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3. “You’re just selfish.”
Despite this statement being a bitter, vitriolic insult, for some reason people feel comfortable saying it to my face when in the kid context. The thing is, no one would call me selfish if I had said, “No, I’d rather not lend you $241,080 you’ll never pay back, thanks.” ($241,080 is the average cost to raise a child in 2013 according to CNN Money, by the way –- and that’s not including college tuition.)
So while refusing to lend your friends money or let a stranger borrow your car is just common sense, politely declining to live with and care for an expensive, time-consuming human being that you actually kinda-sorta-no-wait-really don’t want? That’s just selfish! (Riiiight.)
If you think critically about it, not having kids -– and all the vigilance that entails for many people -– is actually a pretty unselfish choice. If you don’t want to be a parent, you may not make a very good one – in fact, you may wind up resentful and bitter, or even abusive (emotionally or physically).
The mythology surrounding parenthood –- self-sacrifice, unpaid and often unappreciated hard labor -– goes a long way to support the idea that childfree people are just selfish. But at its core, choosing to have children (and dedicate your life or large part of it to them) is a self-motivated –- and therefore selfish -– act.
THE REST:
http://www.xojane.com/family/how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-your-childfree-friends
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TIME: Childfree Adults Are Not "Selfish"
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The idea that women don’t have babies because they are “selfish” is not only reductive, in so many cases, it is simply incorrect. My husband and I chose not to have children for myriad reasons. I’d say selfishness is not among them. First and foremost, neither of us was ever keen on the kid thing. I’ve never felt a desire to get pregnant or give birth. If I have a biological clock, it’s on mute. As for my husband: I once asked him to hold a six-month-old that had been left in our care. He held the infant in the same awkward way that one holds a clutch of deadly mold spores.
Just as significant is the issue of lifestyle. I am a writer. My husband is an artist. We live paycheck to paycheck and go long spells without health insurance and dental cleanings. Our schedules are beyond erratic. I often write on weekends. My husband has had jobs that require regular night shifts. And there’s the issue of travel. Last year, we trotted off to Peru for several weeks when my husband was asked to do a series of installations at an old Inca sun temple. The year before that, I spent five weeks in Costa Rica on assignment for a guidebook company. For me, there is no greater joy than slipping on a pair of rubber boots and going to meet an encampment of gold miners in the middle of a rainforest. For my husband, bliss is sitting at a drafting table, surrounded by paint, razor blades and paint sticks. These are the things we love to do. And while we could have found some way to squeeze children into this complicated equation, neither of us was very interested in doing so — just like neither of us is very interested in watching major league baseball or the Lifetime network.
(MORE: Life Without Kids)
Yet, over the course of our marriage, we’ve been peppered with the kid question — from distant uncles, hair dressers, bartenders, bosses, the postman and even the neighbor lady: Don’t you have kids? When are you going to have kids? Early on, I learned that the worst thing I could do was to give an honest answer. Saying “I don’t want kids” simply set me up as a challenge to be surmounted. I’ve spent BBQs and cocktail parties fending off some inquisitor who made it their mission to convince me to reproduce. In my twenties, I got around this by telling people that I simply wasn’t ready to have a baby. But now that I’m in my 40s, I can’t use that excuse — and so the entreaties cascade in. It’s now or never. You’re not getting any younger. Aren’t you afraid you’ll regret the decision? That’s kind of selfish, don’t you think? Needless to say, the questions are generally directed at me — not at my husband.
In so much of what is reported, childless adults are often depicted as slavishly self-involved: people who sacrifice communal bonds in order to hole up with box wine and re-runs of the Walking Dead. In our case, it couldn’t be farther from the reality. In choosing not to have children, we have not abdicated obligations to friends and family. When my father developed brain cancer, I took him to treatment almost every day for eight weeks. When my mother-in-law had an aneurysm, my husband took off to help care her for her. In the coming years, I will watch nieces grow up and keep a close eye on friends who might feel depressed. I will spend a great deal of time with people I care for deeply.
My decision not to have children was never made out of some desire to keep my life out of the hands of others. If anything, I have simply chosen to share my life in a different way. Sure, I may one day regret this decision. I may also regret a heap of other things. Not spending more time with my father. Being a jerk to a good friend. Eating too much pizza. But perhaps a bigger regret would consist of being strong-armed into having a baby I simply never wanted.
THE REST:
http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/01/no-regrets-why-i-dont-have-children/
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23 Responses to 23 Awful Statements Made to Childfree People
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5. "You're being selfish."
Huh? For deciding what to do with my body parts and my life? For not caring about non-existent children? What?
(For women, I believe this about “denying” your partner, I think, the right to access your uterus whenever s/he wants. Or you are selfishly keeping a magical baby away from someone? I don’t know.
It’s a popular but never explained response.)
THE REST:
http://bigthink.com/against-the-new-taboo/23-responses-to-23-awful-statements-made-to-childfree-people
= new reply since forum marked as read
. Geeze, you'd think if the Pope is willing to recognize climate change, he'd also recognize that we have too damned many people on the planet causing climate change.
