Bye-bye baby (Childfree and Loving It)

Telegraph ^ | February 26, 2006 | Julia Llewellyn Smith

[Alouette]

as a species we have transcended our biology. We don't live in caves any more and we don't need to breed.'

Give this lady a Darwin Award.

[Campion]

Most say no, one says, "a little, sometimes". Lots of the ladies who have had children have profound regrets about that choice.

I just plain flatly don't believe you.

[Antoninus]

Besides there is a broad movement among European men to renounce traditional families because the divorce rate is at nearly 50%. It is not funny to be a cash cow.

I wonder how that is related to the decline of Christianity in Europe. When a man and woman were married in the Catholic Church, divorce was simply not an option. One was very careful when selecting a mate. For many of us, that's still the case.

Since the decline of Christianity, divorce has come to be a common and easy thing--almost expected. In my opinion, Western society has suffered greatly on many levels from this and will continue to do so.

I think it is a fact that human nature can not be tricked. If a woman decides to live without her own kids (this can be very reasonable in some cases) she usually has to pay a bitter price.

You are 100% correct. I have noticed the same thing with many of my very highly educated relatives. The single women tend to latch themselves on to the kids of the nearest relative as a surrogate family.

[Alouette]

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.

[BBT]

I look at it as just differences in people. Don't care what she does, one way or the other. She'll never know the feeling that envelopes you when your grandchild says, "God sure showed you how to be a good gramma." I'll never know how it feels to be a size 2 at age 60. Trade-offs.

[Antoninus]

So get off your high horses and apply the "freedom and liberty" view point we all here at FR like to express about other things to people who don't want kids.

You can thank us later when you're old and decrepit and our kids are: mowing your lawn, shoveling your walkway, delivering your mail, helping you cross the street, protecting you from criminals, and taking care of you in a nursing home.

[Richard Kimball]

Julia Llewellyn Smith walks into a store. She accidentally knocks over a $10,000 crystal vase. The store owner comes running up, appalled and looking at the shattered vase. She tells him, "It's okay. I wasn't hurt at all."

[linda_22003]

Don't believe it, then. I remember the Dear Abby column years ago when she asked her readers "if you had it to do over again, would you have children" and 70% of her responses said "no". Naturally, if it wasn't what you had hoped for, you have a stronger motivation to answer a poll like that, so it's a self-selected group of responses, not a statistically valid one.

I would not say that the parents we know have "profound regrets"; mostly during the years their kids are teenagers they range between frustration and despair, but it gets better when the kids go off to college. :)

[linda_22003]

And we'll be paying for all of those services. :)

[Antoninus]

Can you imagine how ridicoulos the whole discussion about "Eurarabia", "Dhimmitude" and "Muslim toppling of Europe" from the German view is?

Germany is not nearly as bad off as some other places in Europe--like France, the Netherlands and Sweden, for example. What do you make of statistics like the birthrate in cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where nearly as many Muslim children are being born right now as native Dutch? Is that not troubling?

[Atlas Sneezed]

Most say no, one says, "a little, sometimes". Lots of the ladies who have had children have profound regrets about that choice.

I just plain flatly don't believe you.

---

Call me a liar if you like. But you need to tell others why I would have an incentive to lie about this. We "childfree" folks are darn comfortable with our choice. The vehemence from your side suggests you are not.

[Campion]

But you need to tell others why I would have an incentive to lie about this. We "childfree" folks are darn comfortable with our choice.

You can be as "comfortable" as you like. That doesn't change the moral impact of it.

The vehemence from your side suggests you are not.

"Comfortable" with your choice? Nope, not at all. Comfortable with mine? Absolutely, but more important that being "comforted," I know that what I'm doing is my duty to God and society.

[bella1]

Those who refuse to reproduce will be ruled by those who do. Its simple mathematics.

[Atlas Sneezed]

>>And when it comes to self-absorption, one could make a case that generating a mini-replica to carry on one's legacy after you are gone ranks pretty high

>I doubt very much you're a parent, or you wouldn't make such a ridiculous statement.

I wasn't the one cooing about "posterity".

>A society in which a significant number of people decide that reproduction is "optional," and an "option" they can do without, is doomed. That's not even debatable, unless you like to argue with mathematics.

"Doomed"? That is ridiculous, because there has always been a segment, including happily married fertile couples, who choose not to reproduce.

>That's why we call it selfish. It is selfish; it's eating your economic seed corn today so you can get good and fat, never mind the fact that there will be nothing to plant in the spring and you will starve next winter.

Newsflash: reproduction is not immortality. Failure to have children does not cause one to starve. A more pertinent agricultural point is that at a more primitive time in human history, having lots of children was essential for a family's survival. In modern times, a family can survive just as easily with or without children.

>For a time, a society can artificially prop up its standard of living by refusing to bear, feed, raise and educate the next generation. But that only lasts so long, doesn't it.

You speak as if the small minority who choose not to have children are out there proselytizing and pressuring others not to. Yet you are living proof of who is doing a proselytizing and pressuring. And your language about "the next generation" sounds like Hillary Clinton's "it takes a Village". Don't kid yourself that you are raising the next generation. You are just raising your own kids, because that's what you wanted to do.

[linda_22003]

I don't think that's true; I think that some people, for religious or other reasons, honestly do not think it is RIGHT for people to be childless.

On a conservative website, it always amazes me to see that people make this exception for individual decision-making, which conservatives usually support.

The arguments I have so often seen fall into three major groups, none of which speak to love of children, frankly:

1. Contraception is morally wrong and should not be practiced (obviously not something people generally agree on).

2. The Muslims are having the children we are not having, and will take over the world (therefore, have babies to kill and be killed).

3. Social Security would not be in trouble now if we'd had all of the babies that were aborted or otherwise prevented from being born (therefore, have babies to be indentured servants for our retirement).

None of those seem to be compelling arguments for having more children, since none of them have to do with love of children.

[steve-b]

Easy enough to correct by taking away the various government give-away rewards for breeding. That focuses the mind wonderfully (particulaly among those of limited means, which for obvious reasons tends to be common among unassimilated and uneducated recent immigrants).

[Antoninus]

I for one am encouraging my children to have more than just two.

Good for you. I had but one brother as a kid. Having a brother is a wonderful thing--the closest relationship outside of marriage that many of us will ever have. My wife has a brother and three sisters and their family life is a joy. We get together with them at least twice a week--it's a built-in support network.

I want my children to have the same thing. A large family is an incredible blessing. So far, we've got three with one on the way. God has truly blessed us.

[linda_22003]

And immediately, we've seen argument 1 and 2 made just in the time it took me to post. I've been on FR long enough that I know when it's going to be completely predictable! :)

[Atlas Sneezed]

>That doesn't change the moral impact of it.

I see, now we are "immoral" for choosing not to have children.

Dismissed.

[antaresequity]

They'll under-breed themselves out of existence.

If that were true...how do you explain homosexuals?