to think that having children is not a "lifestyle choice"

[YorkshireTeaGold]

Sooo, saw a thread on aibu where the op complained about childcare costs and was told by another poster that she shouldn't complain as having kids was a lifestyle choice.

I've heard this so many times recently, both on mn and in rl and it massively pisses me off! My father actually told me not to complain about morning sickness as I wanted children.

I have 2 dcs and think that this is just maintaining the equilibrium of the world. Reproduction is a biological need, like eating or survival, it's not like taking up golf or buying a yacht. I can see maybe having no kids could be a lifestyle choice for some, as could having 9. But a couple? Not a lifestyle choice.

Plus it hides a political issue in that it's really difficult to afford to bring up children atm. I did a online check (think it was in the guardian) and dh and I are 75th centile for earnings. However 1/3 of this goes on the mortgage, 1/3 on childcare and 1/3 to barely cover the bills. It's ridiculous that this is the case, and if only people who truely afforded it had kids then it'd just be an elite minority reproducing. The government should organise the country so an average family can afford to buy a house and work.

[OnlyLovers]

The only people who use that stupid phrase are utter misogynists.

I would use it about a man just as much as I would a woman. Am I a misogynist AND a misandrist too?

[rootypig]

no one has a child to survive

A good many people around the world do precisely this.

And the human race as a whole does this.

[rootypig]

The drive to have a child is nothing like the drive to eat or sleep.


in your opinion.

[ArcheryAnnie]

Nope, having children (if you have access to contraception, etc) is a lifestyle choice. I agree with the poster above who said it was an essentially self-centred thing to do (again, not a pejorative, just a description).

I will never understand people who describe childless people as "selfish". Not reproducing yourself in a world which is struggling under the burden of all the people currently alive is, IMO, a very selfless thing to do.

I have a DS. Sometimes it's been very difficult as a low-income single mother, and I think families should get every help, for the sake of the kids. But it was a choice nonetheless.

[Apatite1]

We have individual choice to have kids. We have collective need to keep the human race going. The two are not fully interchangeable. In fact, if all of us simply had kids to maintain optimum population, we've already exceeded this. Therefore, you are doing this planet a disservice by potentially exponentially increasing your bloodline.

I'll take my pretend economist hat off now.

[rootypig]

It's the same kind of politically motivated lingustic manipulation that brought us the nauseating 'hard-working families'.

That's interesting.

Do people think it's fair that only the better off should have children?

[squoosh]

It is ridiculous to compare having children with our need to consume food.

[ArsenicFaceCream]

From the OED;

"lifestyle.1 [as modifier] Denoting advertising or products designed to appeal to a consumer by association with a desirable lifestyle:"

The connotation is of luxury.

[ArcheryAnnie]

And I, too, would use the "choice" label about men, too - in fact much more about men, since the pressures on them to have babies are of an entirely different water to the pressures on women.

[ArsenicFaceCream]

Clearly some people think so rooty

[OnlyLovers]

Do people think it's fair that only the better off should have children?

No.

[squoosh]

Arsenic why did you pick that secondary definition when the primary definition for the word lifestyle is 'the way in which a person lives'.

[Apatite1]

Lifestyle choice is a poor phrase for it, but it's still a choice.

[rootypig]

Apatite really fascinating work in development economics over the years has looked into precisely why people have children. What drives the global birth rate is likely very different from the logic faced by the average MNer. There is an individual need for survival, in many cases, e.g. subsistence farming, odd economic incentives to be earned (dowries)...... we can't just fling around the idea of the global birthrate as though it were all the choices of (globally speaking) wealthy people in an industrialised economy.

[californiaburrito]

YANBU

I always feel a bit uncomfortable when someone describes having children as a lifestyle choice. It seems too close to "the poor shouldn't breed"

Reproduction is a human right, that's why we can't go around sterilising people we find undesirable. But with rights come responsibilities.....

People not living up to those responsibilities is a problem. People complaining about the difficulties that responsibility brings- OK with me.

[kaykayred]

TedandLola - of course people can moan about it! No-one is saying otherwise! But it's different to say "Marriage has been proven to improve life expectancy, and social stability (or whatever), therefore I should get a subsidy for my wedding".

Or "buying a property helps the economy, so I shouldn't have to spend half my salary on a mortgage. Other people should pay it for me, so I can contribute to the economy even more by shopping".

Having children (whatever the motivation) is a biological norm for most which we NEED to keep the human race going

True in principle, until you remember that actually one of the biggest challenges to our species at the moment is how we are going to cope with being so vastly over populated in a few years.

[TedAndLola]

• 
  

in your opinion.*

It's not an opinion, it's biology...

[rootypig]

It is ridiculous to compare having children with our need to consume food.

Well the comparison was a bit more subtle than that, it was about the implications of choosing to and choosing not to, and whether those are logically equally/oppositely construed

[Apatite1]

We're not in the developing world though. We live in the UK, with all its glorious choices.

[TedAndLola]

kaykayred I was responding just to the first post, where the OP had been told not to moan about morning sickness because she had chosen to be pregnant. I wasn't talking about the other thread, about subsidising childcare. I should have been more clear :)

[ArcheryAnnie]

Do people think it's fair that only the better off should have children?

Poor women in the world are much more likely to have many children than rich women - through lack of financial independence, to lack of access to contraception, through lack of physical bodily autonomy, through lack of education and through lack of anything else (eg a "career", though I hate that word) that accords them value in the world.

Rich people's children consume more, it is true, but that's not the issue you seem to be addressing.

[ArsenicFaceCream]

Because squoosh the definition I cite applies when the word lifestyle is used as a modifier, which it is in this instance. It's the applicable definition.

Lifestyle trends.
Lifestyle business.
Lifestyle products.
Lifestyle choice.

[Catzeyess]

China tried to control their birth rate to deal with overpopulation. Well it worked and it is causing big problems. Overpopulation is not the problem, greed is!

[OnlyLovers]

It seems too close to "the poor shouldn't breed"

I don't agree. It can just as easily be applied to affluent families who can afford, and duly have, multiple children.

[rootypig]

It's not an opinion, it's biology...

I'm not a biologist, but famous biologists like Mr Dawkins seem quite keen on the opposite opinion?

You are saying that it's not a need that governs the individual's survival. But an individual is an expression of DNA, and DNA has other ideas about survival.