Posted on 02/28/2006 1:23:15 AM PST by beaversmom
Fascinating research suggests that as many as one in five thirtysomething British women is planning a child-free future.
When Jemma North was eight years old she had an epiphany. 'At school, someone's mum was pregnant. All the other little girls were really excited, but all I could think was, "You go through all that and all you have at the end of it is a baby?" I decided then that I would never have children.'
Of course, Jemma's pronouncement was dismissed, much as if she'd announced a plan to be a circus clown. But today, aged 32, married and surrounded by peers who are starting families, she is as adamant about her choice as ever. Yet everyone from family to complete strangers is constantly telling her: 'You'll change your mind.' If they do take her seriously, they warn her: 'You'll regret it.' It infuriates her.
'I don't want children, my husband doesn't want them and we're happy as we are,' she insists. 'The only thing that makes me unhappy is people questioning my decision all the time.'
In our society few objects attract greater pity than the childless woman. She is, we assume, old, unfulfilled, shallow, emotionally damaged, out of touch with the greatest truths of the universe. Almost daily, headlines warn about thirtysomething career women risking heartbreak by delaying pregnancy. Couples spend thousands of pounds to endure the physical and mental ordeal of IVF.
Yet for Jemma, who works for an engineering firm in Northampton, such a vision had no power to frighten. 'I am more put off by the image of being a mother,' she tells me. 'I'm not saying mothers are stupid, because, of course, a lot are far more intelligent than me, but that was my early impression. It seemed to be the thing you did if you had no other ambition.'
Jemma is far from alone. According to the Office of National Statistics, one in five British women in their thirties has decided not to have children. And it may be that a number of these have had less choice in the matter than they thought. Geneticists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge have demonstrated in mice that mutations on a certain gene can cause mothers to neglect their offspring. The same gene also exists in humans.
But whatever the social or genetic forces that play upon us, becoming a mother is still seen as a defining moment. Magazines are full of celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow gushing about how her Oscar means nothing compared to the delights of changing Apple's nappy. In contrast, rare are the voices of women such as the actress Helen Mirren, who has admitted: 'I didn't have that desire to be a mother and I don't think a lot of women do. A lot are pressured into it and they're miserable.' And whenever such comments are voiced, they are usually drowned out by a clamour of disapproval and disbelief.
'Oh, I am fed up of having to justify myself on this subject!' explodes Nicki Defago, a 39-year-old married and childfree (to use her preferred jargon) broadcast journalist. She is the author of Childfree and Loving It!, a book written after she discovered Amazon offered more than 1,000 tomes about what children eat but none about the advantages of childlessness.
'When you say you don't want children, you get the same reaction you'd have got 20 years ago if you said you were gay,' Nicki continues. 'I imagine it's a bit like you must feel if you don't go to church in America. A big section of society is appalled at the notion that there are ladies who don't want to have a baby, and quite a lot of people aren't judgemental but still just can't get it.'
Until I started researching this article, I confess, I fell firmly in the latter camp. Aware of the devastation children would wreak on my carefree life, I nonetheless always hoped to have them. So fundamental was this desire that I was sceptical of women who claimed they didn't want children. As far as I was concerned, they were just trying to put a brave face on the fact that they were unable to conceive, or had never found the right man, or had been bludgeoned by their partner into agreeing not to have them.
Nicki doesn't see it that way. 'You get a far better reception if you tell people you tried and couldn't have children, than if you tell them you don't want them,' she corrects me. But why are people who, for example, are supportive of gay rights, unable to get their heads round the idea that not everyone wants to breed?
Nicki thinks it is because the issue of children 'goes so deeply. A high percentage of us now think there's no God and if you add to that there's no need to reproduce then what on earth is it all for? Choosing not to have children gets to the heart of all those big issues.'
Existential questions apart, much of the debate seems to be fuelled by a baser jealousy. However much they love their children, most parents still yearn for aspects of their old lives.
To see a childless friend enjoying the orderliness, extra cash and spontaneity they have lost, with no apparent sense of 'missing out', can be horribly undermining. Recently the 53-year-old model Marie Helvin explained that her youthful looks were down to a life of no children and, therefore, no stress - a comment that sent a visceral pang through every mother slathering Touche Eclat on her eyebags.
'I know one father of small children who's always saying things like, "Ooh, it's not fair, you are going on holiday next week, we have to go in the school holidays,"' says Jemma North. 'He doesn't seem to appreciate that it's not a question of fairness, that I made a decision to live like this.'
For Regan Forrest, 30, a museums exhibit organiser from Leicester, the downside of children starts with conception. 'I'm uncomfortable with the physical changes of pregnancy and labour,' she admits. 'In my twenties I had body image issues. I've learnt to put up with that but the idea of putting your body through an unknown process is completely terrifying. The turning-point came at a work dinner when a colleague started going on about how his wife had disembowelled herself during labour,' she recalls.
'My partner's a doctor and the obstetric part of his training completely repulsed him. I'd never want him to be repulsed by me.'Equally daunting was the prospect of combining her career with childcare. 'I like to give my career 100 per cent. I don't think I could do the at-home mum thing.'
To parents, such misgivings may seem narcissistic and defeatist. But, Regan retorts, 'I'm demonstrating a degree of self-awareness. I may be selfish but at least I'm not going to let my selfishness affect another person. Anyway, what could be more selfish than propagating your genes? People say that on a biological level that is what we are here to do, but as a species we have transcended our biology. We don't live in caves any more and we don't need to breed.'
Like all women I spoke to, Regan is unconvinced by the arguments in favour of parenthood - the almost transcendent love you feel for children, the joy of watching them develop. 'Maybe women like us are mentally deficient,' says Regan. 'But we're so lucky to be born at this point in history. In the past, I'm sure, women felt like us, but they didn't have a choice.'
The polarity between the two camps could not be sharper. When I told friends who are mothers, or hope to be, about this article, they repeatedly said that - while intellectually respecting the position of the childless - emotionally they found it completely alien. Similarly, child-free women are politely disbelieving when they listen to friends describe a yearning for babies that is almost like a physical ache.
'I'd love to be sympathetic when I hear about women breaking their hearts trying to get IVF, but I can't. It's the opposite of what I feel,' says Anne-Marie Greenslade, 28, a mental-health worker from Warrington, Cheshire. 'I must look so callous when they're telling me, but I can't help it. I simply can't imagine being in their position.'
And there are compelling statistics to back up Anne-Marie's decision. Surveys show that people who choose not to have children (as opposed to those who desperately want them, but can't) tend to have better marriages, better finances and are no more likely to be unhappy in old age than parents.
Alison Townley, 55, a civil servant from Glasgow, toyed with the idea of becoming a mother in her twenties because it was what society expected of her, but felt unable to take the plunge. Today she has no regrets. 'The anguish I was warned about simply isn't there, which surprised me but in a wonderful way. My husband and I revel in our freedom and we resent implications that our life somehow has no purpose. When people have children they seem to give up on their own aspirations and pass the buck on to the next generation. I love the idea that I can still achieve my potential, rather than foisting all my hopes on some other sap.'
These are precisely the people who should not have children because they still are children. Leave the child-bearing and rearing to the grown-ups. We'll take care of it.
No offense, but of the many reasons I can imagine to reproduce, out-breeding Muslims is hardly one of them.
I agree with you. These people shouldn't be reproducing. My own brother has never had kids and it's a good thing. He is 45 years old and acts like a 15 year old. My Mother, stupid as she is, bought my brother a house, pays all utilites and his car. If she hadn't done that, my brother might have to stand on his own two feet.
Calm down old boy. The word "hypocrites" is not properly applied here. We disagree with them. We are not doing one thing while maintaining the opposite should be done. Sure there are people who don't want children. Fine. Free country. Both of my parents came from Europe, actually, one escaped. Europeans (my immediate ancestors) have participated in the greatest carnage in human history within the lifetime of many alive today. There is a spiritual problem there. If you read the post -- and not slam those who comment on it -- you will see the existentialist problem raised right there.
Childless, er, planning not to, never, sterility as lifestyle, um, no kids forever - uh, um, er . . . . remind me again why same sex couples should not be allowed to get married.
Good luck trying to keep up with the illegals in your own country.
Sounds like a good reason to me. Among all the others.
At the same time, people can comment on the choice. How can we not observe that people who make this choice seem to want to prolong their adolescence, like Peter Pan. They remain children.
What does one have to do with the other? Are you saying because there are childless heterosexual couples that that gives homosexuals the right to marry? Homosexuality makes human reproduction (the subject of the article) impossible. What does homosexuality have to do with any of this?
Besides, if you don't have children, you'll never experience the TRUE joy..being a grandparent!!!...(G)
...and your towel-headed neighbors, not having this self-indulgent attitude, will out-breed you in two generations. Welcome to Great Britistan.
Interesting. Can you explain this a littlebit further?
BTTT. Couldn't have said it better myself...
see #36
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No, I am.
All this "Eurabia" propaganda is BS. It is correct that we have a problem with young muslims in our country since they are usually undereducated and unemployed. This is the reason why they get aggressive - just as some minorities in the US (do you remember the Los Angeles riots in 1992?). But there is one thing for sure: They will not take over the power here.
We can take Germany as a example: Most Turks here are assimilated, peaceful and decent people. I employ some in my own business and I know what I am talking about. That does not mean that we have to ignore the problem with Islam, but we should get the right dimensions.
The thing is, that maybe 3% (this is a extremly high supposition) of the German Turks are extreme, dangerous islamists that are willing to spread their religion with all means. Today we have a population of 82,431,390 people in Germany. 2.4% are etnic Turks. That means that we have 1,978,113 Turks living in my country and 59,363 are extreme islamists. Therefore we have to deal with some foul 0,072% of our population.
Even if 20% of our Turkish compatriots would tend to dangerous ideas we had a problem with 0,48% of our population. It will take 68 times of their current number (which is over-, over-, over-, overstated in this worst case supposition) until they reach 1/3 of all Germans.
You can check all those numbers in the CIA factbook: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html
Can you imagine how ridicoulos the whole discussion about "Eurarabia", "Dhimmitude" and "Muslim toppling of Europe" from the German view is?
To change Europe into a "Eurabia" it would be nessecary that Islam is starting a intellectual push to find new members among the native populace. This will not work: Native Europeans are either catholic, protestant or are absolutely not interested in religion. Islam has simply no chance to inspire native Europeans (exept of some very few idiots).
Furthermore it is only possible to "take over" our system if the Islamiacs are able to act intelligent. In the moment most of them belong to the undereducated lower class and are unfit to act in a larger frame. I.e. Those kids who torched cars in Paris mainly burned the cars of their own parents since they were simply too dumb to go into the more wealthy suburbs.
You can believe me since I am a real insider with open eyes living in good old Europe.
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