BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids another interesting article to read

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Wow. I really enjoyed the article and admired the interviewees (I mean, how brave is that to take a public stand?) but then got really wound up and despairing over some of the readers' comments. This one really got me down:



Did you notice that the story opened with a list of Kodak moments?



Of course the Daily Mail is a sensationalist paper, but still - the whole article reeks of incredulity, as do most of the responses. Amazing that people still can't work out that not having kids is a perfectly viable option in life.

Thanks for posting it.

I had the same reaction, Feebee. While it's great to see the CF viewpoint presented, it's a shame that the writer couldn't hide her blatant bias - see the constant use of "incredibly" and repeated assertions that most little girls and young women "dream of weddings and babies". It's pretty clear that she thought these women weird freaks of nature. Still, at least the CF had the last word! I had been bracing myself for the inevitable "I just hope that they don't regret it one day" conclusion, but it never came!

Thanks for posting the article, Swissotter (love the name!).

Incidentally, has anyone seen this article about Helen Mirren? I was very disappointed by it, as I think it undermines her previous positive CF statements by suggesting that the only reason she doesn't have children is because of the trauma of her childhood and the childbirth film. In other words, she is no longer a normal woman who has simply never had the urge to procreate - she is now a psychologically scarred woman who could have been 'normal' if only she had sought help. Sigh... Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but that's the impression it left me with.

Another example of the author's bias was after these quotes:

"My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision.
"When I tell people why I don't want children, they look at me as if I was planning to commit murder.
"A woman who does not have maternal-feelings is seen as some sort of anomaly."

she says later on:

Ironically, the couple who have decided to deny themselves children for the sake of the planet, actively enjoy the company of young children.

Why is that so ironic? I don't have a panda bear but everyone doesn't assume I hate them. They're just expensive and high-maintenance, like a kid.

I admire people who can be so completely committed to their values. For me the eco-friendly part is a very good thing about not having children, and it helps me feel better about it. But, personally, if I was really passionate about having a child, I don't know if that single reason would be enough to stop me. After all, I'm not a vegetarian, even though I believe it's better for the environment, health, animals, etc. In other words, I am a hypocrite sometimes.

Ironically, there was an article in the SF Chronicle today (I can't find a link or I'd share it) about parents being angry at airlines for not doing enough when their children travel alone. The main example was this mother who sent her 12 year old on a plane to meet his father, who was on a business trip, for a football game. She was mad because they only give special treatment for kids under 11, so he was above the age. They wouldn't give him pre-boarding, or help him meet up with his dad.

I just thought that was the polar opposite of these people who won't have even one child for environmental reasons. Here these parents expect a corporation to babysit their kids while they fly them all over the country by themselves for frivolous reasons. To watch a football game? She is not too concerned about her or her progeny's carbon footprint.

Here's the article about the unaccompanied minor on the airline, I read it today too.

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Now this is just crazy.....



Um...if we don't have a planet, and we haven't found a viable replacement, where is this precious human life going to exist? The planet has been around a lot longer than humans have, and I suspect it will be around long after we are gone, just maybe not in a very hospitable-to-humans aspect, if we don't stop messing it up soon!

Cindy

Thanks for posting that article. I can't believe I'm siding with a corporation on something, but I think that parents are expecting a lot. If they're so concerned about their child's safety, why would they send them off alone in the first place!!! I totally agree with you Cindy, about both points. What if something happened and the child had to be delayed overnight? I wouldn't even put my dog on an airplane, because it scares me too much to lose control of her safety like that.

Well I think that the environment shouldn't be your only reason to not have kids. I think it definitely plays into a lot of reasoning for a lot of people, but it IS a little weird to have it be your #1 reason.

But some of those comments just made me shudder!

The environment factored into our reasoning as well, but was far from our only thought. One thing that really bothers me today though is the amount of toys that children seem to be expected to have and the amount of "stuff" that seems to come with them. Nobody surely needs that much stuff and parents don't seem to give it to others when they're finished - half the time the child breaks it so it gets thrown out and put into landfill.

We buy local organic food, walk where we can, recycle, compost, have a worm farm and try to minimise our carbon footprint. My husband raised an interesting point though - why do we care what the future holds for the planet given that we won't be populating it? Then we both realised the answer - we care about the species that are dying off because of human intervention. Things like the polar bears that are losing their hunting grounds/tigers etc.

Environmental reasons only play a small part in my deciding not to have kids, mainly that I don't know what kind of environment people will have to live in before very long. But I just don't understand the attitude "Who cares about the planet, I'm going to do whatever I want despite the impact it has on the environment". You'd think that people who have kids would want to be MORE environmentally conscious, so their kids would have a good future and healthy place to live. But most people seem to go buy the big, "safe" gas-guzzling SUV the minute they find out they're pregnant (here in Texas, anyway) and buy all the cheap toys that will end up in landfills. There's got to be ways to live "green" when you have kids, right? You would think?

Cindy