Via Feministing, I have to admit this article from Reason by Ronald Bailey about the bullshit threat of a “demographic winter” and why childlessness is just fucking great cracked me up. Say what you will about Reason, but they are consistent about their libertarian values in a way that most conservatives who claim to be libertarian aren’t. As I’ve noted in the past, a lot of libertarian utopian fantasizing requires a belief that women will have communal values to hold society together while every man is out for himself, but at Reason, they go even further and allow a feminist libertarianism to thrive. Hilarity ensues, because it turns out that this ideology circumvents guilt-tripping women into setting aside their own life goals to make more patriots for the nation.
There are many reasons social and economic that people (read: women, for the purposes of the anti-choice doom-sayers) don’t want children, or at least many children. They’re expensive, they’re time constraints, and our fast-paced economy doesn’t have time for the slower lives required to raise children properly. All this is true, but even if you managed to fix those problems, you can still expect people, especially educated women, to just opt out.
So, modernity essentially transforms children from capital goods that produce family income into consumption items to be enjoyed for their own sakes, more akin to sculptures, paintings, or theatre. But that’s just the problem—according to happiness researchers, people don’t really enjoy rearing children.
“Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people’s overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact,” reports Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Daniel Gilbert. In addition, the more children a person has the less happy they are. According to Gilbert, researchers have found that people derive more satisfaction from eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than taking care of their kids. “Indeed, looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing housework,” asserts Gilbert in his bestselling, Stumbling on Happiness (2006).
Now, I’m sure that the editors at Reason and I would disagree on one major factor. I think that child-bearing should be relieved through social institutions and government spending, and largely, they’d disagree. But that said, we agree on this—people are having less kids because they’ve been allowed to separate sex and child-bearing and that’s a good thing. More and more people want no kids or less kids, and that probably won’t change no matter how much universal health care and federal day care you create, because kids are a lot of work for insubstantial payoffs. People with children are no happier than those without, and depending on how many, they’re less happy. I’d also add that despite all the gloom forecasting, the ugly reality is that we’re still living in a world where the human population is growing substantially and the amount of room and resources for more people is diminishing, and people are aware of this. A lot of cheerfully childless I know of would just point to their small homes and ask where they’re supposed to stash ‘em.
Contrary to the doom-saying of the anti-choice nuts, I’d say that it’s probably part of our survival instinct to rein in the child-bearing in this case. It’s reductionist to see our survival drive as just a matter of more kids all the time. We have oversized brains that are capable of complex thought. It’s possible that we look around and figure there’s enough people, and it shuts down our urge to make more. It’s not only likely, we have the evidence around us that this is the case. Using the argument I like—that if it happens in nature, it’s natural—what we have is a lot of people like myself who see children, say, throwing temper tantrums at the grocery store and our reaction is to say, “I like my house quiet, thank you very much.” We are natural.
Of course, the demographic winter proponents aren’t exactly trying to talk people who don’t really want children into wanting them. They’re basically arguing that women’s rights to control our child-bearing need to be stripped for the good of the community. (Ironically, they’re often the same people opposed to taxation, which means they think you have more right over the abstraction of property than the earthy reality of your body.) It’s a bullshit argument. We are not short of people. In the past 200 years, the world has grown from 1 billion to 7 billion people. We far outstripped what we can sustain food-wise without reliance on limited fossil fuel resources sometime in the early 20th century.
Of course, even the demographic winter proponents aren’t arguing that we need to keep multiplying the world’s population far past our abilities to feed ourselves without the use of non-renewable resources. Even the crazies aren’t that crazy. They just argue that we need more white babies. Basically, they’re grasping around for whatever straws they can find, however racist, to argue against women’s rights. Evidence need not apply.
I’m not trying to bully or guilt-trip people with children. Actually, you’re on my side. Most of you have far fewer children than people in your circumstances would have in the past. Or if you’re not white, you’re being demonized by these assholes who screech about demographic winters. What’s more important and interesting is the fact that most people, given opportunities and education, will replace just themselves or less and don’t contribute to the exploding population problem. Instead of nay-saying that, let’s ask if they aren’t just being rational in a space where they have the opportunity to do so.
81 Responses to “Limiting childbirth for fun and survival”
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Actually, lack of maternal instinct is fairly natural. You don’t have to want offspring, you just have to be capable/available/willing to have sex and able to raise offspring to maturity. That’s all evolution requires.
I knew a dog breeder once and she told me that some of her dogs were natural mothers, would spend all their time licking and fussing over the pups, mourned when they were taken away. Some of them did the bare minimum (rolled over for nursing, let the pups sleep with them and that was about it) and got really lively and energetic when they were relieved of the burden.
Evolution is thrifty, unless you luck out and get a spandrel (big braaaaains!) it tends to provide the least amount required. In the absence of fertility control, no major desire to reproduce is necessary; only the ability to do so.
(And *cough* grammar Nazi: it’s “fewer kids,” not “less kids.” Fewer kids equals less work!)
What I would find funny if I had any sense of humor left for those death-loving scumbags is that pretty much the same people who are whining about too few babies of the style and color they prefer are the ones who continue to promote a culture and economic system in which any sensible person will recognize just how far the incentives against having kids go.
Human beings are pretty much the poster species for the evolutionary strategy of having few offspring and investing a lot of work to make sure they survive to reproduce and thrive. But right-wing social policy seems to work in the opposite direction every time.
I have one child, and now that he is almost a teen I sometimes regret that I didn’t have had another child to keep him company. But at the time my maternal urge was more than sated with only one, and I certainly wouldn’t have another now.
And I have to say, as the seventh and last child in my Catholic family, another good reason to limit the number of children you have is for the sake of the children you have.
Parental attention is a finite thing for sure. My parents were great, and loving, but some of my middle siblings had a very hard time competing for attention, and important things about them were not sufficiently noticed or appreciated.
And my parents were fortunate enough to provide for all of us financially. In less well off families, the resources available for schooling or sports or special needs just aren’t there for all the children. This is why the oldest children in large families generally end up with the most successful futures and kids down the line have to be content with less.
That’s why I feel almost angry when I seen women with whole bunches of kids (particularly when the kids are close in age). And I see a lot of them, since I live in Idaho. I really think that they aren’t taking their children’s interests into account when they keep popping them out.
Re. Paul’s last paragraph: well yeah, if you believe in evolution.
[/sarcasm]
Actually, that makes a lot of sense, how right-wing social policy and right-wing anti-science policy fit together. That’s a little scary.
I knew a dog breeder once and she told me that some of her dogs were natural mothers, would spend all their time licking and fussing over the pups, mourned when they were taken away.
I have a cat that is absolutely a natural mother. Of course, he’s a neutered male, so we’re using a pretty broad definition of “mother.”
But when our now-late older cat Boris was dying, Keaton kept him groomed and fussed over him. After Boris died, Keaton was so lonely that we had to get him his very own kitten, who he adores. Only problem is, she’s almost a year old now, so he’s having a bit of an empty nest crisis because she doesn’t need him as much anymore. Our vet was absolutely unsurprised to hear any of this and says that she hears it a lot from owners of male cats, especially neutered ones.
Even in nature, it’s not necessarily the female that’s most nurturing.
Another disturbing undercurrent to the argument that Americans and Europeans should have more babies is the fact that for us to be able to reproduce lots of kids and maintain the same standard of living *requires* that the more fertile developing nations live in misery. If you follow their argument to its logical conclusion, it is a GOOD thing that millions of babies in third world countries shit themselves to death due to lack of clean drinking water. Anyone with half a brain realizes that resources can’t be distributed equally and still provide our comparatively lavish lifestyle for everyone. What is the statistic? It would take so many planets to provide resources for humanity if everyone lived like an American.
They might as well just make things simple for everyone and leave out the “demographic winter” mumbo jumbo and just say “kill the brown babies”. But of course they’re “pro-life” so that would come off a bit counter-intuitive. Just a bit.
It’s a bullshit argument. We are not short of people. In the past 200 years, the world has grown from 1 billion to 7 billion people.
Yes, trend-wise it’s about the same as saying that we should worry about drowning in excess oil due to Peak Oil…
Evolution is thrifty, unless you luck out and get a spandrel (big braaaaains!) it tends to provide the least amount required.
There’s no reason to assume that human brains are a spandrel. Even if they came about by luck they’re too costly to retain by luck. Sometimes, the least amount required is a lot. Your main point about the maternal instinct is very true though.
Windy–I meant the cool, unnatural stuff like reading and writing that big braaaains can do, not the brains themselves. You’re right. Also, please don’t take comment & handle to mean that I’m actually a biologist or scientist. I have a slightly good layperson’s understanding of evolution, that’s all.
I meant the cool, unnatural stuff like reading and writing that big braaaains can do, not the brains themselves.
Sorry, I didn’t get that, thanks for the clarification
They’re basically arguing that women’s rights to control our child-bearing need to be stripped for the good of the community. (Ironically, they’re often the same people opposed to taxation, which means they think you have more right over the abstraction of property than the earthy reality of your body.)
No, the idea is that our bodies are property. And slaves don’t own themselves.
The ‘kid in grocery store’ factor is why I enjoy Nanny 911 reruns.
I’m “honorary white” and upper middle class. I have one child. If anyone wants me to have another, they just have to meet one little demand: better daycare. I’m not destroying my life and the lives of my partner and child by having another child and either quitting my job, thereby making myself and consequently my family miserable (and much poorer) or sticking it in substandard daycare, making it and consequently the rest of us miserable. This is a not uncommon situation for educated middle class women, white or not, so if society really wants us to reproduce, it knows what to do…
Nanny 911 is the best birth control around. Though it’s the parents I want to strangle.
One thing all the families have in common is many children who are less than two years apart in age. For instance, a 7 y/o, 5 y/o, 4 y/o, 2 y/o and infant. And the parents are completely oblivious and spineless. But childfree folks are the “selfish” ones? We’re not bringing more children than we can handle into the world, only to let them run wild whilst we pull our hair out and/or spend all our time at the office to avoid the madness.
Sorry… Supernanny was on tonight.
I wish there were some way to start a “If you can’t afford to take care of your kids then please don’t have them” program without it turning into some racist/classist eugenics nightmare.
I’m hopeful that this debate won’t devolve into the shit-slinging fest that the thread at feministing became.
Women who choose to have no children aren’t selfish. They contribute to society in a whole variety of ways - through work, activism, informal relationships to kids, etc. They have an obligation not to bitch about school levies and loud children in down-scale restaurants. We share our communities, we share our futures, and poorly educated, unsocialized kids who become equally rough-edged adults are in nobody’s interests.
Women who choose to become mothers aren’t dupes. They can contribute through raising children who are feminist, anti-racist, anti-homophobes, and just plain kind and wise - who will leave the world a better place than they found it. And they will also contribute in other ways, too, because raising children is rarely a whole life’s work. They have an obligation not to bitch about the alleged shallowness of the childfree who pick up some of the loose ends that parents of young children can’t (and vice versa, of course - think of the SAHMs whose volunteer work is still essential to many communities.)
But what I saw in the feministing thread is what I see in the culture at large: women eviscerating each other for the choices they’ve made.
And who wins? Neither group of women, you can be sure. Maybe the capitalists who want us all to believe that material values and performing as “ideal workers” ought to be our preeminent goal.
I’d have said all the above back when I thought I might never want kids, and I’ll maintain it now that I have two lovable little stinkers who make my life both wonderful and sometimes nearly impossible.
@ Mnemosyne: My mate (of the XY persuasion) is the more natural parent in our household, for sure. If only he weren’t allergic to cats, all would be copasetic.
Finally: I had my kids late and willingly (though no one ever really knows WTF they’re getting into). Until every other mother is as privileged as I was, I’ll refrain from judging them. And I’m pretty sure that won’t happen in my lifetime.
Yeah, Supernanny is a show I like to get drunk and watch because I’m an asshole it’s my outlet to hoot at the stupid lazy parenting choices mimicked by the self-indulgent idiots I am forced into contact with when taking my kid to school.
I’m a cynic and a mean one, but all you’re showing me when you have a fourth kid who is towed around in the minivan with the Save the Wolves bumper sticker is that exponents are hard math to grasp. Yes, I DO have a particular family in mind–either you care about the carrying capacity of this planet for humans as well as wolves, or make the smallest one run through the Gila Wilderness behind the van next time you go camping. That’s a two-fer right there.
I think that child-bearing should be relieved through social institutions and government spending, and largely, they’d disagree.
Again, yeah, my pursuit of child-bearing was relieved by a home study approval that allowed us to adopt. But I think you may have meant ’some of the transferrable costs of child-rearing’. And again, the Have More White Baybeez Army is clear in what passes for its collective hivemind that if you have 8 kids like my grandma did, there’s already an economy of scale there in your own home.
From one mean cynic to another, I heart you.
man, oh man, I really wish I had time…
Anyways, “Demographic Winter” is NOT a bullshit argument.
It’s used for bullshit, of course…
but it’s fundamentally about one thing…
How many people does one working aged person support in his or her productive life?
When you do the sociology and the math, you’ll find that you will always need a growing human population in order to carry on in the human sense of life we have now.
Now, that growth isn’t really possible anymores, we have trouble! But trying to reduce population doesn’t really work. I’m much more in favor of drastically spreading the productivity miracle to much larger parts of the globe–you know education, familiy planning, anti patriarchy– all that good stuff…and letting natural disasters and famines do the hard lifting of culling our numbers.
No one needs to be told, or should be told that they should have fewer or more children. Just let the enviroment tell them, and their own sense of possibilities.
Sophie - unless the parents of the seven successfully guilt-trip the eldest daughter into believing that she hs no value except in so far as she is a surrogate mom for the younger ones, to whom more resources by default should be devoted.
For added fun, pit ALL your children against each other, simultaneously using each of them as the excuse to give none of them nice things or help them with school, (”I’m too poor because I have X number of kids to pay for frivolities”) AND make them feel like wicked sinners for resenting this (”So you think we should have had less kids? Which one of your little brothers and sisters do you want never to have existed so you can go on a field trip?”) because Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Small Minds, after all.
Needless to say, none of us plan on having as many children as our parents did, and several of us aren’t having any…
Some mothers ARE dupes, who become parents through no desire of their own, but “because everyone does/because you have to/ because my parents insist on grandchildren” - I did my best to talk my highschool CCD students out of this mentality, but the ones who fall for all that BS are miserable resentful parents of miserable resented (and aware of it) children, even when they don’t end up dealing with Child Protective Services.
And some are also selfish, kid-hoarders (equivalent of cat-hoarders) like my mother, who just wanted living baby dolls and neglected us all after we got past the “awww, so cute and helpless!” stage, and justified it with St. Paul and Humanae Vitae and outbreeding the liberals…
There’s no such thing as Parturition Magic, which automatically turns a female human being into a reasonable, generous, responsible, competent, parenting animal by the mere act of carrying to term, any more than there’s Ejaculation Magic which does it for the sperm donors.
They have an obligation not to bitch about…loud children in down-scale restaurants.
Mothers (and fathers) feel free to do that very thing all the time. About other people’s children, of course. In moderation and in private it is a perfectly harmless pleasure. Lament the ‘mommy drive-by’ all you like, it can certainly be nasty and oppressive, but don’t try to pin it on the childfree. Critiquing other people’s children and turning up your noses at people who don’t rear them as well as you do is one of the chief joys of parenting and one of the best stress relievers from it. Please let’s not act like it has any special appeal to the unchilded.
This would mean that population size has never decreased in human history, because that would have destroyed humanity. That’s clearly wrong: look at Black Death. (Or was that a ‘good’ way to decrease population size in your book, as opposed to ‘bad’ ways like having less children? If so, that’s kind of sick.)
It might be hard to sustain the current Western economy without a growing population size, but we already know it’s unsustainable.
Mathematically there is exactly zero reason why the human population has to keep growing.
I’d say more, but I have to go take an exam on modeling population growth now.
Windy, re: the Black Death — The one positive side effect of the 14th century mass death was that it ended up making many of those who survived better off: They could move to better land, demand higher wages, had to pay less rent, join guilds that wouldn’t have allowed them in before…
Which points to another motivation of low-birth-rate panics: If people are more scarce and resources less so, it hits those controlling the resources where it hurts.
Perhaps it is because I have no urge to procreate, and perhaps it is because my parents were both really bad parents, but I just don’t see how having children is considered a natural right to be had by all humans. Since we do live in a “society,” and we don’t each live on our own little island, I find it odd that it is “okay” that people with no skills or resources to raise new humans feel compelled and obligated to do so. For instance, my parents were(are) self-involved people who had neither the financial resources nor the intellectual or emotional capability to raise children. Consequently, I am all sorts of screwed up and require expensive therapy to make me normal and functional, the way I would have been if my parents had been qualified to do their jobs. And I really am not considered a problem by society, because I own a business and create jobs and keep the machine running. But what about all the people who end up MORE miserable than me, with bleaker and more difficult lives? To me, the only thing that makes sense is to have parenting tests and bank account requirements.
To the people who feel that society should highly subsidize the whole child thing with daycare, etc.: is it because society needs all the new people to function as is, so it is in society’s interest to make it as easy as possible for the people who want to make the new humans? If the new humans really are for the benefit of society, shouldn’t there be more government involvement to make sure all these new humans turn out happy and healthy?
I mean, really and not snarkily- why is having children considered an inalienable right?
Man, I envy people who are childfree by nature and choice. It must be so much less anxious to look forward at your life and know that you can do what you want with it, without having to plan for years or decades sucked down the Mommy Maw. As someone with a seemingly unbeatable desire to parent - combined with a full awareness of what awaits a working mother out there - I really envy that ability to look forward and say “and when I’m thirty-five, I will go on vacation to France!” instead of “When I’m thirty-five, I’ll be completely broke because of daycare.”
Typically, the families featured on shows like Nanny 911 and Supernanny have a lot of financial resources; they just don’t have the mental or emotional resources. Many of them don’t even have the desire. For the most part, they live in huge McMansions in suburban developments. The mom is usually a stay-at-home parent. The couples put very little space between births.
They all have a lot of things in common.
I’m ashamed I know so much about those shows… but they are like trainwrecks.
Bodily autonomy, Babs.
Agree, SarahMC. These “parents” treat their spawn as needed accessories and the rest of the world has to deal because…why….they’re CHILDREN. And CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE.
If THOSE children are our future, I fear mightily.
What Em said, Babs. I see where you’re coming from on an emotional level, but you can’t seriously suggest the state get involved in who can reproduce and who can’t.
Purpleshoes, I feel you. Or I don’t, really, because I’ve never wanted kids. But I have always been aware of the freedom that gave me in terms of structuring the timing of my career, education, geographical moves, and love life. Which has been difficult enough as it is! My heart goes out to those of you who have “wanting kids” in the mix. Best of luck!
Everyone–please, let’s not derail this into another “do we need more people or not” debate. Shah8 has a history and obsession with this topic. It is the song that never ends. Can we please not engage?
It always boggles me how, when it comes to talk of stopping or reversing population growth, the ‘yay for plague/mass starvation!’ people come out of the woodwork.
I mean, the ‘you hate babeez’ crowd I have been aware of for a long time. But I wasn’t aware that famine had fans. After all, we only love babies if we let them starve to death while their parents are busy dying of typhoid.
This is without a doubt the most consistently entertaining blog that I read.
I really do think there is something to the demographic collapse theory. Maybe not globally, but in the US. Looking at our annual budget with a shrinking population and longer lifespans, how will we continue to fund Social Security and Medicare. Those are some really expensive programs and will only get more so.
I try to keep the impact of my four children (7,5,2,3 months) on our society’s limited resources to a minimum. I send them to private schools. This frees up my property taxes to educate other children.
Also their pediatrician doesn’t accept Medicaid. I’m not sure how this helps society, but it makes it much easier for me to make convenient appointments.
In reply to Babs…
We’re all allowed to try to influence the direction of our society: by writing things and publishing them, by running for political office, by trying to persuade the people around us. We’re only stopped if what we’re doing is criminal: using force to “persuade” them, fixing elections–that is, if our attempts at influence override somebody else’s on the basis of something other than the strength of the idea. Preventing people from having children essentially cuts them out of this loop. We’d be saying, whatever thoughts or ideas you have, we don’t want you trying to pass them on. (Parenting ability, while not the same as parental philosophy, is not entirely separated either, so we can’t control one without controlling the other.) We’d be making a judgment on who should participate in society; we’d just be delaying the consequences for a generation. It’s sort of like policing people’s thoughts, only more effective. And, yeah, some parents hide behind this, as some other commenters noted above, but we can’t see in people’s heads to know if they’re serious or not…
Abuse has obviously slipped over into criminal territory; I’m talking about things we may not like but which have not yet reached such a level.
(The transmission of ideas is obviously not perfect, or Republicans would never have Democrat children, or vice versa–but we’d still be making a pretty effective statement on what we *want*.)
And, finally, as gets discussed here and on other blogs from another perspective, controlling fertility one way tends to incline one to controlling it in the other direction, which is why anti-choicers wail about poor minority women having too many children at the same time they’re saying rich white women don’t have enough.
This is without a doubt the most consistently entertaining blog that I read.
I really do think there is something to the demographic collapse theory. Maybe not globally, but in the US. Looking at our annual budget with a shrinking population and longer lifespans, how will we continue to fund Social Security and Medicare. Those are some really expensive programs and will only get more so.
I try to keep the impact of my four children (7,5,2,3 months) on our society’s limited resources to a minimum. I send them to private schools. This frees up my property taxes to educate other children.
Also their pediatrician doesn’t accept Medicaid. I’m not sure how this helps society, but it makes it much easier for me to make convenient appointments.
Subsidizing daycare isn’t a pro-natalist measure so much as a feminist one, as it means that fewer moms would be pressured to quit their jobs.
There are other ways, of course, to reach the same end: We could mandate a 30-hour work week, instead of 40 hours, so that both parents* could continue to work. We could pressure more fathers to step up to parenting duties**. We could encourage extended families to stay closer together (not sure how, but it’s a thought).
* Assuming two parents for purpose of example.
** The other commonality in Nanny911/Supernanny families: slacker dads.
Melanie: There’s a right to breed more followers? Odd, since it’s against the law to adopt for that reason.
Again, you are assuming policies to limit childbirth in general would target only certain groups.
Babs:
Because not having children is an inalienable right. If you are going to question a right, you should have a plan to implement, so what would you do to make child-rearing a privelege instead of right?
And yes parenting is a lot of hard work and responsibility, but it is also entertaining. Even in the midst of my daughter’s worst tantrums, it is amusing. We never laugh at her to her face at those moments, I understand that she needs to know her parents are respecting her feelings, not laughing them off, but after bedtime, her father and I will giggle about her cute little pouty face.
Anyways, “Demographic Winter” is NOT a bullshit argument.
It’s used for bullshit, of course…
but it’s fundamentally about one thing…
How many people does one working aged person support in his or her productive life?
When you do the sociology and the math, you’ll find that you will always need a growing human population in order to carry on in the human sense of life we have now.
No, shah8, actually, we need more production per person over there liftime and more rational consumption, not more people. As the productive lifetime extends (Who under 45 really thinks they can retire at 62, 65, 67?), the number of people needed to produce a certain amount decreases. When the number of people decreases, the demand for resources decrease.
If a working person supports themselves, then themselves and their minor children, then themselves and their aged parents, then themselves again, then are supported by their children….Assuming one begins to support oneself as soon as able and continues to do so as long as able, the time one burdens others is much less than that supporting self and others and if one only has as many children as that one can support, voila! no need for growing population.
This is the very simplistic version of course. I don’t have time for the thoroughly supported one right now. Perhaps one of you others may have more time/resources at the moment.
Sorry, MizDarwin. I should have remembered.
Ronald Bailey is really good on biotechnology issues. Someone was pointing out on feministing that feminists and libertarians have a lot of common ground (and was criticized for it). I don’t know about a lot, but there are certainly some issues where we can work together — like a lot of these issues Amanda has posted about where the “natural” is held up as an ideal in a way that subjugates women. Reason is about the only publication I know of that has evinced any skepticism about draconian restrictions on painkillers, and since women are more likely to suffer chronic pain and to be undertreated for it, that would seem like a natural (so to speak!) area of agreement.
In America? Today? Oh, I think that’s a safe assumption. Do you really imagine there would be a childbirth policy that you wouldn’t be able to buy your way out of?
To be fair, we’re assuming that because that’s what we’ve seen in all of human history when people start talking about limiting childbirth. I don’t think humans have grown quite as much since the 1970s (when forced sterilization was finally outlawed in the United States) as you seem to think.
They have an obligation not to bitch about…loud children in down-scale restaurants.
The hell I have this “obligation.” To turn the strawman of “You’re saying only rich people can have chyldrun!” argument on its head: You’re saying that only rich people are entitled to a pleasant meal out.
Furthermore, you’re saying that you’re under no obligation to teach your They have an obligation not to bitch about…loud children in down-scale restaurants.
The hell I have this “obligation.” To turn the strawman of “You’re saying only rich people can have children!” argument on its head: You’re saying that only rich people are entitled to a pleasant meal out.
Furthermore, you’re saying that you’re under no obligation to teach your children to behave properly in public in all but the most high-tone establishments. It sure shoots to hell the excuse of, “Well, if we don’t take them out, how will they learn to behave in public?” You start teaching them at home, then at “down-scale” restaurants, then (someday) at the Ritz.
I’m sorry, I’m really tired of this strain of “feminism” that says “Mommies (and daddies) are never wrong and how dare you ever question them?!”to behave properly in public in all but the most high-tone establishments. It sure shoots to hell the excuse of, “Well, if we don’t take them out, how will they learn to behave in public?” You start teaching them at home, then at “down-scale” restaurants, then (someday) at the Ritz.
I’m sorry, I’m really tired of this strain of “feminism” that says “Mommies (and daddies) are never wrong and how dare you ever question them?!”
Geez, I really botched the cut’n'paste there, didn’t I? Let’s try it again…
The hell I have this “obligation.” To turn the strawman of “You’re saying only rich people can have chyldrun!” argument on its head: You’re saying that only rich people are entitled to a pleasant meal out.Furthermore, you’re saying that you’re under no obligation to teach your children to behave properly in public in all but the most high-tone establishments. It sure shoots to hell the excuse of, “Well, if we don’t take them out, how will they learn to behave in public?” You start teaching them at home, then at “down-scale” restaurants, then (someday) at the Ritz.
I’m sorry, I’m really tired of this strain of “feminism” that says “Mommies (and daddies) are never wrong and how dare you ever question them?!”
Av0: Implementing pro birth control, anti early/multiple child growth programs in schooling would be pretty even handed, actually. As would spreading reproductive health care and education around the world. There are more ways to combat high rates of population growth than going around sterilizing unwilling people. Part of the targeted nature of current programs is BECAUSE they are piecemeal and administered by small, local programs with various agendas. Making a national initiative with a clear goal to lower births across the board would be a tad different.
“Again, you are assuming policies to limit childbirth in general would target only certain groups.”
Well, our policies to limit crime, drug consumption, illegal immigration etc. in general only ever seem to target certain groups, so it seems like a safe bet that any other negative program would get put to the same use.
“And my parents were fortunate enough to provide for all of us financially. In less well off families, the resources available for schooling or sports or special needs just aren’t there for all the children. This is why the oldest children in large families generally end up with the most successful futures and kids down the line have to be content with less.”
I know this is way back from the beginning of the discussion, but…
I think that for some families it can be the opposite, particularly in the middle class (and I mean actually middle class not everyone who thinks they are middle class but are actually much richer/poorer) and higher bits of the working class.
In an actually middle class family or upper working class family, the parents finish college with oodles of loans that need paying off, get mediocre jobs, and when cut loose from mom and dad, have enough money to get by and maybe save a little, but not much. When kid number one comes along, the parents are still in mediocre jobs, maybe just bought a house, and things are tight once in a while. By the time kid three or so is born, the parents have gotten better jobs, the mortgage is partially paid off, they’ve got some investments and savings.
As the oldest of three kids, I see this in my own family, and I also see it in the families of my parents’ siblings and friends. (For reference, my parents are in their mid 50s now, and the kids range from about 30 to 15.) My dad, as well as his male siblings and most of his male friends, are small business owners who did at least some college, and a lot of the women are also college educated, and some have masters degrees in things like teaching and librarianship.
Business owning and teaching are things that get more lucrative as time goes by, and mortgages and school loans are things that go away with time. Thus the families have more money, and the younger kids have better clothes, more toys and vacations, a nicer place to live, and more relaxed parents. Just recently, my mom emailed me pictures of two large purchases she and my dad had made in the space of two days — a big flat screen tv, and a (used) Jeep. While it’s true that the tv replaced an older one that no longer worked, and the Jeep replaced the land yacht, gas-guzzling car that came with Nana when she moved in with my parents, I was floored. Such tossing about of money by my thrifty parents (especially my mom, who was 2nd of 8 kids herself) is strange to me, but they can do in their middle age what they couldn’t in their youth.
I also see the same pattern already starting for myself and my peers. I’m broke as all hell, but that’s to be expected, cause I’m a grad student supporting myself. But it’s not a permanent situation. In a 2 years I’ll be done with grad school, and still be broke as hell, cause I’ll be paying off $50k of school loans, and won’t have that great of a job yet. In 5 years, I’ll be doing better, in 10 years I’ll be solvent, and in 15 years, I’ll probably be pretty comfy. While I have no plans for kids, If I had one in 9 years (the age at which my mom had me), I could support it, but nothing extra or fancy. In 14 years (the age at which my mom had my sister, her 3rd and last kid), there would be a better standard of living for the family.
Talk of limiting population is rather more recent than ‘all of human history’. Certainly the methods used are quite recent- it’s a bit much to say that population control will equal forced sterilization of minorities simply because widespread forced sterilization happened shortly after the medical technology was developed. Might as well say factories will always cause child abuse because of the old textile mills at the start of the industrial revolution. Or that abortion is anti feminist because the Chinese forc eit on women. It’s a possible abuse, not an inevitable one.
I’m sorry Kerlyssa, but I think that’s terribly naive of you. I just don’t see a way to get from today’s abstinence-only, screw the family planning agenda to the kind of national initiative you’re talking about without hitting some serious social injustices along the way.
How are you going to implement that kind of program in schools without individual teachers putting their own agendas into play? How are you going to initiate it in government without individual officials putting their own agendas into play? How would could anyone handle the massive oversight and expense necessary to make things genuinely equal?
I might think it was possible, except that even within school districts, massive inequities still exist. And aren’t we all supposed to be getting the same quality of education from the public school system? How could this country possibly do a better job at family planning education than they do at any other kind of education?
Oh please, NiP, even my childless self puts up with noisy kids where ever they happen to be because that’s what kids do — make noise. You and I both did it when we were kids, and if we ever were to have kids, they’d do it too. I excuse other folks’ kids, hoping that they excused me when I was little, and hoping that they will excuse mine should I choose to have any.
rowmyboat,
We all put up with noisy kids though I do love that some restaurants now don’t allow children, either at all or at night. it can be refreshing to have a space to go to to have a nice dinner without kids running around. of course these restaurants are usually on the expensive side so not available to all.
i have to echo some of the posters above, demographic winter isn’t a bullshit argument, at least in a country with as many social benefits as ours. its just that the argument gets perverted by some. if we were more like sweden and didnt have a lot of new arrivals to the country we would be suffering from some of the same problems they are, namely not being able to keep the promises the gov’t makes to its people such old-age pensions, medical care and so on.
Thank you for this, I totally agree. I’m really sick of the saint-like characteristics attributed to people merely because they breed, and the attitude that every child is ’special’. Sorry, your child is fucking annoying and you’re contributing to resource depletion so STFU. It’s no coincidence that these are the same people that justify needing a suburban-assault-vehicle SUV “because of the children”
I’m childfree by choice. I have no parental drive whatsoever (screw calling it ‘maternal’), and think children are like chewing gum; ok initially, but with enough chewing the flavour kinda goes away really quickly. It’s also, I feel, an ethical choice for me. Take from that what you will.
Oh, and no, I won’t change my mind as I get older. I am getting older, and if anything, my decision becomes more and more evidently right.
[And I’ll add my voice to those saying to ignore shah8, as shah8 has an obsession on this topic, and takes no dissent, overwhelming any discussion. It’s pointless to engage.]
Oops. Sorry, Sungold. It didn’t take long at all.
What, the fuck, ever.
I’m not telling people they can’t have children. Hell, I’d fight for people’s right to have the children they want, and have assistance in such, just as I have the right not to have children. Choice is choice is choice. But really, making one comment to push slightly back against of the mountain of breeding-worship and ‘all children are angels’ in our culture does not constitute “shit-slinging”.
Get over yourself.
Rabbit, Helen H;
I would *love* to see your population modeling, especially for reassuring…
I have a history and a sense of mission about this topic because I see this utterly stupid (and I feel, inhumane) attitude that population growth control is desirable here, and in places like The Oil Drum.
Everyone talks about the damn kids, but how many people talk about caring for the elderly? We don’t have a problem *now* because we import so many people from other countries with limited legal and financial means. What do you think happens if that pipeline ever shuts down? huh? Ain’t really talking about nursing home care…just, in general, we have drastically lowered immigration. We have a whole tax (and work) base that is *extremely* dependent on increasing population, just to *keep* the damn lights on! If we didn’t have immigration, you all wouldn’t be so cavalier about ZPG.
The ignorance really freakin’ burns me! Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY with a population growth rate at or below replacement rate does so because they are a happy happy joy joy society. Something is usually seriously wrong, and the demographic decline usually makes it worse.
One of the *main* reasons I’m for family planning and female education/fertility control and lowering the Zinni Coefficient is that the *necessities* will drive loss of autonomy. Just read the Old Testament for all that family planning goodness designed to produce enough fighting men! I think it’s a large part of how the patriarchy got started. It’s really important to *establish* personal rights over one’s fertility and the labor that goes towards it, because it will retard or prevent neo-patriarchy as the contradictory demands of environment and human social needs asserts themselves.
If you *really* *really* think I’m crazy or irrational, do like me and read about life wrt procreation during the 18th and 19th century in Europe and China/Japan. Or read a whole lotta dystopian science fiction–beyond Atwood. Or read the actual damn scientific literature on the topic of population control.
Yeah, there are too few guys like me around, which is why I speak out on this. Think of me as your friendly neighborhood devil’s advocate.
Sungold, thank you. You said that very well.
Sarah in Chicago
I actually do take dissent. No I really do!
But it takes actual arguments for said dissent.
Screaming LA LA LA I’m NOT Listening isn’t productive.
And frankly, I would appreciate more research stuff on that topic.
In any event, I’m vocal because this topic will grow into the public mind as the ecological and financial pressures grow even more severe, and I think it’s important not percieve population growth control as something with a consistent, linnear gain control.
It’s far, far more important to increase procreational choice and increased efforts at ecological remediation. There is a holistic system to consider here.
Complaining about the breeding-worship isn’t shit-slinging. Complaining about breeding-worship is a position, and it’s an important one. Telling all parents that their kids are annoying and that they should STFU is shit-slinging.
Look, breeding-worship hurts parents too. I’m sorry you feel that breeders get all the social advantages of the culture, but I’ve been both childless and a parent, and I’m not sure either side has an advantage. Sure, some parents get an advantage at work (though not at any workplace I ever worked at), sure they get tax deductions for their kids. But they also get a lot more total strangers who think it’s totally OK to tell them how to live their lives because the children are so important. Breeder-worship doesn’t actually worship the individual breeders. It treats them like mindless drones. The day my pregnancy started to show was the day people started acting like my IQ had dropped 50 points and co-workers started calling me “Mommy” like I had ceased to have a name. Because now that I was breeding, that was the only thing about me that mattered. That’s what breeder worship does.
I know there are some parents who are certain that their way is the only way. I know how annoying that is. I remember the pressure to have kids that started, literally, at my wedding reception. The pressure to have more kids started, literally, while I was still in the hospital after my son’s birth. And even though I wanted kids, that still sucked.
But instead of blaming all parents and kids for that, why don’t we all recognize that the worship of child-production hurts everyone, and that it’s not most individual parents fault. And maybe we can refrain from telling the people on this board, who haven’t been trying to convince you to have kids, or to bow down before their own procreative power, to STFU
Talk of limiting population is rather more recent than ‘all of human history’.
Not really. Only the methods have changed. Elites have worried about being “outbred” by their inferiors and tried to control their reproduction for centuries.
It’s the same as with birth control. It’s not that no one thought of trying to limit births until the Pill came along. The diaphragm was in wide use in France by the mid-1800s.
Just because we gussy it up in new clothes doesn’t mean it’s a brand-new issue that’s never been thought about before.
All you need for a relatively smaller population of workers to be able to support a relatively larger population of nonworkers is a) for productivity to increase as it currently is, and for that increase to be captured by the workers rather than a tiny slice of owners and managers, and b) for prospective nonworkers to be able to save and invest for retirement without reducing their current consumption below reasonable levels (which also requires that bit about capturing productivity gains).
Yes, of course it would be. Except for the fact that that is not what I said.
I am criticising those that think “of course my child is an angel” when that child is behaving like a gargoyle (the “every child is ’special’” bit in there), not to mention the generalised-exceptionalism that seems to go along with this kind of child-having.
50% of kids are below average, and somehow this is surprising to these kind of parents.
I am childfree by choice for a number of reasons, some of them insurmountable objections by my standards (mood disorder, now in remission). However, I am very glad that others are having children, some of whom grow up and become my students. And I see some people who can’t stand a kid-free life when their biokids grow up and leave the nest, and become foster or adoptive parents. And you should see the fervor with which some gay male couples pursue a chance to become foster parents. I also know of people who are incompetent parents - the bioparents of the kids in fosterage.
I am not a bit surprised that there is no significant difference in happiness between childfree and child-raising adults.
Look, the real problem is that no one expected the poor to live past 40. If we can solve this…
paul…
I agree completely. Lowering conspicuous consumption, lowering wasteful energy use, increasing knowledge of sexual parts and processes, increasing productivity in the third world, generally increasing the capture of said productivity by said workers (American workers, and most workers in the first world, are pretty productive already–go where the gains would really sock it to ya.), increasing protection of ecological climates, increase regulation on negative externalities…
We will get through this, if at all, through lots of smaller policies that have multiple positive externalities in and of themselves.
Swinging for the fences, as what population control really is, given structual realities wrt government, finance, ecology, and society, is only going to be akin to what happens when Mighty Casey is at bat.
We don’t have trouble, we have difficulties, which we can certainly overcome.
Why doesn’t reducing population work? What other choices do we have? Spreading the productivity “miracle” around the world will increase consumption of resources, which means that we must have population decline to offset the per capita increase of consumption.
Natural disasters, wars, famines, and pandemics never cause population decline. They are always followed by baby booms, which usually leave the population larger than it was before.
“Sorry, your child is fucking annoying and you’re contributing to resource depletion so STFU.” -SiC
“Telling all parents that their kids are annoying and that they should STFU is shit-slinging.” - Av0gadro
Hmmmm… not really seeing a whole lot of difference there SiC. Definately not seeing where you’re talking about a specific stereotyped group of “parents” that exist only in your mind as you suggested in your rebuttal.
Of course, even if that’s what you meant… it’s still shit-slinging… and stereotyping/generalizing.. which is a basic tool of the whole -ism mindset. I.E. Let’s lump a bunch of people I don’t even really know AT ALL together in one group based on what I think is wrong with them and just trash talk them.
Erika
Productivity miracles==doing more with fewer resources using physical, temporal (mediated by lending), and intellectual capital.
They *lower* footprint, not increase them.
Natural disaster, wars, and famine most certainly *do* lower population pressures. They are, in fact, key in keeping humanity in balance. The resistance to drops in population that you see is due to an fossil fuel economy. That will hold only so far as it goes.
/me realises that shah8 was never really on topic:
After reading Feministing, and others…
I’ll just say word to Bitch Ph.D.
hey peeps, found this blog from a link at mat y’s…
http://demographymatters.blogspot.com/
haven’t looked at it thoroughly, but more information about demographic processes would be really helpful to a wider progressive audience.
The thing is, neither breeders or non-breeders really *win* in our society.
Those of us who have not bred yet (or at all) are harassed and pressured to do so. We are told what we “really” want and that children and motherhood are the greatest things in the world.
But when women do become pregnant, they suddenly turn into public property. They are nothing more than vessels for their fucking fetuses, in society’s eyes. I have a friend who’s going to give birth in about a month, and she can’t wait. She can’t believe how differently she’s treated as a pregnant woman. That’s all people see when they look at her or talk to her. It’s like she doesn’t have a life outside the pregnancy.
And once women give birth, finally fulfilling their oh-so-sacred mission to bring forth life, they are STILL treated like crap!
Seriously, this wins an award for most ignorant comment in a thread.
Exactly when would you administer this test? Because, as a parent, you never know what kind of parent you will be until you have the child. My sister did a complete 180 when she had her first and is a much better parent than I ever would have thought. I tend to think I’m a worse parent than I believed I would be before children. Things like PPD, single-parenting, an uninvolved co-parent can all make us worse parents than otherwise we would have been had circumstances been different. I think too many people are cavalier about having children, but I would never recommend the state get involved in regulating the output of my uterus.
On the money issue, my hubby and I would not have met a bank account test and we are quite poor. But my son has never done without anything he ever needed. But by your standards, we should not have been allowed to reproduce. Indeed, most “middle class” parents can’t actually afford their children. I know plenty of wealthy people who should never have children, but they would pass your bank account standard with flying colors.
How exactly would we control who can reproduce? If you failed the parenting/bank account test, how would the government prevent an “accidental” pregnancy?
So, Kerylssa, tell us again how Bab’s plan would not selectively target certain groups for sterilization?
Hmm… I haven’t seen this strain of feminism very often. But what do I know, I’m a breeder.
Now this I agree with, which is why your earlier post flaming breeders is incongruous to me. Are there oblivious parents out there? Of course. Do most parents want to believe their children are special by society’s standards (as opposed to just recognizing that all individuals are special)? Sure. But the hate is quite an over-reaction.
Kids make noise– even well-behaved ones. Adults also make noise– noise I’ve been forced to deal with even at a “nice” restaurant. Funny, though, if the noise-maker has enough money/influence they get to remain, but I’m supposed to self-flagellate every time my son gets exuberant at a low-moderately priced restaurant. I’m fine with businesses deciding to be kid-free zones, but that is not a place I will ever feel welcome, whether I have my child with me or not.
On topic: I don’t know how much truth there is to the “demographic winter” theory, and I don’t much care. But I do care about all women controlling the output of their uterus. I do care that developing nations reduce their populations in order to ease the strain on their resources, which causes endemic violence and warfare. I do care the developed nations reduce their populations in order to end the exploitation of the developing world for an unequal share of the globe’s resources, thus facilitating (and often participating) in the endemic violence. The truth is, that if we want developing nations to raise their standard of living, those of us in the developed world will have to accept a relative decline in ours– but do I really need 20 different toothpastes to choose from?
Those of us who have not bred yet (or at all) are harassed and pressured to do so. We are told what we “really” want and that children and motherhood are the greatest things in the world.
And if you have one, you’re immediately pressured to have a second because only children never get to experience the joys of sibling rivalry, the sudden lack of responsiveness from parents when the new kid shows up, the fun of being compared continuously to your sib, the character building experience of wondering whether their mother is going to survive labor…Er, well, you know, because an only child might be lonely or something. Anyway, the pressure doesn’t stop with the first birth. And everyone feels the need to comment on your child rearing skills or lack thereof (even positive comments get tiring when they’re from strangers who have no business commenting at all.) So do what you want: it’s not like you can win the criticism game anyway.
The important thing to remember about SIP(spawn in public) is that no matter how good the parents are, kids are not robots. They don’t have switches to turn annoying behavior on and off. Even the most well behaved children have bad days. Even my “perfect little angel”(as I’m informed by all her childcare providers and now teachers though I know better) has bad days.
Kids are people. Small miniature people, without the full cognitive abilities of an adult, but they are still people, and you can’t dictate to them their behavior, anymore that someone could dictate your behavior to you. They are full fledged human beings with as much right to the public sphere as you.
Um, aren’t we *all* Spawn In Public? It’s just that our parents probably aren’t with us to be glared at if we blab loudly into our cellphones or make just-loud-enough-to-hear comments about the appearance of those around us.
but at Reason, they go even further and allow a feminist libertarianism to thrive
Amanda, Reason isn’t about feminist anything. They worship faux Darwinianism, where nobody ought to need help, ever, which means women ought to be just as able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps as men, and everything they do is a CHOICE, so sexism is a lie and maternity leave is a tool of jackbooted government-worshiping sheeple-thugs.
Kerlyssa, I was responding to Babs’s post, in which s/he specifically mentioned parenting tests. So we were not in any way discussing general policies to limit childbirth, but policies to prevent specific people from having children.
As to the other bit…I don’t know enough about adoption law to be able to argue it, I guess.
History mom, I didn’t flame breeders. I am referring to a very specific type of breeder. Maybe you’re confusing me with Sarah in Chicago?
SarahMC: You are correct. That makes things less incongruous after all.
Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up? I’m no libertarian, but your anti-libertarian argument implies that women are inherently inferior to men.
No amount of increased productivity is going to turn nonarable land into arable land or magically increase the supply of fresh water. As productivity gets spread around the globe, living conditions for everyone improves, which means more people have access to food, water, medicine, and consumer goods. Per capita consumption of resources might be less than what the average American consumes now, but per capita consumption per resident of the planet will increase.
And, no, famine, disease, and natural disasters (with the assumption that the famine, pandemics, and natural disasters eventually cease) have never led to long term decreases in population.
“Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up? I’m no libertarian, but your anti-libertarian argument implies that women are inherently inferior to men. ”
I think the argument would be that it’s not a level playing field (excuse the mixed metaphors), and that there are often additional barriers for women to overcome, therefore regardless of women’s and men’s relative abilities, achieving certain things may be more difficult for women. Not because women are inferior, but because we live in a sexist society.
Erika:
Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up?
How about because the high heels we’re demanded to wear don’t actually come with bootstraps?
Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up?
Erika, think about what the phrase “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” means. It’s inherently ridiculous. You can’t lift yourself higher by yanking on your own feet.
But that’s what the libertarian argument is; that everybody who rises does so from their own, magical effort, and has the exact same opportunity and ability to do so–and to the extent that they fail to rise, it’s because they simply can’t or won’t tug on their own shoes hard enough.
The libertarian view also assumes that nobody is sitting on your head and making it harder to pull yourself up (except maybe the gub’mint). Because, of course, the market would take care of such discrimination quickly.
“children have only a small impact. A small negative impact.”
I’m so happy that you posted this. I’ve just left my SO who wanted kids (that was only a small part of the reason to leave), and my conservative family who love him are all telling me that this direction I’m heading is wrong, and the happiest people are those with children and the traditional white-picket fence livestyle. I’ve been so confused lately, I didn’t know whether to trust my emotions or their advise. Here’s evidence that my emotions are on the right track and that I’m not insane.