The 5 Most Horrible Things Nobody Tells You About Babies Read more: The 5 Most Horrible Things Nobody Tells You About Babies

Cracked

Hollywood comedies about parenthood depend entirely on making raising a kid look a ridiculous, hectic mess. Then, eventually the leading man finds out that in the end, the rewards make it all worth it. That's mostly because for whatever reason, baby murder is still taboo in modern Hollywood comedies.

When you have a real kid, you realize there's plenty of stuff those movies don't show you. If they did, their zany comedy about a single father finding a baby on his doorstep would quickly become a nightmare inducing horror that would shut down the genitals of any aspiring parent. Maybe that's why you don't see...

Or dear. Some of that is a bit traumatizing, but for the squeamish like me, I will warn you that it is (tolerably) gross.

Technorati Tag: childfree

What Made You Decide To Have Kids?

StrollerderbyThe journalist solicits answers from her readers, which are posted as comments. One response:

This is one of those moments when I wonder about our kids reading the blogosphere. A friend of mine decided to have kids “to save the marriage”. When it didn’t work, but left her single-parenting instead, would you want her to tell her kid that?

Another friend grew up in the era when our parents said “when you grow up and have kids” rather than “if … you have kids” … and she decided to have kids because “that’s what you do when you’ve got married, saved a chunk of both salaries, bought the house, decorated the house, and your friends start having kids.” She quit a job she loved to “do the right thing” and stay home to parent. Hated it. Out of her four kids, today two are in jail. Should she be posting to Babble that she wishes she never had them?

From my own personal experience I will tell you that the joys and challenges of motherhood were the area of the biggest lying in my family. Mothers, grandmothers and aunts pushed the notion that motherhood would be my biggest joy and that they never regretted their choices for a moment. So when I found parenting challenging, I thought I was defective in some vital way. But by the time I was in high school, these same women were willing to ‘let me into the club’, sharing their frustrations and regrets just as if they’d never led me down the garden path.

I could say more about this, but maybe my kids are reading it?

However, other commenters simply say they "always wanted them" without giving a reason, and don't seem to be aware that they are not answering the question. I wonder what this says about their decision?

Technorati Tag: childfree

If I’m not sure I want kids, is having one the best way to find out?

The Globe and Mail

I’ve been bombarded with such seemingly helpful comments as, “It’s different when it’s your own” and “You’d make a great mother.” However, if I am not sure that I want them, is it not a risky experiment to find out the hard way that I don’t? Regardless of whether or not I’d be a great mother or that it might be different, I am not certain that having a child is the best way to arrive at that realization.

There are innumerable pleasures to be had in this world and having a child is not necessarily the trump card when it comes to a happy and complete life. Some may argue that I will never know love, as the love one has for their child is the deepest and purest form of all. This may be true. I am unable to fully imagine the love one would have for a child just as I am unable to imagine the exhilaration of winning an Academy Award, but I am not less of a person for lacking in those experiences. Perhaps I will miss out on understanding a certain form of love, but that in no way discredits the love that I do feel in my life as any less than deep and pure.

Technorati Tag: childfree

We say no to babies and yes to NYC Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/we_say_no_to_babies_and_yes_to_nyc_2i0q9vs7bKt4pcQfhbYNVO#ixzz1Uk

NY PostI feel a little dirty just having gone to the Post's website, but, well, the article was relevant.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Childless couples still divorce at a much higher rate than those with children

Deseret News

Childless couples still divorce at a much higher rate than those with children
Published: Monday, Aug. 8, 2011 10:25 a.m. MDT
About 66 percent of American divorced couples are childless, according to a Huffington Post article that looks at multiple studies, while 40 percent of couples with children have divorced.

"The absence of children leads to loneliness," author and journalist Anneli Rufus wrote as part of a Divorce Magazine list of 21 factors that increase the risk of divorce.

Couples without children are prone to divorce issues, according to NewYorkDivorceLawyer.net, and studies are showing it could stem from sexual incompatibility. Childless couples also show symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Yet Laura Carroll, author of "Families of Two: Interviews With Happily Married Couples Without Children by Choice," told the Huffington Post many childless couples are happy, because they "have more time, energy and money to spend on their careers, friends, each other and themselves."

Huffington Post writer Vicki Larson shows that divorce rates among the childless have been significantly higher for more than a half century. She suggests that while children may not always be the glue that holds a marriage together, "the childfree don't have that motive, so there's no reason to stay together if it's not working."

This article is so poorly written that it barely warrants commenting. Suffice it to say that some Journalist's opinion on loneliness in no way negates the possibility that the difference is entirely due to unhappy couples staying together for the sake of their children.

Technorati Tag: childfree