Do you consider kids a choice?

[SideEyeSally]

I know Mumsnet isn't a monolith but I've found that whether or not a child is seen as a choice depends on the context. In benefits threads they are often referred to as such, with parents 'making taxpayers pay for their choices'. Whilst in threads about children's noises disrupting neighbours night after night it's just what babies do, not a choice the parent has made knowing it is likely to disturb the neighbours. Is this just a case of different people responding, or do you think (some) people have (some) moral incoherence on the way children are viewed.

Your examples are not comparable.

How am I to know that my baby is going to be high needs and squeal the house down prior to giving birth?

I will know that prior to giving birth thatvthere are going to be costs associated etc with having a child

I can see where the OP is coming from. It's not about asking neighbourgs if they can have a child but about responsibility for that child once it is there. (Financially or disruption wise etc...)

There was a thread not long ago about a woman whose MH was really effected by a child screaming every night, several time a night.
All the answers were along the lines 'well, that's what children do, just buy ear plugs. Move house etc'
Very few people were Happy acknowledging the huge impact it had on the OP, let alone the fact that yes said neighbourg needed to do something to help (move the child to another room for example)

I think the issue here is that, once children are there, you can't control whether it's a child that will be screaming all night or not (eg disability or just very sensitive child etc). Most parents have also been in the position where their child has screamed all night and disturbed people so the idea that they are somehow responsible because they choose to have said child is uncomfortable.

It also applies to controlling children in a restaurant, taking them to the cinema etc etc. Thee is a lot of people who seem to think that 'being noisy/disruptive is what children do so you have to put up with it' and don't try very hard to limit the disruption or avoid situations where they know the child will be disruptive.

Fwiw I think the difference is also about benefit. There is a hell of a lot of benefit bashing around and receiving benefits is never seen as something OK. So receiving benefits for something you could have done something about (e.g. Not have children) is seen as the worst thing in the world. It's the same for other things too btw (eg receiving some PIP because you haven't looked after yourself well enough is not acceptable apparently either - or so I have been told)

I get what you are saying.

When it comes to 'expanding the workforce' or 'being a productive economy', then people are necessary. Their wages pay pensions etc etc. So of course we need to keep on either fulfilling a strong biological urge to have children, or accept that we need immigrants in order to keep the population level stable enough to support the elderly pensioners who've already been there and done that.

Yet while children are still children, and before they're economically 'productive', they're often treated as being a massively frivolous life choice, inevitably only made by the mother and not the father!

It is a particularly insidious form of sexism, which values economic productivity above everything else -- and especially above caring or nurturing responsibilities done for love rather than money, which are incorrectly reframed as 'economic inactivity', 'laziness', 'worklessness'. A mother who goes out to a paid job is a 'working mother'. Doesn't a stay at home mother also 'work'? Hmm, yes, they do. Does it not count because it's not immediately economically productive?

On the plus side, I think that the increasing cost of care for the elderly is going to force a bit of a rethink about the true value of care work. When it's not done for love and for free by female family members (who have now been pushed into the workforce) suddenly the 'economically active' brigade will realise the true value once they have to pay other people to do it!

This is worth a watch. Generally the fear that people will keep having so many children that the world population will just increase and increase and increase forever isn't based in any actual fact. I can see where the logic comes from, but it's false, see here:

If you're short on time, the relevant part starts at exactly 22:00, but the whole thing is worth a watch. Though it's sad because the presenter has actually died since this was made.

www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/

If we needed to have fewer children to help society, countries with falling/low birth rates wouldn't be panicking as much as they are. Germany for example is pulling out all the stops to encourage people to have children because you need a balance in a society. The oldest and youngest need fit and healthy people in the middle to care for them and financially support them.

we obviously considered whether we could afford one

the thing is, what 'afford' means is very different depending on your lots of factors.

I consider afford to mean you can meet the basic needs of your child. So if you are ttc you do so in the knowledge you have somewhere to live, money to eat and buy the basics etc.

That would not be the case for many according to what I have read on MN and elsewhere.

Some consider 'afford' to mean owning a house, both parents in work, enough put buy for school fees and trust funds for university, deposit on a first house and car at 17.

There is a growing idea that if you can't afford to insure you and your prospective child against anything that might happen, you shouldn't be TTC in the first place.

Disabled child? Tough, you are still a scrounger because you should have anticipated that.
Widowed young? Tough, where is that massive live insurance payoff?
Redundancy/unemployment? Tough, if you had planned ahead you would be in an industry that made you indispensable.
Low pay/no pay rise for decades? Tough. You could have planned for that as a teenager or even better, married well.

All of the above are genuine examples given on MN as to why someone shouldn't expect help from the state.

I think people are missing the point of the OP. Probably because most of them are not in the example given.

I read it as 'why do we defend having children as a natural 'right' in some situations but not in others?'

It either is or it isn't. Regardless.

Yes I do think having children is a choice

Every single member of society who is disturbed has once been a squealing baby- what goes around comes around. It is reasonable to expect parents to do what they can not to cause undue disturbance (so basically, bring children up to behave, don't take your baby to the opera). But it is not reasonable for me to expect not to have to put up with the kind of disturbance I once caused other people merely through being a baby.

Related to individual countries that may be true Bertie but on a global scale the planet doesn't really need more amd more humans.

You can't really say one way or the other. For example, my son was conceived through rape so becoming pregnancies wasn't a choice. By the time I found out I was pregnant I was still within the time for a termination but I didn't want to. So I guess becoming a parent was sort of a choice because I didn't feel termination was right for me or right so late on in a pregnancy. And adoption wasn't a consideration. As soon as ds was born I was head over heels in love with him and ai still am now. He's my world regardless of how he was conceived.
So I guess my answer is 50/50! Pretty unhelpful sorry!

There's a simple way to avoid judgement for bringing kids into poor situations and that's to be pregnant already. I see countless threads by people who have crap partners, no money, a list of health or job problems and kids already in the mix. 'and to top it off I'm five months pregnant'.

No criticism or questioning of reproductive choices will be allowed, providing they aren't in aibu.

I agree with what fence sitter said -- I too am horrified by the aggressive reactions and advice given to Ops who ask for advice, telling them to make an aggressive response to a situation described briefly on line. I'm amazed at how quickly people reach judgments about situations and how quick they are to see everything as a battle and that they need to gpfigt to defend, themselves, their kids, 'their rights'.

On a basic level,mi agree that having kids is a choice in the UK for most. Contraception, abortion and giving children up means people can either have them or not. Most people having kids seem to have chosen to do so. They have considered a number of factors, which are usually personal to them in deciding to have kids. Many people will consider the strength if the relationship they are in, their financial position, if they already have kids or other caring responsibilities, their own age etc. Some will think wider about environmental issues or population growth, but I think the numbers altering their choices from what they would have been without these considerations are few, whilst lots are affected by the answers to the personal questions.

Some people choose actively to have kids without seeming to consider the personal factors mentioned above - so age, relationship strength, financial position,mother responsibilities. Whether that is because they do t consider those things matter, are a bit 'head in the sand' about how the answers to those questions, plus having kids will a afeectbtheir own lives and those of the kids, I'm not sure.

Finally some people seem to end up having kids without seeming to have made a choice - life just seems to happen around them. They didn't plan to be pregnant, but found they were. They didn't really plan to have a baby, but dpfind they have got to full term and given birth.....and they are parents. It's all just happened, seemingly out of their control and without them making an active choice at any point. Would it be true to say these people have had no choice? Perhaps it is for some and at certain points. People find they are pregnant due to abuse, failed contraception or mistake. They may not realise they are pregnant for a lomg time and it's really too late to have an abortion. They may be pressurised to have an abortion or not to have an abortion which removes the choice from themselves. This is the reality for some, but fortunately not the majority.

In the sense that having a baby doesn't just happen, but requires action such as having sex and choosing to remain pregnant.....for most people there is a choice. They can choose to do these things are not. For a few, even these basic things are taken out of their control.

Both having kids and how you choose to raise them is a choice.

Falling on hard times and needing assistance through benefits is not a choice but just a life circumstance at that time. (Whilst I appreciate some people stay on benefits because they don't want to work)

Physically most people can have kids, so have a choice about whether to exercise that ability.
Some people cannot have kids. Clearly they then have no choice or not the usual choice open to those who physically can.
This is answering the Q on the most basic level.
Fertility treatment has to some extent opened up more choices to more people. Likewise, contraception and abortion have given people more choices than in the past.

We really don't "need" more children in this world. It is already over-populated and projected to increase by billions over the next century. We really only "need" the replacement rate. Obviously there are parts of the world where people have lots of children due to culture, high mortality rates and the need for their children to work to help provide for the family but in the long run it would be better to bring the world population down to sustainable levels where everyone has a better quality of life.

Is the OP seriously suggesting that before having children one should canvass their neighbourhood?

In reply to mothertruck3r:

In reality the parts of the world that have children for 'cultural' reasons are the parts of the world that can't sustain the large population.

There's s good film on Netflix that looks at the issue of over-population - 'What happened to Monday?'

ophelia did you look at the link I shared? I could spend ages typing out the excellent explanation there or you could watch three minutes of video.

Reducing (or not increasing) the number of children we have as a world average per family is already happening and won't help the population growth, because the population growth we're experiencing now is due to the existing children who are growing up and having (on average smaller numbers) of children. When the currently older and smaller in number generations die off the population level will settle and should not increase any more. But without mass culls (obviously not an option!) we can't stop it increasing to roughly 10/11bn.

Choice and responsibility are two different things. I don't agree with your statement OP that the state has to provide for children.

It was not my choice to have my 4th child. It was my choice to have sex though and therefore it is my responsibility and the person I had sex with to take responsibility. I didn't find out I was pregnant until it was too late to change the outcome.

I am devastated and will have to return to work full time immediately after having my baby.

I will have to deal with aresholes who will come out with shit like, "what's the point in having kids if you're just gonna give them to someone else to look after"

If I didn't go back to work I'd have to deal with, "why did you CHOOSE to have so many kids if you can't afford them?"

So no, kids are not always a choice, they are often a consequence of an earlier choice. That doesn't remove personal responsibility though.

I've often wondered how good sex actually is that people have throughout all periods of history and geography had more kids than they can cope with.

I enjoyed sex a lot in my younger day but even then if I'd been personally opposed to abortion I'd have rather gone without than risk a pregnancy.

I work every day with historical documents and only two or three generations ago it was absolutely standard for those on very low wages to have large families living in a two roomed house.

I understand that it was completely normal at the time but I can't put myself in that mindset that having sex is so important that my life will get harder and harder as I deal with the inevitable consequences.

Maybe I was born with a missing sex gene or something. As Boy George said, I'd rather have a cup of tea.

Sorry streetface, I didnt mean that in response to you. Blimey what a shock, at least it isn't twins? Hope all ok.

Having kids is a choice. It's also a responsibility and we're doing no favours to families by suggesting they can or should have as many as they want when they don't take any financial responsibility for them. Having ten kids when you're on non-disability benefits and getting paid for them all is just wrong.

MorrisZap that has got to be one of the most naive posts I have ever read (sorry)

Two or three generations ago, childhood was not considered a separate state to adulthood. Children's toys and games were rarely found pre Victorian times. Children were a necessity for poor families as they were an economic benefit. Children worked and brought in money for the family. Only the very wealthly actually considered children as worth investing in.

Prior to that and still to this day in many countries, the power of the church was absolute. It was the church who ruled the UK in the Middle Ages and it was seen as a Divine Duty to submit to sex within marriage and reproduce. Many religions still teach this.

Lack of contraception, lack of female autonomy over their body and their choices and lack of safe abortions have a massive impact over the amount of children the most impoverished and vulnerable people produce.

I won't even begin on male sexual entitlement or the primeval natural urge to reproduce as that will just open a can of worms.

Cross post. No it's ok I didn't take that personally.

And no, not twins thank god!

And one more point Morris, I do understand about the whole 'not having sex that could end in pregnancy' but realistically, in a long and stable marriage how realistic is that. I wouldn't ever engage in casual sex for the same reasons you gave for not doing it at all. But in a marriage? Not so sure. At least having sex with someone you know, love and trust to take responsibility whatever the outcome means that if you have any major, errm 'fuck ups' so to speak, you're not on your own dealing with it.