# The Guardian nails it: Childless at 52: How sweet it would be to be called Dad **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 13, 2016, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658 "2016-08-13T08:34:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/141 "2016-09-06T18:05:41Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > No. For whatever reason I get pissed off when people go on about the magic and mystery and sanctity etc about having kids, and then use that as a magic excuse to have them when they probably shouldn’t. IMHO when people go on about this they should be thinking very critically about whether they should have kids or not. > > My wife and I didn’t get huge amounts of flack about being selfish or about how we’ll be lonely when we’re really old but I’ve always been convinced that we put a lot more thought into **not** having kids than most people put into having them. > > Mentally, maybe I spend too much time wading around in the dark spaces and I see enough of the crap. We’re reasonably well off but we’ve lived near enough public housing developments and seen enough of the low-life areas that it boggles and frustrates me that people with a fifth of my income have five kids who are all being trained to be the best welfare recipient young smokers that our society can produce. And, based on my observation, they hit 18 and decide to carry on the tradition. > > And the flip side (I’m not anti-poor) is my sister, referred to upthread, who is a zillion times better off than me, producing the world’s most arrogant, entitled asses. > > A bit of critical thinking would help. The poor shouldn’t have kids because they will grow up to be welfare wastrels, and the rich shouldn’t have kids because they will grow up to be entitled asses. Let me guess - the middling sort who are neither poor nor rich shouldn’t have kids, because they will grow up to be boring. 😃 I’m just poking a bit of gentle fun. 😉 But I do have a few points: (1) A parent’s parenting abilities are not predicated on their wealth or poverty, although obviously it is easier to parent if you have a certain amount of money, than if you do not. (2) There isn’t a one hundred percent correlation between parenting ability and how kids turn out. Kids have their own little personalities and even good parents can have bad kids, and bad parents can have good kids. (3) That said, certain people should not parent: certainly, those with anger control problems or poor impulse control generally (let alone the actively sadistic). However, there is no more a reliable test for that in the realm of parenting, than there is in any other realm. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/142 "2016-09-06T22:46:12Z")
I had some time to sort out my thoughts about this while on the bus. My problem isn’t that certain types of people should or should not necessarily have kids. My problem is that the decision to have or not have kids is one of the most important, if not the most important, decision a person can make, yet so many people put no thought into it. In our last neighbourhood we routinely saw the 18 year old girls pushing their strollers along while they were smoking up a storm. Or the welfare recipient in Cornwall, Ontario several years ago who had something like five kids with four different fathers. Or a co-worker who admonished me to have kids “so I wouldn’t be lonely when I’m older”. Or another co-worker, when we were discussing the cost of raising a child said “that’s not the way to think! You just do it and it will work.” No! You don’t “just do it and it will work.” If you can’t afford to raise children then you shouldn’t have them. If you can’t quit smoking before having kids, then you shouldn’t have them. If you can’t control yourself with sexual partners (I don’t have a problem with this specifically) and don’t understand the science behind reproduction, then you shouldn’t have kids. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/143 "2016-09-06T23:02:53Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > He has every right to believe that about himself but there’s nothing universal about this. And nowhere does he claim that his feelings are universal among men. I can tell you that I share them to a significant extent. I would have loved to have been a father, but it hasn’t happened and it won’t happen, and that’s the way the cookie has crumbled. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/144 "2016-09-07T02:41:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > “I am” as in “I am failing to see why these statements are contradictory” is what I meant. > Not “I am calling you mentally Ill”. :shrugs: You did make a damn interesting choice of places to edit my response in order to place your your answer “I am.” Also, the grammatical response to my question “And you (and this you is specifically addressed to another poster, not to you) undoubtedly fail to see why these statements are contradictory to those huge numbers of people who have had transformational experiences after the age of 25.” would have been “I do” rather than “I am” which is grammatically correct for answer for the question “Unless you are calling all of us mentally ill.” As noted, this quote wasn’t even about you, did you respond to any of my other points other than the curt “I am.” > [@velomont](#): > > The actual article is full of crap. He has every right to believe that about himself but there’s nothing universal about this. My wife and I are late 50s, deliberately childless, and we’re not moping around in some perpetual, maudlin pity-party every time we walk by a park or a playground. My take of the article was that it’s written deliberately overly dramatically to keep readers reading. Or he’s on drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/145 "2016-09-07T02:50:13Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > :shrugs: You did make a damn interesting choice of places to edit my response in order to place your your answer “I am.” It looked to me like the full response got cut off. Not even a period. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/146 "2016-09-07T13:44:51Z")
I donno. The exchange was as follows. > [@spamforbrains](#): > > \*\*I don’t believe in “transformations.” People don’t really change once they pass age 25 unless they develop a mental illness. \*\*I find the behavior of people who have children and then go around trying to pressure people who don’t have children into having children to be offensive. I particularly find the phrases “you’ll understand once you have a child” and “you can’t understand because you’re not a parent” to be extremely offensive. I’m perfectly capable of understanding without having to go through the experience. **I have an imagination and empathy.** My bolding. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > And you undoubtedly fail to see why these statements are contradictory to those huge numbers of people who have had transformational experiences after the age of 25. Unless you are calling all of us mentally ill. > > I have no patience for parents who try to pressure others into becoming parents. I also find it annoying for people to say “you can’t understand because you’re not a parent” but if it is in response to your claim denying their reality, then I have to admit some sympathy for their frustration. > > I have a feeling that attempting to engage you in an actual discussion rather than simply shouting across the back fence would be futile. > [@msmith537](#): > > > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > > > And you undoubtedly fail to see why these statements are contradictory to those huge numbers of people who have had transformational experiences after the age of 25. Unless you are calling all of us mentally ill. > > I am Mr. \*\*Smith \*\*was actually arguing in the thread that he believes in transformations, so he shouldn’t be arguing against that. Many of us in this thread have have had transformative experiences as parents. **Spamforbrains** is essentially calling us “mentally ill” (or lying?) and yet she claims to be empathetic, which seems to me to be contradiction. For the life of me, I fail to see Mr. **Smith** ’s claimed point in his explanation to the mod note as the evidence doesn’t really match up. But whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/147 "2016-09-07T13:56:03Z")
Posters are allowed to think what they want of the response to my moderator note. But let’s have no more discussion of it in here. Drop it, please. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/148 "2016-09-07T18:54:49Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Posters are allowed to think what they want of the response to my moderator note. But let’s have no more discussion of it in here. Drop it, please. OK, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/149 "2016-09-08T10:28:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I don’t understand. The article is literally just the author saying he feels the way he does. You agree that he is telling the truth about how he feels. But you also think it’s a load of crap. If you take him at his word, which part is crap? Yes. I understand that pool’s ridiculous comment about childless people being lesser somewhat derailed the thread, but some people also seem to think that the Guardian writer was attacking childless people, when he was just talking about his own feelings. I regret not being able to have a dog - does that mean I think everyone wants to have a dog? > [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Suppose someone wrote an article saying, “I wish I had had a cat at some point during my life - I’m sad that I never had one.” > > I would take that person at their word that they are, in fact, sad about never having had a cat. My next thought would be, why are you telling me this? If the article were couched (as I felt the one in the OP was) as cautionary advice to those who also never had cats, I’d then wonder if the author thought everyone came to their cat decisions under uniform circumstances and backgrounds. > > My final thought would be, did someone actually get paid to write this article? As an essay of personal experience, I have no issues with it. But to me it reads as an advice piece, and from that POV it fails to the point of being the aforementioned “load of crap”. He states his purpose outright: > [@](#): > > I am not sure what I am allowed to feel and how that differs from what I actually feel. Do men feel grief over being childless differently from women? If so, how? Does it matter? He doesn’t say “some men,” because he’s only talking about men who regret not having children so there’s no need to add “some.” You read it as an advice piece - what advice do you think is being given? Other than “people should acknowledge that men often have a gut-wrenching desire to have children, too” I can’t see how it’s purporting to offer advice. And men are left out of these discussions a lot. Yes, it’s not quite the same because the age at which you can still have children is so much younger for women, but it happens anyway. At 52 it’s quite reasonable for him to be worried that time’s running out for him to be a parent, at least the kind of parent that can run around with his kids and watch them grow into adulthood. It’s also different in that a woman who really wants to be a parent can have one without being in a relationship, and for men that’s not really possible. Sperm donor to a lesbian couple who want him to be involved in the parenting side? Maybe, if he can find such a couple, but it wouldn’t give him most of the things he dreams of in parenting, and wanting a child that looks like you and your partner, or wanting to tuck the child in at night, are not ludicrously unrealistic dreams. Most of his friends seem to have that, from his comments about school catchment areas, etc - if he knew more childless people he might not feel as excluded, so maybe one thing he could do is try to make new, childless friends - not easy but not impossible. Men are still expected not to express emotions as much as women are (except anger), and this is one of the areas in which that occurs. I think he was trying to open up the discussion, and that’s all. People who don’t want children should not take someone else’s expression of a need to have children as an attack on their own choices. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/150 "2016-09-08T14:18:01Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Yes. I understand that pool’s ridiculous comment about childless people being lesser somewhat derailed the thread, Somewhat derailed? Damn near blew up the bridge. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/151 "2016-09-08T14:29:08Z")
The Guardian article is puerile. Perhaps the author comes from a _Blank Slate_ social sciences background if he really thinks that the notion that men generally have an instinctive impulse to raise children is some radical insight. Does any thoughtful person really adhere to the view that only women have nurturing instincts, and that all men just want to spray their sperm around and vanish. In fact, humans exhibit one of the highest levels of _male parental investment_ of any species. [http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/paternalinvest[ChapFINAL].pdf](http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/paternalinvest%5BChapFINAL%5D.pdf) On the other hand, humans are surely far more sophisticated than our raw instincts to eat, sleep and reproduce. With regard to this: > [@pool](#): > > …in some ways I feel like people that don’t have children are emotionally incomplete, stunted and many of those people try to fill that gap with pets or something but its not really the same… …may I express my agreement with Llama Llogophile in saying… > [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > What a load of crap… Humans invented birth control, after all, so that some of us could, as an entirely personal choice, spend less time changing nappies and devote more time to expanding our minds, climbing mountains, building space telescopes and writing fabulous poetry such as this: [QUOTE=Philip Larkin] They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/152 "2016-09-08T14:54:53Z")
“Get out as early as you can?” I don’t recall that Larkin actually _took_ that particular bit advice. Most of us think life is rather nifty, parental handed-down misery or not. As for the article: it is just one man’s personal musings on regret. I agree with **SciFiSam**. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/153 "2016-09-08T15:25:02Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The Guardian article is puerile. Perhaps the author comes from a _Blank Slate_ social sciences background if he really thinks that the notion that men generally have an instinctive impulse to raise children is some radical insight. Does any thoughtful person really adhere to the view that only women have nurturing instincts, and that all men just want to spray their sperm around and vanish. In fact, humans exhibit one of the highest levels of _male parental investment_ of any species. yes, but how much of that is societal expectations? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/154 "2016-09-08T15:31:27Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > As for the article: it is just one man’s personal musings on regret. I agree with **SciFiSam**. I agree that the motivation lies in personal regret. The problem with the way the article is written is that, as I said, it’s puerile - claiming insight while apparently ignorant of the vast body of research on human nature. To the extent it _is_ a personal narrative, as with pool’s comment, it seeks to project highly personal choices and feelings onto the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/155 "2016-09-08T16:00:25Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I agree that the motivation lies in personal regret. The problem with the way the article is written is that, as I said, it’s puerile - claiming insight while apparently ignorant of the vast body of research on human nature. To the extent it _is_ a personal narrative, as with pool’s comment, it seeks to project highly personal choices and feelings onto the rest of us. I honestly don’t see any “projection” in the article at all. He’s not saying _anyone else_ feels (or ought to feel) similar regret, or that people who do are better people - he’s just saying he does. He further speculates that perhaps such feelings are, or ought to be, different as between women and men. I also don’t see any relevance of “the vast body of research on human nature” to what he happens to feel, or to him simply raising the question. He’s not writing a PhD thesis on gender differences here, he’s writing a personal reflection piece. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/156 "2016-09-08T16:19:15Z")
I’m 53. And…I have no one. No wife, no kids. Yes, my bio clock has run out. Single is bad. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/157 "2016-09-08T16:28:01Z")
My Labrador calls me “Dad”. And for much the same reason kids would. She wants a biscuit. ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/158 "2016-09-09T02:08:27Z")
Just the title of this thread - “The Guardian nails it” - seems to indicate that the OP thinks the article’s author is correct to feel depressed about not having had children. The article’s author may be sincere about his feelings, but this kind of thing gets published, IMO, because the majority of people who read it will be parents and will feel sorry for the pathetic creature who never had kids. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/159 "2016-09-09T02:47:59Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > I’m 53. > And…I have no one. > > No wife, no kids. > > Yes, my bio clock has run out. > > Single is bad. I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I’m 57. No wife, no kids. but I have friends. And hobbies. And the hobbies come with more friends. I feel bad when parents ask me what I did on the weekend. Last weekend I went out with 3 different groups of friends, 2 events, 3 dinners. I rode my motorcycle for hours on end. I went to bed when I wanted and slept late. There weren’t enough hours in the day to spend relaxing. Single ROCKS. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658/160 "2016-09-09T09:24:46Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > I’m 53. > And…I have no one. > > No wife, no kids. > > Yes, my bio clock has run out. > > Single is bad. for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guardian-nails-it-childless-at-52-how-sweet-it-would-be-to-be-called-dad/762658.md?page=9)