Should we be worried that some Americans and British couples are choosing to go through life without kids?
Kathleen Parker, writing in The Washington Post, surveys a bunch of articles and news stories and sees a cultural trend of foregoing parenthood to live a life of high disposable income, full nights of sleep, and worry-free adulthood.
It is, overall, a really great column and worth reading in full, and I agree with her primary thesis, which is that parenthood can be a pain (in the neck, rear end, and in other places and ways), but is worth it:
(Having written that, I wonder if children in earlier eras-- seen essentially as miniature adults-- were socialized earlier for the complex palate of life by their stories, poems, and songs. Consider the original Grimm's Fairy Tales. The vapid and cloying sweetness of contemporary kids' culture is an artifact of culturally seeing kids as kids and also a consumer market that focuses on products for kids specifically.)
A couple of counter notes, however:
First, I agree that debating over whether to have kids or use more of one's time and disposable income for self-pleasure is a "first-world problem," but not just because first-world citizens lead lives of relative luxury. It is also a "first-world problem" because women and men in the first world have better access to effective contraception (although not enough for my taste), and cultural views of women are advanced enough (although not enough for my taste) that women are actually seen as having a "choice" whether to have kids, rather than this being a non-question. These are problems everyone in the world should have.
Second, Parker assumes or concludes that the primary reason couples are choosing to be child-free is because of a shift in the culture toward selfish choices: "The pleasure principle seems to be gaining on the procreative principle." That could certainly be part of the calculus, but there are so many other factors that influence birthrates in the U.S. and other first-world countries. There are heavily Catholic first-world countries where gender roles are still lived in more traditional ways-- Italy, for example-- where the birth rate is lower than in the United States and the UK.
I don't have a problem with selling parenthood, but effective and affordable family planning resources, a culture that promotes equitable responsibility within parenthood, government and industry policies that do not punish couples (women, in particular) for having children, and an economy that wouldn't require couples to spend so much of their time and effort making ends meet-- these things would help people to choose parenthood, too.
Links:
Column by Kathleen Parker, published in The Washington Post (August 9, 2013): Of pleasure and parenthood
Robert Frost's "To Earthward" is one of the best descriptions of how one's experience of pleasure and joy changes over time. "Now no joy but lacks salt . . ."
Kathleen Parker, writing in The Washington Post, surveys a bunch of articles and news stories and sees a cultural trend of foregoing parenthood to live a life of high disposable income, full nights of sleep, and worry-free adulthood.
It is, overall, a really great column and worth reading in full, and I agree with her primary thesis, which is that parenthood can be a pain (in the neck, rear end, and in other places and ways), but is worth it:
The love and joy that (relatively unselfish and relatively mature) parents experience is of a piece with an acquired taste for the ironic, absurd, astringent, salty, and bitter-- the shift from enjoying cotton candy to dark chocolate, hot chocolate to espresso, pop to jazz, Barney to Robert Frost.Mysteriously, the inevitable pain, suffering and sacrifice of parenthood are also part of that joy. What is a rose without thorns? Life without death is imponderably meaningless. I would argue that without death, there would be no love.Indeed, what makes parenthood so relentlessly amazing — both the beauty and the beast of it — is the possibility of losing the thing you love more than your own heartbeat. Putting someone else’s interests above one’s own is the alpha and omega of parenthood.
(Having written that, I wonder if children in earlier eras-- seen essentially as miniature adults-- were socialized earlier for the complex palate of life by their stories, poems, and songs. Consider the original Grimm's Fairy Tales. The vapid and cloying sweetness of contemporary kids' culture is an artifact of culturally seeing kids as kids and also a consumer market that focuses on products for kids specifically.)
A couple of counter notes, however:
First, I agree that debating over whether to have kids or use more of one's time and disposable income for self-pleasure is a "first-world problem," but not just because first-world citizens lead lives of relative luxury. It is also a "first-world problem" because women and men in the first world have better access to effective contraception (although not enough for my taste), and cultural views of women are advanced enough (although not enough for my taste) that women are actually seen as having a "choice" whether to have kids, rather than this being a non-question. These are problems everyone in the world should have.
Second, Parker assumes or concludes that the primary reason couples are choosing to be child-free is because of a shift in the culture toward selfish choices: "The pleasure principle seems to be gaining on the procreative principle." That could certainly be part of the calculus, but there are so many other factors that influence birthrates in the U.S. and other first-world countries. There are heavily Catholic first-world countries where gender roles are still lived in more traditional ways-- Italy, for example-- where the birth rate is lower than in the United States and the UK.
I don't have a problem with selling parenthood, but effective and affordable family planning resources, a culture that promotes equitable responsibility within parenthood, government and industry policies that do not punish couples (women, in particular) for having children, and an economy that wouldn't require couples to spend so much of their time and effort making ends meet-- these things would help people to choose parenthood, too.
Links:
Column by Kathleen Parker, published in The Washington Post (August 9, 2013): Of pleasure and parenthood
Robert Frost's "To Earthward" is one of the best descriptions of how one's experience of pleasure and joy changes over time. "Now no joy but lacks salt . . ."
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