Posted on 01/02/2002 6:49:27 AM PST by dead
Is it really so hard to understand, asks Rachel Roberts, that there can be more to a couple's relationship than having children?
I am one of a growing number of women who will elect not to have children. And at least in my experience, the decision to not have children isn't one that is met with much enthusiasm.
From the family, there are comments like "But don't you want us all to have kids playing together at birthday parties and barbecues?" and "I've just always thought that part of a couple's life together is having a family".
From friends, there are protests like "But you'd make such great parents!" or "You've had such a good family life, don't you want to re-create that yourself?"
On the whole, though, the standard response is scepticism. Brush-offs. "Oh, you say that now, but wait till you turn 30!" And "I thought that, too, when I was your age but, trust me, that biological clock really gets you."
Well, I am fast approaching 30 and I have never been surer that I don't want children. My partner feels the same. We have thought about it a lot and have decided time and again that no, it's not for us. We don't want to be woken up at all hours to attend a screaming infant that knows only the need to suck. We don't want to sacrifice our time and energy chasing death-defying toddlers or taxiing around teenagers who have recently learnt to hate us.
More importantly, neither of us (me, especially) wants to see my body torn asunder during childbirth. We already love our life the way it is, child-free. And that is why the brush-off response interests me the most.
It's as though those who either have, or some day want, children refuse to recognise other possibilities in life. They are mentally closing off to paths different from their well-worn one. Particularly for women, it seems that in the face of all political and cultural change, we can always rely on some things staying the same.
Thirty years on from second-wave feminism, people are still incredulous of the woman who declares she doesn't want to be a mother.
Feminists have long argued that the social and political resistance to women who choose to remain child-free reflects a far deeper cultural anxiety about what is expected of women. Traditional femininity is inextricably bound up with notions of mothering, nurturance and birth.
Since day dot, motherhood has been viewed as the natural female career. And now, thanks to an enduring belief in biological determinism, the desire to bear children continues to be seen in terms of instinct, as a drive that is universally hard-wired into the female psyche. To be a normal woman, we must at least want children, even if for some reason we cannot have them.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you say, we've all done Feminism 101 - tell us something we don't know. Well, having experienced the reactions couples meet when revealing that they do not want children, I suspect there is something more at play than simply challenging the traditional ideology that surrounds women. Certainly a woman who elects not to have children is treading a less orthodox path. However, it's not just the woman's decision to not have children that disturbs convention, but the man's as well. As partners they upset traditional understandings of what heterosexual love is about. Why do I think this? Well, when was the last time any of us saw a romantic film where one lover whispers to the other "I love you so much, darling, I never want to have your baby!" It just wouldn't seem right.
From wedding ceremonies to popular culture, we are saturated with the idea that children are the symbol of a man and woman's love for each other. Undoubtedly the outcome of their physical union, children are moreover portrayed as the embodiment of a couple's emotional bond. The place where a man and woman's DNA and souls enmesh.
Having children remains integral to our contemporary mythology of love and desire, and those couples who reject parenthood disappoint our romantic expectations. They let us down by not making what is seen as the ultimate declaration of heterosexual love.
So perhaps that is why society shrugs off couples who don't want children. Perhaps the sceptical comments from family and friends reflect an unwillingness to accept romantic defeat. At the very least, it shows a distinct lack of imagination when it comes to recognising signs of love.
After all, for couples like us, the real romance is in being child-free.
Rachel Roberts is a freelance writer.
As for her relationship with God that's inappropriate for either of us to discuss as she mentions nothing in the article. Perhaps God decided she'd make a lousy mom and has led her on a path away from parenthood, we have no way of knowing.
If you think about it for a while it will come to you..." -ggg-
It seems to me that there are a sufficient number of people reproducing that not everyone has to perpetuate the species.
I would also add that there are too many people reproducing who are not fit to be parents.
This woman may not be your sort, but she's certainly not hurting anything. Do you really want her to be a mother?
Don't sugar coat it. You were accusing men on this board of a double standard, perhaps even of hypocrisy.
I'm not even sure this article would have even been posted if it was written by a man.
Why don't you go find one and post it instead of accusing people you don't know of being hypocrites?
I for one find this attitude shallow and selfish, regardless of the gender of the author.
I didn't think much of your accusations either.
Your point turns on the word "capable" meaning "physically capable of breeding." I don't think I implied that, but if I did, I correct myself to mean "capable of raising well." And in some circumstances (e.g., India) that means some people probably shouldn't have kids, but I thought I addressed that when I said, only under unusual circumstances [that is, unusual to those who need not concern themselves with money or overpopulation, etc.] should people not have children, and cursed with those circumstances, it seems to me that those people are flawed or diminished in light of those in better waters."
Which brings us to...Surely you realize that "better waters" for you won't necessarily be the same for me.
To a limited extent, that's true--but human nature is the same for you as it is for me, and children are an integral part of human nature. And don't call me Shirley.
is "flawed" synonymous with "different" in your book?
Depends on what's different. A deaf guy is "different" and you're damn right he's flawed--hopeless, no, and worthless, of course not--but only someone indulging in abashed fantasy would suggest that he's whole.
Was Jesus Christ flawed because he didn't have any children?
Jesus Christ was sent to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and to be the hope of the Gentiles. All mankind are His children.
When you say "we," you are talking about those of you with children?
No, I meant those of us not graced with such lofty souls.
I don't have any problem understanding how a life can be good, fulfilling, and beneficial to the greater good, all without children.
Right you are, it can. But Apostolic grace aside, it can't be best, most fulfilling, and most beneficial without children.
My turn. Why exactly did you wish to have children?
I think you missed something. You attacked (How am I flawed because I don't want children of my own?), to which I replied at length the implied question "why is having kids better?" or "why do you want to have kids?"; then I retorted why do you not wish to have children?, and you replied at length. Have you other counterpoints to make?
As for why people try to talk you into having kids I don't know. Again, probably different with everybody. I know my mother-in-law just couldn't understand it. To her (and she outright said this to me) the order of life was: grow up, go to college, get married, have children, raise children, get old, die. To her (again pretty close to quoting) it doesn't matter if you like or want kids, you're supposed to have kids because that's what people do. Others, I'm sure, have so enjoyed having children they feel a need to make sure no one they care about misses out on this wonderful experience (kind of like recommending a movie only much bigger).
Maybe it's just that I was raised in a Catholic household in a Jewish neighborhood, proseletizing to those who didn't inquire doesn't sit well with me. To me telling me why I should have kids is rude if I haven't asked for input. All decisions are those of the decider and nobody who hasn't been asked to participate has a right to try to sway the decision, at least that's how I was raised ot think.
I think you have a very enlightened approach. Keep telling that to those busybodies.
Child raising is serious business. There are a lot of disinterested parents out there that should have given the matter more consideration before they brought their children into the world.
I don't read her that way at all. Where is the bitter?
Where is the miserable?
Women don't have to define their lives around motherhood, although the number of posters on FR with Mom in their handles does seem to keep growing.
Because they (the "parents") are too freakin' lazy to bring their spawn up properly. A little careful work at age 2 can make age 16 tremendously easier. Two year olds intensely dislike the word "no". Wise mothers and fathers use it anyway, and make it stick. Foolish mothers and fathers allow whining, wheedling, and crying to convert "no" to "maybe", and finally to the fateful "yes, but just this one time". The snotty nosed little brats you see running amok in public are usually the spawn of selfish, lazy, morons. Such behaviour is not inevitable.
OBTW, my whiny, immature, compalining coworkers were definitely self-starters on the subject of the general, inevitable horridness of children.
AB
There is also a 3rd category, the Jews. (The House of Israel having never been Jewish.)
Could you point me to a comprehensive source on that, please? It's not my forte.
In my experience, the type of child you describe is most likely from a family where both parents work away from home in full-time jobs. Getting children to behave is a difficult task for parents who are often exhausted. Bribery is often the preferred method of discipline.
Ha! Well, aside from personal observation, and noting the many License Plate frames that say "Happiness is being a Grandmother", I have never seen a license holder that says "Happiness is being a dried up old prune of a feminist who doesn't have any Grandchildren" I think you would agree that's far more valid than most of the "research" brought to FR? -ggg-
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