I stumbled upon an article and have been reading it and actually laughing. The breakdown is below:
Mr. Joe O'Connor describes himself as a "Hiker, biker, sports junkie, dog lover, new father, yarn-spinner and story writer on an eclectic array of topics". While I have not read any of his other articles, this one stood out to me in particular.
As most of you know, even though I have birthed a son(placed him for adoption), I decided that I am not having any more children, nor am I ever going to be a parent- so, technically, I am, what most people refer to, childfree. So, here I was, intrigued by this article, especially by the title. I went ahead and started reading.
It starts out decent. A few errors here and there, but decent.
Imagine a scenario where, on a Friday night, after running around like a beheaded chicken at work all week you get home, smooch the person you love, grab a glass of wine and enjoy the silence, the blissful quietude of being a committed and adoring couple — without kids.
For harried couples, it is a fantasy we might indulge in with our partner or spouse before our little darlings jolt us back to Planet Parent with their runny noses to wipe, hockey practices to get to and homework assignments to help with.
The first part of that passage sounds lovely to me! Second part-not so much.
But for a significant number of Canadian couples the daydream is just another day in their no-strings and no-brats life. Canada’s latest batch of 2011 census numbers was released Wednesday and revealed that 44.5% of couples are “without children” compared to 39.2% with children.
Okay, where is the remaining 16.3%? Did they magically fall into the negative amount of children?
The numbers indicate a widening gap in a growing trend that first appeared in the 2006 census. While eyebrow arching, the statistics are partly explained by the nature of the couples being counted. Baby Boomers who are parents but no longer have children living at home are lumped in the “without children” category.
Makes sense.
So, there is that. But there is also this: a Canada where one in five women will not have a child in their lifetime, whether by choice or circumstance.
I wont start on the awkward "a".
Anyway, one in five women doesn't sound all that much, if you really think about it.
Having children used to be the point of being a pair. It was the great aspiration — along with finding love everlasting — a biological impulse to go forth and multiply and, later, once your babies reached a certain age, to cajole them about the merits and benefits of doing their bit to join the ranks of parenthood while giving Mom and Dad some grandkids.
No more. Gone are diaper changes and ballet classes, replaced by hot yoga and shopping trips to New York City. Monica Zeniuk belongs to Babes without Babes, an Edmonton social club for child-free women. She and her husband have been married for 18 years.
Ugh, okay, in today's day and age, having kids is not the same as it used to be back in the day. Today, most parents plop their kids down in front of a TV or a computer, or hand them their phones or iPads, instead of getting them outside to play, or play board games, riding bikes, or going to explore the neighborhood woody areas. No, today's generation is the high-tech generation- therefore you wont have the same standards as, let's say, 30 years ago.
One more thing, marriage is not only for procreation, for fuck's sake.
“The benefits of not having children are in the driveway, in our closet and stamped on our passports,” Ms. Zeniuk told Postmedia reporter Misty Harris. “Kids are expensive. And the marriage mortality rate is huge, without the added pressure of financing a child through its life.”
What she forgot to mention was how our kids can break our hearts.
This is where Mr. O'Connor starts to sound a little bitter, if you ask me.
Studies have revealed that there is a mismatch between the messaging we receive about parenting, about how sweet it is — with its inherent emotional rewards — and the reality of the mayhem-ridden slog many moms and dads face when wrangling their brood.
Yep, that's exactly it, and people are reluctant to tell you that at times, parents want to just drop everything and leave when they become completely overwhelmed, or the times the kids are getting on your nerves to the point that you snap. Nobody wants to say it, but it happens.
“I’d be reluctant to say that people are waking up and deciding not to have kids because they are realizing how demanding it can be,” says Steve Mock, an assistant professor in the health studies and gerontology department at the University of Waterloo.
Indeed, there are more finite calculations involved: Career demands. Timing. Not having a partner, or not having the right partner. Flaky fears about overburdening our already overburdened planet, personal choice and a bunch of other hooey that serve to hide the fact that happy couples that choose not to have kids are, at root, well, let’s see: selfish.
Can someone
please explain to me how it is "selfish" to not have kids? The only reason people do have kids is because of 3 little words: "I
want kids". Nobody
needs to have a child. There is no other reason to have a child rather than a "want". So, how exactly is not having kids selfish?
Eppie Lederer, aka Ann Landers, the American doyenne of advice columns, addressed the couples without kids phenomenon a generation ago, penning a piece lovingly entitled: the Musings of a Good Father on a Bad Day.
It features dear old dad, peering out at the world, peering into the lives of a pair of hipsters dancing through life, unburdened by kids.
Oh boy, here we go!
“The childless couple lives in a vacuum,” she wrote. “They try to fill their lonely lives with dinner dates, theatre, golf, tennis, swimming, civic affairs and trips all over the world….
“See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested. She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they had kids, they’d look like the rest of us — tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard.
“In other words: normal.”
The only way a chilfree/childless couple could be "lonely" is by the lack of sound of a kid screaming for something. I don't understand why people think that those who do not have kids are "lonely". Either way, dinner dates, spontaneity and a carefree life is nowhere near "loneliness".
In Canada, a new normal could be on the rise, a great divide where, standing on one side will be the old guard — the haggard, the proud, the poor-looking schleps with their baby strollers and shrieking brats — while on the other will be childless twosomes, sipping their lattes and skipping off to a 10:15 a.m. appointment with their personal trainer.
The bitterness is very obvious in this passage.
What will it mean, for us, as a nation? What could be lost? And what will become of those trim, fit and fat-free-yogurt loving folks when decrepitude inevitably creeps in; when they age, as we all inevitably do, and the children they chose not to have aren’t around to look after them?
So now, the only reason to have kids is for the
possibility of them to take care of you when you're old!? If that's the case, old folks homes wouldn't exist. Either way, that's a shit reason to have a kid.
To me, the tone of this article was one of a new father realizing he's in over his head and looking back jealously on the relative freedom of his old life, all the while trying to justify his current situation as morally superior.
And I'm out.
Edit: I have no problem with parents or how people should behave as parents. What I have a problem is people thinking that childfree people are inferior, that they don't know emotions, feelings, or joy. Childfree people aren't lonely, we're not lacking in anything, we're just people, who decided not to have kids. Nothing less, nothing more.
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