BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Not the time and place to bring up children

As I was going through the decision whether to have a last-minute attempt at having a child, one of the factors that really put me off was the way our society is and how we live in the Western world. I have long been interested in the concept of community, which I view as having completely broken down in the last century in western cities. I really started to focus on this when I was living alone in a little box (apartment) in London, and travelling frequently to Mediterannean and Asian countries. The contrast between the two was extreme.

Frankly, I don't like how we all live in Western countries and I am constantly in my own way trying to build the sort of community I witnessed in places like the Greek Islands. When we got married, a major theme of our wedding speech was community and how important our own is to us. I recently mentioned on the forum that scene that I witnessed in Thailand of the exhausted mother passing her baby to another woman in the village and getting total support.

It seems to me in the cities we live in in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand etc, that having a child involves so much angst and very little support - competitive behaviour amongst parents, materialistic pressures, crime and teenagers getting into trouble, driving for hours on motorways to pick children up from daycare, trying to juggle work and family, support networks being miles away etc.

Our Saturday paper ran this article about the first year of motherhood this morning from the Daily Mail (I just found it online). It really confirmed all this for me.

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Just to reiterate how awful it is bringing up kids these days in Western society (even in NZ which is supposedly a paradise but is fast being destroyed by access to video games, American TV, movies and music videos), this letter to the editor was in one of the Sunday papers here, as a response to recent publication of some condom company's 'survey' that demonstrates that young NZ women are now among some of the most promiscuous in the world:



Aargh, that poor father. How awful to be a parent of teenagers in these times. I was also reading how in the US, these virtual life games eg Second Life or whatever it is called are causing problems - parents are finding teenagers using their credit cards to buy virtual real estate.

I know myself and how much I worry - I would be a nervous wreck navigating children through their teenage years. I wouldn't want them to have a computer, go out with their friends, go to movies - I would be the mother from hell. Now that I am paying attention to all this stuff about teenagers, I am very thankful I won't have to go through that in about 15 years time (in my mid to late 50's). It wouldn't be my own kids I would worry about - it's the other kids. Yesterday in the supermarket I experienced a mother with three boys who were taking over the place with their behaviour and loud shouting etc. The mother was doing nothing. If I had a kid, they would have to mix with other kids like that.

I'm glad you brought this up Feebee because I think about this a lot, and sometimes I feel bad that I'm such a pessimist.

In the last presidential election I told myself if Bush gets another term I will NOT try to have a child, because our society will go so far afield of my values and ecological issues will become so serious that the risks will be too big.

I started to doubt myself as his presidency wore on...I thought maybe I was being too negative. Friends and family scoff at my concerns. Finally I did start trying to conceive last year anyway, but I couldn't ignore the huge disconnect between my brain and my actions. It felt like this giant leap of faith based on what I was told I should do...not what I necessarily wanted or felt comfortable with. I could talk myself into not worrying about things, and just blissfully assuming everything will turn out okay if I really tried. In a way that is a very nice way to be. But then I'd read something in the paper or hear about something like pesticides being sprayed nearby, or lead being found in toys, or whatever awful truth comes out about our environment...or about video game addiction, about the financial realities, and think "My god! I will be so anxious if I actually succeed in becoming pregnant and having a baby." It's incredible how often that feeling occurred to me.

I now feel almost angry when someone from a previous generation tries to talk me into reproducing. My health insurance costs would go to over $1000K/month! Their property taxes (if they bought a long time ago) are a fraction of what I pay! The schools suck! I would definitely have to work full time to afford it. They have no idea what it's like now and have their head in the sand if they think it's the same now as when they were raising children.

I've been working with a colleague who has kids, and hearing about her life on a daily basis is very eye opening. She's constantly looking for rides for her kids. She's my neighbor and we live about 20 minutes outside town, so parents who live up here have to shuttle their kids to town every day once they reach junior high. Plus most kids have after school activities.

We both work at home, and I can't even begin to explain the loss of productivity it causes. She drives them into town and comes home in the morning (loses at least hour). In the afternoon she has to go back and either drive them from school to their sports, or find someone else to do it. Then they need a ride home from the sport several hours later. What a nightmare!! I love her, and we work very well together, and it doesn't impact me except to remind me that I'm so glad not to have to deal with that. She's always asking, "Are you going into town at all today?" in hopes she can stick a kid in my backseat for one of the trips. And the thing is, it NEVER happens. We drive to town a couple times a WEEK, and get our groceries delivered. The carbon footprint we would generate from having a kid would be so much bigger than now.

Sorry for the lengthy rant.

I totally agree. The way that things are going, there are enough people having kids that we don't have to.

The loneliness/lack of community factor is a big part of why I didn't want to have kids. My husband and I live states from our families for work, this is frequently a blessing, but a family member to babysit on Friday nights would be a big plus.

Everyone I know who has had kids just sort of drifts away. Sometimes I wonder who they talk to eventually. I mean, babies aren't great conversationalists. It has to get depressing at times. I know I'd feel lonely and depressed at home alone with a baby day after day. There has to be some joy in raising a child as a stay at home mom, but not enough for me to make it worthwhile.

First let me say that I am NOT saying this in order to garner sympathy or to receive accolade for being a single Mother.

I have been on my own for most of my time with my daughter. When I had her my Father was alive and he through sheer strength was keeping our family together. He passed away when my daughter was 2 years old and the family fell apart and actually turned on each other.

Now my daughter and I live in Florida and they live in Texas. Things got so out of control, we had to get away and stay away from them. Not just for my own sanity but for my daughters as well.

It is difficult to do with no one really close around. There have been times when I would have done anything to have my Mother around even if only to give me a few tips on what she did for us kids when we were doing a certain thing.

I did not grow up in a family that I would call close, it was like there was an uneasy truce going on as long as my Father was alive AND even then things would explode into open warfare. SO I guess I am not really too taken aback that the community I live in is not terribly close. I tend to be more to myself so I don't expect any different from others. I know this is not a good thing and I am trying to make a change for my daughters sake.

I've said before Lisa_Orlando and I'll say it again that I think you sound like a wonderful mother and you know what I'm sure it's a hell of a lot more difficult to raise a child on your own.

Now I too am someone who is NOT fussed on the idea of raising kids in today's world for a myriad of reasons!

We'd get that close family bit if we went to Egypt though or even New Zealand (as my family are quite close) but then I'd have the whole thing about would my parents or his try to expose our kid/s to their religion. Which ever parents in law it was - my parents or his, Islam or Christianity almost definately yes they would!

The UK I think would be our worst option it seems to be getting worse and worse crime-wise! Especially teens killing and being killed!
In fact I am thinking of going out dancing with hubby for my birthday but part of me thinks will we be safe?!

"I know myself and how much I worry - I would be a nervous wreck navigating children through their teenage years."

I don't think I've mentioned this yet but I can be one HECK of a worry wort! And I just don't need to go and opt to add this extra stress into my life!

"It felt like this giant leap of faith based on what I was told I should do...not what I necessarily wanted or felt comfortable with. I could talk myself into not worrying about things, and just blissfully assuming everything will turn out okay if I really tried. In a way that is a very nice way to be. But then I'd read something in the paper or hear about something like pesticides being sprayed nearby, or lead being found in toys, or whatever awful truth comes out about our environment...or about video game addiction, about the financial realities, and think "My god! I will be so anxious if I actually succeed in becoming pregnant and having a baby." It's incredible how often that feeling occurred to me."

I can SOOO relate to this! Plus things like terrorism and global warming it's bad enough for us but to have a kid while that is going on! (Plus I worry they'd get hassled for being half Egyptian and having a Muslim father -- heck I even see my colleague's kids get teased and as well as the jealousy from the kids as they are quite good looking and popular, I also think it doesn't help that they are half black and half Asian, as great a match as that is, can't help but wonder if racism comes into it!

(The other kids are mainly black or half black half white.)

I think (or know!) that I'd choose to be a stay at home mother (or hubby to be a stay at home father) but I also know that whoever it was as much as we loved our kids would find stopping work and the loss of income very hard.

I worry a bit about NZ getting worse cos I thought that's where I want us to retire. (It's where I'm from.) So I don't want it to change too much!!!

The article highlighted a lot of my fears... I mentioned the "being far away from family" as being one of the many reasons to my MIL and she then said "you need to move closer then"... But the fact is she and my parents have made it perfectly clear that they wouldn't be involved in the upbringing of any grandchildren - hmmm... But she still feels she has the right to try and make me have them just so she can have the grandparent status....

I was raised in a Seventh Day Adventist community where everyone was up in your business, telling you why you were going to hell, spreading lies about you around town because their own lives were so pathetic. My Father was a minister at one point in my life and remained a conservative Christian until the day he died.
The weight of living in this environment was a heavey one. I wanted MORE then anything to spare my daughter the intrusion, cruelty, controlling behavior and psychological harm I suffered being brought up in their midst, forced to go to church, attending their schools, I got tired of rebuffing what I think of as attempts to brainwash.
The other day, I had a moment that is SO seldom. One of those moments where I had clear, concise confirmation that I had acheived this to keeping their hatred away from my daughter. I was speaking in conversation about a book about Mutiny on the Bounty to my daughter, how the men who left the ship settled on an Island in the South Pacific, now the island is inhabited by people who are direct descendants of these men, they are so closely related that they must go off the island to find spouses AND somehow the Adventists have gotten to them and the entire island is supposed to be converts. My daughter looked me straight in the face and asked me "Mom, what is a Seventh Day Adventists?" WOW, I was so thrilled that I had managed to keep their infection away from her.

My goal for her is for her to be strong and independent AND have the freedom and confidense to make up her own mind about religion, marriage, children, politics or whatever the issue AND not be the kind of person who is LED, told and controlled by someone else. For women, breaking the bond that patriarchal religions have over us is the first step to being truly free and in control of our own lives, being able to see that man in our lives for who he really is, rather then what the church thinks he is.

Getting away from that community has been such a wonderful adventure for us. We came here, knowing only two people in the entire state. Now, we have friends and acquaintences and the church has nothing to do with my life. I feel like I have been cured of an infection and managed to keep my daughter free of the disease as well.

There are so many beliefs that I want to instill in her, not just tolerance for those that are different but LOVE for those that are different. My church shuns homosexuality, they are forced out of the community, in fact when they tried to start their own Adventist church, the church sued to force them to remove the name from their sign. This is another area that my daughter does not understand the hatred for because she was never around it. Marriage between people of different races is a BIG no no in the Adventist church, which in my opinion is just a way to cloak your bigotry, she thinks nothing of this.

I guess what I am trying to say is yes community CAN be helpful in raising a child but it surely depends on the community. My daughter talks to my Mother on the phone (she lives in Texas) but I often have to speak with her afterward to make sure my Mother hasn't tried to force some of what I consider innappropriate beliefs into her little mind. My family is not what I would consider helpful. I would rather rest my fate in the hands of strangers when I need a helping hand then my own family, then the community I was raised in.

Lisa - I keep reading your Seventh Day Adventist posts and it's so funny. I was actually brought up Seventh Day Adventist and you deffinately haven't said anything untrue about the religion. My husband and I are Protestant, like his family is, but we haven't gone to church in years. You've deffinately reminded me why I hate church. My parents don't even go anymore. Congrats on breaking away. I remember being scared to get my ears pierced as a kid, because I was afraid my grandmother would find out. Let alone not eating unclean seafood. I mean who doesn't like shrimp!

Here's to living life, and avoiding the craziness! If I ever have kids, I don't think they'll be going to church much. Even without being Adventist.