty damned okay, as moms go. Sure, we fight. We’ve had some doozies. But if she likes me at fifteen, I think we’re pretty much set for life.
No offense, but your post reads as though **you ** are incapable of feeling gratitude toward your parents, or forgiving them for what you perceive as their faults and mistakes, or seeing them as fully formed individuals, who have identities outside of being your parents. In other words, you are incapable of relating to them as an adult. I sincerely hope that this is because you are not, in fact, an adult.
There are tons of valid reasons not to have children. But the idea that no child has ever really loved their parents is patently ridiculous.
*Some restrictions apply. See maternal rules regarding curfews, grades, and final say over wardrobe.
Isn’t it grand, then, that you didn’t hear that from me?
No, I don’t.
No, it doesn’t. Take out “and unwise and thought,” and you’ve got a good summary of my position. Leave those in, and you’re massively projecting.
I do too. Fortunately, I said nothing of the sort.
You’re welcome to come in and misinterpret what I said again: I certainly can’t stop you. But I think that if you take an honest look at what I said, you’ll see that it doesn’t fit into the contemptible category you set up for it.
Actually, you’ll need to take out more. The proper paraphrase is, “I was young, and I didn’t want kids. Now I’m older, and I do want them.” Everything else is just you wanting to have someone to fight.
I know I don’t want kids. I have no interest in passing on genetic material, carrying on the ‘family name’, etc. Quite honestly I don’t care if people remember me when I’m dead or not, that’s just never mattered to me. I also know I’m too selfish to care for a child properly, my time is my own and I like it that way.
Well, I’m just jumping on the badwagon at this point. But I’m another one who likes both my parents. My folks are fun, great people. So much so that we moved here to be closer to them, and I work at the same place as my mother (we actually don’t see as much of them as that sounds like; they are very busy people and I only work a little).
Yes, there is hurt involved. There is hurt involved in life. I’ll get old no matter how many kids I do or don’t have.
Now, I am a SAHM and I homeschool my children. I spend a lot of time with them, as you may imagine. And even I would not say that I “am no longer myself” or that my whole purpose in life is my children. I am still me, and I do a lot of different things. As it happens, I think it’s both fun and important to do what I’m doing now, which is why I chose it; but in no way is my entire identity wrapped up in my children.
Also, I find it odd that the OP says that motherhood turns you into a mother and nothing else, and then complains that her own mother likes the dog better and that her purpose seems to have nothing to do with her children. Disconnect here?
If you don’t want to have children, then don’t. That’s great. I don’t see why you need to come up with a list of supposed reasons to argue over. It’s much more difficult for people to argue with you if you just keep saying the same thing over and over, without elaborating. “I don’t plan to have children.” “No, I don’t plan to have children.” That’s all you need to say. Say it enough, and people will leave you alone.
I have to agree with those who’ve said some version of “if you don’t want kids, don’t have them; no need for elaborate justification or to try to project your reasons on others, etc.”
When I was young, I didn’t want them. When I was about 28-34, I wavered between wanting them & not wanting them. Now I’m 42. I’m glad I didn’t have them; I’d have been a lousy mother. I still have “mother issues.” Until I can get over my “mother issues,” I would only pass them along. I’ve been working on them, and I get better all the time, but I still have them. Main symptom: the idea of being mistaken for “a mom” horrifies me. It influences what I wear, what I drive, my hairstyle, etc. I’m not saying I’m proud of it. I fully recognize that it stems from not wanting to identify with my own mother, who did cause me emotional harm. I still love her, but when I look at her, all I see are the flaws. These days I pity her more than I feel anger for her, but it’s still because I don’t seem to be able to see anything in her that I admire.
Maybe new girl is like me. She sounds very much like I did when I was younger. Maybe she’s not; I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone.
I know that when my own mom said to me a week or so ago that she knows she let me down in a lot of ways & she was sorry, it was a very healing thing for me. I’m not done healing, but it was one of the best gifts she’s given me.
If you have “mother issues”, new girl (and it sounds like you do, from the perspective of someone who does), I hope you will find yourself where I’m at or better in time. That doesn’t mean you have to have kids if you get there, either. Just sayin’ - you’ll get no condemnation from me if you don’t pass them on.
It’s not anyone’s place to question why New Girl, catsix, Katriona, or anyone else does or does not choose to have children. But then, 99.999% of people on the planet are far too concerned with their own lives to care if you ever breed or not. Maybe your mom and your Great-Aunt Ethel nag you about it at Thanksgiving, but I highly doubt anyone’s painting a scarlet ‘C’ on your chest for ‘Childless’. You don’t have to explain yourself or make excuses. A simple ‘I don’t want to have children’ should be more than enough.
I don’t give childfreers the ‘you’ll grow out of it’ spiel. Perhaps because I’ve never met a childfreer I thought would make even an okay parent, much less a good one.
Love my parents but do not want reproduce. I love kids and love spending time with them and teaching them, but at this point in life I am quite happy that they go home with someone else. I am 35 and have felt this way since I was 20. I am open to adoption but I would have to feel that I was in a place mentally, emotionally and financially to do the best job I could.
I don’t buy into the argument that once you have kids you can’t have fun/adventure. It seems to me that that sense of adventure and would be a great thing to share and pass on to a child. From what I have seen, it seems like people who have kids and never go out again choose not to. I don’t think having children means no more having fun. It might take more work, energy and money, but so does anything that’s worth having/doing.
Then what was the point of making assumptions about New Girl’s age and your age relative to hers? What was the point of saying that you assumed her to be young because of her lack of desire to have kids?
Actually, what was the point of your post at all, if not to compare yourself to New Girl and imply that when she gets to be your age, her mind will change?
I get it from coworkers, family friends, people on web forums and IRC, and even doctors. In every conversation, someone relates a story about how they didn’t want any when they ‘were [my] age’ but now they have a few and are glad they did. It’s not an overwhelming majority of people who act that way, but I can be guaranteed that if the conversation of whether or not I have kids comes up at work or in some social situation and I say ‘No’, someone will ask ‘Why not?’, and I’ll tell them. And then at least one person will tell the ‘I didn’t want any when I was your age either, but then I got older and my biological clock started ticking…’ story to point out to me that this is a phase I’ll grow out of. If New Girl has ever told anyone she plans to not ever have children, I’d wager that she’s heard the same stuff.
People who really don’t want to be parents and become parents anyway will probably resent it and make the kid’s life miserable. I would, whether I intended to or not.
Or is it about you having a problem admitting that your post was condescending and inconsiderate and aimed at preventing New Girl from arguing her point of view? Posters younger then you can have reasons other then immaturity to make choices and have opinions that are different from yours.
Just as you don’t like being lumped in with those who don’t want kids just because you don’t have them, I don’t like being lumped in with those who don’t like children just because I’m not sure if I want them.
I took it as a characterization of all the people she’s met who chose not to have kids.
