to think, well said, Maxine Peake.

[MrHughJass]

She's talked about how having children is selfish.
Yes, yes and yes, I say.

I'm fed up with people equating not having children with selfishness. What's more self centred than the urge to populate a crowded world with more people with your genes, that you happen to want to have around?

If it's all about forfeiting your own (direct) needs for those of others, then don't make a person to fulfil that role. There are plenty of people and animals already in existence who could do with your help.

You only have to look at the ferocity with which parents will compete (outdo each other's offspring) to see that breeding is far from the selfless enterprise it's sometimes made out to be.
Focusing on the needs of your own children (often at the expense of others, by definition, when there are limited resources of one kind or another) is selecting children who matter to you and promoting their welfare. The only difference between your child and the child over the road is that they are related to you. That's why you're so "selfless" about them.

So, have kids if you want them, by all means. It's a human urge - go for it. But please don't think it makes you into some wonderful being who has selflessly forfeited their rights to expensive haircuts and meals out. It's just a different form of selfishness.

Nice one, Maxine.

That is all.

[TheHoundsBitch]

I've never heard anyone say that people who don't have children are selfish either.

[minifingers]

If everyone stopped having children the whole economy would be plunged into crisis within 20 years.

Society needs women to have babies in order to continue to function.

[MrHughJass]

Personally, I think it's clear enough, gordy.

[minifingers]

People who don't have children aren't selfish, because their decision doesn't impact on anyone's well being or life chances except their own. Other women are happy to do what needs to be done to keep society ticking over - which is to continue to reproduce.

[MrHughJass]

You're probably right, mini.

Bet that's low on the list of people's motivations though.

[OnlyLovers]

I've never heard anyone say that people who don't have children are selfish either.

No one has said that to me in those words, but I get comments often that very heavily imply it. People DP's family have gone on about 'the bloodline dying out' as if they were the fucking Plantagenets. People tell me they can understand why I don't want children because, after all, I go to the cinema/theatre/out to dinner a lot and I'm a 'girl about town' (I'm so not) and children would stop me being able to do all that.

By those lights I sound like a right cunt.

I don't not want children because I want to carry on going to the cinema. I don't want children because I don't want children.

[FacebookWillEatItself]

I don't think either thing is selfish. I don't think wanting to have biological children is selfless either, but I don't think it's selfish.

And I really don't think it's selfish to actively choose to not have them. Although in my experience people who do actively choose to remain childless are usually quite selfish, inflexible people. I think the act of having children makes you become less selfish. you don't have any choice in the matter really, or your children would probably be taken into care.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I don't recognize the reasoning of any parents I know in that OP.

We need people to have babies. Not least to pay my pension.

I think when people say of themselves that they are 'too selfish' to have children - which is the only context in which I've heard that phrase - what they mean is they would be regretting losing bits of their child-free life if they had kids. It's not an awful thing to say, just a way of explaining why you personally don't want to be a mum or dad. Since the hypothetical kids don't exist, there's no one to offend.

[TheHoundsBitch]

Society needs women to have babies in order to continue to function.
I doubt anyone has babies for that reason!
The planet and society could do with a few less people having children really. Resources are limited, and the world is massively over populated.

[squoosh]

I read that Maxine Peake article.

Surprisingly the DM's headline was 'Maxine Peake says having children is selfish' whereas that was just a snippet from an article which is actually about the pain she has gone through at not being able to conceive.

Of course having children is more selfish than not having children. No one needs children, they want them.

[DiaDuit]

But I have heard too many people (with kids) use the phrase "too selfish to have kids" now.

I think you are a bit confused by what these people mean.

What they mean is they think they wouldnt be able to put their child's needs above their own so dont have any. It's nothing to do with the rest of the world or society.

[Vitalstatistix]

I think people who say stuff like that are just, as individuals, the type who think that any life choices other than those that mirror theirs, are invalid and some even go so far as to interpret different choices as direct criticisms of their choices but you cannot use that and expand it any further than those specific individuals. They don't speak for other parents. If they WEREN'T parents, they'd be exactly the same. They live in the city? You choose to live in the country? You're wrong. You should live in the city like them.

It's bugger all to do with their parental status. Just them.

tbh, I think having children if you are not 100% sure and committed to it is the only selfish choice. If you want kids and have them - fine. If you don't want kids and don't have them - fine. If you don't in your heart of hearts actually want kids but you decide to have them and so you actively attempt to create a child (I am very specific about this because I want it to be clear I do not include unexpected pregnancy) because you feel like you have to be seen to have them or it's just what you are expected to do but you really wish you didn't have to do - that is when you are wrong because a child has the right to be born to a parent who wants them.

[MrHughJass]

in my experience people who do actively choose to remain childless are usually quite selfish

My experience is very different from yours, then, Facebook.
(I probably agree with you really that selfish may be the wrong word, though)

[LittleBearPad]

It isn't selfless to have children. Nor is it particularly selfish either.

Having a child has made me more selfless in regard to one small human. But not the rest of you, sorry.

And people can be too selfish to have children. As long as they know this and therefore don't have them there's no problem

[Floccinaucinihilipilificate]

There's population-selfish and individual-selfish.

The person who doesn't have children because she wants to continue her particular lifestyle is doing it for individual-selfish reasons.

The person who has children because she wants to have a family is doing it for individual-selfish reasons.

There are arguments both ways as to whether having children is population-selfish. Over-population vs society continuing to function.

[MrHughJass]

I agree, Flocc, that "selfish" is much too simplistic.

[MrHughJass]

DaDuit, I think it's probably said in many different ways meaning a variety of things.

[OnlyLovers]

in my experience people who do actively choose to remain childless are usually quite selfish

I don't have that experience either. I have much more experience of people with children letting said children put their feet on bus seats, stand or walk about on dinner tables, scream and fight through wedding ceremonies, jump queues, throw food about and all over the floor in restaurants without clearing it up, park their buggies unnecessarily across doorways and ignore people trying to squeeze round them when they could easily move them a few inches ...

These are just off my head and recent experiences.

[LittleBearPad]

And I'm not saying that all people who don't choose to have children are selfish. But some people do day this when explaining why they aren't having kids

[DiaDuit]

DaDuit, I think it's probably said in many different ways meaning a variety of things.

Nah, they way you said it in that post- they meant exactly what i said they meant.

[squoosh]

I think saying 'I'm too selfish to have kids' can often be short hand for 'it's actually none of your business and I'm sick of people asking me why I don't have children'.

[marymouse]

I would be interested to know if Maxine peaks opinion would change if she had children herself (I read an interview with her and she said she had tried for children but after a miscarry it never happened)

[windchime]

I had to google Maxine Peake because I had never heard of her. Turns out she is not a respected anthropologist, but is an actress who played some old brass in Shameless. Shall we just leave it there?

[gordyslovesheep]

why would her opinion change? I would say after 2 MC's and failed IVF she is in a position to say that wanting kids is selfish ... which it is - we have kids for selfish reasons

[LittleBearPad]

Windchime