Time's piece on childless women: Interesting, but where are the child-free men?

Slate


Excerpt:

"[T]he absence of men in this discussion (a problem I've contributed to) is probably about something more than simple biological differences. More likely, it's a product of the ongoing discomfort with talking about the way that men's choices help shape women's lives, for good or for ill. Unfortunately, leaving men out of the discussion means ignoring the possibility that many men also want to live child-free lives, making it easier for women to make that choice themselves."

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The Childfree Are All Right -- Yes, Someone Needed To Say It

The Childfree Are All Right -- Yes, Someone Needed To Say It:
 an excerpt:

Consider the most recently monthly Vanity Fair/CBS poll. For September, 2013, the topic was "The Perfect Woman." (The August 2013 poll was on the perfect man -- it's apparently equal opportunity ridiculousness over there.) When the 1,017 participants were asked the most important quality in a woman, 39 percent said being a good mother, above brains, a sense a humor and a healthy sex drive.

This "mother above all" view of womanhood is Sandler's target, not the women she profiles, who don't want kids, or readers who have or want them.

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A demographer explains how we will adjust to the coming changes in our population Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/01/the-declining-birthrate-doesnt-spell-disaster/#ixzz2cYhlUINI

The Declining Birthrate Doesn’t Spell Disaster | TIME.com

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Time magazine catches on to the childfree movement, misses the green angle

Grist

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The 'Childfree' Life: The Latest Version of Having It All

 Jeanne Safer, Ph.D.

Rick Sanchez: Country’s Future Depends On Immigrants

Fox News Latino

An article for those who need the occasional reminder why you don't watch Fox.

Apparently, we don't know what we're missing.  As if that is somehow especially true of having kids, and not of every important decision we make it life.  You don't know what you're missing by failing to move to India and join and ashram.  You don't know what you're missing doing the rewarding work of America's firefighters.  We don't know what we're missing when we fail to join a convent, live in Paris, buy a farm, live in Greenwich Village, get a PhD. 

Life is full of choices, most of which we make without really experiencing what we're passing up. The world is rife with opportunities to do all sorts of things, the majority of which we must necessarily overlook if we want to stay sane.  Somehow, perhaps because it used to be a biological imperative, perhaps because it's the thing most people do, or perhaps it is because there's no glut of journalists trying out those things I listed, parenting gets harped on as if it is this unitary experience.  To me, that just speaks of a lack of creativity, and a lack of awareness of all the things in the world we take a pass on every day.

He also puts forth the "it's worth it" fallacy.  As if parenting were not intensely personal experience whose benefits and costs will vary widely by person, as if it weren't different for each person.  As if the perspective of someone who wanted to have children is somehow compelling to those of us who feel differently about it.

You know what, Mr. Sanchez?  You're missing out on something too.  You're missing out on what it's like to love someone's company so much you would never dream of bringing another person into the household and changing the dynamic of your marriage.  You're missing out on what it is like to share your life with one and only one person for decades, building the kind of life where every Sunday afternoon spent reading in silence is golden.  You're missing out on the freedom of being single, the independence of having no one to account to, and growing into adulthood with the evolving meaning and rewards of the single lifestyle.  And you know what?  It's worth it.

For some.

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The choice to be child-free is admirable, not selfish

theguardian.com:

This is particularly well written and insightful.  It reads in part:

We all have one life on this planet. Seeking happiness selfishly, at the expense of others, isn't laudable. But seeking happiness and pleasure for oneself by making choices that serve one's needs and values, which don't harm other people? A society in which members collectively decide that their own needs are important, and that creating social structures to support a diversity of needs is a path to prosperity?

Kate Spicer: 'Any woman who says she's happy to be childless is a liar or a fool' | Mail Online

Mail Online

This woman claims to speak for the 'majority' of childless women, and that's where this article goes horribly wrong.  She doesn't have the self-awareness to realize that in something this personal, she can only speak for herself.

She isn't unhappy because she's childfree.  She's unhappy because she wants children, and hasn't made that happen for herself.  She cannot, and should not, try to speak for those women who never wanted children.

She claims that a life without children is empty, and that no career or nights out can fill it.  Her life isn't empty because she doesn't have children, it is empty because she has given no real thought to how to make it otherwise.  Career and social life are stopgap answers.  They may work for some, but will not work for everyone.  If they do not make you happy and you never look beyond them to what can fulfill you, it is not your empty womb's fault.  It is simply a lack of perspective and planning.

I won't question her suspicions that children would have taken away that empty feeling.  It doesn't work for all women, and shouldn't be seen as a cure-all, but it is an intensely personal thing that people cannot judge in one another.  Yet without any real attempt to find a deeper meaning in relationships, volunteer work, or any other hobbies, causes, or the myriad and countless ways one can full their life, the last thing she should be doing is writing an article telling us how to live a rich and full existence.

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Parenthood optional - latimes.com

Parenthood optional - latimes.com:

excerpt:

And part of the reason I'm putting myself out on this limb is to push the conversation past the stereotypes, the ones even the childfree sometimes play right into, namely that not having kids is a function of narcissism, materialism and, it goes without saying, selfishness. There's frequent talk of wanting to sleep late, take exotic vacations at the spur of the moment, and dote on "fur babies" (that would be pets) who don't talk back. Pronouncements like "My reason for not having kids is that Porsche sitting in my driveway" and "I can't even take care of myself!" are typical refrains.

This kind of talk always makes me cringe (ditto for the overpopulation lectures). Not because these reasons are never valid but because they reduce an important conversation to a series of punch lines. I cringe because knowing yourself well enough to realize you're not up for parenthood is the definition of taking care of yourself. Moreover, it's the definition of being a moral, ethical human being.

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Child-free: Redefining "Reproductive Success" | Robert Walker

Child-free: Redefining "Reproductive Success" | Robert Walker:

HuffPo takes on the issue of 'reproductive success:

I would argue that "reproductive success" for the human race is not having more offspring than the Earth can reliably sustain. And if that is a fair measure of reproductive success, the evidence strongly suggests that we should be having fewer children, not more.

By some estimates, humanity is already using about 150 percent of the Earth's renewable resources and by 2030 we may need two planets to sustain us for the long term. We are, in other words, in mortal danger of over-utilizing the planetary resources that our children and their children will need to survive.

That's quite a better way of looking at it.  Although I would still argue that defining 'success' for every individual on earth was an arrogant a futile endeavor on the part of the evolutionary "psychologist".

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Should we care that smart women aren't having kids?

theguardian.com

The article states:

Satoshi Kanazawa, the LSE psychologist behind the research, discussed the findings that maternal urges drop by 25% with every extra 15 IQ points in his book The Intelligence Paradox. In the opening paragraph of the chapter titled "Why intelligent people are the ultimate losers in life", he makes his feelings about voluntary childlessness very clear:

If any value is deeply evolutionarily familiar, it is reproductive success. If any value is truly unnatural, if there is one thing that humans (and all other species in nature) are decisively not designed for, it is voluntary childlessness. All living organisms in nature, including humans, are evolutionarily designed to reproduce. Reproductive success is the ultimate end of all biological existence.

How good of him to inform us what we are "designed for".  I am looking forward to his peer reviewed article showing the methodology with which he conclusively proved the meaning of life and our purpose here on earth. It should be groundbreaking, really, since the greatest minds in history have been unable to find a conclusion in the past several millenia.

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Time magazine catches on to the childfree movement, misses the green angle | Grist

Time magazine catches on to the childfree movement, misses the green angle | Grist

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This Land is Our Land – A child-free life - The Pampa News: Opinion

This Land is Our Land – A child-free life - The Pampa News: Opinion

Apparently, since this guy and his friend are happy being fathers, the childfree are missing out.  I sure missed out on that moment all humans became the same, and made happy by the same choices.

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Teddy Roosevelt's Warning To Time Magazine - David Stokes - Page 1

Teddy Roosevelt's Warning To Time Magazine - David Stokes - Page 1

The first essential in any civilization is that the man and women shall be father and mother of healthy children so that the [human] race shall increase and not decrease. If that is not so, if through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes more heavily than any other.

Apparently, being childfree is bad because it means we lose some kind of breeding race with other nations/ethnicities.  I suppose if you're not American or European, these folks approve of your childfree status, or disapprove of it philosophically yet celebrate it anyway.  Good to know that the population increase in the past 100 years hasn't changed the wisdom of Breeding For Country.

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I Just Don’t Want A Child | TIME.com

I Just Don’t Want A Child | TIME.com

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Time discovers some people don’t have kids

Salon.com

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Happy International Childfree Day! Announcing 2013 Childfree Woman and Man of the Year | Laura Carroll

Happy International Childfree Day! Announcing 2013 Childfree Woman and Man of the Year | Laura Carroll