Avast, me hearties!
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.
Discipline means teaching. Bribery, as you use the term, means teaching children that if they act badly, they will get goodies. (Junior starts acting up. Mommy says if you stop, I'll give you X. Junior behaves decently for a while, then he thinks "If I act up again, I'll get even more goodies. So he starts up again. Repeat vicious cycle. Lesson to parents: don't start it in the first place.) I cannot think of a more disastrously wrong thing to teach a child. The two income household is often not a necessity, unless you think having all the latest video games, fad toys, etc. is "necessary". Not that anyone at FR would do that...
AB
Avast, me hearties!
Whoa, buddy--keep your personal life to yourself! ;)
If people aren't going to dedicate the time and energy they shouldn't have kids. If they've had kids then they damn well better find the time and energy it takes to raise them right.
]Could you point me to a comprehensive source on that, please?
Sure, just click on my Profile.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Ro 1:29
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Ro 1:30
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Ro 1:31,p> Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Hey, we've got ourselves a mind-reader!
Maybe your friends and folks just care too much about you to say nothing, yet don't have the restraint to say it tactfully.
Nope -- they're just arrogant busy-bodies.
I'm glad that your single mom was able to do a good job. That, however, does not address whether that is the best way to raise children for most people. And you will have a very tough time disproving that, in general, the best way to raise children is in a two-parent family where one parent devotes his or her time primarily to caregiving.
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
--"Lazarus Long" (Robert A. Heinlein)
You might see fit to interpret her relationship with God from the article, but unless you show me something she wrote that directly discusses it I won't. That's just how I am.
Did you have a bad childhood? I'm just curious really and I mean no disrespect but just as a reminder, without children, you wouldn't really be in existence right now. Without children, the world cannot make it's technological, social or spiritual advances. To say you hate children is very serious indeed because without them, you would in no way shape or form be who you are or enjoy many things in life. I mean absolutely no disrespect when I say this either.
Very well said.
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