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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Do you consider kids a choice?

85 replies

SideEyeSally · 15/09/2017 01:38

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.

OP posts:

Amaretti40 · 15/09/2017 09:57

OP do you live next door to screaming triplets and have particularly thin walls or something?
Otherwise, the whole premise of your question makes no sense.
You could be woken up by anything in the night - dogs, planes, crazy neighbours, loud music, foxes, cats, traffic, trains, partner snoring, wind, the sea, parties, pubs, drunks staggering home, cockerels - those are just off the top of my head. Surely babies are the least of your worries?
I have never in my life been disturbed in the night by anyone else's children. Nor do anyone else's children inconvenience me in the least. I have 3 of my own for that!
Why do you give a hoot and what do anyone else's children have to do with you or the price of fish!

opheliacat · 15/09/2017 10:03

I think some psople limited the size of their families, but a high birth rate was tempered with an extremely high mortality rate. Many, in some cases even most, children died before their fifth birthday.

Amaretti40 · 15/09/2017 10:04

Should we check with all shop owners / restaurants / bus companies and the general public at large if they will be greatly inconvenienced by pushchairs? Could this be the deciding factor for those who are ttc?
Should the government introduce child benefit cuts but instead provide free earplugs for all due to the potential of nuisance babies?

ChocolateWombat · 15/09/2017 10:44

I agree that the Q is really about resposibility.
If you choose to have children, should you be responsible for them?
Responsible could mean, that before you have them you have thought it through carefully. It could mean that you will take responsibility for their behaviour and in teaching them certain behaviours. It might mean financially.

Personally, I think that individuals should take responsibility and accept that children of their own choosing rely on them and that the parents should look to and expect to meet their needs. At the the same time, we live in society and not just as individuals, so I do believe that as a society we should take some responsibility for children too - both those born and unborn (but that's a a separate topic!) So children shouldn't be left in need and poverty and shouldn't be left to not behave appropriately or not be educated etc. However, I would say that the role of society in this is to just step in when needed and when parents cannot carry out a responsibility that should be theirs. So I would say that parents should children are their responsibility and not that of society. That should be the starting point when choosing to have children. However, parents should also know that if they C find they cannot manage, society will help them. I think the problem is when people don't accept any responsibility from the start and think they can make a choice to have children, but the children will never be their social or financial responsibility, when they have no intention of taking responsibility for them at all or on such a limited level it's worthless. Personally I do think that if people are not prepared to take any responsibility at all, they shouldn't have children. Needing some help at various points is quite different.

ChocolateWombat · 15/09/2017 10:51

And I think that is right too that society has made some decisions on certain 'helps' that they will provide for all children - healthcare, education.

There are other 'helps' available too - not universally, but to those in need. I think that is right too. Children shouldn't suffer because parents cannot provide food or housing or access to the normal aspects of childhood. However, I think that if you know you cannot provide these things before you even start, and have no intention to do anything to try and make that provision, or you she's no intention to take responsibility for their behaviour or them going to school etc, then no, you shouldn't choose to have children.....because you are not prepared to take the responsibility which comes with them.

People may take me to task on parts of what I've said, I'm fine with that, as long as individual things I've said are not taken out of the context of the whole of what I said.

existentialmoment · 15/09/2017 11:07

But even accounting for contraceptive failure it is still a choice to continue with the pregnancy and bring a child into the world

I live in a country where abortion is illegal, is it still a choice for me?

Nuttynoo · 15/09/2017 11:10

@existentialmoment - unless you were raped then yes it is a choice.

existentialmoment · 15/09/2017 11:27

No, it was a choice to have SEX, not a choice to have a baby.

Is that a bit like saying you chose to drive so you chose to crash?

opheliacat · 15/09/2017 11:32

Don't you understand existensial? You chose to have sex, so carrying a child you do not want is your punishment for being a slag. (That's why you are allowed to terminate if you were raped, as long as you were wearing bin bags and it was the middle of the day. Otherwise, you have to prove that you weren't well up for it by wearing a skirt or flaunting your curves at night. Even if it was 6pm in the winter and you were showing off your beautiful body by returning the trolley to Sainsburys.)

existentialmoment · 15/09/2017 11:36

I think nuttynoo failed to see the point I was responding to anyway.

I quoted someone who said it is a choice to CONTINUE with pregnancy and have a child, and I pointed out that some of us do not have the choice of whether to continue with a pregnancy or not.

ConciseandNice · 15/09/2017 11:38

In the 21st century, in the U.K. they are certainly a choice. There is no need to have an unwanted child here, or indeed an unwanted pregnancy. There are clinics for that.

opheliacat · 15/09/2017 11:39

Well, quite.

There were a few Irish accents when I had my abortion. Shame.

opheliacat · 15/09/2017 11:40

Not in Ireland concise

guilty100 · 15/09/2017 11:41

Yes I do think having children is a choice. But I don't buy the extension of that argument into the idea that this means that parents should pay for everything, including healthcare and education. As a childless woman myself, I absolutely see it as a duty to pay for all children to be as well-educated and healthy as possible because we live in a society and we use infrastructure that we share all of the time. We all pay into that, we all get the perks of living in a brilliant place.

PassiveAgressiveQueen · 15/09/2017 11:41

Yes, just because you want something really really lots it is still a choice.

existentialmoment · 15/09/2017 11:45

But it's a choice that we all need people to make. It's not just a selfish choice. Whether you personally choose to have children or not, we do need people to have children.

OP seems to be suggesting we ask our neighbours if they mind us having a baby. I must be mistaken though because nobody would suggest something so silly, surely?

opheliacat · 15/09/2017 11:55

I didn't exacrly interpret the OP like that.

I love children. But I do think sentimentality about pregnancy and babies gets in the way, sometimes, of what is actually the best thing to do for existing children.

I have seen so many people have children with a first relationship, and go on to have more children with subsequent partners. Often, and especially where the children are non-resident with this parent, they are sidelined and often neglected in favour of new relationships and children.

In those instances, I don't think we "need" people to go on having children. Better focusing on the ones they have.

stitchglitched · 15/09/2017 12:03

In a society with free access to contraception and abortion, yes it is a choice. I've always desperately wanted children but it was still the most important decision I've ever made and one that I thought hard about before ttc. I'm always surprised to read on here just how casually some people seem to take having kids and seemingly do so with very little thought about the circumstances they are bringing them into.

existentialmoment · 15/09/2017 12:04

Well no, in a lot of specific instances we don't need people to be havig in children. In any specific instance you could say that.

But as a society and as a people we certainly do.

ConciseandNice · 15/09/2017 12:15

No you're right opheliacat. Ireland is not the U.K. Do you mean Northern Ireland? That's the disgusting thing isn't it, part of the UK being beholden to outdated religious woman hate. Loathsome.

Original poster

SideEyeSally · 15/09/2017 12:28

Sorry fell alseep finally. Thanks for the replies. I was in no way suggesting that people should have to get their neighbours permission to have kids (imagine). But more pointing out what I perceive to be an inconsistency between the attitudes to parenting as a choice in different contexts.

OP posts:

streetface · 15/09/2017 12:33

I found out too late to have a termination. Like I said, the pregnancy is a consequence of an earlier choice but not a direct choice. Just as existional said about driving a car and having a crash. You don't choose to crash just because you drive the car.

mydogisthebest · 15/09/2017 14:57

Of course in the UK, at least, having children is a choice. No one has to have children do they? I do not think having them is a right.

I know woman that have had children because they wanted them even though they had no money, lived in a damp rat infested shit hole, had a drug addict OH and a few other obvious reasons not to have any. That is just selfish.

We cannot just keep increasing the population. Across the planet we are wiping out animals, destroying their habitat etc in order that more and more people can have someone to live, roads to drive on, shops etc.

The UK is so overcrowded it's a joke. Driving is a nightmare because of all the jams. It's not just cities here either it's almost everywhere.

bridgetreilly · 15/09/2017 15:05

It's certainly a choice not to have children.

Having children is something you can choose to try for, but you can't assume that you'll get your choice.

Having lots of children is also a choice. It's not like you can't stop it happening if you wanted to.

ShatnersWig · 15/09/2017 15:14

existential said But it's a choice that we all need people to make. It's not just a selfish choice. Whether you personally choose to have children or not, we do need people to have children.

Why? Seriously, what gives us any more right to survive than any other species? Don't argue "intelligence" because clearly we aren't intelligent looking at the way we behave and what we've done to the planet we found ourselves on. We've been responsible for wiping out thousands of species of plant and animal that predate our arrival and nature has wiped out others before we got here. We are in no danger of dying out.

In 1927 there were 2 billion people on the planet. By 1960 it was 3 billion (ie 33 years to increase by 1 billion). By 1974 it was 4 billion (just 14 years to increase by 1 billion). By 1987 it was 5 billion (13 years) and by 1999 it was 6 billion (12 years) and it currently stands at 7 billion. So in 90 years we have increased the population 3.5 times!!! Sheer madness .

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