Hey Mandy, I'm coming out of lurking to tell you that I discovered this blog a couple of weeks ago (after Googling "reasons not to have kids"), and since then I've been addicted. I think I've read all the posts now, and there was something for me to agree with in every single one.
I'm 28 years old, and all my life I've gone back and forth on the issue of whether I want kids. More recently I've started to lean far more toward opting out on motherhood. While I'm open to the possibility of changing my mind, I'm starting to doubt more and more that that will happen. I simply value my freedom (and my sanity) too much, and I realize now that most of my reasons for wanting kids in the past were coming from a place of narcissism, selfishness, or societal pressure.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your blog is providing me a great deal of validation and food for thought during this time. Thank you!
I just came across your blog today, while googling reasons not to become a parent, and I'm happy I did. I always thought I wanted to be a parent. Regardless of if I ever found a man to spend my life with, I was blound and determined to be a mom. Now I'm very happily married to a man who has a daughter from a previous marriage. This relationship has become the most important thing aside from my nieces and nephew. So important I feel like a baby would just ruin it all. I want to travel with my husband and be free to say what I want when I want. His daughter is old enough to know how to act, how things work and she is with her mom 80% Of the time. Its like playing mom without the full time responsibility( except the ridiculous amount of child support). I am, however, finding it extremely hard to keep people off my back. It's always, when are you going to have a baby? It pisses me off with all the pressure to do this when I'm still not even sure I want to do it. Anyway. Thank you, for giving us a voice! I plan on following you from now on!
Hi, i have found your blog while googling. I am Kelly, 31yrs old from Belgium. I dont want kids, I havent got that motherfeeling, never did got it... I am in love with the love of my life and my dogs, cat and budgies. One of the reasons that I dont want to have kids is that the world as of today is overpopulated (pardon my english, I am dutchspeaking). Maybe when I lived in another decade my thoughts would be different. I also love my rest and peace. The people who i talk about my lack of wanting a child are more and more understanding, some mothers do say: when i knew what i knew now i wouldnt get any children...
I was just thinking today about the whole "but it's so worth it" thing. If it really was so clearly, so self-evidently worth it, then it's strange that so many people would feel the need to remind us that it's so worth it.
If it really was hands-down totally worth it, then why constantly tell us that it is? It ought to be so obvious as to go virtually unmentioned. You don't see a lot of articles about sex reminding people that sex can feel good. Not a lot of cooking shows reminding you that your body needs food to survive. Not too many novels telling you in every chapter that you are reading a work of fiction.
So, the more people say it, the less I believe it, actually.
IF you do a decent job of parenting and IF your children actually grow up to be decent human beings,
then I can see how people can say it's "so worth it" or "all worth it" but as far as I'm concerned it's a little like gambling.
Yes, all the work/heartache/ragged nerves you invest over two decades may pay off in spades later. But you might simply succeed in raising Inmate #472920. Congratulations, you sacrificed the best years of your life, countless dollars, and unquantifiable emotional distress for nothing. Less than nothing, actually. You've successfully created a burden on society.
And of course there's all manner of potential outcomes between "worthless drain on society" and "Nobel Prize winner".
But even if you assume that, on average, a parent gets more out of being a parent than they put into it in absolute terms it is still undeniably a long-term investment.
And being child-free is simply a DIFFERENT type of investment. I'm investing the same amount of time/money/etc into, well, investments. The kind of things that actually pay off in money later on, or are hobbies I enjoy right this second, and so on.
I'm simply making - what I consider to be - a safer investment. My investment won't grow up to cure cancer or bring peace to the Middle East, but it also isn't going to collect welfare or be in the running for "most likely to re-offend".
And I, unlike many in the other camp, can actually claim to have thought it through before choosing which investment to make.
Nice post, JBradshaw. Your analysis is similar to one I have posted in various CF blogs and forums (and a few other places to defend my CFness). Here it is.
We childfree people know exactly what we are missing by not having kids. That is exactly why we choose not to have them. Any list of things (i.e. hugs from children, the so-called "unconditional love," etc.) is easily dismissed by us childfree people because all the items fall into one or both of the following categories:
(1) What are described as positive things we childfree see as purely negative or at best having zero positive value.
(2) Even if we childfree see them as positive, we can get them from other places which do not have any negatives attached to them.
Instead, we childfree see our lifestyle choice as having only positive traits. For me, being childfree enabled me to retire in 2008 at the age of 45, something which would have been impossible if I had kids. And what do I do with my newly found economic freedom? I can do more volunteer work with several area schools.
We childfree see having kids as a purely negative experience. We see having less money, the loss of peace and quiet, the loss of personal freedom, and the addition of stinky diapers in our lives if we had kids. THAT is what we are missing when we chose not to have kids.
My friend (who has a 2 yr old and 4 yr old) posted this picture on her fakebook page a few weeks ago. All I could do was roll my eyes. I saw her a few days later and she was like, "Did you see that picture I posted? So many men don't realize what goes on while they're at work, blah, blah, blah..." She went on to explain how stressful it is for the umpteenth time. I am a good friend so I listened and empathized with her a bit, but then I had to change the subject. All that keeps repeating in my head is "YOU CHOSE THIS, DEAL WITH IT LIKE AN ADULT". She is a somewhat new friend (we've known each other about 4 years now) and I really like her, but I'm getting tired of her sanctimonious mother crap. Every. Single. Time. we get together she has to mention her pregnancies, or how being a mom has changed this and that, or how haaaaard it is. It's terribly typical for a SAHM. Last time we got together, after a few drinks she started talking about how I'd "do just fiiine as a mother if it happened to me". I don't know how many times I have to tell her that of course I'd be fine, I just DON'T WANT TO. HELLO?! Why are they always trying to recruit us? Leave me the hell alone about it! I am happy with my decision! Anyway, I don't comment much but I'm still enjoying this blog very much. It's a breath of fresh air in this world of common, boring sheep. Everyone with a gonad can make a kid. Get over yourselves!
One more thing, I just enlarged the picture and didn't realize that there are FIVE kids in the picture and she's knocked up! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! That is horrendous...
A mommie friend of mine also posted this on her FB wall, with the "it's so worth it" tagline...and the first thought that popped into my head was..."Erm, not convinced." And secondly..."Why try to convince me if it's so totally self evident? The sky is blue, water is wet, blah blah"...those are obvious truths. You don't need to tell me that...it's simply obvious. So if parenthood, is SO FREAKING GREAT...shouldn't it just stand alone as sort of a "duh, of course" sort of statement? It's a case of she doth protest too much I'm afraid.
On a side note...just found this link from another CF site that poses the question: "What is harder, marraige or parenthood?" Now I am childfree...so my marraige seems like a breeze. It's actually quite fun, and we have been at it for ten years. BUT, the comments are a revelation, 700+, candid comments from moms about how hard kids MAKE your marraige...and then both (parenthood and marraige) both sort of start to suck. I have been reading this for two days now, jaw firmly on floor.
here's the link: http://dooce.com/2009/01/07/better-worse
I will echo the sentiments of myintelligent fellow blog followers.
Cows go moo. Because this is a given, I need not put a FB status up about it. If I was exclaiming cows go neigh, then I would be putting up a status so I could convince others that this absurdity was indeed true. This is friggen common sense.
You don't try convince people of givens that need no convincing.
Have fun in your world of delirium, martyr mothers.
Yeah, it may be worth it if your kids don't turn out to be selfish jerks who use you for money and never move out. However, you couldn't pay me enough money to deal with all that crap. I have a hard enough time cleaning up after my pets and my husband.
This picture really does say it all. The house is a wreck, the kids are out of control, the grocery and electric bills are insane, and all this woman wants is a vacation. The last time she had sex with her husband, it was because she was tired of him asking for it and just got it over and done with so he'd leave her alone and she could sleep (and that's how she got BITO #6). She doesn't have time to go to the BATHROOM alone, much less take a nap. She's probably depressed, hooked on caffeine to function, and has no time to pursue her own interests or passions.
18 comments:
(To be fair, my house looks like that sometimes and we have no children....)
Hey Mandy, I'm coming out of lurking to tell you that I discovered this blog a couple of weeks ago (after Googling "reasons not to have kids"), and since then I've been addicted. I think I've read all the posts now, and there was something for me to agree with in every single one.
I'm 28 years old, and all my life I've gone back and forth on the issue of whether I want kids. More recently I've started to lean far more toward opting out on motherhood. While I'm open to the possibility of changing my mind, I'm starting to doubt more and more that that will happen. I simply value my freedom (and my sanity) too much, and I realize now that most of my reasons for wanting kids in the past were coming from a place of narcissism, selfishness, or societal pressure.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your blog is providing me a great deal of validation and food for thought during this time. Thank you!
I just came across your blog today, while googling reasons not to become a parent, and I'm happy I did. I always thought I wanted to be a parent. Regardless of if I ever found a man to spend my life with, I was blound and determined to be a mom. Now I'm very happily married to a man who has a daughter from a previous marriage. This relationship has become the most important thing aside from my nieces and nephew. So important I feel like a baby would just ruin it all. I want to travel with my husband and be free to say what I want when I want. His daughter is old enough to know how to act, how things work and she is with her mom 80% Of the time. Its like playing mom without the full time responsibility( except the ridiculous amount of child support). I am, however, finding it extremely hard to keep people off my back. It's always, when are you going to have a baby? It pisses me off with all the pressure to do this when I'm still not even sure I want to do it. Anyway. Thank you, for giving us a voice! I plan on following you from now on!
This photo is terrifying!
Hi, i have found your blog while googling. I am Kelly, 31yrs old from Belgium. I dont want kids, I havent got that motherfeeling, never did got it... I am in love with the love of my life and my dogs, cat and budgies.
One of the reasons that I dont want to have kids is that the world as of today is overpopulated (pardon my english, I am dutchspeaking). Maybe when I lived in another decade my thoughts would be different. I also love my rest and peace.
The people who i talk about my lack of wanting a child are more and more understanding, some mothers do say: when i knew what i knew now i wouldnt get any children...
greetings from belgium!
The mother's new baby is probably going to be allergic to the dog so the dog will have to be sent away.
I was just thinking today about the whole "but it's so worth it" thing. If it really was so clearly, so self-evidently worth it, then it's strange that so many people would feel the need to remind us that it's so worth it.
If it really was hands-down totally worth it, then why constantly tell us that it is? It ought to be so obvious as to go virtually unmentioned. You don't see a lot of articles about sex reminding people that sex can feel good. Not a lot of cooking shows reminding you that your body needs food to survive. Not too many novels telling you in every chapter that you are reading a work of fiction.
So, the more people say it, the less I believe it, actually.
IF you do a decent job of parenting and
IF your children actually grow up to be decent human beings,
then I can see how people can say it's "so worth it" or "all worth it" but as far as I'm concerned it's a little like gambling.
Yes, all the work/heartache/ragged nerves you invest over two decades may pay off in spades later. But you might simply succeed in raising Inmate #472920. Congratulations, you sacrificed the best years of your life, countless dollars, and unquantifiable emotional distress for nothing. Less than nothing, actually. You've successfully created a burden on society.
And of course there's all manner of potential outcomes between "worthless drain on society" and "Nobel Prize winner".
But even if you assume that, on average, a parent gets more out of being a parent than they put into it in absolute terms it is still undeniably a long-term investment.
And being child-free is simply a DIFFERENT type of investment. I'm investing the same amount of time/money/etc into, well, investments. The kind of things that actually pay off in money later on, or are hobbies I enjoy right this second, and so on.
I'm simply making - what I consider to be - a safer investment. My investment won't grow up to cure cancer or bring peace to the Middle East, but it also isn't going to collect welfare or be in the running for "most likely to re-offend".
And I, unlike many in the other camp, can actually claim to have thought it through before choosing which investment to make.
Nice post, JBradshaw. Your analysis is similar to one I have posted in various CF blogs and forums (and a few other places to defend my CFness). Here it is.
We childfree people know exactly what we are missing by not having kids. That is exactly why we choose not to have them. Any list of things (i.e. hugs from children, the so-called "unconditional love," etc.) is easily dismissed by us childfree people because all the items fall into one or both of the following categories:
(1) What are described as positive things we childfree see as purely negative or at best having zero positive value.
(2) Even if we childfree see them as positive, we can get them from other places which do not have any negatives attached to them.
Instead, we childfree see our lifestyle choice as having only positive traits. For me, being childfree enabled me to retire in 2008 at the age of 45, something which would have been impossible if I had kids. And what do I do with my newly found economic freedom? I can do more volunteer work with several area schools.
We childfree see having kids as a purely negative experience. We see having less money, the loss of peace and quiet, the loss of personal freedom, and the addition of stinky diapers in our lives if we had kids. THAT is what we are missing when we chose not to have kids.
My friend (who has a 2 yr old and 4 yr old) posted this picture on her fakebook page a few weeks ago. All I could do was roll my eyes. I saw her a few days later and she was like, "Did you see that picture I posted? So many men don't realize what goes on while they're at work, blah, blah, blah..." She went on to explain how stressful it is for the umpteenth time.
I am a good friend so I listened and empathized with her a bit, but then I had to change the subject. All that keeps repeating in my head is "YOU CHOSE THIS, DEAL WITH IT LIKE AN ADULT". She is a somewhat new friend (we've known each other about 4 years now) and I really like her, but I'm getting tired of her sanctimonious mother crap. Every. Single. Time. we get together she has to mention her pregnancies, or how being a mom has changed this and that, or how haaaaard it is. It's terribly typical for a SAHM. Last time we got together, after a few drinks she started talking about how I'd "do just fiiine as a mother if it happened to me". I don't know how many times I have to tell her that of course I'd be fine, I just DON'T WANT TO. HELLO?! Why are they always trying to recruit us? Leave me the hell alone about it! I am happy with my decision!
Anyway, I don't comment much but I'm still enjoying this blog very much. It's a breath of fresh air in this world of common, boring sheep. Everyone with a gonad can make a kid. Get over yourselves!
One more thing, I just enlarged the picture and didn't realize that there are FIVE kids in the picture and she's knocked up! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! That is horrendous...
You are right...It IS five kids in the photo!
A mommie friend of mine also posted this on her FB wall, with the "it's so worth it" tagline...and the first thought that popped into my head was..."Erm, not convinced." And secondly..."Why try to convince me if it's so totally self evident? The sky is blue, water is wet, blah blah"...those are obvious truths. You don't need to tell me that...it's simply obvious. So if parenthood, is SO FREAKING GREAT...shouldn't it just stand alone as sort of a "duh, of course" sort of statement? It's a case of she doth protest too much I'm afraid.
On a side note...just found this link from another CF site that poses the question: "What is harder, marraige or parenthood?" Now I am childfree...so my marraige seems like a breeze. It's actually quite fun, and we have been at it for ten years. BUT, the comments are a revelation, 700+, candid comments from moms about how hard kids MAKE your marraige...and then both (parenthood and marraige) both sort of start to suck. I have been reading this for two days now, jaw firmly on floor.
here's the link:
http://dooce.com/2009/01/07/better-worse
But it's soooo worth it......
And it'll teach you how to cope, increase your patience level, and you get share you abundance of love with them all.
That's what friend told me. *gag*
I will echo the sentiments of myintelligent fellow blog followers.
Cows go moo. Because this is a given, I need not put a FB status up about it. If I was exclaiming cows go neigh, then I would be putting up a status so I could convince others that this absurdity was indeed true. This is friggen common sense.
You don't try convince people of givens that need no convincing.
Have fun in your world of delirium, martyr mothers.
Yeah, it may be worth it if your kids don't turn out to be selfish jerks who use you for money and never move out. However, you couldn't pay me enough money to deal with all that crap. I have a hard enough time cleaning up after my pets and my husband.
This picture really does say it all. The house is a wreck, the kids are out of control, the grocery and electric bills are insane, and all this woman wants is a vacation. The last time she had sex with her husband, it was because she was tired of him asking for it and just got it over and done with so he'd leave her alone and she could sleep (and that's how she got BITO #6). She doesn't have time to go to the BATHROOM alone, much less take a nap. She's probably depressed, hooked on caffeine to function, and has no time to pursue her own interests or passions.
Actually....this looks like a GOOD day for some mothers I know, lol!
This comment is so true and hilarious!
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