Bye-bye baby (Childfree and Loving It)

Telegraph ^ | February 26, 2006 | Julia Llewellyn Smith

[television is just wrong]

She is a 46 year old orthodontist who hates children.

"Strange that someone who hates children would choose to make a living out of straightening their teeth."

I've always thought that also.

[Antoninus]

Not everything that makes someone a bad parent can be willed away. Someone with severe bipolar disorder or schizophrenia cannot magically cure themselves, for instance.

Are you suggesting that MaDuce has a mental disorder? I wasn't.

[hinckley buzzard]

Posterity comes when the son sticks you in a nursing home, because the new honey doesn't want you around.

90% of elderly either live independently or are cared for at home by (ahem) family members. Who cares for the childless widow when all her friends are dead and there is no one left alive in the world who even knows her?

[Antoninus]

However, why you get to make decisions about whether other people should or should not have children is amazingly intrusive. If they don't want to, your answer is to change into someone who wants to.

You are mistaking my derision of those who choose not to procreate for purely selfish reasons with a desire to force them to do so. I have no such desire.

I only encourage those capable of it to change their attitude away from selfish narcissism toward selfless love and charity.

Parenthood is the ultimate expression of selfless love. It is an admission that life is good. It is saying "yes" to God, as opposed to those who say "non serviam."

[LWalk18]

Are you suggesting that MaDuce has a mental disorder? I wasn't.

I wasn't either, I don't even know her. My point is that her reasons for not wanting children may or may not be something that she can overcome. Children are innocent, and they shouldn't be born because of family pressure, to save the X race, or to contribute to the already deeply flawed Social Security system if they are not otherwise wanted. My only desire of the childfree is they take every precaution to not conceive or if they do, that they do not abort their child. Once again, the value of children as individuals is at stake.

[linda_22003]

There are, fortunately, other ways to serve.

[LWalk18]

Who cares for the childless widow when all her friends are dead and there is no one left alive in the world who even knows her?

Who cares for the widow when her children live thousands of miles away and are unwilling or unable to take of her? Having children doesn't guarantee that they will be taken care of in old age. Besides, you can't guarantee how your final years will play out- you may die in your sleep one night, you may suffer a long, expensive illness for which your children may not be able to take care of you in their homes. When I have kids, I won't demand on them to take of me financially or otherwise in my old age; I will save for myself and if they want to help me and are able to do so, they can.

[hinckley buzzard]

Islam has simply no chance to inspire native Europeans (exept of some very few idiots).

No offense, but when Europe was the most educated, culturally and technically most advanced region of the world, it was inspired and torn apart by the most heathen of ideologies, and the continent is still healing decades later. If Germans and French and whatever others can embrace the Nazi nightmare, or the Stalinist dark ages, who is to say they can't become moslems.

If I were a European I would be humble about this. Afterall, those other obscenities transcended and overrode the values of a relatively viable Christianity. In 21st century Europe, despite the nominal church figures, that Christianity has been vitiated by government dilution and secularization via the welfare state. Islam has to transcend and override--what--nothing.

[steve-b]

You have the power to suppress your evil tendencies

This is hardly convincing, coming from someone who has failed to suppress (and indeed seems to revel in) an evil tendency toward busybodydom.

[Antoninus]

Of course it is troubling. The thing is, that Europe is a continent of immigration if it wants to survive. The declining birth rates are a fact and nobody can change those realities.

Does Europe want to survive? Most of the Europeans I know seem to almost have a death-wish--refusing to confront problems that are staring them right in the face and prancing vicariously through life with nary a care. Then again, most of the Euros I know are British or Dutch, so I'm sure attitudes vary.

I think the only thing that can truly save Europe is a Catholic revival. And for that to work, the Almighty will need to stir something in the hearts of the secular Europeans that they never believed was there.

Stranger things have happened.

I pray that your optimism--especially in the case of Germany--is well founded. I pray that the 21st century is kinder to the Germans than the previous one.

[lawgirl]

I agree that people should not have children if they don't want them, but the people in this article sound very selfish and shallow.

[bella1]

Ah, childless because he never married.

[Antoninus]

This is hardly convincing, coming from someone who has failed to suppress (and indeed seems to revel in) an evil tendency toward busybodydom.

I'm sorry, master. I will withhold my opinion henceforth and cede the field to you, my better. /s

[hinckley buzzard]

You talk of guarantees. How silly. Real life has no guarantees. Your post reflects the shortsightedness which afflicts so many people. If you want your children to care about you when you are old, first--have some. Second--love them and bring them up in the way they should go. Third--accept what comes because there are no guarantees that 1 and 2 will work out. But it's sort of like the lottery: you can guarantee you won't win if you don't play!

[zeugma]

Beautiful! Thanks for posting and good luck!

[TChris]

And thus you yourself pronounce the absolute end of your lineage. The effect upon your future family is precisely the same as if you were murdered.

[Draco]

I guess you have an axe to grind in favor of gay marriage and you want to relate it to every post here. I won't bore you the facts about the failure of that proposition both politically and electorally in this county. But keep trying to convince us, the "closed minded."

[iPod Shuffle]

Who cares for the childless widow when all her friends are dead and there is no one left alive in the world who even knows her?

Her cats. She'll make a nice feast for the kitties, once she does go to the other side.

[CzarNicky]

and your towel-headed neighbors, not having this self-indulgent attitude,

Actually the towel heads have the same self indulgent attitude they just carry it the other way.

[SuziQ]

We're bringing our youngest son back home next year. He's in a Catholic all boy's high school, that's a good school, but he's just not the sit all day in school type kid. We homeschooled him for a couple of years before he went to high school, so I know he'll do his work, and we are just finishing up with our daughter who 'graduates' this year, so we have some experience with it. He, and we, are looking forward to the freedom that homeschooling provides. He's old enough to do most everything on his own, with the exception of Math, which Dad will help him with, and Physics, which he'll take a the local Community College.

We didn't start homeschooling them until they were in 6th and 8th grades, though we'd thought about it for years, even when the older two boys were in their elementary years. I just could never get myself geared up for it; I guess I liked the socialization of school with PTA, etc. By the time the two younger kids were in middle school, I figured I'd socialized about as much as I could stand. I still do stuff for the Parish and Girl Scouts, but school fundraising, etc, is one big layer of stuff that's taken away, and next year I won't have Girl Scouts, either! WooHoo!