
Not Wanting Kids Is Entirely Normal - kf
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/not-wanting-kids-is-entirely-normal/262367/
======
Tichy
Maybe the notion of "total motherhood" is the problem? If those mums wouldn't
feel the need to "hover" above their kids every second, perhaps they would be
less stressed out?

Where I live there is some pressure to give your kid to kindergarden at age
one (three used to be normal). We ended up giving our kid to kindergarden at
age two, because we somehow convinced ourselves it would be good for his
social development.

But the overall feeling is: he is disappearing from our lives way too fast.
Now he is in kindergarden most of the time (except afternoons and weekends).
Then it will be school, and today's kids seem to be pretty stressed out with
that. After school kids tend to move out, we are lucky if he even stays in the
same city or country.

I think if you don't enjoy your kids, there tend to be options. Giving them up
for adoption would be the most radical, before that there is kindergarden and
boarding schools (admittedly they cost money).

I get that not everybody enjoys their kids, but I still feel sorry for those
people. For me it is the best thing that ever happened to me. It makes me
angry that society takes it for granted that as a normal dad I would not even
see my kid much during the week, because I would be working in an office.

Also for all those mums longing to work, I wonder what jobs do they have? In
my personal biased opinion, most jobs suck. Perhaps they just imagine work
life to be much more glorious than it really is?

If what this article said is true and many people are so eager to give up
their kids, I actually think the state should make that possible. Must be hell
to grow up with parents who hate you.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Maybe the notion of "total motherhood" is the problem? If those mums wouldn't
feel the need to "hover" above their kids every second, perhaps they would be
less stressed out?_

This is the thesis of Bryan Caplan.

He has gathered a lot of evidence (mainly from twin studies) suggesting that
the specific details of how you raise your kids don't matter much [1] - your
kids will turn out to be the average of their parents + regression to the
mean.

I.e., by age 25, the children of Amy Chua and slacker dad will turn out the
same, regardless of whether Chua or slacker gets their way.

WSJ article:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870428950457531...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575313201221533826.html)

Book:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465028616/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465028616/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465028616&linkCode=as2&tag=christuc-20)

[1] Within the bounds of non-abusive middle class first-world parents. As one
example, if both parents are religious, the child is likely to be religious.
The only factor the parents have significant influence over is Lutheran vs
Catholic.

~~~
Tichy
I've heard about that, even own the book but didn't read very far yet. I
remain skeptic. Maybe it holds for "standard parenting techniques", but I am
more interested in for example the approach of László Polgár
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r>

He raised 3 kids to become chess grandmasters - and he announced he would do
that before they were born. I don't think he was abusive either.

Somehow nobody really wants to talk about that, it is weird. Perhaps it scares
people to think that they might be responsible for not making their kids
brilliant. And the elite might have an interest in not letting the secret out
- somebody has to do the slavery jobs in society, after all. Yeah it is a bit
paranoid, but I have become a bit cynical about the setup of our society.
Actually it doesn't even have to be an elite trying to hold us down, I think
research has shown that people are most happy if other people are not better
off than they are, so people are always trying to hold each other down.

Of course I wouldn't condone methods like the tiger mum (I think she is
basically a criminal), but I don't think Polgar was abusive, for example.

I guess if you can influence if your kid is Lutheran or Catholic, there are
also other things that might have a bigger impact (even Catholic vs Lutheran
might make a big difference, I don't really know? What with different work
ethics?). Lutheran vs Catholic or "technical vs liberal arts" and so on?

Edit: I discovered Polgar through the book "Bounce" which also talks about
other cases for deliberately creating gifted kids
[http://www.amazon.de/Bounce-myth-talent-power-
practice/dp/00...](http://www.amazon.de/Bounce-myth-talent-power-
practice/dp/0007350546/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353940584&sr=8-3)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Caplan's empirical results certainly don't rule out effects from extremely
non-standard (e.g., Polgar) parenting techniques. Then again, the anecdotal
results of the Polgar family are also quite consistent with his thesis.

Laszlo Polgar and his wife are both obsessively ambitious and quite
intelligent, and Laszlo even obsesses about chess. Caplan's thesis suggests
that if raised by others, the Polgar girls might merely have picked up poker
or math rather than chess.

If I recall Caplan's book correctly, "technical vs liberal arts" is suggested
by twin studies to be primarily genetically determined. The separately raised
twin of a civil engineer is far more likely to be an electrical engineer than
to work in HR, for example.

As for Lutheran vs Catholic, it's certainly extremely important - if your kids
get it wrong, they will be tortured in hell forever.

~~~
Tichy
The interesting thing about Polgar is that he announced he would raise gifted
kids before he even had them - he didn't even have a wife then, instead he
looked for a wife willing to do the experiment. He wasn't obsessed about
chess, he just picked it because it was easy to measure success. He then
studied it himself so that he could teach his kids.

Sure, it is still an anecdote, but he repeated it three times with his
children. It seems incredibly lucky if all of his children just happened to be
super-gifted and would have become prodigies in any discipline just because of
their genes, and him knowing they would be like that before they were born.

~~~
flyinRyan
This doesn't dispute what the parent said though: Polgar is obviously going to
be selecting for intelligence when choosing a spouse.

~~~
Tichy
OK, true, but not every intelligent child becomes brilliant in something.

------
skreech
Having a kid is like changing the difficulty level of life from "Normal" to
"Hardcore". Unlike video games, there is no switching back.

So be sure you are committed and finished with playing on the "Normal"
setting. You'll probably want to have high stats in Maturity, Communication
and Patience. Oh, and your relationship is going to lose HP.

------
tomrod
The article title is off--the article seems to focus more on a woman not
wanting to be domestic as being totally normal, but doing or being so is not
accepted in American society.

They miss the opposite stigma, which I've noticed--being a young mother who
wants to be domestic is often pooh poohed on.

~~~
jeremysmyth
It's way off. If not wanting kids was the norm, we'd die out pretty quickly
(feel free to disagree if you have stats, author!).

The author (editor?) of the headline is mistaking "normal" for "acceptable".

~~~
w0utert
>> _It's way off. If not wanting kids was the norm, we'd die out pretty
quickly (feel free to disagree if you have stats, author!)._

If 60% of women don't want kids, but the remaining 40% all have at least three
each, population would still grow.

Anyway, I think you're discussing semantics here. Saying something is 'normal'
does not necessarily imply the converse is 'abnormal'. In general 'normal'
does not mean 'the norm' or 'according to what the majority of people think',
just that it's not completely crazy to think in a certain way.

I definitely consider not wanting to have kids to be normal, no less than
wanting to have them. There are very good reasons for deciding you don't want
to have kids, maybe even more so that the opposite. In fact, most reasons for
wanting to have kids are pretty egocentric if you ask me, and the number of
kids growing up under terrible circumstances kind of seems to confirm that.

~~~
nobodysbusiness
I think your math is off.

Imagine that you have a population of 200 humans (100 male, 100 female). Only
40% of the women want kids, which, in this case, means that 40 women want
kids. They each have three kids, for a total of 120 kids produced by the
population of 200 adults. I don't think that this would lead to population
growth.

~~~
w0utert
You're right, unless you would somehow ensure that of the 3 kids every mother
has, 2.5 are female ;-)

Anyway, looking at the worlds' population right now, I don't think we have to
be afraid mankind will go extinct anytime soon because not enough children are
born.

------
rohern
I was intrigued by the opening paragraphs up until she got to:

"Because no matter how many different kinds of public images women see of
themselves, they're still limited. They're still largely white, straight
upper-middle-class depictions, and they all still identify women as mothers or
non-mothers.

American culture can't accept the reality of a woman who does not want to be a
mother. It goes against everything we've been taught to think about women and
how desperately they want babies. If we're to believe the media and pop
culture, women -- even teen girls -- are forever desperate for a baby. It's
our greatest desire. "

You cannot assert things like and not provide evidence. This is a gargantuan
statement about society that is left totally unsupported. I think this is a
very bad habit of people in the humanities and it needs to go away before I
take this kind of criticism seriously.

~~~
mnicole
I can't even count on one hand conversations in the past 6 months I've had
with co-workers and friends in which I've had to explain why I don't want kids
and "Well.. wait, what are you going to DO with your life then?!" One of these
co-workers sits near me and goes off almost every day about how wonderful his
are and how everyone should have them. The other day, he even tried convincing
another colleague of having her own even though she was averse. The whole
thing was awkward.

I had a high school science teacher that told me "we all feel that way when
we're young, but just wait until you're older." This can totally be the case,
but for me it's a lot more than that.

I've heard countless arguments that children are the only thing that bring
meaning to one's life. I've been told that I just won't understand until I
have one. Those sentiments are echoed throughout this thread and every other
thread about children. Look at the one about 60% of startup founders having
children and wives - can't we take away that the reason most people have
children is simply because we grow up being told that's what you're supposed
to do?

This may seem trivial on the outset, but hearing it day after day is defeating
- particularly when there's general societal pressure on top of it. When
people ask me why I made this decision, I try to keep it brief and just tell
them I'm devoted to my career. Quite frankly, I shouldn't need an excuse; I'm
of the mindset that too many unqualified people are having children and those
children are being tossed by the wayside as they grow up in crummy
neighborhoods or bloated classrooms.

In my [somewhat extremist] view, I wish we had better indicators of potential
health concerns and weren't afraid of telling people with financial issues
that they need to get on track before they're allowed to reproduce; if you
couldn't get approved for a loan that would cover the first year or two (or
more) of childcare, how do you think you actually will? I know that's not a
popular opinion, but having grown up in a home where everything was put onto
credit cards that were deliberately timed to line up with bankruptcy claims,
and knowing what kind of life that is, that's my take on it.

Worse, there are a lot of women that don't realize until it is too late that
they probably weren't cut out for it and the implications it has on their
aspirations and careers. Some women feel so detached from their newborns that
they become dissociative. Some resort to Facebook, while others resort to much
more unfortunate (and long-term) solutions.

Anyhow, those of us in the childfree mindset absolutely exist (and in higher
numbers more recently), but for the sake of our sanities we don't talk about
it unless we want an onslaught of people telling us how we should actually
feel and live our lives.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"we don't talk about it"_

I wish this was true. Most of the "childfree" people I know are really
obnoxious and in-your-face about it.

Most of your post makes a lot of sense. Kids are expensive. Some people aren't
cut out for parenting. Some people just have other priorities. And it's
obnoxious to have people telling you "you should have kids" when you've chosen
not to.

That said, the argument that you "just won't understand until [you] have one"
is entirely correct. It's like having never been sexually active. You can
choose to be celibate or childfree, but you don't and can't really know what
it's like on the other side of the line. (It is, unfortunately, a decision
it's impossible to make in a truly "informed" manner -- you can only truly
understand after making the decision.)

~~~
mnicole
> I wish this was true. Most of the "childfree" people I know are really
> obnoxious and in-your-face about it.

Interesting, where do you live? I have yet to find anyone else in my social
circles that has made this decision, nor have I heard anyone outside of the
internet take this stance in my presence, especially naggingly so.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"where do you live?"_

Denver, CO. The most obnoxious of the bunch is an old friend from church. It's
like "childfree" is a religion for her.

Admittedly, with such a small sample size, I can't really say whether their
attitude or yours is more common. But I do hope your approach prevails.

------
netcan
I have a strong association of a desire to have children with good times.
Plenty. Safety. Relief. An aversion to children is a sign of bad times.
Turmoil. War.

It's part of our stories and our mythologies. The heros return from war
bringing safety and bounty. Pair up and rase children. I suspect this is part
of our biology.

How much of this has always been. How much of it is a result of our present
world.

~~~
calinet6
Biologically speaking, it's logical to not want to bring children into a harsh
world incapable of nurturing them. It could be an evolutionary or rational
feedback.

I think much of this has always been, and this is largely a case of "if you go
looking for something, you'll find it." Also, they're pushing a book. Funny
how that works.

~~~
fmstephe
There is a fairly strong connection between poverty, stress and high
reproductive rates.

The baby boomer generation is largely the product of WWII. The birth rate of
Palestian's is significantly higher than that of the Israeli population. Birth
rates in very poor countries are almost always significantly higher than in
developed wealthy countries. (IANAE :)

~~~
Tichy
But does that correlation still hold in developed countries? I guess reasons
to have more kids in poor countries is that they'll help you with your work
and take care of you when you are old. Besides, some of them are going to die
prematurely, so you need to create more to have some successes. The cost for
having a kid might be low. In developed countries things are pretty much
turned on their heads in that respect?

------
codegeek
My wife is pregnant with our first child and here is what we are going through
right now:

\- Financial budgeting and planning. Our expenses are going to go up by about
$1500 (NYC metropolitan area)

\- Everyday, we struggle through talking about what we need to buy for the
baby, should we do this, should we do that ?

\- Are we going to be good parents ? Will our kid turn out ok ?

\- We are not going to have any more time for ourselves. Forget those dinner
and movie nights out. Forget about socializing outside especially for the
first few months ?

\- Will I get time to work on my side projects etc. at all ? It is so hard
right now and with the baby, it might be even more difficult.

Now, if I had to choose between not having a child so that all the above
issues disappear OR having a child, I would go for the child in a heartbeat.
The point is that you can always justify why not to want/have kids, but I
strongly believe (my opinion) that you will be missing out on one of the
greatest gifts of god if you don't have them i.e. children. Just my 2 cents.

~~~
fr0sty
As the father of an almost 2-year-old:

Baby spending is a gaseous thing. It expands to fill the size of your budget.

All a baby needs is onesies, diapers, food, some blankets and a place to
sleep. A car-seat and a stroller for going out (plus some blankets, etc for
keeping warm). Anything else is gravy.

The kid will be fine. Quit worrying.

You will have to ease back into outside social engagements but you will sort
things out.

Young children sleep a lot.

~~~
nsxwolf
Agree with all of this as I have experienced it all myself in the last year.

Things worked out _so_ much better than I imagined that I'm starting to think
couples with the "kids ruin everything" attitude were actually looking for an
excuse to disengage socially.

I would also suggest:

\- Get the baby used to going out - friends' houses, restaurants. A bottle
with a slow nipple buys you a lot of time if the baby starts fussing in a
restaurant. \- Find a good babysitter \- When going out, do more planning than
usual to make sure you have an awesome time

That last bit has made a huge difference. By treating your entertainment time
as precious, the experiences you have are so much more fun and memorable.

------
codegeek
Don't let the naysayers discourage you. Having and raising kids is one of the
most wonderful experiences you can have in your life. yes, it is incredibly
difficult, painful at times. But it is all worth it.

I strongly believe that if kids turn out bad, their parents should be blamed
for the _most_ part if not all.

~~~
king_jester
The article clearly shows that some people don't want to have children or have
found having children to not be as satisfying as you did. We can't make
decisions for others, and perpetuating messages and depictions of child
raising as fulfilling is really misleading.

~~~
Tichy
So propaganda against children is OK, but for children is not? If people say
what makes them happy, what is wrong with that? It doesn't imply that it would
work for everyone, but it implies that it might work for some other people,
too.

Why don't those unhappy parents give up their kids for adoption?

~~~
king_jester
There's nothing wrong with having children and having that experience be a
great one. However, that kind of story is the dominant narrative in US society
and people deserve to hear alternative points of view and experience for those
where it didn't turn out OK or as a positive experience. Those kinds of
stories and experiences don't get a lot of exposure, esp. in regards to media
representation and cultural norms.

> Why don't those unhappy parents give up their kids for adoption?

The article went over this, as there are a wide variety of reasons someone has
a child, planned or not. Some people may have children that they were forced
to, or may find that the life they imagined having with children never
materialized and that they do not want to continue being a parent. Also,
cultural norms and representations of parenthood and expectations of how to
interact with children heavily influence the perception of being a parent, so
when these norms leave out the experience of people who regret or are not
happy with being a parent, we are misleading people. Adoption and foster care
systems are not a perfect solution, it would be better to provide more
information and experiences for people to help them evaluate whether or not a
child would be for them.

~~~
Tichy
In general I suppose it is bad if people can't be honest with their feelings.
As one extreme example, I think post-pregnancy depression is actually quite
common and can even drive mothers to suicide. Since they can not talk about it
because they are supposed to be happy, they often don't get proper treatment.

As for helping people evaluate, that seems tricky. How could you simulate the
experience of having kids? I guess most people just extrapolate from what they
see around them and what they experienced in their own families. And on the
case of unwanted pregnancies it wouldn't help anyway.

------
jobigoud
I think it's less frowned upon here in Europe.

Who want's to miss 10-15 years of her life anyway ? All the personal projects,
travels, parties, etc.

As the article says, we spend most of our live trying to avoid it. So now, to
have a child is an active decision. You go out of your way, it doesn't just
happen. So it must be a project that you should be able to justify, a rational
decision. Show me your decision grid, advantages/drawbacks, etc.

No really, what is the point at the individual level ? (I understand the point
at the species level, but we don't act at the species level).

Pushing another human in an already overcrowded planet ? Forcing him to pay
for you when you will be old ? The best thing you can do for your child is not
having it.

~~~
kokey
It's less frowned upon in wealthy societies in general. Here in London the
average age for first time mothers is deep into their 30s. It is about time
when you've had your long travels around the world, and years of parties. I
don't think the expectation here exists that young people are going to look
after old people, unlike the developing world.

~~~
jobigoud
About young people looking after the old; Here in France it's not an
expectation, it's the law.

My grand mother needs to go to a retirement home, her retirement pension
doesn't cover the full cost. My mother and I are required by law to cover the
rest (at least that part that is not paid for by the public health system).

I'll gladly do it, but who am I to impose that to another person ?

~~~
pretoriusB
> _I'll gladly do it, but who am I to impose that to another person ?_

The one that gave the same "other person" his life, and 18 years of house,
food, education and care?

------
chris_wot
Yeah, then you have them. And it's awesome and you wonder why you didn't do it
sooner.

~~~
CJefferson
Or you have them and spend the next thirty years regretting it. Which almost
no-one will publicly admit, due to the public stigma, and the obvious pain it
would cause their children. This is I think the pain point of this article. I
personally know two people who wish they had never had children, but they
would never come out and say that publicly.

~~~
bane
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686219/I-am-
bitterly...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686219/I-am-bitterly-
bitterly-disappointed-retired-naval-officers-email-to-children-in-full.html)

~~~
Tichy
Probably a parody? But anyway, I think a big issue is that a lot of parents
seem to think children are something like puppets which they can mend to their
liking (and that have to adore them no matter what). Of course such
expectations will end in disappointment, because children are individuals with
their own minds.

~~~
bane
Actually no, it's been pretty big in the British papers. It's sparked a fairly
large national discussion on various child rearing straegies.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2234571/Cant-
boast-Y...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2234571/Cant-boast-You-
Son-submarine-commanders-broadside-father-told-children-You-copulation-driven-
kids-let-down.html)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686721/Daughter-
defe...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686721/Daughter-defends-
former-submarine-captain-who-told-children-he-was-bitterly-disappointed-in-
them.html)

~~~
Tichy
That seems fairly typical: parents who are convinced they did everything
right, and never realize they are emotional train wrecks. So they can blame it
all on the children.

Whatever - it is a complex issue, having children is not like buying a new TV.
You can not predict all the issues that will arise and the emotions they will
evoke. So I guess it would be wrong to propose a simple formula for child
rearing, as it wouldn't apply universally to all kids.

But as I said, if you have specific expectations as to what your kids turn out
to be, it is probably a recipe for disaster...

------
kephra
Looking at humans as domesticated apes: We are not fixed in being pair
bounding or tournament species. But the current western culture is pair
bounding.

Its typical for pair bounding domesticated apes, that the poor and uneducated
breed like rats, in the hope that one of the 9 children survives and can feed
me, when I'm a grandpa. The more wealth and education someone has, the less
children they have, because it makes sense to have fewer children and invest
more into them.

Till a culture runs into the problem that the average mother has less than two
children. This had been a problem for every high culture, regardless if we
talk about Greeks, Romans, or later high cultures. And US is not yet at this
point, because CIA tells me 2.06 children per mother, while Germany has 1.41
children per mother.

The solution would be to get rid of the pair bounding culture, because
domesticated tournament apes have exactly the opposite children per mother
distribution. Rich man have several women, and those have several children.
Poor man have no women, and no children.

------
alxndr
"Over 60 percent of the children studied were reported as planned, almost 30
percent were unplanned ("mistimed"), and 10 percent were unequivocally
"unwanted." The results of Barber's research showed that the children who were
unintended ... got fewer parental resources than those children who were
intended. Basically, children who were unplanned didn't get as much emotional
and cognitive support as children who were planned.... Across the board,
children who were wanted got more from their parents than children who
weren't. Children who were unplanned were also subject to harsher parenting
and more punitive measures than a sibling who was intended."

Wonder if this effect on children is stronger or weaker than the oft-GOP-
touted effect that raising a child with a mother and a father is the best way
to do so -- i.e. how do planned-for children raised by single mothers compare
to unplanned children raised by both fathers and mothers?

------
paganel
> Some cited the boredom of stay-at-home momism. Many complained of partners
> who didn't shoulder their share of child care responsibilities.

I don't have kids yet, but when and if that will happen I'll try to make sure
that the mother of my kids won't ruin her career and her sense of self-worth
by becoming a stay-at-home-mother. That's how I grew up, with both my parents
having full-time jobs, if it was good enough for me as a kid seeing my parents
happy and all I hope it will be good enough for my children.

~~~
Tichy
I actually would prefer a stay-at-home mom. The wife's job is creating a lot
of stress. Women who work tend to be in a foul mood (just my experience
anyway).

------
styluss
You can't force someone to love the other. Even a child.

------
AutoCorrect
what you're looking at here is the death throes of a civilization. Abortion on
demand, free contraception, and a radicalized group that believe motherhood is
slavery. But of course, what do I know? I'm 'only a man'.

~~~
chris_wot
I've upvoted you, because I tend to agree. But you really didn't do yourself
any favours by that last line: "But of course, what do I know? I'm 'only a
man'."

~~~
AutoCorrect
thanks for the upvote - I knew I was going to get slings and arrows for my
views, so I added the ending to short-circuit some of the backlash.

