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.
I don't have a problem with any man or woman who doesn't want kids. Some people don't like kids around including some women and shouldn't have them. Why that brings out the reaction it has (among some here) is a mystery, but maybe you explained it. Just don't think ALL men have a problem with it. Only the ones with a problem with females.
(..with profound apologies to rats, dogs and pigs.)
I have one 2 year old daughter, and a son on the way in 2 weeks. I started somewhat late (mid thirties when the first child was born) and didn't think that I wanted children at all for many years...but I can now say that it is the smartest and most wonderful thing that I've ever done.
Unfortunately, her attitude is dominant among the bicoastal educated elite. They have adopted a culture of death and selfishness, and are trying to push that culture onto the rest of the country through their control of the media and educational system.
A lot of people do. That's why they wait to have them if they have them at all. Some view them that way all their lives. Why should it concern you?
LOL...THAT is strong dislike, because in my experience, hate is composed of a passionate a wish to see ( your word here ) destroyed.
If it's any comfort, when my kids come to visit - only one is left at home now, and she's seventeen - and all three of them are together, I enjoy their visit emmensely, but I STILL feel the need for a strong drink in order to relax after the chaos dies down when they go home.
Or to sit idly for years wishing she had and suffering the consequences of her actions and realizing how wrong she was for so long.
I predict she will be a 50 something women getting invetro.
In full disclosure I have met a few kids that were so amazingly cool that if it were garaunteed that my kids would be like that I'd go home and start working on it right away. Though most of those kids don't like hanging out with their peers and prefer the company of adults, kind of like how I was as a kid, and there's a good chance they're gonna grow up and not have kids too.
I think it still would have been posted, and I would find the sentiments expressed therein equally as repulsive.
AB
This gender-loathing little feminist obviously falls into that category. I suppose we should all be glad of her decision.
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