I think it’s perfectly fine not to have children if you don’t feel like it. No other reason or justification is needed. If you don’t feel like having them, then don’t. It makes you an honest, strong-minded person who doesn’t bow to societal pressures and just does whatever s/he feels like. Perfect!
What I find very disturbing, though, is when people fashion some kind of an identity out of something they say they have no interest in doing. To give an example, I’m a blogger. That’s a huge part of my identity because I spend a lot of time blogging. I don’t garden, however. It would be kind of freaky for me to create an identity for myself based on not gardening and to write endless passionate posts and articles about how gardening sucks and all people who garden are deluded.
The child-free folks, though (not to be confused with those who are simply childless, like myself), spend a lot of time and energy decrying the horrors of an activity they say they don’t want to participate in and making wild and unflattering generalizations about those who do want to participate in it. Here is the most recent example I encountered:
I think when most women imagine having a baby, they romanticize it, thinking of their perfect, adorable Kodak moments. I do not. . . To me, having a baby means misery, poverty, missed opportunities, burden, servitude, restriction, and a ruined life. My view might not be common, or if it is, it’s not much talked about, but I know that I am not alone.
Anybody is completely entitled to envision having children as “misery, poverty, etc.” What I find hard to comprehend, though, is why this belief has to be accompanied by a ridiculous generalization about the stupidity of “most women” who only think of Kodak moments and can’t even imagine what the reality of having children means. Why such intense disrespect for so many women? (Men are not mentioned at all here. Probably this blogger believes that women reproduce through parthenogenesis.) Why not choose, instead, to give people who want kids (as well as people who don’t) the benefit of the doubt and proceed from the assumption that they know what they are doing?
Whenever I talk to a child-free person, I always notice that they talk about babies a lot more than even the most obsessed parents. (Also, baby poop tends to feature prominently in those conversations, which makes a lot of sense psychoanalytically.) They go on and on about how all of those people who have children are completely insane and how their lives must be totally and hopelessly ruined. After a while of listening to this “parenthood is such a nightmare” whining, I begin to think that this seemingly ideological child-free position is nothing but a huge case of sour grapes.
People who are completely sure of an important life decision they made will never spend a moment defending it. Because whenever you feel the need to defend it, it’s not “society” you are talking to. It’s that nasty little voice in your head telling you that probably your decision was a mistake.
Clarissa's Blog 
Along with “oppression” and maybe some Marxist terminology “narcissism” is another one of those words I keep seeing get knocked around by indignant internet heroes till it loses all its meaning. Please stop abusing my precious language I am a lit scholar it is all I got.
LikeLike
“Please stop abusing my precious language”
Feel free to kiss my ass. She admitted to being an attention whore, albeit in the most backward way of accusing other people of the same. If the shoe fits, after all. (Make sure you get both cheeks while you’re down there.)
LikeLike
“albeit in the most backward way of accusing other people of the same”
-Another weird linguistic monstrosity. And another statement pointing to severe traumas of the anal stage of development. You should be shown to students, law1204, because you are such a textbook case of an anal fixation.
LikeLike
“Another weird linquistic monstrosity.”
Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.
Wade, Tavris “Psychology” Sixth Edition Prentice Hall 2000 ISBN 0-321-04931-4
LikeLike
You managed to find a book on psychology and even copy an entire paragraph? Good for you!
Now a special assignment: what do the constant references to the anal area coupled with hatred of childbirth tell us? Just leaf through your book and you’ll find the answer.
LikeLike
Beautiful. It’s like a free rendition of The Miller’s Tale.
LikeLike
@law1204 ass-talk
LikeLike
“Now a special assignment: what do the constant references to the anal area”
I dunno, dearie. You’re the only one using that word.
LikeLike
It’s OK, just keep reading your book.
LikeLike
Hi everyone, I just read Julie’s post and yours Clarissa. I also read the comments that followed. I don’t want to sound like a hippy or anything but I think you could both (and some of the commenters too) do with stepping away from the keyboard and taking a moment.
Clarissa – I genuinely don’t believe Julie meant to insult anyone on her blog. I can understand how the language she used might have caused you to interpret it that way, but she has clarified that that wasn’t her intention.
Julie – I don’t think Clarissa was out and out making stuff up, it’s hard to read tone and intent online sometimes and I think what you set out to say and what she took from that just got a little tangled up.
Either way, calling each other ‘liars’, ‘trolls’, ‘freakazoids’, ‘smelly’ and whatever else has passed back and forth is really unhelpful and just makes both sides look ‘hysterical’.
I’m childfree-by-choice currently (I don’t see my mind changing in the future, but who knows?). I don’t dislike kids, in fact I just got back from running a kids’ craft session and I’m training to be a teacher (I find babies pretty scary, but that’s another story) but I do dislike the pressure we all put on each other in society (at least in the UK, where I live). In my experience some parents, or people who would one day like to be parents, are real douches to people who are frank about their desire to avoid parenthood. Conversely, some childfree folk are pretty shitty about and to parents and don’t respect the fact that one size does not fit all in these matters.
When it comes to constructing my identity, I agree with the poster who said that sometimes defining yourself by what you don’t do or have IS as valid as what you do. It doesn’t negate anyone else’s decision if I’m glad I chose the opposite and I do feel it’s important for childfree people to be visible in society, just as parents are. It allows for people to see there’s more than one way up the mountain. I was lucky, as a child I saw a lot of my godmother, who was the warmest, most loving, nurturing person I knew (and a midwife) and also childfree by choice. When I grew up it never crossed my mind that non-parent wasn’t a choice, or that non-parents were in any way weird. That’s why I don’t feel ashamed to use childfree as a block with which to construct my identity. I also identify as a feminist, a student, a trainee teacher, a cat owner, a meat eater, a burlesque performer, an agnostic, a comic book geek, someone who doesn’t enjoy team sport and as a woman.
As for discrimination, I think parents do have it tough in a lot of ways, but again to works both ways. I know of people who have applied for jobs and ended up bonding with the interviewer over their parental experiences and others who have had the interview and been viewed as weird or creepy when their childfree-by-choice status came to light. In my last job before I went into teacher training I worked with three childfree women, two in their fifties and one due to retire, and two childfree youngish men (one single and one married) and that was the first time I had ever been in a work enviroment where my choice was seen as not just not a big deal, but also the norm. Everywhere else I had worked I was regarded as a bit of a non-woman due to not wanting to hear the patter of tiny feet.
I agree, that being regarded as a non-woman, being hassled about my choice, or being told ‘you’ll change your mind’ (to which I now tend to reply, ‘It’s possible, but I hope that I don’t’) is not nearly as detrimental to one’s life and social standing as potentially losing out on income that pays for food on the table, but, I don’t think it’s helpful to compare privilege or lack of it. There’s no point a white lesbian and a straight black dude bickering over who gets discriminated against more, it’s more important to try and stamp it all out and respect each other as much as possible.
Sorry for the long ramble, but we don’t all need to be against each other on this. Childfree folks should be pleased that parents are having the kids that will keep the world turning when we’re all old and want to retire, and parents should be glad that childfrees are around to make the world a little less overpopulated when their offspring are grown.
Again, apologies for the long ramble, but I don’t think this needs to be the big fight it’s grown into.
LikeLike
To your example about gardening…if I was expected to become a gardener by age 30, and potential partners, parents, and friends continually questioned why I wasn’t a gardener yet, then I’d be doing the same thing. Actively trying to show society that it is OKAY not to want to be a gardener.
LikeLike
And if you were still “actively trying to show society that it is OKAY not to want” past the age of 20, I’d still tell you that you are horribly immature.
LikeLike