The Guardian nails it: Childless at 52: How sweet it would be to be called Dad

[TokyoBayer]

@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.

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

I can’t speak for your parents because I don’t know them. But I have to think that unless they are so wealth they can afford to have other people care for you 24/7, on some level they have to have been transformed by having children.

I have to think that you’re not actually reading my posts.

People who torture children are not transformed by having children until they just get better at it. Full. Stop. How hard is that to understand? You simply cannot project your experience on everyone else.

One healing moment for me was after my children reached the ages of my memories and I could look back at my parents’ behavior. Holy shit. They were always painful memories, but looking back as a father, it was absolutely insane.

One of the worst beating I ever endured, one where I was repeatedly kicked, shaken, and thrown against the wall and couch, – which required medical care afterwards – was because I gave my father the wrong sized spoon for breakfast. As a six-year-old boy. A fucking spoon.

We always had eggs for breakfast on Saturday mornings. My turn to set the table and after I had set it with plates and silverware, my mother said we were having cereal. OK pick up the plates, put on dishes and pick up the unnecessary knives and forks. My father had thousands of weird rules, and one was that only boys 12 and older and men could eat cereal with table spoons; everyone else had to eat with smaller teaspoons.

So I should have given him a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. And I forgot. And could have died has my head hit the wall at a different angle, as was pointed out by one therapist (who worked with monsters in prison and was very familiar with the type).

So, can you point out the transformation he had? Before he had kids, he only fantasied about being able to beat the shit out of people but after he had us he could actually do it? Help me out, you seem to be sure there was some good.

Another incident was when he woke me up in the middle of the night screaming at me, asking why I had been in his room. I hadn’t of course, but try to tell that to an insane man.

So, I got beaten up, pick out of bed by my hair and shaken until I could make up a good enough story for him so he’d let me sleep.

Let’s see that quote again.

But I have to think that unless they are so wealth they can afford to have other people care for you 24/7, on some level they have to have been transformed by having children.

Weren’t that wealthy. OK, what transformation would you expect?

You don’t understand. We weren’t all born with good parents. There is a lot of ugliness out there. You cannot take your pretty little world with green grass and white fences and project it on those of us who grew up in hell.

I could go on all day. About the time when for some reason my older brother thought that it would be a good idea to wax the car for my father. So we did. And the next day, my father beat me until I removed very bit of missed wax from the grill and hubcaps. Transformation my ass.

[GargoyleWB]

@Trinopus

Put me on the list of guys with bad parents. My paw slugged me, quite a lot. Physical violence is a shit-poor form of fatherhood.

I knew, with absolute certainty, from the time I was nine, that, were I to become a father, I would also be an abuser. The lessons had been engraved into my flesh. So…I chose not.

My data points:

• Mother: Great by any measure
• Father #1: Left when I was 2, decided wife and children were not for him.
• Father #2: Abusive, angry, and alcoholic.
• Father #3: Great guy, finally got it right, though I was 18 years old when he entered the picture so he didn’t have to work too hard at it

[Doctor_Jackson]

Major life changes in adulthood should be transformational. Life will not continue to let you live as you were after major change and be successful, you must choose one. Marriage should be transformational, you are going from being a single person to a couple. If one or both of the couple continues to live like they used to prior to the marriage, it will likely fail. Having a child should be transformational, you are now responsible for at minimum the health, welfare and education of another human being for 18 years. If one or both parents continue to live like they did before the child was born they will likely fail as a parent.

It is, IMHO, the frustration inherent in the desire to live the same life after major change that causes many to lash out at their spouse/child/society/self. I’m not speaking of personality change, I still have the same personality I always have (much to the chagrin of some), but I’m a very different person than I was even a few years ago.

I have a friend who is the poster boy for non-transformation. He still lives the same as he did when he was in high school. He got married, didn’t change, ended up divorced. Bought a house, moved out of his mom’s, didn’t change, lost the house and moved back home. He’s still there. He got a sizeable inheritance, didn’t change, now it’s all gone with nothing to show for it. He still has substantial debt. Finally, in his mid-50’s, he is starting to realize that his unwillingness to transform has cost him a very high price, and not just financially.

[gallows_fodder]

@monstro

It can be lonely, sure. But for me, it’s not so much loneliness that I deal with as much as a frequent feeling that I am an invisible nobody compared to everyone else. I don’t have the kind of stories that others have, and those stories are all hear now that I’m middle-aged. I find myself in the role of the interviewer all the time just because it’s a socially appropriate way for me hide my alienation. It can be tiring sometimes…always asking questions and knowing the favor won’t be returned because of the presumption I don’t have anything as worthy of being discussed.

It sucks to feel this way sometimes. But I know it wouldn’t be wise to let this feeling convince me that I’m doing something wrong or that there’s something wrong with me. Yes, peer pressure is incredibly powerful and I’m affected by it in some ways. But there are a lot of ways for me to mitigate the “invisible nobody” feeling that doesn’t involve me being someone’s mother. If a person can’t relate to me unless I have a baby on my hip, I can’t help but feel that’s really more of their problem than mine.

Monstro, I’m always glad and grateful to you when you post about your experiences like this, because I think you and I have led very similar lifestyles but I’m usually too inhibited by – not shame, per se, but an anticipation of pity? – to express my POV or feelings about this kind of stuff.

But this has been exactly my experience, too, especially the sense of always having to be an interrogator since no one asks me about myself or my home life in return. I sometimes get the sense that they’re afraid to ask me, like they would be broaching some kind of sore subject I was ashamed of, since I’m unmarried and childless at 38 and have no interest in dating. Instead, I’m not ashamed at all, but I do feel uncomfortable at the assumption that I must be, because what about my life is so shameful?

I have never wanted children. For many reasons and no particular reason, at the same time – in the end, I just flat-out lack the desire to have children. Maybe it’s because both of my parents grew up in abusive and neglectful households, knowing full well they were unwanted, and even as a child I could understand that, “But you’ll change your mind once you’ve had kids of your own!” was an absolutely terrible gamble to take, and it wouldn’t even be my money I was gambling with. I saw in my parents how badly scarred a childhood (really, a whole life) like that could leave you – why on earth would I, as a compassionate and considerate person, choose to have children without wanting any, because other people said I should? I wouldn’t choose to get a pet without really wanting one; how could I do that to a child, a complete person I would have created for that express purpose? That’s unconscionable, to me.

If people feel sorry for me for missing out on the joys of having a happy marriage and a happy bunch of children, I can understand that, because that does sound like a lovely life I don’t have. But please don’t feel sorry for me because you think I must be emotionally incomplete or stunted as a human being.

[gallows_fodder]

@RickJay

Surely one of the sadnesses of life is that there is so much in it to experience and love and do that we cannot do it all. And no matter how hard you try, no matter the extent of your efforts, no matter how righteous your heart, you’ll always be able to say “I wish I could have done that, too.”

Wise words.

[Spice_Weasel]

@TokyoBayer

You don’t understand. We weren’t all born with good parents. There is a lot of ugliness out there. You cannot take your pretty little world with green grass and white fences and project it on those of us who grew up in hell.

A-fucking-men.

My father’s ‘‘radical transformation’’ after drugging and raping my mother into my conception was drinking harder than ever and becoming even more violent. He tried to get me to drink Schnapps when I was seven. He told me he loved alcohol just as much as he loved me, so I’d better get used to it. When I was still an infant, he locked my Mom and me in the 2nd story bedroom and ripped out the phone cord, so she crawled out the 2nd story window and fled to her father’s house. My father found us and punched out the back window of the car while I was in the back seat. He bled all over everything but he was so drunk he didn’t feel the pain. While he ranted that he was going to kill us all my grandmother herded me and the rest of the kids into another bedroom and barricaded the door.

He’s not even close to the worst parent I ever had. He occupies maybe 5% of my parental trauma mental space. My therapist told me I minimize some pieces of my history and I said, ‘‘Lady, if I focused on everything we’d never be finished.’’

[Caffeine.addict]

@msmith537

Personally, I think there are very few things that transform people since people tend to experience things through their existing lens. A lot of people travel or go to college and they are basically the same people afterwards, just with new T-shirts.

I agree with this. My politics didn’t change when i had kids, and I don’t think those of my friends did. My religious conservative friend was religious and conservative before he had a mess of kids. And while we don’t agree on politics and religion, he is a devoted dad and good father.

If any thing, I tend to focus on what benefits me and mine. I may vote yes for a bond increase that benefits the schools because I have kids in school. Am I more empathetic or just self interested.

For the most part, I don’t think you become a better person by having kids, or a worse person. If you are an asshole before you have kids, you’ll probably be an asshole afterwards.

[bump]

@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.

That’s pretty extreme. I didn’t get married until I was 35, and didn’t have our first child until I was 38, and I’m now a month shy of 44. I’ve seen both sides of this coin.

I’ll say that for me, fatherhood feels like a surprisingly natural statel, and not nearly as weird as I’d have thought, had you asked me at say… 33. I do kind of see where you’re coming from though, but I don’t think it’s that the other people are stunted or incomplete, it’s that compared to the awesome responsibility and wonder of being an involved and loving parent, things like dogs or hobbies seem like silly, petty and trivial things sometimes.

That doesn’t make them stunted, or even mean that they’re trying to compensate for anything- it’s a matter of perspective on your own part. That stuff is important to them, even if as a parent of small children, you realize that they’re probably more dispensable, or at the very least, a lot lower priority now than you would have admitted when you were single.

@pool

But everything has a price, being able to feel all that joy and love, has also opened me up to the possibility of feeling immense pain, unbearable pain, I could outlive my child, watch them become drug addicts, see them hurt, or suffer, have them reject me, even hate me. I hope I’ll never have to experience those things, but now the possibility is there.

For me, it’s more a matter of fear; now I worry about stuff happening to my boys, or things that I worry about happening to me that never would have worried me beforehand. Things like car wrecks, or natural disasters, or wars, or the like.

[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

[Spice_Weasel]

It’s actually true, statistically, that people don’t change much after age 25. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I suspect this is going to be less true as it takes longer for people to get educated, get into stable careers, and have children. That might not be a direct function of ‘‘having children’’ so much as ‘‘no longer being in school’’ or entering into a totally different mentality/lifestyle after a long period of education. Our society, at least certain swaths of it, is changing dramatically. I married at 23, that was considered young among my educated peers, and it was considered ancient compared to my own family members. I am now 33 with no kids, that is considered old by the standards of most of my current peers and normal among my educated peers.

People tend to be changed by changing circumstances, and circumstances become more stable after a certain age. That age of stability is slowly getting older and older, though, for young professionals.

I am not at all the person I was when I was 25. Or Even 31 for that matter. But my life has been a series of rapidly shifting circumstances/new environments/new jobs/new locations for pretty much my entire life.

[msmith537]

[QUOTE=Doctor Jackson ]

Major life changes in adulthood should be transformational. Life will not continue to let you live as you were after major change and be successful, you must choose one. Marriage should be transformational, you are going from being a single person to a couple. If one or both of the couple continues to live like they used to prior to the marriage, it will likely fail. Having a child should be transformational, you are now responsible for at minimum the health, welfare and education of another human being for 18 years. If one or both parents continue to live like they did before the child was born they will likely fail as a parent.
[/quote]

This is the point I was attempting to make to TokyoBayer. The change doesn’t necessarily mean “positive”. Maybe people like his father can’t handle the transformation and it drives them insane. I don’t know. But the point is once you have kids, you are not longer a person who doesn’t have kids.

@bump

That’s pretty extreme. I didn’t get married until I was 35, and didn’t have our first child until I was 38, and I’m now a month shy of 44. I’ve seen both sides of this coin.

I’ll say that for me, fatherhood feels like a surprisingly natural statel, and not nearly as weird as I’d have thought, had you asked me at say… 33. I do kind of see where you’re coming from though, but I don’t think it’s that the other people are stunted or incomplete, it’s that compared to the awesome responsibility and wonder of being an involved and loving parent, things like dogs or hobbies seem like silly, petty and trivial things sometimes.

It still feels weird to me (I had my first not long after yours). But in a good way.

It is an awesome responsibility. Not just feeding and clothing and all the logistics stuff. But also creating that positive environment for them so they don’t have a bunch of shitty memories.

[JRDelirious]

@RickJay

What I read here, see, is an essay on longing and regret. I don’t think the takeaway, for me, necessarily has to be limited to “I never had a kid,” and I think that’s his point about asking if men cannot feel the same way many women do. I think a more general takeaway is that everyone has something they regret and long for. I would further suggest that it’s usually something they did not do.

…

Surely one of the sadnesses of life is that there is so much in it to experience and love and do that we cannot do it all. And no matter how hard you try, no matter the extent of your efforts, no matter how righteous your heart, you’ll always be able to say “I wish I could have done that, too.”

And the challenge is to not let that take us over and prevent us from living the life we DO as best and fully as we can. We have no way of knowing what chain of events would have come from having done something different.
Doesn’t help it at all when some foolishly proclaim that it makes you “stunted and incomplete” to not have done what they did. That is not an objective observation, pool, that’s a put-down, and furthermore one that assumes things about others that you do not know.

[Asimovian]

@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

I’m not entirely sure what you were going for, here, but I’m having a hard time reading it as anything other than a personal insult. If you’re going to continue in the discussion, please do so without the unnecessary digs.

[msmith537]

@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.

I wouldn’t say they are necessarily stunted or incomplete. I would say that marriage and kids tests you in various ways. If you choose not to go down those paths, then you will simply never be tested in that way. Then again, as some people pointed out, their parents failed those tests horribly.

@Asimovian

I’m not entirely sure what you were going for, here, but I’m having a hard time reading it as anything other than a personal insult. If you’re going to continue in the discussion, please do so without the unnecessary digs.

“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”.

[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. The first thing that pops into our minds is probably something like “thank god we didn’t let that happen to us.”

To good people who are good parents (I think the “transformative” thing is a croc as well btw), kudos to you and I genuinely wish there were more of you.

As I’ve mentioned in another thread, I would have been an appalling father, though that wasn’t part of my conscience decision at the time to not have kids. And we genuinely have no regrets.

I know this sounds like a big sneer but, full disclosure, I just can’t stomach articles that like. If someone actually posted that in the Dope, there would be so many “cite?” requests it would boggle the mind. (I don’t have a cite for that btw)

[msmith537]

@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. The first thing that pops into our minds is probably something like “thank god we didn’t let that happen to us.”

To good people who are good parents (I think the “transformative” thing is a croc as well btw), kudos to you and I genuinely wish there were more of you.

As I’ve mentioned in another thread, I would have been an appalling father, though that wasn’t part of my conscience decision at the time to not have kids. And we genuinely have no regrets.

I know this sounds like a big sneer but, full disclosure, I just can’t stomach articles that like. If someone actually posted that in the Dope, there would be so many “cite?” requests it would boggle the mind. (I don’t have a cite for that btw)

Odd that the idea of enjoying children fills you with so much rage. Why is it when someone reads something online, they assume it is supposed to be “universal”?

[moojja]

@msmith537

Odd that the idea of enjoying children fills you with so much rage. Why is it when someone reads something online, they assume it is supposed to be “universal”?

Especially since this article points out socially it’s rare for men to feel like that. So he’s wondering if other men feels the same.

For all the other people who pointed out he might not enjoy having children if he has them. How is that different than parents saying to non-parents that they would enjoy having children. You’re still telling someone what they want is not what they really want.

[velomont]

@msmith537

Odd that the idea of enjoying children fills you with so much rage. Why is it when someone reads something online, they assume it is supposed to be “universal”?

Good point, and here goes. It’s not actually the idea of enjoying children that fills me with rage. I personally believe that parenting is the most important job there is. And regarding “And who cares about some nebulous “what’s best for society”?”, I actually try to care about that and that’s why I think that parenting is the most important job there is. I don’t believe that it should be considered some sort of civil right; I believe that it should be considered a very, very important responsibility.

I had a mentally ill relative who had kids and they will struggle and suffer for the rest of their lives because of it. I also have a sister who thought she was god’s gift to parenting and over the last ten years I’ve watched the result of her arrogance manifest itself as a collection of some of the most entitled adult brats I’ve ever known.

On the other hand I have a number of co-workers who are in the same age cohort as the above brats and they are outstanding responsible people.

[msmith537]

@velomont

Good point, and here goes. It’s not actually the idea of enjoying children that fills me with rage. I personally believe that parenting is the most important job there is. And regarding “And who cares about some nebulous “what’s best for society”?”, I actually try to care about that and that’s why I think that parenting is the most important job there is. I don’t believe that it should be considered some sort of civil right; I believe that it should be considered a very, very important responsibility.

I had a mentally ill relative who had kids and they will struggle and suffer for the rest of their lives because of it. I also have a sister who thought she was god’s gift to parenting and over the last ten years I’ve watched the result of her arrogance manifest itself as a collection of some of the most entitled adult brats I’ve ever known.

On the other hand I have a number of co-workers who are in the same age cohort as the above brats and they are outstanding responsible people.

So…you’re mad because different parents raised their children in different ways and they grew up to be different people?

[velomont]

@msmith537

So…you’re mad because different parents raised their children in different ways and they grew up to be different people?

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.