I recently posted on a wonderful story by Kathleen O'Connor who writes about her 97 year old childfree friend Libby, her life, and most notably how "Her last years and days were an illumination of why children aren’t necessary for a happy, cared-for old age." This message has since come closer to home. . .
"Licensed Clinical Psychologist Ellen L Walker examines the often-ignored question of what it means to be childfree, by choice or by circumstance, in a family-focused society."Technorati Tag: childfree
"Results from the British government, that took nutritional information regarding the grocery purchases of over 7,000 families and were compiled to compare the eating habits of the English show that apparently, I’m not alone.Technorati Tag: childfree
The results showed that the more well-off the family, the better they ate, with a diet including vegetables and fruit, as well as meat. Younger households (age-wise) tended to eat more fats and sweets, with older households seeing a decline in those kinds of foods.
But some were taken aback by the finding that one group who ate more healthily than another group were child-free couples, as opposed to parents."
"We have a name for people who pursue rare moments of bliss at the expense of their wallets and their social and professional relationships: addicts.'
It seems there is a good deal of science linking “addiction regions” of the brain with parenting. The idea is that humans evolved these regions of the brain so we would seek out and persevere in parenthood—why? A Darwinian view might hypothesize that it’s to ensure the continued evolution of the human species. We have evolved to where some underlying mechanisms in our brains have developed by natural selection to make us seek out and, at least in the big picture, enjoy parenthood. "
