The other day, the NYT published an opinion piece with a different take:
(Also a gift link)
The author starts by listing common reasons suggested from not having kids. Economics, finding the right partner, getting established in careers, concerns about climate change and the burden on the planet, convenient about bringing children into a broken world. Just because women now can choose not to. And then they say:
I suspect there’s some truth in all of these explanations. But I think there’s another reason, too, one that’s often been overlooked. Over the past few decades, Americans have redefined “harm,” “abuse,” “neglect” and “trauma,” expanding those categories to include emotional and relational struggles that were previously considered unavoidable parts of life. Adult children seem increasingly likely to publicly, even righteously, cut off contact with a parent, sometimes citing emotional, physical or sexual abuse they experienced in childhood and sometimes things like clashing values, parental toxicity or feeling misunderstood or unsupported.
Basically, it’s gotten really really hard to be agood parent, so why even try.
The author was in therapy for years, with a life threatening eating disorder, among other issues. Her therapist affirmed her pain, and said her parents sounded controlling. Modern therapy often assumes that our current pain is due to some kind of early trauma, and it’s our parents’ fault.
Like most suffering people, I was self-absorbed. Wrapped up in my own pain and dramas, I didn’t notice much about my mother.
Now that she’s pregnant, she’s suddenly thinking about that time from her mother’s perspective, and how much her mother gave up to sit miserably at her side and try to keep her alive and support her.
So why sign up to damage kids and be forever at fault for it?
She also points out that once upon a time, the commitment ran both ways. Parents were supposed to love and feed and train their kids, and in return, kids were supposed to love and honor and defer to their parents. But now, adult kids can just abandon their parents.
More emotional cost, less emotional benefit. → fewer kids.