My Dear Hard Drive

The following is a response to a post at http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2010/06/love-casts-out-fear.html and was intended as a comment but turned out to be too long for the form to accept.

I find these sort of articles interesting, as before I started reading what other people thought about the chilfree, it never even crossed my mind that someone would consider it odd or “unusual”. I crew up in a comparatively religious (evangelic Lutheran) family, but my parents were the odd ones out as they had children. Their combined 5 siblings were either childless, childless by choice or married so late in life that the ship simply sailed.

I am a married childless by choice woman. I knew at the age of 6 that I didn’t want children. FEAR had NOTHING to do with it, I just know I don’t want to. SELFISHNESS has nothing to do with it, but my view of the spiritual truth of the universe (can’t really call it religious as I don’t belong to any organized religion anymore) has a part to play. I believe that a child is a gift to his parents, but I also believe that “the gift of life” is no gift to the child itself. The value of life, I feel, is highly exaggerated. I often feel I’d rather have not been born at all, even though I have had a pretty happy life. In a way, I love my children too much to give them birth.

As for my marriage, I really don’t understand why I would need children to validate it. I don’t care if other people don’t take my marriage seriously because I don’t have children.  It’s none of their business, it’s between me and my husband. We wanted companionship of a person who is already sentenced to life on planet Earth, without the need to add more prisoners just to make ourselves feel better about life. From this point of view, I think parents are often incredibly selfish, not the child-free. Children are born because the parents need something to validate themselves, give a purpose to their lives, they have a need to nurture and feel love and what not. Where does the child’s needs come to play? In the best case scenario the child comes through it happy and contempt, and the arrangement is mutually beneficial, but that is not always the case, not even if the parents are the best in the world.

Fear is a big factor in having children as well as not having them. Fear, in general, is people’s highest motivator. For parents to be there are the following motivations, of the top of my head:

- Fear of not having someone take care of them in old age.

- Fear of ending up alone.

- Fear of marriage breakdown. (Same as with CF, but for different reason. Yes, CF people get divorced easier, but that has nothing to do with the assumption that parents bond better. There are tons of unhappy parents that stay together “for the sake of the children”. Studies also show that children make their parents unhappier, not happier, but less likely to file for divorce. Children are the true ball in the chain of marriage.

- Fear of not fitting in with society or circle of friends.

- Fear of God. (Usually deemed a good thing, but I wonder what kind of God rules with fear.)

- Fear of being forgotten.

- Fear that you’ll regret it later.

- Fear of upsetting their parents, who are dying for grand children to tote on. (Think about yourself, if you were catholic and simply didn’t want children – how would that go down? Isn’t it likely that you would cave to pressure?)

- The fear of being labelled selfish.

And the list goes on.

As for the child free, one of the high motivations you didn’t mention is environmental reasons. Every child that you have, increases your carbon footprint by 5.7, I read today somewhere else. Over population is starting to be a problem, and will only get worse. We don’t want to add to that. Also, many of us want to serve the society through voluntary work or other means, feeling that we have more value to other people (who are already here!) that way, rather than create someone to take care off.

The bottom line for both groups though is the answer to this simple question: Do you want them or not? Whatever fears we might have are really reflected on that one question. It becomes complicated if you simply don’t know the answer, or don’t know if your answer is socially acceptable or not…