Presumably, celebrities had children before, but it has never been so newsworthy. Obviously, the human race has been going at it for millennia, and it's never been such a big deal. It is arguable that before birth control and women's liberation, it wasn't such a big deal, because women didn't really have a choice. People got married and had children, and that was that. People who didn't get married and had children anyway were often ostracised, and people who didn't have children at all were freaks.
Whatever rusticity we left at the campfire on the edge of the savannah, we've retained the quaint notion that women who weren't tied to the gathering portion of 'hunting and' due to suckling young . . . well, something was wrong with them. And to this day, us child-free types are often looked at askance by those who have chosen to raise families.
Men, they get off the hook -- until they hook up with a female and then they, too, are expected to jump on the reproduction bandwagon and start, er, firing away.
The subject is fraught, and gets defensive very quickly on both sides, and it all seems to come down to selfishness. Ooh, child-free people! You are so selfish! You, with your spontaneous weekend getaways, and fancy dinners, and prosecco on the terrace! Self-indulgent and immature, that's what you are!
Ha! You people who keep populating the planet! How selfish are you, creating more bodies to take up more space? Did you know that as of January 2009, the EU population was 499.7 million? Just what we need! More people to drain the resources of our planet!
Hmm. Rather than selfishness, how about putting it all down to choice?
Technorati Tag: childfree
3 comments:
Too many people are ignorant to realize that humans are killing the mother earth... some are just too dumb to realize this and just continue to popping babies that they can't support. They think more babies the better... without even giving a second thought about consequences.
Not everyone who chooses to be a parent chooses to procreate. There are 147 million orphans in the world in desperate need of parents. The choice to become a parent doesn't neccesitate selfishness--frequently it requires the opposite: willingness to sacrifice and give of yourself and your love to make the world a better place.
If we can learn to hold it when we pee, we can learn not to have children because our biology tells us to.
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