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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

437 replies

YorkshireTeaGold · 21/01/2015 12:19

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.

OP posts:

ArcheryAnnie · 21/01/2015 13:17

Ie there are many women in the world (and in the UK) who don't have any meaningful choice about whether they have kids or not, and most of them are poor. Theirs isn't a "lifestyle choice".

There's plenty of low-income MNers, I should imagine (I'm one of them), but I'd also bet not so poor we don't have a choice.

squoosh · 21/01/2015 13:18

Lifestyle choice: 'a choice a person makes about how to live and behave, according to their attitudes, tastes, and values.'

rootypig · 21/01/2015 13:20

Poor women in the world are much more likely to have many children than rich women

Poor women and families in the world have many children often because they cannot guarantee how many of them will survive, and they need a certain number to support them in old age. And/or contribute to the family's current subsistence. (As well as all the reasons that you list.)

ArcheryAnnie · 21/01/2015 13:21

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

To be fair, Mr Dawkins is not only a dick, he's a misogynist dick, so I'm not likely to take his opinion as gospel on anything regarding reproductive biology.

He used to be well-respected, but he jumped the shark quite a while ago.

however · 21/01/2015 13:21

Well. No one held a gun to my head but expression irks me as it's often said to be patronising.

dashoflime · 21/01/2015 13:22

Stubbonstains has it right. Individual choice but social inevitability.
If we're talking about provision of benefits, childcare, working time legislation etc etc.. then we have to start from the assumption that children are going to happen and need to be provided for somehow.
And yet anytime there's a discussion about the costs of children some genius will pop up and argue that the state has no obligation because "people choose to have kids"
Well what's the alternative then? The entire working class stop breeding end masse? Because as Yorkshiretea says, the proportion if people who can "afford" children with absolutely no financial help would be a tiny elite.
As for Immigration- would these all be adult immigrants who also promise not to have children until they can afford them?

JugglingFromHereToThere · 21/01/2015 13:22

Having children may well be a choice for most people (not always though - to varying degrees) however to me that doesn't make it "a lifestyle choice"

A lifestyle choice would be more whether to buy a second car, or whether to paint walls or have wall-paper!

So, I think on balance YANBU. Although it's debatable to what extent the world needs our children, rather than all the others that other people are having of course mine are wonderful geniuses that the world can't do without

crumpet · 21/01/2015 13:23

It is a lifestyle choice. In this country it is a choice whether to use contraception, which is easily available, or not.

Many people choose not to have children.

Many people, who may have experienced difficulties in becoming pregnant/bringing a baby to full term, choose not to have medical intervention. Many people choose the opposite.

ArsenicFaceCream · 21/01/2015 13:24

Reproduction is the default for Homo Sapiens, and all species.

We're the only species who can easily prevent it.

To suggest not breeding should be presumed default and the opportunity to have children should be something onl available to those who can afford very expensive childcare or other costs is the stuff of dystopian fiction.

That is what 'lifestyle choice' invokes, particularly when trotted out in response to a complaint about (for e.g.) childcare policy. It conjures notions of small human beings as luxury goods, only for the elite few.

rootypig · 21/01/2015 13:24

he's a misogynist dick

He is going the way of wossit, Starkey.

But I didn't think his early Darwin-y work had been discredited.

Hygellig · 21/01/2015 13:24

I think it's a lifestyle choice in a sense, in that plenty of people don't have children whether through choice or circumstance, though that doesn't meant there aren't benefits for society. I don't find the argument "You wanted them so put up with whatever difficulties there are without complaining" reasonable or helpful.

I also don't think that anyone has children solely out of concern for future generations. I think most people have children because they want to, or because that's just what you do. I doubt anyone has said that they didn't particularly want children but had some out of concern for future pensioners.

Tanith · 21/01/2015 13:25

Claiming that we can always make up the population shortfall with immigration ignores the fact that those immigrants may well resent having to work to fund other people's pensions. They will prefer to support their own communities and families.

They might even decide that these old people are parasites who don't deserve pensions and benefits. Why should they care about elderly people not of their culture? Why shouldn't they decide to euthanise the whole lot of them?

ArsenicFaceCream · 21/01/2015 13:25

of course mine are wonderful geniuses that the world can't do without

That's a coincidence juggling. Mine too

Viviennemary · 21/01/2015 13:26

It is a choice in our country because there is the option to have no children hence no childcare costs. I must say I agree with the poster who didn't believe in all those accidental pregnancies. People seem to be stunned at this surpiorse baby. How on earth could it have happened! And that's in spite of all this teaching of the facts of life in schools.

LilMissSunshine9 · 21/01/2015 13:26

If I have a child my decision will not be because if I don't have a child then there is one less child to pay taxes to pay people's pensions. WTAF how can anyone in the eariler posts can even say things like 'no children means no more taxes means no-ne paying your pensions' that is not a reason to have a child!

At the age of 30 I am already planning my retirement based on their being no state pension or help so that IF this does happen I won't be left in poverty but irrespective of that it is my responsiblity to make sure I can afford to live.

rootypig · 21/01/2015 13:26

Not to mention the fact we (apparently) won't let them in.

Apatite1 · 21/01/2015 13:26

Actually, the only people I've met in real life who bang on about how having kids was a supreme sacrifice and how eternally martyred they are, are equally wankerish and entitled about everything else they have. Most normal people thank god/stars/allah for their children and get on with it.

squoosh · 21/01/2015 13:32

I'm happy to put aside the term 'lifestyle choice' but I disagree with whoever said that not having children is more of a choice than having children. It may be regarded as 'more' of a choice because it isn't society's norm but that's a different issue.

You choose to remain childfree.
You choose to have children.
You find yourself pregnant and choose to carry on with the pregnancy.

Anyway OP anyone who tells you that you've no right to complain about morning sickness because you chose pregnancy as a 'lifestyle choice' is a dick who deserves to be in your line of fire next time you're feeling vomitous.

ArsenicFaceCream · 21/01/2015 13:35

So vivienne, sunshine, rooty you think people who do necessary jobs for minimum wage shouldn't ever have children?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, the millions who will never ever progress beyond £8ph wages (approx £15kpa gross, £13kpa net), but do vital jobs we all rely on (retail staff, hospital porter, bin man, cleaner etc). You don't think they have the right to the family?

Are you going to tell them? What would you say?

rootypig · 21/01/2015 13:36

Not at all. I (think and hope!) I am on quite the other side of the argument.

26Point2Miles · 21/01/2015 13:38

Oh so you think the revered '2 children' are ok but anymore is a lifestyle choice??

Yabu!!!

Viviennemary · 21/01/2015 13:40

I can't think where I have said anything of the sort.

26Point2Miles · 21/01/2015 13:40

Op didn't hang around did she!?

ArsenicFaceCream · 21/01/2015 13:41

Oops sorry - getting muddled in my rush

What about you squoosh? How about "You are the drones; The worker ants. You must not breed, you must serve us, the bloated middle classes..."

Something like that? I've started you off anyway.

This place is so fucking myopic sometimes. Have none of you met the working classes? (Beyond the boot boy and the char woman, who don't really count )

DazzleU · 21/01/2015 13:43

Most people in UK do thanks to easy access to contraception have a choice about if, when or how many DC they have.

Lots of things influence that choice, money, religious belief - luck in how good contraception is.

Even when you decide to have DC - it's a choice that is difficult to realise the full implications of.

No one full expects to be few % of people who suffer life threaten pg complications which may impact maternal health long term or who may die in childbirth - or may have DC who are loved but are born with serve problems or develop them later or end up with multiple births - where demands on parents can be higher - but some people do end up in those situations.

People's work situations change over time as well so will over the DC lifetimes and not always for the better - how do your predict that from the off ?

I had no idea how hard it is to balance work and sick DC until I had to. I mean I suspected it was hard but actually having to live through it is very different.

I attend a primary school as did DH - but the expectation on parenteral involvement and the amount of time and energy and additional support our DC have needed has come as a shock. They are in state education and I wouldn't have believed pre schooling that there are so many additional costs.

So it's technically true - but very twatty unhelpful comment.

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