it’s hard to argue with their insistence that the decision to have a child is an ethical one. When we set the size of our families, we are, each in our own small way, determining how the world of the future will look. And we’re doing this not just for ourselves and our own children; we’re doing it for everyone else’s children, too
The ad continued: “This carefully selected range of resorts offers you the chance to enjoy a relaxed and independent break with your partner or a group of close friends. Thomson and the resort owners guarantee not knowingly to sell to anyone under the age of 16. See Adult Properties in the A-Z Guide for more information.”
But one person complained that the ad was misleading after she stayed at the hotel and found children were booked in.
Thomson agreed that children were staying at the resort during the complainant’s holiday, but said it was “unreasonable” to expect that this would never happen because it could not prevent people booking children in as adults.
The hotelier in the complainant’s case had told Thomson that they were obliged to take bookings from a few families with children after they received a warning from their local authority following a complaint. However, it would not be obliged to take local bookings from families with children in the future.
Los Angeles native Elizabeth, 35, is inclined to agree. She and her first husband married young, and though the two were happy and compatible in every other regard, he ended up filing for divorce because she realized that she never wanted to have children. Elizabeth felt doubly pressured as a Hispanic woman from a big family, where having lots of children is just something that’s expected after marriage. While she’s confident that not being a parent is right for her personally, she says the added social pressure and judgment from her relatives and their culture has made explaining her decision to others especially difficult. “I feel extremely guilty,” saysFrom what I have heard about online dating, the real story is about how 9/10 people who respond have "wants kids" on their profile; causing some people to launch childfree-only sites. It is good to see that such a major site is at least aware of us.
Elizabeth. Often, she admits, “I have to lie.”
Her resistance to having kids is what initially attracted her second husband, Jerry. When they met in a Los Angeles grocery store checkout line, he mused, “You’re Hispanic like me. Shouldn’t you have six kids by now?” She blurted out, “I’m never having kids. What’s it to you?” Jerry smiled and replied, “Because I want to ask for your phone number.” The couple has since become inseparable, traveling around the world together and sharing their passion for kayaking.
Only some of the pay gap is the result of discrimination by employers. Men crowd into high-paying fields like engineering, while women dominate lower-paying fields like education and social service. And women are more likely than men to fall off the career track when they have children. They take time off and lose skills, or they opt for less-demanding jobs so they can spend more time at home. Most fathers, in contrast, manage to skate through parenthood without the slightest harm to their careers. Employers could offer family-friendlier policies on leave and flextime, but they can’t be blamed for dads who don’t do enough around the house.
"She just hadn't realised how arduous, all-consuming and relentless parenting could be. Of course she loves her kids, but given the time over she wasn't sure it was for her.
My initial reaction was, keep this to yourself, but as I observed the cup of tea shaking in her hand, guilt etched all over her face, I realised that maybe the problem is not what she said but the fact that she felt she couldn't be honest about it."
"Instead the kerfuffle is over the fact that some women are loudly choosing to be childfree.
I actually have a pretty strong opinion about this.
Who. The fuck. Cares?"
"I don't think husbands and kids are for everybody," she says. "I think they're really good things to have, but lots of women, either by choice or by circumstance, are not going to have that. My belief is that you owe yourself a good life, no matter what your circumstance is. ... I'm living proof, because I have a fantastic life. Having been a source of inspiration to her other single friends, Wells decided to outline, in her book, all of the benefits of singledom. Her points are not aimed at rejecting coupling, but at leading a full life while alone, which can also lead to being not so single anymore. . . . Babies aren't for everybody: "There's almost nothing else you can do in life that you can't take back or change in any way. Having a kid is. You have to be 100 percent all the way in, and so if there's doubt there, I think you should wait until there is no doubt.Can I get an Amen?
. . . I remember hanging out with my childless friends when I was pregnant with Easton, saying, “Nothing will ever come between us.” On no! I’d try to convince them that I would not cast them aside for some new friend that I’d meet because of my daughter. Ron and I swore up and down that we would stick with our current friendships and not be swayed into new ones because of our future daughter’s budding social life. I recall us saying countless times to each other, “Who would base a friendship on their kid’s relationships? That’s cray-cray!” This was of course before Easton had entered the scene and changed the focal point completely in every aspect of our lives — even our relationship, dare I say. On another note, who would change their lifestyle to accommodate their children’s needs? This is what the single unmarried or newly-married couple thinks. This is what we thought before we had a little one. . . . I’m just saying … things have changed. I was wrong!I'm not sure I'd want to be friends with someone who says "cray-cray" and thinks the opposite of parents is the "single set". I'm not surprised she has had much more trouble than her commenters in retaining her friendships after having a kid. I also can't help but think her language is a bit over the top:
these little ones are the apple of our eye and shall I say it — gasp — the center of our universe … they most certainly are our heart’s center and have become the grounding force in the latest chapter of our lives. . . Easton is growing like a flower".
"This phenomenon was explored in student Theresa Riley's University of Waikato thesis which developed into a book entitled Being Childfree in NZ: How couples who choose not to have children are perceived. Riley noted the presence of strong social norms for couples to have children and her research found that childfree people are commonly stereotyped as being anti-children and selfish.
In fact, accusations of selfishness are fired from both sides of this particular debate. The childfree are deemed to be selfish if they don't want their nice, cosy lives disrupted by messy, demanding offspring while parents are considered selfish if they mindlessly choose to conform to society's conventions, create someone so they'll have a caregiver in old age or opt to manufacture a mini-me just to fill a vacuum in their lives."
"The religious conservatives have it wrong ... again. Gay marriage will not destroy the institute of marriage. How can people who want to get married end marriage? In fact, gay men and women who crave marriage are the distraction, the front, the "beard" if you will for the real secret, pervasive threat to the Institute of Marriage ... childless, single, joyous, happy and free women who just can't get worked up about getting married and who do not want children. And our numbers are growing. Nearly half of the population is single and 61 percent of them have never married.I am happily married, but when my husband and I are asked about it, one of the first things we say is, "It isn't for everyone." After all, the strange confluence of factors that makes us so compatible contains few lessons for us to pass along. Except, perhaps, for one: the constant unhappy compromise, hard work, struggle, and yelling fights we see in so many other couples is far from mandatory. I see those marriages, and I know I would last about five minutes in any of them.
. . .
Yet this "right for each other" never came my way. And if it did, I apparently didn't notice. But contrary to what married folks want to believe, lack of children or husband has many rewards for an adventurous woman. Freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose. I have had the enormous great fortune to have been able to pursue everything I've ever wanted to do and become the most full version of myself, something I hear gets lost for many women in the middle of endless husband and child demands. I do know that a family can have its rewards: Who can deny the benefits of protection, affection, support? But so many are a hotbed of tangled resentments, unspoken fears and complicated intrigues one can't deny that single isn't better or worse than being married: It's just different. Actually for some of us it seems to work exceedingly well. The secret is out."
