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.
Wishing something destroyed doesn't mean you hate it. What I said was that a passionate wish for distruction is a component of all hatred. There's a difference. I wish bin Laden destroyed, but I don't hate him. I don't feel that passionate about him. Killing him to me would be no different than killing a fly. I don't hate the fly. I just kill it. Osama hates the West, and is passionately bent on it's distruction.
I have an idea: how about if we just agree to disagree on the psycholocical/pathological definition of hatred?
"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..."
I was that way too, and so were my kids.
I just think that some of the really nosey and pushy reaction to your declarations that you don't have kids because you "hate" them has something to do with your choice of word.
I'm not dissing your decision not to have kids. I'm thinking that you might be scaring people when you say you "hate" them.
Bollocks. It "started" for me, anyway, by hearing coworkers ranting unprovoked about how horrid children are, and how they (the coworkers) didn't understand how anyone could let snotty-nosed, poopy little brats mess up their perfect little yuppie lives. It's probably best that these juvenile, immature, small minded creeps don't reproduce, though entirely too many of them resort to abortion to ensure that they aren't inconvenienced. Still, it's sad that otherwise intelligent people think and behave this way. Maybe you're not like my ex-coworkers. I hope not. Still, it's really easy to decide you don't want children at age 25. It's awfully difficult to do anything about it if you decide you do want them at age 50.
AB
Go ahead and call me an arrogant b@stard if you like. I'm used to it.
Right. If they feel that strongly about it, they should have themselves "fixed". I didn't want any more than three.
Now my tubes are tied to help ensure that.
You have perfectly summed what the last 6 weeks have taught me
Having children doesn't require "justification". It's in the genes, of normal people.
This concerns me a great deal. What happened to the "Free" in Free Republic? If we can't even discuss Buchanan's book on a conservative, freedom oriented website, then perhaps his premise will come to pass rather soon.
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