Posted on 09/20/2005 9:05:33 PM PDT by ExitPurgamentum
No kids please, we're selfish
The population is shrinking, but why should I care, says Lionel Shriver. My life is far too interesting to spoil it with children
Lionel Shriver Saturday September 17, 2005
Guardian
Meet the Anti-Mom. A story of motherhood gone dreadfully wrong, my seventh novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, has drawn fire from Catholic websites for being hostile to "family", while grotesque distortions of the book's underlying theme ("It's all right to hate your own child, and if they turn out badly it's not your fault") have spored from article to article like potato blight. Devastated mothers send me confiding letters detailing horror stories of offspring just like the wicked boy in my book. Women who'd declined to have children flock to my readings, raising the novel as proof they were right. Yet even as "Kevin" won the Orange Prize in July, when my role as poster-girl for "maternal ambivalence" jacked up yet another power, something strange was starting to happen. I sometimes departed from script. When a Sunday Times reporter (who clearly thought me a chilly, arrogant creep) asked if I didn't think that declining to reproduce was essentially "nihilistic", I piped readily, "Of course." And when a reporter from Birmingham asked tentatively in a phone interview, "Wasn't refusing parenthood a little ... selfish?" I bellowed into the receiver, "Absolutely!"
The truth is, I had started to feel guilty.
A long but a worthy read.
I would rather that folks like this not reproduce.
My life was far too interesting to spoil it with children, too. I now have three sons, ages 4, 5, and 9, and what I've come to know is that what I thought was interesting was really just me being drunk a lot with my friends.
Life is much more interesting now, sober and with my family.
If you've got three boys, then you have three good reasons to take up drinking again.
It sure helped me.
She's gotta squeeze that last little bit of liberal self-hate in at the end. Cow.
When Islamic fundamentalists accuse the west of being decadent, degenerate and debauched, I don't give a rat's ass. They can talk when they get themselves out of the DARK AGES.
Had to get that bit off first... Anyway, as for her main point, she didn't really talk much about the majority picture (it is a minority of women who do not want *any* children). Couples who do have kids are having fewer kids, like 1-3. Even some of the most selfish, hedonistic people I know want to eventually have kids, and I am sure that they will. But it will not be a huge family. And that goes for the more responsible, 'traditional' folks as well. The proportional costs of having children have gone waaaay up, in time and money.
I honestly cannot see my wife and I having more than 3. I'd prefer to raise 2-3 in relative comfort than 10 in poverty. But I have to respect (and envy) the folks who manage to have large, healthy, happy broods. They are truly blessed.
Since when is the population shrinking?
Birth rates in most every Western country are below replacement level. Japan is way below also. Other Asian states are trending that way in accordance with increased affluence.
In the US the birthrate is buoyed by mass immigration. Therefore it is more accurate to say that only certain populations are shrinking. In my opinion it is the best populations that are shrinking. But if you "think globally" well, then, no, the human race isn't dying out. In fact it's "vibrant".
Why do you feel that way. Did you read the entire article? She seem to come around in good fashion. I'll take a person who can admit mistakes any day over one that is too hard-headed to ever see that they've made one.
Seems to me, a lack of God (although see mentions Him) in their lives is one of the main culprits for their attitudes.
The first world population is shrinking-the third world types are breeding like bunnies.
I hope everyone here who points out how wonderful parenthood is, is also working hard to get rid of the cruelest of our unfair tax system here in America--the Infertility Tax.
How sick it is that with two couples making the same income, the infertile one is penalized further by paying higher taxes. God might be cruel to prevent children in those who would want them and would be good to them, but for the State to pile on is ridiculous.
(Although one might say that the couple who chooses to be childless should be taxed less, since they forego the benefits of parenthood, the truly fair solution is a flat tax, IMHO.)
Stunning that the Guardian ran it.
It sounds like the issue is the inability to discipline and control the children.
Isn't it odd that people appeared more willing to have kids back when they were supposed to strictly control them, rather than now when everything is "sweetness-and-niceness-don't-do-that-Johnny" and the kids tell you to go suck eggs?
Not odd at all. Makes perfect sense to me.
I agree. Homes in which both parents are in the work force can handle fewer children.
Oddly, the relative value of one worker's income to provide for a family went DOWN with the massive influx of females into the workforce.
Makes sense economically.....increased supply of workers led to decrease in their value.
Thanks for posting this very interesting piece.
Oh, I see why.
This is the second post of the exact same titled thread.
The real shame of it is the entire society suffers. The children don't have a parent at home and don't have that inherent feeling of being valued and most important your original point a little old fashioned discipline. Women discover too late in life that the "career" track is nowhere near as satisfying as a family would have been.
It's amazing how the old tried and true values and traditions actually work if followed.
Not really, unless one subscribes to the point of view that each kid has to have twice more room than in 1950s, that (s)he cannot be happy without the latest CD, etc.; that is, if one subscribes to the materialistic culture.
I honestly cannot see my wife and I (sic) having more than 3. I'd prefer to raise 2-3 in relative comfort than 10 in poverty
Whose comfort do you worry about, theirs or yours?
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