What’s Even More Controversial Than Being Pro Choice?
Choosing to Not Have Children in the First Place
Consider this: If your parents weren’t like many parents I knew back in the day, congratulations. If you remember the good old days differently than I do, then maybe you were lucky.
Before I get started with this piece, let me first say that I have two children. I love them dearly. They are the best of me in so many ways. My children were conceived during a time in this country when humans didn’t know a lot. Not just teenagers like my husband and me. We were only 19 years old when we tied the knot. But even the grownups back in the day had very little knowledge to share with kids. My husband and I weren’t fully prepared to step into the shoes of a parent. We kinda grew up with our kids.
After all, the human brain isn’t fully developed until around 25 years old.
I was an early 50s child. Back then, mom stayed home, kept the house clean, and raised the kids, but she didn’t talk to them all that much. Dad went to work and came home at the end of the day and talked even less to the kids.
I guess we were supposed to learn by example.
After all, roles were well-defined by society at the time. People didn’t veer from the expected course. Our parents rarely talked to us about anything important, because they didn’t have much to say. The cultural norm was that children should be seen and not heard so we didn’t ask. Honestly, there was very little to caution us about at the time because society at large still had no idea that we might be able to protect ourselves from the dangers of life.
Most unfortunate events were viewed as accidents which relieved grownups of a lot of worry and responsibility.
Yeah, little heads bashed against car windows was still considered an accident even though race car drivers were buckled up and wore helmets. Somehow society hadn’t put two and two together yet. You know, that maybe a two-year-old’s little noggin was at least as delicate as a full-grown man’s. And when we finally did decide to copy the race car drivers by making our little ones wear seat belts, lots of parents were angry about it. It took a long time for this safety precaution to be normalized and then supported by laws designed to protect children.
Laws to protect children didn’t exist in the past. The most vulnerable among us were powerless.
There were also very few choices or options available to middle-class families at the time and even fewer for poor people. The middle class was a rather new concept and was just beginning to become a wild reality. So, no one invested much time in helping children identify options for their future lives. We girls already knew what was expected of us, however.
Get married and have kids.
I went into married life with no previous conversations about birth control, for example, so I had a baby nine months later. And, no, I wasn’t pregnant when I got married. How do I know for sure? Because I was a virgin when I married. I admit that being a virgin at the age of 19 even back then wasn’t actually the norm but getting pregnant out of wedlock was still a big no no. Ironic, eh? However, that’s a story for another day.
There were lots of things that grownups didn’t mention to me.
I never had a conversation with my parents about sex, pregnancy, self-expression, how to balance a checkbook, birth control, or how to make a living. Birth control was hard to get if you weren’t married, by the way. How embarrassing to even try to approach your pharmacist about such things. You’d be questioned about your marital status and publicly turned away.
Oh, and guess what? Not once did my parents ask me what I’d like to be when I grew up. After all, I was a girl.
Everything was left up to chance. I was born and then sent outside to play until I finally started my period when I was encouraged to think about getting married and having babies. It was my only viable option. Those were the social norms back then.
That was parenting 101.
My parents weren’t good parents, however, even according to 1950s low expectations. In fact, they were abusive, to put it mildly. I was one of many, many children in the world who down through the ages were unlucky enough to inherit a dangerous childhood. Yet, my parents had six kids. Go figure, eh?
The demand to produce babies has been waning in the modern world during the last fifty years or so. Unfortunately, there is now a regressive move to drive women back to the bad old days.
More young people today, however, are either waiting much longer to have a child, having fewer children, or choosing to remain childless. What we’re discovering is that being childless is not the harbinger of lonely days and lack of purpose that we’ve been told. It can often be the complete opposite.
People who have chosen not to have children are some of the happiest people on the planet.
Without giving it a lot of thought, I can immediately think of reasons why. Freedom to live your life as you please is one of the reasons that comes to mind. Not that having children keeps most parents from doing as they please. That’s often part of the problem.
They have babies without being willing to change the way they’ve lived their lives before becoming parents.
I’m sure everyone knows of at least one father or mother who created chaos in their little ones lives as they selfishly went about the business of living, rarely considering the needs of a child. Nobody ever comes to the child’s rescue either. All the grownups they know have little to no time for a dependent child demanding to be cared for by a true grownup.
The myth our society perpetuates that women without babies are never happy and should be pitied is just that — a myth. “When it comes to who is happier, parents or child-free people, most of the research up until now has concluded that it is the childless who are more satisfied with their overall lives.”
Women are not unfulfilled if they choose not to have kids.
Our culture still insists that they should feel deep regrets but once again, “research has shown that women without children are generally happier, healthier, less depressed and more satisfied than mothers,” says Debra Mollen, a professor and researcher of childfree women, who is also childfree herself.
If it’s a personal choice, and there’s a growing number of women who are choosing not to give birth, we should support these self-aware women.
Unfortunately, our culture still shames women who make this choice. In the past, it was even worse. You know, back in the day when my mom had very few choices other than to get married and have babies. She had no money. Women weren’t allowed a credit card without the signature of a husband or father. To be an old maid was viewed as worse than death itself. If you hadn’t snared a husband by your late twenties, you were considered an old maid. Grim!
These cultural expectations are not only foolish and unfair, but they’re often dangerous.
Child abuse statistics, whether physical, sexual, or mental, are high in modern America. Sadly, the weakest among us bear the brunt of bad parenting. It should terrify us to see the way children have been treated for centuries. Yet, here we are in the 21st century, and guess what? We still haven’t given children the same rights as grownups, that is the right to protection and a voice. Thus, they’re traumatized regularly and no one comes to their rescue. I know firsthand. I had to endure some pretty tough shit until I was old enough to leave home. Not one grownup lifted a finger to protect me.
I know this is a difficult topic.
Most people want to believe that the abuse of children is rare, but frankly, it’s not. It’s as common as dirt. I was abused. I grew up to become a public school teacher and then a principal of a large elementary school. I’m here to tell you, even average parents leave a lot to be desired.
Children don’t get to pick their parents.
They’re stuck with whomever they get through the lottery of birth. That means that far too many inherit a whole lotta trouble. And even those parents who do a halfway decent job can’t guarantee diddly squat for their child, including a planet worth growing up on.
Yeah, ya either believe that shit about climate change or ya don’t.
As though life isn’t hard enough — there’s a huge percentage of people (often pro-lifers) who believe that a burning hell will greet their wayward child upon death if they wander from a particular path. Talk about traumatizing your little ones. It’s a form of mental child abuse if you ask me. Plus, who in their right mind believing that shit would wanna run the risk of having a child? The odds of their chances of going to hell are pretty high. Especially since the parents themselves have been personally tempted to commit terrible sins of the flesh throughout their entire lives and miserably failed the test.
I mentioned all of the above in order to suggest that it may finally be possible through the evolution of societies for fewer people to raise traumatized children.
How might we accomplish this noble goal?
A lot more people should be allowed to choose not to have kids and then go about the business of leading their best lives. We have to stop stigmatizing those who make this choice. The social pressure is ridiculous. Instead, we need to support and praise them for being responsible. I can’t tell you how many times my childless friends have been pressured to have babies. Pressured by other women no less, even their moms. Ugh. Now that we’ve reversed Roe v Wade, the state itself refuses to help women who are not prepared to be mothers.
So what else can we do to support women or couples who don’t want to reproduce?
Increased social awareness is key. Unlike the era I came from, we need to make young people aware that they actually have options in the first place. We need to have conversations about what good childrearing involves, how expensive it is, and how exhausting it can be. Lots of conversations.
We need to educate children to the realities of childrearing and also teach them that they have options.
Sex education should be started early. Sex should be normalized not demonized and then responsibility taught and emphasized. We shouldn’t try to shame young people into not having sex. Instead educate them about responsibilty and safety measures. Scaring people into not having sex has never worked, but the repercussions of not understanding how to protect one’s self from unwanted pregnancies can be devastating.
Birth control should be free and easily obtainable.
Girls should be raised to not focus on finding husbands but instead discover and build their paths to independence. Their achievements should be praised and noted by society at large. Women have never had a guarantee that a man will be their provider. They could easily be in one of thousands of marriages that end in divorce or they could become widows.
Oh, and by the way, if either a man or a woman prefers not to have children, they should be able to discuss it early on in the dating process.
Last but not least, we have an overcrowded planet with diminishing resources. If we don’t pay attention and start doing something, someone somewhere will be forced to watch their children starve to death. That makes no sense.
The gift of life looks pretty cheap if you ask me and has for centuries.
Too many children have come into this world to suffer early death because the adults who were supposed to protect them failed miserably. This also means that children at the border can’t be turned away. We either accept that all life is sacred or we don’t. Those little ones fleeing poverty, war, and danger should be treated as though they matter.
It’s everyone’s responsibility.
Once we accept that a new life is the responsibility of an entire society, the rules to the game will change. There’s never an excuse for allowing babies to be brought into the world just to be neglected. If we want to make true progress, the topic of human life, every life, should be the most pressing topic on our collective minds. Otherwise, we’re just either ignorant or hypocrites.
Life ain’t what we’ve been told.
It’s demanding and difficult, scary and unjust. But if we insist on having children, I think it’s finally time to provide every last one with what they need to thrive. What does that mean? Well, for starters it means all humans are deserving of food, shelter, clean water, and decent parents. It’s long overdue.
As sweet as children are, and trust me I happen to think they are the best of humanity, the old-fashioned notion of having them and then figuring out afterward what to do with them has to go. Life is precious but only if we make it a priority.
So far, humans have failed miserably.
It’s time to cut way back on birthing babies. Let’s make birth control, getting tubes tied, and vasectomies easy to access and affordable. I’m tired of watching parents fuck up their kids just because they either didn’t understand how to keep from having children or they thought they MUST have kids to be happy and accepted in society.
People who fail at parenting are a hazard to society. They raise traumatized kids that grow up to be broken adults and then pass the generational pain on and on and on.
When will we finally understand that children are people, too?
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
