My Dear Hard Drive

Posts Tagged ‘childfree’

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.

Popularity: 69%

Bah. You know how I’ve always said I wouldn’t want to have children? Like ever since I knew it was a choice..? My childhood best friend just had a baby daughter, and she seems very happy – I’ve been following her updates on Facebook, the first time I’ve ever taken much notice of someone having babies. I’m really happy for her too, even though we haven’t really been close since we were 16 or something. Anyway, somehow her having a baby struck a chord with me. Even though a lot of my school mates have had kids already, some being over ten years old by now, I’ve never really thought about it as a viable option for someone my age. It seemed like something grown up people do, and I would have plenty of time to change my mind if I ever would.

Now when my best friend, who I played with, spent time with and who I remember enjoying her Weetbix and having chocolate all over her face, is a mom now, it suddenly became very clear to me that I am in the age, and not only in the age, but in the last legs of the age that people start having kids. 33 isn’t a spring chicken anymore. Do I finally hear the biological clock ticking? Is that the sound?

When I ask myself why is this effecting me now, I reply: “My life hasn’t got much meaning to it.” Ah, and isn’t that the reason people have kids, more or less? But I still insist that having children will not solve the problem, it merely distracts you from the insanity of it all and gives you an easy lift in social status. Easy, as in more or less anyone can do it regardless of talent, financial situation or intellect. It doesn’t even take too much time to get started. Now, when I think about it, wouldn’t it be just nice to have a kid and for once in my life act my age? That would make me an adult for sure, not just some sad loser trying to cling to my youth and single life by blogging about it and planning a dating site… People would take me seriously just like that, I have a baby to look after! It’s not just me anymore.

And just like that I disregard the wish to have a baby. Just like drinking alcohol, I haven’t got a good enough reason to do it yet. I have a husband to make and keep happy, isn’t that just as worthy cause for a life as keeping a child healthy and happy, or did his value go down after he turned 18? Or is he less of a value because he’s not related by blood? Of course not, but that is how it works, isn’t it? Each year you’ve lived makes you less important than the ones coming after you, because you’ve had that many more years to live I suppose… Maybe it’s just our fascination with new things and new people. Babies are like new living toys that you get to make into what ever you want. The ultimate customization project.

Bleh bleh and bleh. We all know that logical reasons for having children are far and between, if not non-existent, but as we are not machines we do illogical things and sometimes feel bad for not doing illogical things. And even now, I clearly feel I don’t want to have a baby, I want meaning for my life which I strongly believe does not come with a baby, with any more certainty as it comes with a good hobby or a job you enjoy or what ever. Do I make even the slightest bit of sense here?

Popularity: 31%

@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.

Popularity: 44%

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.

Popularity: 25%

I was looking for an online community for people who don’t want to have children. This was because I generally feel a bit… Well out of my place surrounded with women of my age who are either having children or desperately trying to have children. I search through blogging sites and come across 10 blogs by blogging moms who rule.

I don’t hate kids or anything, just that since I don’t have one, I have none in my near family and my closest experience of kids is having been one, I really don’t feel that connection with moms – unless we have something else to talk about of course. But often, kids take so much of your time that you just can’t focus on anything else, and in all reality, why would you want to?

So I went looking for those communities and was surprised not to find any other than No Kidding, which didn’t seem to have a working online community and was really full on about the no kids stuff. I don’t want to talk about “childfree issues” I just want to talk to people who’s lives aren’t wrapped around a 1 inch little finger.

Popularity: 28%

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…

Popularity: 6%