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I support 100% anyone's wish not to have kids. It's when they show their ugly side...like calling kids a "species," making broad, damning generalizations based on the behavior of a few parents you see, impugning intent on behaviors you see...you don't need all that to simply justify not wanting kids.
I only read what crazy cat lady said, and like her screen name it was crazy.
People should not choose to have kids because other people they know have kids.
That's a sign of really low self esteem.
If a person's reason for wanting to have a kid is because some one else had a kid that's just wrong.
I have no doubt she has the envious personality type.
Only a person that is jeoulus of others would even think that way.
She sounds like the type that goes out and buys a particular clothing item because others own that particular clothing item.
Now she is doing it with kids which is just scary.
But after reading that I happened to see the posts above mine and this one made me laugh.
I have no idea what your argument is about but kids are members of the human SPECIES so I don't know why you are so offended.
Ps Sister Mary Agnes appreciates your support lol!
I don't think there is a particular age where you are meant to have your stuff together. Every fruit ripens in its own time. Its a shame to put such pressure on yourself. Its also a shame to feel you need to mimic your friends. Maybe you were meant to climb Everest rather than sit around burping a baby.
What is a single person going to get out of hanging out with a couple with kids, other than possibly a yearning to be like them, or a yearning to never take that step.
With other single people, you are at least standing on common ground. Generally speaking, with a married couple complete with child, you are standing on the outside of someone elses family, looking in. Certainly not a place I would want to be.
A married person who hangs out with other wives or other husbands, but not their spouse, is still hanging out with other married people.
Optimally, married people will be hanging out with their spouses. If they look to be away from their spouse as a preference, then their primary relationship is not with their spouse. Do you think they might head for divorce court once the kids fly the coop? Doesn't it make sense that if I tell my best girlfriend everything, and my husband nothing - then I should have married my best girlfriend?
Yes it is, and I say this as someone who was single and childless for much longer than most and who used to say the same things you and others say. I've only realized that after getting married and having a child. You simply don't have the responsibilities to manage when you're single and childless and having those things makes you responsible in ways that you cannot understand when you're on your own.
It's totally unsurprising to find the rates of isolation, suicide and depression skyrocketing as we try to remake Western society according to these new principles. I feel worst for women who have been sold this bill of goods and then wake up and find they're forty-years old and few men are interested in having them be the mothers of their children. The clock ticks in a way for women that it does not for men and a disservice has been done to them in telling them that they will be just as content without a husband and children. Some will, of course, but most will not.
I don't know any woman who didn't have children because "society" taught them not to. Women are well aware of our time limits. I have found the majority of moms I know always knew they'd be moms. Others like me never felt a maternal instinct. I have never wanted to interact with little babies, it doesn't make me warm and fuzzy. I don't feel negativity toward them, I just never felt a pull to be maternal. Due to that I probably would not have been a great mom.
But even had I wanted to, for whatever reasons (losing my dad at early age probably) I never chose men who wanted that life with me. It wasn't because I didn't try to find a partner, I've been seeking male love as long as I can remember. It took me till 50-some to find my life partner, but I spent ages 26-38 living with a man who would not make that official commitment.
I have friends who didn't have messed up childhoods too, that wanted kids desperately, and couldn't find that person. It is harder today. One of them was a sort of "late bloomer" looks-wise, who dated with the hope of finding a partner and having kids, but she wasn't successful until it was too late. Another friend was religious and wouldn't get physical outside of a committed relationship. I know she wanted kids, but apparently it's out of fashion to wait today.
My point is, for a variety of reasons, it is harder today to find a partner. There are a variety of reasons why women don't have kids, very few of them because "society told them they didn't have to". Women who have a strong maternal instinct are going to try to find a partner to have a family with regardless of what society says. Those are the women who should be having kids. It is an instinct, not a societal teaching.
IMO it was much worse in the past when women who did not have a maternal instinct felt like they had to get married and have kids anyway. I wonder how many kids had crappy, neglectful or abusive childhoods because they were borne to moms who never wanted kids but had to have a family to survive both financially and in society.
I think its hard to be married if you're married to someone with no job, nothing to bring to the table. It's easy to financially support oneself provided there are never any health issues or long term unemployment or disability.
The highest rate of home foreclosures over recent years were single, unmarried women. Statistical fact.
My mother in unemployed.
She was valedictorian of her class and received a scholarship to an Ivy League college that she has a bachelor's degree from.
Since she doesn't work she had time to help her kids with their homework and the time to bring them to all their many extra curricular activities, museums, festivals, concerts, etcetera. Taking spontaneous vacations/ family vacations wasn't a problem either since she didn't need to report to anyone and my dad could work from a distance if he had too.
If my mother worked we would have been latch key kids going home to play video games after school.
And that would have sucked.
During the day when we were in school my mother tutored kids that had learning disabilities at local schools.
She did not get paid to do that. She was a volunteer.
She also delivered meals on wheels to the elderly.
My father did not have a problem with her "not bringing anything to the table" financially.
He married her because she was smart.
Not because he was looking for some one to help supplement his income.
I don't think there is a particular age where you are meant to have your stuff together. Every fruit ripens in its own time. Its a shame to put such pressure on yourself. Its also a shame to feel you need to mimic your friends. Maybe you were meant to climb Everest rather than sit around burping a baby.
What is a single person going to get out of hanging out with a couple with kids, other than possibly a yearning to be like them, or a yearning to never take that step.
I was single and had no children through my upper thirties. Most of my friends who had kids had them in our twenties. I absolutely hung out with them and their families. I hung out with my siblings and cousins and their families, as well. You hang out with people you like. them having kids didn't change that. I never had a problem with kids, and assumed someday I'd have my own. I just didn't want any of my own then.
And married people don't "ideally just hang out with their own spouses."
Getting married is not shorthand for no longer desiring friendships with others.
No one wants to acknowledge this issue, but the stigma against single, childless people over 30 is real. Past 30, you're meant to have your Mod cut. together and be married with kids. If you're not, people see you as some sort of non adult and you end up losing friends when they get pregnant, as parents tend to only want to be friends with other parents and people change when they have kids. Dating becomes difficult too, because you're left with the people who are also not good enough to be part of society by following the plan. The childfree moment is a joke...these people are honestly just envious of parents like I am, but they won't admit it.
I don't know about a stigma, but I find myself jealous sometimes, but only for a few minutes.
What would my life have been like ......... (?)
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