Letters to the Editor
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"Poop" Out a Kid?
This is a good subject for discussion, and many of the points I would have made have already been made.
Anyone who gives the unasked for opinion, "You should/should not have children" needs to mind their own freakin' business.
The "war" between people with children and people without children is just another media-fueled "debate" similar to the "mommy wars" which started to get really old.
A woman writes a book saying she regrets having children. So what? My parents regretted moving to the Southwest. Should they write a political treatise about it? She found that if everything were different then nothing would be same. Duh!
To the poster who complained about the kid's behavior at The Harry Potter film. How dare there be kids at a kid's film? I mean if someone brings a two-year-old to an indie film or any film that is generally targeted to adults, you have my sympathy if they act up. They shouldn't be there. But, "Harry Potter?" Sorry, the film is for them, not you.
I'm also amused at the supposed insult, "pooping out a kid." WTF? At least people who use this phrase won't have to worry about any unwanted pregnancy since their knowledge of anatomy is a little, uh, interesting. But have fun, anyway.
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Our Very Vastness
There are well over six billion human beings on our planet.
There are no grounds whatsoever to even imagine that the human race will go extinct on the basis of reproductive choice.
What will destroy us is the eventual collapse of our environment brought on by the demands of the burgeoning human population that reproductive choice, again, has no realistic capacity to check. Even if certain religious and political forces weren't engaging in a bitter struggle to suppress and/or eradicate reproductive choice, the very size of the current population is a force all it's own, one that is to all intents and purposes beyond human control.
The struggle over reproductive choice may be worth engaging in on principle, but the outcome, if one can even bring oneself to think there could ever be one, will have little to no practical value. Without a radical realignment of our very natures we, as a species, are set on a collision course with…well, I'll let anyone who reads this fill in the rest.
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@nicthommi. your comments are false.
In my experience, French society is much more traditional in terms of gender roles, and I think that the extended services geared towards mothers (not parents or fathers) put more pressure on women to make "traditional" choices.
That is so wrong it's backwards. I don't know where you get that.
French culture and European culture generally is much more liberal in regards to equal opportunity for workplace equality and other social policy and norms for gender equality.
For example, for a child caregiver to receive assistance, it doesn't have to be a stay at home mother or such at all. A stay at home dad can equally apply for the services such as assistance, day-care, etc.
Of course there are some services which biologically go to mothers and could not be otherwise. Pre and post natal care obviously goes to mothers. Maternity leave obviously goes to mothers carrying the baby.
Some women choose to be FT parents because they find it fulfilling, they believe greatly in child development, and because they're naturally suited to things like breast feeding.
But should the man choose to be a FT parent, or both choose to return to FT or PT work, the French policies are fully supportive of that as well. Any which way, the government will help with childcare, good schools, medical care, etc.
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The Monsanto Generation
Baby farms based on artificial gestation might be a real possibility within a decade or so. What if enough women decided to opt out of childbearing/rearing, enough that a nation faces extinction in a generation. Should the state assume the responsibility of producing replacement citizens?
I'm not making any judgements about whether women "should" have babies - women should do whatever they please. I'm just curious how willing we'd be to let the government take over the procreation of the species. If not the government, would we be comfortable with the idea of letting the private sector handle the mass production of human beings?
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tinfoil hat
Baby farms based on artificial gestation might be a real possibility within a decade or so.
Oh BS. Even if technically feasible, which it's not, it wouldn't be legal.
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@healthysceptic
It wouldn't be legal now. If a country were to get to the point where it might "become extinct" (a silly idea, but that's the premise of the argument), you can sure bet they'd make it legal. It's not as if laws never change, after all.
Personally, I wish childlessness were more encouraged as a choice. The whole world is choking on pollution, the climate is being trashed, and life is getting more wretched, all because there are too damn many of us. A cut of about half the population over the next fifty years or so would be what's needed to give this poor planet some breathing room, and help solve all these problems.
But will it happen? Of course not. That would be logical, and we can't have any of that when it comes to population. After all, Big Daddy In The Sky has ORDERED us to keep it up, so we have no choice, right?
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just so people don't get too carried away with their fantasies, the fact is that if the economy gets so bad that population drops drastically
the planet won't get breathing room, everything in the environment will get much much worse as people put everything into trying to survive. You can be sure they won't be willing to pay extra for sustainable anything.
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Yes, Hitlery, demeaning people who make a different choice is self-righteous
So you might want to take your own advice and cool it on the "you should not have been born" judgements, or risk being labeled judgemental and self-righteous by your own standards.
There is no right or wrong regarding having children. It's a choice, and everyone is free to make it for themselves. And guess what - regret is as much a part of thoughtful existence as choice. Figuring out how to experience our regret and what it means is how we learn.
Bitterly regretting having children is not the same as bitterly regretting the existence of your children. The author probably loves her kids a lot - wishing she wasn't a mother takes nothing away from them personally. She didn't say she bitterly regrets having *those particular* kids, she is clearly speaking only in terms of the choice to have or not have -- not a choice to have this kid or that kid.
I said probably, but who knows. It is a myth that all parents love their children. Some people simply aren't capable of love. And love is no protection from psychological dysfunction, immaturity, poor impulse control and anger management problems, all of which can wreck a childhood. Wrecked childhoods do not ofen lead to happy adulthoods, and wrecked adults do not often produce happy children..and so it goes.
I think there is likely some truth to the idea that this author chose this title, and some of her polemic, to be controversial. That doesn't change the fact that it's a reasonable issue to raise -- questioning is healthy and we have an obligation to examine the fears it rases, vs. resorting to knee-jerk condemnation.
I do not have children - partly by choice, partly by circumstance. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like with them - sure I do. I now find myself with two soon-to-be-stepdaughters. They enrich my life in many ways, but the demands they place on my existence can be frustrating. My fiance has said to me that in all honesty, the pluses and minuses of having children about balance each other out. The divorce actually gave him more freedom to enjoy the experience of his children without so much compromise. That takes nothing away from his children at all - he loves them to pieces. But he's still a human being with independent thoughts and needs, and it is good and healthy and reasonable for him to reflect on these.