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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I have a 10 year old daughter who is the coolest most awesome person I have ever known in my life except maybe my mother.
And now we have another one on the way. Yeah!
I do not wish to propagate the defective genes that give me food sensibilities where I can get angry, sullen and depressed for eating something like red candies or smoked ham. It took me 35 years to finally connect the dots and remove the offending foods to the point where I am "normal". Who needs to punish another human being with that??
Oh good lord, not the inane "mommy wars" topic again. Look, part of living in modern times is, ideally, the freedom to define yourself and do what makes you feel fulfilled, rather than conforming to outside pressures, no matter what they are. So, if you want to have kids, that's perfectly fine. If you don't want to have kids, that's equally fine. Is that really so hard a concept to grasp?
Enough already. There is nothing interesting left to say on this subject. My husband and I have an amazing relationship and most of our family and friends have accepted our decision to not have kids. At the same time, I think its highly commendable that others choose that path. Its all about tolerance – I accept other peoples’ choice to have children and more often than not people accept our outlook on kids. And believe it or not, it is possible to have a social network with other child-less adult couples.
Ya notice that every single item on the pro-reproduce list is about having young kids? Anybody want to chime in on how entertaining and fulfilling it is to have teenagers? I mean, isn't the point of childhood that they eventually become adults?
My take: Go ahead if it's really your own decision, but remember that in terms of its impact on everyone else, bringing another First-World, middle-class person into the world is by far the most selfish, narcissistic thing you will ever do.
The "sacrifices" and "our future" pieties are just that.
If it's so horrible to be a first world middle class person, then a really responsible first world middle class person would commit suicide, or at least move to Africa to scratch out a subsistence living in an overfarmed, poverty-stricken small village.
I am so tired of the ultra-left wing logic that the most horrific thing one could be is a human being, and especially an American human being with a reasonable standard of living. You don't like the suffering of the rest of the world, work to change it. But the only entities with the power to change things in the world are people, so creating people has the potential to do as much to help other people as to harm them.
There is nothing inherently selfish about having children. There is nothing inherently selfish about not having children. There is, however, something enormously selfish about attempting to impose your value system regarding reproduction on other people's decisions, whether you are a sanctimonious busybody trying to insist that everyone has to have kids, an anti-abortion nut demanding control over other people's uteruses, or a misanthrope who believes that creating new human life is evil.
I'm the mother of a 19 year old daughter. So in response to pxtot who wondered about how much fun it is to have a teenager, I can respond that it had moments - very brief moments - of wishing I could ship her off to a different planet for a few years/decades. Otherwise it was considerably more fun, entertaining, educational, inspiring and otherwise all around good times than even having a small child which was endlessly entertaining.
Her father and I split up when she was not quite 4 and another man came into my life a few years later and has been her father figure ever since, though her father is still a part of her life too. My current partner loves my daughter as if she were his own and she adores him. With few exceptions she always went on vacation with us, to dinner with us and participated in many adult activities with us. She was always a delight to have around, both as a young child and as a teen. Maybe I just got really lucky but her presence and that of her friends was always a pleasure. Maybe because I raised her in a small town without a lot of the icky distractions that kids can find in a big city. We weren't far from a big city and all of her grandparents, whom she visited regularly, were big city folk, so she wasn't deprived. And my partner and I were never deprived of adult activities when we wanted or needed them.
Now she's "all growed up" and in college 2000 miles away and we talk regularly and honestly and I feel accomplished and successful both in my career and as a mother. Having a child was an incredibly satisfying and fulfilling experience and the sacrifices I made were worth every single second. And even though until I was thirty three I didn't want kids, I am delighted I changed my mind. I thank God/dess every day that I was inspired to invite her into my life. I can't imagine my life without her. I think some of that is biological - our attachment to our children is both emotional and genetic. The biological part doesn't guarantee that we will be good parents but it lays the foundation for trying.
But would I recommend it to someone who didn't want to do it? I would say think about it carefully - it's not a year, or 5 years or even 18 years. It's a lifelong commitment. It does change your life and it does require sacrifice. On the other hand, when you're 45 and you wish you had not excluded that experience, you are left with few choices.
I couldn't disagree more with the two previous posts that suggest "there is nothing more to say on this topic." For people who have already made their lifelong decision to have or not to have kids, perhaps the topic is officially resolved and played out. But for someone like me, who is married and nearing 30 and trying to find if the desire to have kids is inside me (I don't seem to have it yet), this topic is extremely valuable, as are everyone's comments and experiences. I just finished reading the Maybe Baby collection (outstanding), and I still seem to have plenty of room to devour more on the subject. So by all means, keep discussing! It is of great interest and help to many of us, I suspect.
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