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.
"Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes."
Prov 26:5
"[As] a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools."
Prov 26:9
I don't doubt those daycare studies for a minute. I did a bit of daycare (my mom hated it, but it was unavoidable, dad was making a play to end support and letting me stay home unsupervised wasn't an option for a while) and it's crazy. The best way I could describe daycare is think of a prison riot done in half size with less lethal weapons. Because the people involved are not teachers there's nothing to do but play with the toys that are generally broken and there aren't enough to go around anyway; with no focus and no one really in charge it's a madhouse. I much prefered going home I'd just turn on the Barney Miller reruns and do homework or read.
Matt 7:24-7
A good relationship is predicated on how well it fulfills their wants, not how well it perfects their being by addressing their needs ... including the need to change or sacrifice.
Children are a direct route to selflessness ... which selflessness seems an utter horror to most moderns, I'm sure.
Moderns see the Abyss beneath them, and know the outer darkness that awaits--what have they to do, having nothing but the meager self? To give of it is to hasten the coming dark--to expose their naked souls to Nothing by stripping away their rags--and they of all will most assuredly not go quietly into that dark night, even for children.
Yes, they can do that! ;0) But, children also have this wonderful capacity to turn rage and frustration into moments of sublime clarity, where the overblown importance of the moment dissolves into an understanding of more eternal truths. More often than not, the result is a chuckle and a hug.
Then again, some children are just jerks.
Are you saying I'm not entitled to ask you the analogous question?
I answered it, as I said.
There's no way that this is just your opinion? It has to be true for everyone?
If religion is true, then it's true for everyone. If there is a human nature, a natural law, a purpose of some kind to humanity, then at some fundamental level it must be for all humanity. As far as "true for everyone" in the realm of having kids, please see post #156.
No, I think you know what I'm talking about. If not, here's a decent starting point:
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
And if you have a problem with that, then blame God for the system, not me.
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