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Archive for the ‘Childfree’ Category

Recently I read a story of an “unappreciated mother” who complained how she does everything for her kids being a single mom, but the father of the kids get all the glory even though they only see him for a few hours a month. Now, I found it very hard not to gloat, being childless by choice, but I do understand that she didn’t ask for it and she went into it hoping for the best like every parent always does. However… Having a little different point of view to motherhood than most women, I wanted to ask you fence sitters a few questions…

First; If your children never said they loved you, never gave you a voluntary hug, and even at the age of 25 still thought you were kind of silly and stupid, well past their teen years that is, would you still want to be a mother? Don’t you think that even if they didn’t yell at you and call you names, but just didn’t give you respect and love that you think you deserved, but treated you politely enough without putting much emotion into it, wouldn’t you feel robbed? I happen to believe that this is very common, of all the people I know, only one calls their mother to tell her good news or to tell them they feel kind of blue. The rest would rather cut out their tongue than call their mother for support.

Do you think you can avoid problems by raising your kids well? Do you know how old your kids will be at the time when you no longer will be their most important influence in life? Do you realise, that you can’t control every aspect their life after they go to school, and this will bring in bad influence, as well as ideas that you might not agree with. (Religion or the lack there of for example.) The sad fact is, that you will have very little control over your child’s development and choices, a lot less than what you would want to have. The time when you are most inexperienced at raising a kid will be the time that the foundation for the world is laid… They say. Scary, no?

You do realise of course, that no matter how much you might want someone to take care of you when you get old, your kids might not be even in the same country let alone by your bed side?

Thinking of a basically good person, law abiding and who gets along with other people and is a well-rounded individual, imagine the worst kind of a (16-30 year old) person you can think of. Someone idiotic, as you would see them, who you really can’t get along with. Someone who’s values are completely different to yours, who seems to always do things wrong… Say; how they see work: “I only work for money” “I don’t want to work” “I want to be really rich one day”. How they see house work: “I have to get everything clean” “Oh don’t worry, I’ll go back to bed in the evening, there’s simply no point making the bed!” Or how they see other people and their value: “That kid doesn’t have a job, there’s no way I’ll hang out with him.” “I don’t care who I’m friends with, as long as they accept me.” Someone who disagrees with everything you say about religion and morals – which ever way you see them – and now, imagine that person is your kid. And don’t even think it’s not possible to have kid that different from yourself, how much like your parents are you really? And then, what about me for example? Do you still want to be a parent, if this was your kid, or your only kid? (Go as far backward towards the ideal and see how much you think you would not be able to forgive and how close to your ideal the kid should be that you will be able to love the child so that even the child knows you love them, without criticism and bad feelings.)

How about this: When your kids call you, your first thought is: “Do you need money?”

I know you mothers will now say: “I will love them despite all that.” And I agree, you will. I know you will, I would. But you see, no matter HOW MUCH you love them, even if it was so much it hurt and your heart was ready to bust out of your chest, that is unconditional love. Regardless of the fancy reputation unconditional love has, it’s cheap. It’s cheap, because it comes unconditionally, without demands. It’s undeserved. Your kids won’t give a shit of your unconditional love, if you can’t accept them as persons – and sadly, many parents don’t. Kids need acceptance from you, not unconditional love. They know that acceptance comes because you’re proud of them and they did good… That is what your kid is after, not your undying unconditional love. As much as it’s unconditional, it’s granted. It can, and will be taken for granted. If you don’t love your kid unconditionally, then you’re nothing but a shit mom, you get where I’m going with this? Screw the love, can you accept them?

I don’t even go as far as to birth defects, as they horrify us all anyway.

If you can live with the risk, then you might be mom-material… I would be too, if I was guaranteed my kid would be much like me or my husband, but good heavens if they turn out like one of their grand parents! … Or they never grew up past 5 years of age. The trouble with them is that there’s no return policy with them. Maybe there should be though… We could swap them around so that we would get a good parent/child match… I think a lot of parents never think about their children as adults, only as little cuddly thingys that are lovely and squeezable… And they raise them under the assumption there’s “plenty of time” to deal with issues and problems. And a lot of times, mothers carry a lot of guilt for not raising their kids “better” even though the kid was very happy about their life, but the mother thinks it’s not right – let’s say that your kid didn’t want kids of their own, and you thought in order for them to be happy they need a child, and since they don’t want one, it must be your fault… Etc etc.

There’s a few of the more complicated reasons I’m on this side of the fence.

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My Twitter keyword alerts tell me when something interesting happen in the world of childfree people. Lately it’s been all about Two Is Enough, I’m sure you all know about it if you are childfree and haven’t lived under a rock. Anyway, this one article based on Two Is Enough, kind of surprised me well beyond any other article written on the basis. According to the article there have been two major studies, that both busted a myth. One myth being that children and having a family is the most fulfilling thing you can do with your life. A survey of 20,000 people shows, that ONE THIRD of the respondents wouldn’t have had their family had they known then what they know now. I thought one tenth would be about right, but one third blew me off my chair!

The second myth that I gladly saw busted was that despite the persistent “you’ll regret not having any” isn’t true either. Apparently it s far more common to regret having children than it is to regret not having them. There was no wide spread regret shown in the study of 171 “childless folk”, says the article.

The reason why it seems that nobody regrets having children is that it is a complete and utter tabu to say it out loud. If I had children I would NEVER confess to it. I would say I love my children, which would be true, and that it is amazing to see them grow, which would be true too, and the furthest I would go to warn anyone about not having children, I would say it is a personal choice that everyone should make for themselves. I would never in a million years confess that I thought my children were a mistake. Regardless, I have heard people confess this to me, even strangers who say they wouldn’t have had kids if they made the decision on a hind sight. And I haven’t heard anyone say the opposite, so at least as far as my personal testifiers go, it goes along with this study.

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Today at the supermarket a woman caught my eye. She was pushing her toddler in the stroller, but I didn’t notice her because of that. I did notice her look though, as she was looking at me expecting to see the reaction “awww, what a cute baby”. I reacted to her look though, probably with a look of curiosity or confusion, because she quickly looked away.

I’ve seen that look before, when I fail to react to the children at the supermarkets as their proud mothers expect me to. It is the look of a woman, who thinks she has everything anyone could ever want, something that all women who don’t have what she has envies of her. Not all mothers think quite that way, even though they felt they had achieved the greatest thing a woman could achieve, some, even most of them still understand that we’re all different. But it is this type of mothers that I find curious, because of their expectation of admiration and hero-treatment for the achievement of reproduction.

Don’t get me wrong though. I understand it isn’t always easy, and I cry as much as the next person when I see a television tear jerker about a mother who finally gives birth to a baby she was never supposed to have. I cry for the same reason I cry when I see an adopted child find their parents, or when an animal rescue group does a successful rescue of a frog or a bat… Or when a volley ball athlete wins gold, even though I´m not sporty and I plan never to win gold at anything and I absolutely hate volley ball. That doesn’t prevent me from seeing the sense of achievement, pride and joy the athlete is feeling. However, if I saw that athlete swinging that gold medal around expecting me to looke at it in awe and amazement, he’s going to be sorely disapointed.

Sometimes when I read articles about what horrible or weird, unnatural people child free people are, I wonder what makes these women so angry at us. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that they are disappointed that they can’t amaze everyone and that someone might actually say that “I don’t want to have children, even though I could any time I wanted to (as far as I know).” That means that their achievement isn’t something that everyone wants, it is not the ultimate ego booster they expected. There are still women who won’t look up to them after they fulfilled the most important task any woman could fulfill. Imagine you had been thinking that way all your life, that you’ll have to do this thing that will completely validate you, make you whole, give you a meaning and a stance in the society… And then someone looks at it and turns her nose at it. “No, I wouldn’t swap places with you even if you paid me.” It can make you angry, don’t you think?

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@Phoena is a childfree woman who is running a website about it. I found her “Childfree bingo” quite thought provoking, as to how people view themselves, their lives and what is important to them. Childfree bingo is a game for people who don’t want to have kids; Every time you hear one of these objections/comments/encouragements, you can tick of a box in your bingo card and so on. I’m not going to play bingo, but to wonder…

Why don’t you have kids?
This question represents a person who hasn’t ever stopped to wonder why they have kids. They are the same people who ask you questions like: “Why don’t you drink?” The answer is simple; Because I thought about it and decided it wasn’t something I want to do. When you return the question in reverse, you get a baffled look that tells you that not only do they have an idea why they chose what they chose, but that they never gave it a second thought, or blather out the same reasons everyone gives for it like a broken record, including, but not limited to “It’s the most natural thing in the world!”

It’s different when they’re your own!

This is the approach of people who think their shit doesn’t smell. It’s our children and their brats. I have no doubt that I would love my kids more than any other kid on the planet, but does it mean I want one? No. I’d still love my dog more, and that’s not fair on a kid.

My/Your child could grow up to cure cancer!

This tells about the mind set that humanity is the most important thing on the planet. It is all about us, no question about it. Sure, it would probably be nice if there was no cancer, but there’ll always be diseases, there’ll be death and misery, in one form or the other. The bottom line is, that if I don’t have a child, there’s no way he will cure cancer, but on the other hand, he won’t go onto a shooting rampage at the local high school either. You can’t tell what your kid is going to do, and if your reason for having one is the odd chance that he might do something really important… You’ll probably get seriously disappointed when your kid is just another average Joe.

You were a kid once, too!

This is a funny one, and I don’t quite understand the rationale behind it. How is the fact that I was a child, and had a very happy childhood at that, is going to persuade me to have one myself? Is it some sort of a pay back time? The price I have to pay for the privilege of having a life? I never asked for this life, so why should I pay for it?

Don’t you want to hear the pitter patter of little feet?

Another funny one… Why would a person who doesn’t really like kids find it tempting to hear their feet… I love the sound of a dog running on a hard surface, because it tells me about the steady pace, drive of the step and the majestic movement of my fieldie, but I’m sure the sound doesn’t awake similar feelings in people who don’t like dogs as much as I do.

Who will take care of you when you are old?

This is the most terrible reason of them all! If your rationale to have children is to have someone to take care of you when you grow old, you really dealt your kid a shit hand! My mom, bless her little cotton socks, has always been telling us to live our lives and not worry about them – meaning it too – and how she can’t wait to get into an old folks home, where she can get up in the morning to have a cup of coffee with the other old people and jaffle on until lunch, that someone else prepared for her, then have a nap and wake up to have another jaffle with the old timers. I know she’ll enjoy it too, she loves good long talks. So my point is… I hope these same people won’t tell anyone that they’re being selfish for not wanting to have kids, because that’s pot calling a kettle black.

Why’d you get married if you didn’t want kids? / The only reason to get married is to have children!

This is a sad one. It tells you that the person sees the opposite sex as nothing but a reproductive organ, like Phoena pointed out on her site. It says that they would not want to be married if they didn’t have kids. They would rather be alone. I bet they fight a lot at home… The other spouse is a nuisance, a necessary evil of child rearing, not a source of happiness and support.

Some day you’ll grow up and change your mind.

This shows nothing but disrespect. Sure, it’s forgivable to say this to a 6-year-old who probably also says that she hates boys, but after she turns 10 it’s just disrespectful.

It’s all worth it!

This is imposing your own values onto another person. Worth it how? You get joy out of it? Your kid will grow up to cure cancer? The humanity will not die out? Maybe I get joy of other things that are less stressful and more to my own liking?

If everyone thought the way you did, the population would die out!

Clearly everyone isn’t thinking my way. Let’s bring this up again when there is a slight danger that the human race is dying out. I’d be willing to bet any amount of money that the world comes to an end before the last human has died, mainly because in either case I won’t have to pay up.

If your mom felt like you do, you wouldn’t be here!

This is again the selfish reproductive instinct talking. It would not matter if I hadn’t been born. Nobody would miss me, I wouldn’t know any different, and it’s just a mindless argument all together. I’m not arrogant enough to think that what ever I have achieved in this world (which is not much) that it would have made a great difference to it. Some people would be sad to think about the world without me, but even so, it’s not THAT big of a loss if you never had it. I could just as easily cry after an imaginary friend and worry about the mother who refused to give her birth. I bet now you say that my life would have a greater meaning if I would have a child, but how is creating another meaningless life giving a meaning to the first one? You know the saying two wrongs doesn’t make one right?

It’s the most important job in the world!

I agree, but I don’t think me not doing it is hurting anyone. However, a lot of people doing this job is hurting a lot of other people by their idiocy and mindset that “mother always knows best” and “mother’s are angels from above”, when in more cases the sentiment along the lines of mothers know squat and mothers are punishments from God is more accurate…

My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me.

My mom said that to me. She said that her life would not have a meaning if she hadn’t had me and my brother. It troubles me a great deal. The amount of grief I’ve given her! If I’m the best thing, I would really hate to think about the worst.

You’re being selfish!

Not having kids is not selfish as it is. It can be quite the opposite. Having children is also selfish, what ever we do is in a way selfish and at least it comes with a reward of a sort. People NEVER do ANYTHING that they don’t get something in return, be it praise, self-worth, sense of achievement, bragging rights, freedom, simple pleasure… In that regard not having children isn’t any more selfish than having them is.

Children are the future!!

And in the future, I’ll be gone. Children will be the future regardless what I do about it. In fact, not having children will be freeing up some time for me to educate other people’s kids in great quantities, maybe sharing some of the insights I have of the world, and mending traumas inflicted upon them by their parents. I can have a greater influence on the future adults by concentrating on my writing that I ever would have if I was just concentrating in getting my own offspring to school in time every morning.

Nothing is better than ‘new baby’ smell!

I do much prefer the ‘new puppy’ smell though. Unfortunately, both of them wear off and that is not a reason for having a baby nor getting a puppy.

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Not having children is one of those things that seem to attract controversy all the time. I personally knew I didn’t want kids fairly early in my life. It may have started as admiration toward my auntie who lived in New York (instead of Isokyrö, Finland, Europe) and didn’t have children because she didn’t want to. I wanted to live in New York and not have children, too. However, as my fondness to New York grew thin and my admiration toward my auntie diminished to more realistic levels, I still didn’t want children. To me it’s something that other people do. There’s a bunch of things that other people do, like go to work every day to do something they hate to stay alive in the life they hate and get drunk when they can’t handle it anymore. Having children is one of those things. It just isn’t something I can really see myself doing. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have a job, like a real job that actually pays you every month (or week like they do here, I’ve been told) and not when someone finds your work worthy. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be drunk. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be a parent. So far, none of those things have felt right.

Sheldon the Wonderhorse said, when commenting on Mad Typist’s blog post about not having children, and I have to quote: “One of my biggest fears about having kids is how much it would cut into my Xbox time. Pathetic, I realize.” Sadly, I see the dilemma. I worry about loosing valuable computing time. And sharing my Barbies with a kid. And not being able to have dogs because all the money would be spent on the kids. I thought that as long as these things seem important in comparison to having children, you really shouldn’t have any.

People should just let us be and butt out!

However, the part where childfree people get up and arms about the “breeders” nosiness and intrusion to their right to not have children, I don’t really get. Sometimes people ask if I’m going to have children. I always tell them how I feel about it. Sometimes people tell me that I will change my mind, and sometimes my mother gives me funny reasons to have children. Often I explain to people why I don’t want children. However, during my 25 years of dedicated “I will not have children”-time I have encountered only one (western) person who simply could not wrap her mind around the idea of me not wanting children. She was 22-year-old German, curiously, and I met her at a friends wedding soon after I got married, which is the reason she inquired about our child situation. I didn’t find it infuriating that she asked, or that she couldn’t understand us not wanting any, I found it utterly amusing, especially as she was so much younger than we were. I LOVE IT when people don’t get me and I get to explain my reasons to them and see how their narrow view of the world gets shaken up. I don’t do it violently, I laugh and joke and giggle when I explain things, I’ve seen it has a lot more chance to sink in than driving a point through with an iron fist demanding some acceptance or what ever. (Goes with the stereotype-post I wrote yesterday, how can you change their minds if you have already decided they won’t change their minds before you even try to explain things.)

Men who want me to breed will be ex’s!

The dating world seems to be a tough place for women who don’t want to have children, too. I’m glad I never realised this while I was still dating, because I had enough problems with men as it was. Adding “he can’t be wanting children” to the list of demands would probably have totally depressed me. Instead I didn’t bring that up until I was asked and I can’t remember anyone asking that on a first date… Or the second… I have never tried to hide it or make an issue out of it. I can’t remember it coming up until things got serious. I remember my mom telling me that no man would want to marry me if I didn’t want children. I thought she must be mad thinking that, and I was a bit insulted because she seemed to think that the only value I could possibly have to a man was my ability to bear children, especially as she had a lot of examples around her of married couples without children. As it turned out, my husband didn’t want children either, and it was never discussed until we got really close, at least that I can remember. It was a non-issue. While we’ve been married, we’ve both taken an imaginary trip to the baby land and came back screaming. In fact, sometimes that I wander off my track at super markets and end up on the baby isle, I feel like running away screaming.

It is not us who should be explaining themselves

I feel that most parents should have stopped to think before breeding. They should have asked the kind of questions like: What will they be able to offer the child? Will they be good role models? Will they provide the children with the kind of security and understanding that a child needs and deserves? And the question you are not even allowed to utter out loud: What kind of genes are you providing to your child? It seems that no amount of inheritary problems should stop a human being from reproducing. Not even if the child is likely be so allergic that any sign of life will suffocate him or her, no, that should not be effecting your decision to be a parent! Every child deserves to be born, and every parent deserves the right to be raising their own biological children. I asked one woman who is not exactly the cover girl of health, that isn’t she worried that the child might inherit her health problems. She replied that her life wasn’t that horrible, she survived. I was left to wonder, that would it have made a difference to her if her parents had known what she was likely to go through and still decided to go ahead with having her, and not only have her naturally, but force her into the world through artificial insamination because one of the health problems included trouble of reproducing. And it left me wonder why no doctor ever questioned her decision to have children, while women who want their tubes tied have to explain and explain and wait until a certain age to get the procedure done. If they are afraid of getting sued, they should draw up a legally binding contract that takes away the possibility to sue afterwards.

There’s always the other side of the coin

While I sit here and judge some parents for having their children, and you might be judging me for not having them, I realise there is always the other side to the story. Luckily these days it is fairly okay not to have children or adopt or do what ever you want really. The only thing that worries me is when those children in question are caught in the middle of the adult selfishness. I can rest easy knowing that what ever I do, I will not hurt my child in any way, and I have provided the best possible protection to my offspring by not having them in the first place. Nothing will hurt their immortal souls. *grin*

And before you head offline, you might want to read this post “You’ll change your mind” by Verbal Remedy.

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Last night I slept restlessly as I was having a bad migraines attack once again, and I was sweating cold sweat and had to get up for a spew once… Nights like this produce the weirdest dreams. I was for example dyeing the bed sheets in my sleep, because earlier that day I was dyeing a piece of fabric for the wedding dress I was working on. But not only was I dyeing the sheets, I was also “protecting the Finnish colors” in my own way, as the Olympics have gotten my head messed up as well.

But then I gave birth to a child that we had just decided to knock up, finally. My auntie, who is a medical nurse was there to assist me, in her very effective but slightly old fashioned manner. When the child was born, she took it away to be washed without showing it to me, and I wondered if the real birth nurses were still allowed to do that, as I thought the child was supposed to be placed on the mothers chest for a little bonding time.

The nightmare begun when the baby was brought back. She was very very ugly, as to be expected of something that just emerged from within another person. That wasn’t the nightmary part, and I was laughing to Brettels that wasn’t it the ugliest child he’s ever seen. He agreed, it certainly was. The nightmary part begun when we realized we were now parents. We were stuck with that being from there on. No return policy or complaints department. We would have to make sure she gets to school on time, gets to her hobbies and is overall happy. Our lives would no longer belong to us, but to her. We would be able to temporarily have our lives back when she didn’t need them, untill she would again. And there was still so many other things I wanted to do with my life…

Thank god I woke up and realized that I still wasn’t a parent nor was I in danger of becoming one. Have to call the doctor about that tube-procedure…

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