People who don't want to have kids are perfectly entitled to their choice. They should not have to justify themselves to me or anybody else. As with any other choice, for some people the appeal of having kids just isn't strong enough to outweigh the potential downsides, regardless of what the appeal or the downsides may specifically be. It's nobody's business why anyone elects not to have kids.
But, I understand that it is a societal expectation that people have kids and I think I understand the pressure and the judgement that people who choose not to have kids face, especially from friends and family. I also understand that childfree people may sometimes (often?) be on the defensive because they feel that people are judging their choice, which many likely are.
What I really hate, however, is when the choice not to have a kid is elevated to the pedestal of moral superiority. Whether some people do this out of extreme defensiveness or because they are simply assholes is not my concern. Nobody has the right to even hint that I am immoral because I have kids whom I am both emotionally and financially able to support.
Spiny Norman (SN) left several comments over at DrugMonkey's (DM's) that really irked me. I am sure that SN is a beautiful person with a shiny soul (to paraphrase the legendary Hermitage), but at this point he happened to echo some of the irritating anti-procreation sentiments that are all too frequent in the blogosphere.
In this comment to DM's post, SN says:
My partner and I knew we were going into demanding, high-risk, poorly-compensated public service careers. We knew that both time and money would be limiting, and saw little point to having kids if they were mostly going to be raised by paid surrogates.
Do you hear that, working parents everywhere? There is little point to any of you having kids if one parent (*cough* mother *cough*) is not going to stay at home to care for the kids. Having kids in daycare for 40-45 hours a week makes their existence pointless, because we all know that a typical week has only 40-45 hours and there is no time for anything else. And those paid surrogates are horrible creatures. They could not possibly be warm or nurturing people, showing your kids that there are other trustworthy adults besides the parents, effectively offering the modern-day isolated nuclear family some semblance of the proverbial village that is necessary to raise a child. No, it's much better not to have kids at all, or, if you absolutely must have them, one of you (*cough* mother *cough*) better give up your career to properly care for them.
We also looked around, and concluded that the planet was/is *not* suffering from a shortage of fat, happy, high-carbon-footprint first world babies.
Ah, the carbon footprint. One of the popular strawman arguments -- the first world folks should all stop procreating to save the planet. This goes hand-in-hand with the argument that someone else recently made on DM's blog that bearing children is selfish, whereas adoption is divine.
This is apparently the logic: affluent westerners, who have the resources to raise children, should not have biological children. Instead, only people who cannot afford to raise their biological offspring or don't want to have them (such as impoverished people in the third world and penniless pregnant teenagers everywhere) should bear kids, so that affluent westerners can adopt and save them, thereby presumably elevating themselves to superior moral grounds.
Nobody has the right to tell the people who want to become parents what the right way is to become parents. Especially not the people who have no intention of becoming parents.
When DJMH says:
We don't discuss lowering the birthrate any further because, hello, Japan. Turns out it is a bad idea for your country's health, even if it's a good idea for your planet's.
SN retorts along the typical lines that Americans don't have to reproduce, because the US population is not in danger, as there will always be immigrants:
DJMH: Japan doesn't have a lot of immigration. The United States does. Big difference.
These "save the planet, don't procreate, adopt (from abroad) instead" and "we don't have to procreate, people will always want to immigrate here" sentiments reveal a strongly patronizing attitude towards the rest of the world. As I wrote in what SN calls my "rage-gasm":
This annoying holier-than-thou attitude, supposedly caring about the carbon footprint more than other people by not reproducing and instead recommending reliance on immigration, also happens to be imperialistic bullshit, with a hefty helping of laziness and chauvinism:
"Let's just let those poor fuckers from the third world continue to over-reproduce in ignorance and/or poverty, then their best, brightest, and most resilient will come here anyway at their prime and help benefit this great country, and we didn't even have to invest in raising or educating them!!! How clever is that?! Who cares if our schools aren't any good? Others' are better anyway, so let's just import educated people from abroad! "
If anyone wants to reduce the world's population, studies have shown a strong correlation between the increasing educational level of women and the standard of living on one hand and the decreasing natality on the other. So people who are serious about wanting to curb population growth should go work on educating those poor women around the world who have dozens of children, instead of hypocritically expecting to benefit from those children when they eventually come, fully grown and ready to contribute.
I love the US and have benefited greatly from living here, it's a great country. But you know what? Being a highly-educated Caucasian heterosexual married immigrant, and therefore having it probably as easy as any immigrant possibly can, I can still tell you that people would usually be much happier if they didn't have to emigrate and could instead make a good living in their home country. I am happy to see the standard of living in China and India rising, and many smart people, who would have otherwise come to the US to stay and enhance its workforce, now either never come or go back home right after receiving their degrees. My colleagues are complaining that they cannot recruit good students from these countries as easily as before; well, tough toenails. A colleague from India says that, if current opportunities had existed when she was in school, she would have never left; I think this is awesome and I am happy for all those kids who won't have to leave their countries in order to make a good living or do kick-ass science. Progress is a good thing; it also reduces population growth. I wish the US would get its shit together and think about properly educating its future workforce rather than relying on importing educated people from abroad..."Let's just let those poor fuckers from the third world continue to over-reproduce in ignorance and/or poverty, then their best, brightest, and most resilient will come here anyway at their prime and help benefit this great country, and we didn't even have to invest in raising or educating them!!! How clever is that?! Who cares if our schools aren't any good? Others' are better anyway, so let's just import educated people from abroad! "
If anyone wants to reduce the world's population, studies have shown a strong correlation between the increasing educational level of women and the standard of living on one hand and the decreasing natality on the other. So people who are serious about wanting to curb population growth should go work on educating those poor women around the world who have dozens of children, instead of hypocritically expecting to benefit from those children when they eventually come, fully grown and ready to contribute.
But I digress.
Bottom line -- don't want to have kids? Sure, OK. I don't need to know your reasons, you don't have to justify yourself to anyone. If anyone asks you "Why won't you have kids?" or says "Oh, that's what you think now, wait until you are older/established/meet the right person/married," tell them to fuck off. Tell them they are nosy and rude. Tell them that they are a judgmental, insufferable prick.
I am sorry if you have to be on the defensive all the time. But, even if you are feeling extremely defensive and pissy, tired of being judged, obey the Golden Rule and spare everyone the anti-procreation rhetoric. You are not morally inferior for your choice, but neither are the people who choose to have kids.
30 comments:
Great post - I'm in total agreement. I have no patience for inane discussions that veer into that odd sort of misanthropy - where gloomy concerns about "carbon footprints" and the like become a sort of chic reductio ad absurdum. Assuming that you positively value your own life, you ought to acknowledge that conferring life on others confers something of value, no?
So, by your reasoning, it's ok for childless-by-choice people to state their reasons for not having kids but only if you find their rationale/rhetoric acceptable?
Timely post - there is an acquaintance of mine on FB that goes on and ON about being child-free-by-choice. I understand her reasoning, and I accept that she doesn't want children, BUT it has been the only thing that she posts about for the last 1-2 months.
Granted, I get sick and tired of anyone who posts about the same shit over and over again on FB!
Enjoy your post. thanks. I have two kids and not so great academic job because of my choices and career break, but I would not have it otherwise.
In his book "Maybe One", Bill McKibben points out something very important. For people worried about carbon footprint issues, adopting children from poor countries isn't a solution, because once you bring them here, their footprints become the same as those of all Americans. Same with immigration in general. So it is either hypocritical or unacceptable for people to argue that adoption is fine while having biological children is not.
I'm not actually trying to give you more fodder here--I do see your point and respect it, but I'm extremely sympathetic to the arguments McKibben makes in his book about the consequences of childbearing in 1st world countries. I have no moral high ground here, since I have a child, but I guess I think that if people make the argument correctly (as I believe McKibben does) it can't be so easily dismissed.
As a childless person I have to say I appreciate you, as someone with kids, telling people to lay off asking about this. I would never judge someone for having kids but am consistently shocked how much crap I get for not having them. I also find those folks without kids who tsk about people with kids annoying. Why does this choice seem like one everyone wants to comment on? A policy of accepting everyone's family configuration seems best.
@ianqui, I think the solution to the large carbon footprint/environmental impact of living in a first world country is to work to improve that situation, and not to advocate for the cessation of reproduction.
And I think that is all I should say on this subject tonight. I am in no mood to be moderate, and while I truly don't give a crap whether or not someone else chooses to have kids, I am heartily sick of the holier than thou attitudes the decision seems to bring out in some, on a wide range of child-related topics. Yes, some parents are insufferable about the benefits of children, and sometimes kids in public spaces inconvenience other people. But that is not an excuse to be an asshole, and anyone who thinks it is missed some important material in kindergarten.
I agree with much of what you wrote. I can only wish that having or not having children was truly a choice each person can make. If it were, I would already have some... There is nothing I like more than being subjected to lectures from other people about the benefits of having children as they automatically assume that I chose not to have any. I guess this is just one of those topics that has a potential to make everybody upset.
Cloud--agreed, that is the proper solution. But getting americans to reduce their carbon footprint before it's too late seems very daunting indeed. Again, I would *never* advocate limiting people's reproductive freedom--it's morally wrong--but I can see where the environmentally motivated people who make the decision to limit their family size are coming from. In other words, I think both sides of the coin are valid.
I find this whole thing very interesting. If it was simply ok for a childless person to say "I don't want one" as their reason, maybe we wouldn't have to hear such other reasons. For years, if I said I didn't want one that wasn't a good enough reason. If I said the time wasn't right (which was true enough), that wasn't a good reason. "There is never a right time." --Please note I am NOT saying that that's what is being said here, just sharing my experiences.--- I just wonder if people could freely say "I don't want one" and that be the end of the conversation if we'd be better off.
That said, I'm not experiencing quite the opposite--the time is right, now, and we do want one, but are also entertaining the idea of me working much less, and suddenly I'm facing new judgment-Shame on me, the mom, for wanting to stay at home. Once again I need reasons to defend myself and I can't just say "well this is what I actually want to do" because no one believes anyone could want this. Just like no one believed me when 7 years ago I didn't want a child. At that time, no I didn't. Geez. Honestly, I just wish I could be in a bubble, live my life and everyone else not but me about it.
@ianqui- if the environmentally conscious want to limit their own reproduction for that reason, fine with me. I only care when they lecture me about it, because I find sanctimonious lectures tiresome.
@Anonymous at 9:30- I do not mean this in a snarky way at all, but... get used to the judgment. It is what we do to mothers. Seriously, I was not at all prepared for the amount of judgment that attaches to pretty much every decision I make as a mother. Take the example you cite, about wanting to work less. I'm sure you're aware of the river of judgment that washes over women who make the opposite choice. I can't not count the number of times I've heard some variant of "why did you bother to have kids if you don't want to spend time with them?" The sooner you realize that there is no way you can be a mother that won't be judged by someone, the sooner you can figure out your strategy for letting the judgment not get to you, and the happier you'll be.
No amount of self-defensivness changes the iron rule of exponential growth. The planet simply cannot support an ever-growing population. At some point, the carrying capacity is reached. Period.
Replacement-level procreation (i.e., about 2 kids per couple) may be sustainable. But if every couple did what you did - had 3 kids - it would mean contnued population growth. Which is unsustainable in the long run.
Not a judgement. Just an immutable fact. One that most people - especially those with 3 kids - just don't like to have pointed out to them.
@Anonymous at 10:20- my sister didn't have kids, and I only had two. GMP can consider her 3rd child a replacement for my sister. Or for any of the 3 couples we're personally friends with who have chosen not to have kids. Does that make you feel better?
I still get flak about not having had biological children almost every day. I am always polite about it. I didn't realize people turned the rudeness back on the askers and might try this technique now ... being polite about it does not work.
Ah, yes -- and my kids were adopted, but from US, and were older (had been removed from homes of origin). People say it is unnatural to get children in this way and complain at me about it, am I a real woman, etc.
A friend saw my post, written in frustration over a "breeder" comment, and pointed me here (http://mathbionerd.blogspot.com/2012/08/breeder.html). It seems the time is ripe for discussions like these, and maybe we can make some headway.
I really appreciated your specific comments addressing some of the arguments against having children.
I'm currently a postdoc in Bioinformatics, planning (perhaps insanely) to pursue a tenured faculty position. And I have a rockin' 19 month old baby girl.
Anon at 10:20: Yeah, sure, anything over 2.33 kids, which is the global replacement fertility rate, or above 2. 1, which is the replacement rate in the industrialized world, can be considered too many. By the same token, 1 or 2 would be too few. Too bad the number of kids is quantized and we can't each have 2.33 or 2.1 kids exactly, eh?
But the post does not discuss how many kids one should optimally have. It discusses, among other things, people who claim that concern for the planet is their main reason for not having kids at all and that all of the western world should stop procreating.
If you have ever battled infertility or know someone who has, you will know that the desire to have a child is extremely powerful. People go to unimaginable lengths, both emotionally and financially, to have a child, either biological or through adoption. So a person who really wants children but is also really environmentally conscious will limit the number of kids to 1 or perhaps 2; they will not forgo having children altogether because nobody is that environmentally conscious.
So when someone tells me the reason why they chose not to have kids is concern for the planet, I call bullshit. They have other, real and perfectly valid reasons (don't like kids, ambivalent/don't think kids are worth the hassle, very career-oriented, bad dynamics in primary family, concerns about health, concerns about comfort or relationship with partner, not having a suitable partner...) which they shouldn't have to share with me or anybody else. The point is that they simply don't really want kids and that's fine in and of itself. They should be left alone and not be cross-examined and badgered about their choice. But citing extreme environmental consciousness as the reason to not have any kids at all strikes me as bullshit designed to gain holier-than-thou points.
GMP, I love your rage-gasm, especially about educating women and raising standards of living as a means for world population reduction.
As for the comment about not adopting kids from abroad and bring them here for reasons of saving the planet... Yeesh, I wish those people would get off their high horse, go live those low carbon footprint, high human cost conditions, low central infrastructure environment and raise a kid with a low carbon footprint; or at least go see how it is done. Raising kids and living in a sustainable planet are both difficult engineering problems with complicated constraints.
The only folk who bother Eli are the quiver full clowns who think that by breeding their type will take over the world. Nuff said.
"So when someone tells me the reason why they chose not to have kids is concern for the planet, I call bullshit. They have other, real and perfectly valid reasons (don't like kids, ambivalent/don't think kids are worth the hassle, very career-oriented, bad dynamics in primary family, concerns about health, concerns about comfort or relationship with partner, not having a suitable partner...) which they shouldn't have to share with me or anybody else."
Shorter: GMP claims to know what's in someone else's mind (or in this case, two people's minds), and is more than willing to claim that if they say otherwise it's "bullshit," but then turns around "they shouldn't have to share with me or anybody else."
Presumably that's because doing so would create cognitive dissonance in GMP, which is apparently not acceptable.
In fact, GMP is incorrect about this, and about many other views that GMP has imputed to me. We did consider having kids at many points over a 15+ year period, and the negative answer did indeed always involve our thinking -- especially my partner's thinking -- about environmental impact. Being a biological oceanographer, watching fisheries and reefs collapse like so many dominos, watching the effects of ocean acidification, etc., can have that effect. It's not unlikely that we're headed for a world where the oceans consist largely of jellyfish, squid, and purple slime. And it's unambiguously true that one child in an industrialized nation does vastly more environmental damage than one child in a developing nation.
So no, we do not think that procreation is generally a good idea. And it is obvious that there are a lot of people for whom "the desire to have a child is extremely powerful." So we're not particularly worried about there not being enough babies, in the US or elsewhere.
"Do you hear that, working parents everywhere? There is little point to any of you having kids if one parent (*cough* mother *cough*) is not going to stay at home to care for the kids."
That is not what I wrote, and it's emphatically not what I implied, either.
1. A portion of my reason for not having kids is that I could not have the career that I have without pushing the work onto other people (paid surrogates or my partner). That is the polar OPPOSITE of suggesting that the work should be pushed onto the mother. I wouldn't want to have kids that *I* couldn't do a huge chunk of the work of raising.
2. I described our choices. I did *not* say that they should be someone else's choices. You know why not? Because suggesting that everyone should make the sam life choices would be really fucking stupid. That's why not.
But citing extreme environmental consciousness as the reason to not have any kids at all strikes me as bullshit designed to gain holier-than-thou points.
And you wonder why childless peeps get defensive?? Do you seriously doubt that, for some people, overpopulation is a legitimate concern and the overwhelming reason for their choice not to procreate? That they must be mistaken and "... will not forgo having children altogether because nobody is that environmentally conscious."
And those of us who have chosen not to have kids must, by your twisted logic, have something inherently wrong with us because "...the desire to have a child is extremely powerful..." and can presumably not be overcome by a rationale choice.
Seriously ignorant and without any basis in reality. Seriously.
You know, on most other topics, it might ruffle me a bit that someone got upset over something I wrote. But, in this case, I don't give a fuck. I am too sick and tired of all the anti-kid crap that seems to be very fashionable on the web these days and is sold under the guise of enlightenment.
GMP (1) claims I said things I didn't say; and (2) claims that things I and others did say couldn't possibly be true (that our claims about why we don't have kids are "bullshit" because hormones!)
When called on this by several people, GMP writes:
"You know, on most other topics, it might ruffle me a bit that someone got upset over something I wrote. But, in this case, I don't give a fuck."
So we know where GMP stands, which is good, I suppose.
SN: Whatever. Still bullshit.
So we agree: a pile of arguments and opinions that you made up and (incorrectly) attributed to me are bullshit.
Yawn.
One last thing. GMT typed:
"Nobody has the right to even hint that I am immoral because I have kids whom I am both emotionally and financially able to support."
Why the qualifiers? What about people who are struggling financially or emotionally? Are they not "morally" entitled to have kids? If you lost your job and became clinically depressed, would you then be "immoral"?
Who's being judgmental here?
Dude... Take a hint.
That last post of mine was simply to illustrate that it's easy to misread someone else's words if one is so determined.
You clearly are so determined; unwaveringly so.
I'm done.
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