It’s not the children that are the problem.
Having worked in retail in the past, eaten in restaurants many a time, and travelled by plane, I have seen many parents that have no control over their kids. If a parent can’t keep their children from screaming in my ear, running around in public places with no regard to who they might bump into and trip, preventing them from touching things that don’t belong to them with their dirty, germ-infested fingers, then that person should never have become a parent.
As I said before, if you can’t take responsibility for your kids, then you have no right to have them.
Thanks Wake up call!
You are right.
But we can’t blame the children, it’s the parents.
Well, then sweatfreak, no one should ever become a parent.
I have no control over when my four year old decides that NOW is the time to throw a major tantrum. (OK, a little, I don’t take her out when she is tired or overstimulated). We deal. In a plane, that is particularly difficult, as you can’t just leave and smothering them seems to be out of the question (fortunately, we’ve never had an incident in a plane). Kids run, they touch, they get loud. They are kids. Be grateful that someone else is raising them so that there is someone to empty your bedpan when you are in the nursing home - consider your time on the plane with a screaming toddler doing your small part to make sure that society is there when you need it. Because, Og knows, that mother is having to deal with that child more often than on a plane. And, generally speaking, she has tried every disipline method she can stomach (and occationally, some she promised she would never do) to try and get her child under control.
And there is more to this than just genes. My first child was adopted after a long bout of infertility. At some point, some people will say “I want to parent.” They - if they are smart - won’t say “having a baby will be fun, babies are so cute” because babies are only babies for a little while and they aren’t fun nor cute when you are changing the incredible exploding diaper at two in the morning. They may say “I think its important that we parent.” They may say “I think we will do a good job as parents.”
Being a parent is a little like deciding to go into Pediatric Onocology. I’m really glad that someone decides to work with kids that have cancer. I’m sure that it is highly rewarding work. Its also extremely challenging - a job I cannot imagine doing every day. There must be days where nothing is left of you but a wet towel. Parenting is a little like that. Its really really hard. And yet, its so incredibly rewarding. What makes people take on tasks - lifelong committments - that are incredibly hard, very draining, but rewarding - parenting, medicine, social work, teaching, clinical psychology, law enforcement, the military?
Wake up Call, good heavens. Read any of the other posts in this thread? Read the OP? If you have, then I’m very impressed by how inconvenienced you are. I’m beside myself that children are such a menace to your happiness that you absolutely could not hold back ranting about them in a thread that was not mant to be rancorous, and that was specificallyabout the rationale for the choice to reproduce. My god, what a burden you must carry if you can’t resist trying to ruin the thread for the people who want to discuss this with some thought and reflection.
Or perhaps you didn’t read the thread. Here’s a recap. This is not a thread about how annoying children are to some folk, or how ill-mannered some of them are, or how terribly some people parent. That’s an entirely different debate that does not contribute to this discussion. By introducing that vein into this thread, you will possibly derail the entire thing into being one of those tiresome, go-nowhere, never-be-resolved childfree vs. breeder debates.
That’s not the topic. Get it?
Start your own thread. No, wait, don’t, because it’s been done and done and done.
I disagree Dangerosa.
I have seen parents that know how to discipline their children and parents who don’t.
That is why I stated that the children cannot be blamed for their actions in public.
That is also why I do not think people have the right to breed.
Parenting is a privilege that people should earn.
Here is a point I find very interesting. Animals have no trouble keeping their young ones in line.
Maybe when humans learn from the inferior animals when to breed and when not to breed they will earn the right to have kids.
Rabbit does are known to absorb the embryos back into their body if the conditions are not right for their birth.
Too bad humans can’t do that.
I am not saying all humans should not have children. Some people are very capable of raising kids and will pass on useful knowledge and a loving, caring environment. These are the people that have earned the privilege to reproduce and have chosen to do so.
Oh I did read the OP and all subsequent posts in this thread. I still maintain that no one really should bring a child to this world unless they are qualified to do so. If you are not qualified, then all you are doing is creating a nuisance for me, for yourself, and the rest of the society.
Let me give you an example. Three posts above, vanilla, challenged my post. And yet earlier in this thread, she had posted the following:
OK. I became curious as to how can someone (who disliked kids her whole life), has now become such a pro-children advocate.
So, I decided to run a search on her past posts, all 6417 of them, listed in 258 pages, going back to early year 2000 when her SDMB name was Peaches8. If you do that, and read through her posts, you get a pretty good picture on what happened to this 45 year lady who has a 10 year old son and is now on public assistance.
You’ll find she believes in the return of Jesus (which is fine), but hates Pat Robertson (which is also fine). You’ll find she fell in love with a guy who was apparently gay. He insisted that if she wanted a child, she should get an artificial insemination. But she insisted to have his baby. She then brought up the little boy, giving him milk, while she hates milk. Then she gets divorced and subsequently falls in love with another guy in March 2000. The story is all there to read if you have the time and patience to go through her 6417 posts.
Now, I am not judging vanilla. It is her life, and she can live it in any way she sees fit. But, as I was reading through the 6417 posts, I was looking for signs of “qualification” to be a parent.
I do not have any cites for this statement, but IMHO it is mostly women who directly or indirectly push a man to bring children into this world. I think most men who encourage a woman to become pregnant, they do it merely to please the woman, because the men know that is what the women want. This does not mean there are not men out there who genuinely want to have children. There certainly are, and I have met many of them myself. They make excellent fathers.
But at the end of the day, the question is if the parent(s) are qualified to make a 20 year commitment to bring children into this world, including 20 years of financial security for each child, and not resorting to public handout. I’d say if you cannot make such a commitment, and you have no idea how to bring up balanced and well-behaved children, you really have no business bringing them into this world at the first place.
As to the answer to vanilla’s question:
I suppose the answer is the same as you yourself always having hated dresses and skirts because you find them annoying. For me, presence of today’s spoiled kids in an adult setting is simply too annoying.
So sweatfreak, you know what happens to these children when they get home.
Yes, SOME parents should have never had children, and SOME parents make no effort to disipline their children.
But MOST parents do. And MANY little terrors are raised by perfectly nice parents who do disipline their children. Children are not little robots.
I passed a homestudy - I’m actually “licensed” by the state for the child I have. But passing a homestudy doesn’t make you a great parent.
A cite for animals having no problems keeping their children in line.
- The world is overpopulated…with ill-mannered twits. Fortunately for everyone, my kids are polite and show some promise of becoming contributing members of society.
- I want to pass on my strengths and those of my mate to any offspring.
- Having children means I must be responsible for them. Joy!
- Any money I make is ours and I gain great satisfaction when I read the monthly statements from our children’s college funds, knowing that we are working hard to help our kids achieve personal goals… more satisfying than blowing money on stuff.
- I have found and nurtured a friendship with my parents that could not exist before I became a parent. They are both a wellspring of information and a humorous “horrible warning” on which my husband and I rely a great deal.
- I am extremely happy with my life now. While I was happy being single/childless, I can’t imagine finding happiness in that lifestyle now.
- The world has never been in optimum condition.
- I am very childlike myself, and my sense of wonder and awe grows each day I spend with my boys.
Ahhh variety.
There is nothing wrong with your list of reasons for not wanting children. Just please be careful with your choice of birth control.
Hey sweetfreak. I can remember when I was a parenting expert too! Back then I really knew how to distinguish between good parents and bad parents with only a brief public encounter on which to base my assessment.
I don’t remember ever being such an insufferable ass, though. I don’t recall ever suggesting that reproductive choice should be earned for good behavior or intent.
*waiting to receive the ‘go’ from sweetfreak before trying to conceive.
Now here is a new addition to the SDMB I hope to see a lot more of! Welcome, Farmwoman.
sweetfreak, why are we now talking about the “right” to “breed?” You are revealing a different intent now–not to express curiosity about the desire to have children, and to have Dopers helpfully share with you their theories or perspectives. Rather, you want to bitch about what terrible parents some people are.
I am not sure that looking at animals in their natural environment is a suitable model for drawing conclusions about human parenting. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary in some of these threads, humans have more complex brains than other animals. They are born very helpless and remain that way for a long time. Human offspring rely less on instinct and more on instruction from other humans to make their way in the world.
Perhaps it’s less that “some people shouldn’t be parents” and more that we as a society do not teach good parenting and promote it in meaningful ways. It seems that most people, by design or accident, will become parents. Perhaps we ought to devote more energy to giving them the tools to raise children well.
Let’s forget about good/bad parents should/shouldn’t have a child etc. Also, forget about having a child by mistake or through no thought processes at all.
The OP asked “why do people have children?”
That’s what I can’t get and not too many in this thread have enlightened me. I understand that kids bring joy and a challenge, etc.
But what’s your life like BEFORE you have a kid that makes you go “I want to have a kid.”
My wife and I have been married 5 year now, both early 30s. There is so much we want to do together. Travel. Get her business going. We love going out to nice places. Our lives are so complete with our activities, and things we want to do together than we haven’t done yet that I can’t see a reason for having kids.
So, what’s the state of mind where you finally make the decision “all right, let’s have a baby.”? Are you missing something? Do you want something else? Are you bored?
Vanilla wrote “Then I married my husband. I loved him, and therefore, wanted to have his child.” “Therefore” is a word that usually implies “what I’m about to say follows logically from what I just said.” I don’t see that to be the case here. There is no “his child” out there waiting to be had so you want to have it.
Not to build a straw man here, but I suppose the logical answers could be:
- To make the world a better place by having a child who will do that.
- To make my life better.
- Gentically programmed to have an unquenchable desire to reproduce therby keeping the gene-line continuous.
Well, “1” is iffy. Your kid might be a drain on the world, for one. Second, you’re really saying that you + your kid will make the world better than you alone. Not a given. It’s pretty damn hard to judge whether someone makes the world a better place too. And, I don’t really see that as someone’s duty.
And “2” is somewhat iffy, and I’d question “what are you missing right now that makes you think a kid will give you a better life?” There are just so many things I want to do alone and with my wife that a kid would not allow. This is not an invite to someone to tell me “there are things I do with my kid that you and your wife don’t enjoy.” I know that. The question goes back to “before you had a kid, what made you want to bring one into the world?”
To be somewhat cynical, do you just think of it like getting a great new TV or car, only way better? That is, do you want a “source of joy” for YOURSELF? Is it needing something else to love and to be loved in return? Do you have them when the marriage starts getting a little dull? You want someone else around besides your spouse?
I suppose being so happy with wife/life I just don’t see the need for a kid. Can someone that had kids, or is planning on it, at least admit that it was a selfish attempt to make their OWN life happier?
And “3”, I just can’t argue with and is probably likely.
Good question, sweetfreak!
Here’s a link to a thread where I asked the same question here, but no one was able to provide me with a single ‘healthy’ reason for having a child-
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=119604&highlight=Kids
We are talking about human lives here! You most certainly should be able to raise your children well before deciding to have them.
Are you that selfish? If you truly love kids in general and your own in particular, you would want to be fit to raise them. Otherwise, you are having them to fulfill your own needs, whatever they may be, and are not thinking what is best for them.
Actually, you wouldn’t want my ‘go’, because I would say never. 
Okay, those all make sense to me trunk. 
But…
- I will make the world a better place myself.
- My life couldn’t be better than it already is.
- I am one of the few females who is NOT genetically programmed to reproduce.
Well, I personally was lying around in our apartment with nothing whatsoever to do, and I couldn’t think of one other thing I could be bothered with, and a career sounded like too much trouble, so I decided that a kid would be a good idea, since that wouldn’t be much work at all, and they’re really cute for the first year or so. No, really!
OK, actually we’d been very happily married for about 4 years, DangerDad was out of college and into a decent job, and I was in the second (and last) year of library school, and enjoying every minute. We wanted to add another person to our family and teach her and watch her grow. We wanted another person to love and care for and share with and teach happiness to–to get sappy, we wanted to enlarge our circle of love. As it happens, I got done with the degree, worked at the public library for some time, and packed up and moved to Smalltownsville for a new job and life before DangerGirl, now 3, came along. We enjoy travel and hope to be able to take our girls with us, and we can always do it when they’re older, too (my parents had a lot of fun once we left). Parenting is lots of hard work, and even more rewarding to us. In fact, we like it so much we did it again. Now that DangerGirl is 3, it’s a lot of fun to do stuff with her and show her how things work, and I still have a cute snuggly baby to boot.
By all means, enjoy your life without kids, but this attitude that ‘people who want children must have sad, empty lives and hollow marriages and not know what to do with themselves’ is just not very realistic, and quite insulting to–well, a good half of the population, and your parents as well.
Well, for us, it was because as much fun as we were having, we wagered that life would be better living it as a family, including at least one child. I grew up in a family and enjoyed it, and I’d like to be able to provide the same for another human being. That’s about it. Not for everyone, but I don’t see how this makes me a bad person or irresponsible.
See, to me, there’s this great big unexplained, unexamined hole where I put the *********.
You go from perfectly happy to wanting to get pregnant and have a kid running around. There’s such a massive leap there, to me. Being content, by definition, implies that you don’t want that change, so I need to suspect there’s some discontent there.
I can respect the decision “I’m going to take the chance of more happiness at the risk of less happiness.” It’s almost akin to moving or changing jobs from a “comfortable place.” People with kids don’t seem to want to say that though. I THINK they want to believe that their decision to have kids was completly SELFLESS because their current love for their child is selfless.
But, is the decision to conceive not a SELFISH decision?
And not to get into psychoanalysis here, but I think a lot of people, if they were truly honest, would answer the question much like your first paragraph.
And, as a matter of fact, I’ve talked to my dad extensively about it. And grilled him on the very question. He’s very open to our not having children. While he doesn’t regret having kids he also is open enough to admit he could have done a lot he wanted to do if he didn’t have them.
I don’t think I said anything about “bad person” or irresponsible.
Anyway, your first line is what I’m thinking about, “as much fun as we were having, we wagered that life would be better living it as a family”.
That’s what I was saying in my reply to DangerMom. It is a wager. Maybe its a wager that I don’t know how interested I’d be in winning. But it’s certainly an unknown.
Anyway, thanks to all responders. This is actually a decision we’ve been weighing for a few years now (like I said 5 years married, early 30’s) and as much as I’m arguing against it, we’re still talking it over.
I, as a parent, will gladly say that, if it helps. 
In fact, more of the parents I know wouldn’t have a problem saying as much, so I’m definitely percieving attitudes differently than you are, whether it’s a demographic thing or otherwise who can say.
While I was enjoying the child-free life for some time, it was clear that it was eventually going to get stale for me. I love children, and I didn’t want to miss out on starting a family of my own, for all of the things that go with it.
I’m sure this is true, but it is also likewise true that there are as many things you don’t get to do if you do not have children. So one of the questions becomes, are the things you have to miss when you have children worth more or less than the things you would miss if you didn’t have children? Different people answer differently.
On preview I see I misattributed something to you, and I retract the snide remark about being irresponsible. Sorry!
Oh, sure. Big leap, kinda scary (OK, terrifying at times), and all that. But as it happens, I like kids and thought I could do a pretty good job raising them. I wanted them in my life. No, I don’t think I could have been just as happy without them; there is a whole new dimension to my life now that I don’t want to live without, and that I wanted before I had them.
I suppose there are many things I could do if I hadn’t had my kids, but I don’t personally think that they are as worth doing as what I’ve got going. And they’ll grow up, and move out, and I’ll have plenty of time to do all those things. My mom now has a full-time career and more on her plate than she can really handle, after 20 years as a SAHM. She won’t be retiring for quite a few years. I see my life as something similar, happening in chapters. At this time I am focused on parenting, and I love that. Later on, I’ll do other things, and enjoy those too.
Anyway, DangerGirl wants to play hide and seek. And it’s time to wake the baby.
Do any of you childless people have pets?
Cause I think the leap from no pets to pets is similar to the leap to children.
I’ve had pets.
Now we have no pets.
From the standpoint of someone who doesn’t have pets, I don’t understand why anyone would want them. Have to go home to feed them. Clean up after them. Sometimes they bite or scratch up your furniture. Ruin your floors and carpets.
From the standpoint of someone who has had pets, and probably will again, pets are incredible. Nothing like puppy eyes looking up at you when you get home. There is something wonderful about a good dog or a good cat - and even a not so good dog or cat can offer a lot of reward.
I think a lot of people have pets because they always knew they would have pets. They grew up around dogs and cats. Life is somehow not complete without a Golden Retriever jogging along side you on your run or a cat sleeping on top of your feet.
Kids are like that - but more. More work. More responsibility. But more rewarding. Capable of giving you so much more than puppy kisses.
Kids are a little like having a spouse as well. Some people are just not cut out for having someone in their life at a spouse level. To have that sort of responsiblity and make that sort of committment is frightening. But, for most of it, it seems that at some point in life you’ll feel the need to tie yourself to another individual in a quite scary way.
If you don’t get it, you probably never will. And that is fine. No one should HAVE to have kids or be made to feel that they are missing something because they don’t.