Why is a life without kids still not promoted as a route to happiness?

[OptimismvsRealism]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/15/parents-are-anxious-lonely-overwhelmingly-stressed-and-their-crisis-affects-everyone

Parenthood looks awful. Certainly worse than it needs to be in modern times but fundamentally wretched in many ways. An abandonment of the self.

Shouldn't we be telling young people not to have kids unless they really want to? Like we'd advise with anything so hard.

I think most men do want a child or children. I think the idea that it’s only women who want them is a way to justify keeping child care as largely unpaid women’s work. Sort of patriarchy propaganda. Like men implanting their seed is a huge favour to us women so they can’t be bothered with the rest of it.

Surely vasectomies would be through the roof if no men want children.

It's an excuse reeled out by feckless men who can't be bothered to step up.

Financial dependence is not the reason I was born in the 80s 😂 You're 50 years out of date with your assumptions. Your post is about young people today not being told that being child-free is an option, and I'd strongly argue that they ARE being told that it's an option. We were being told it was an option back in the 90s.

So are we? Your general idea that having parents means you’re going to be exposed to pro child views can’t be true because many parents have unwanted children and tell their children that or show it by their actions. It’s just as common, so no generalisation can be made that having parents predisposes you to wanting children.

Yep! Hit nail on head.

Yes we would be here. Biologically animals, including humans, are programmed to have a sex drive, which used to automatically lead to having offspring. Once the offspring is born then another biological nurturing drive kicks in. I've always been surprised that people have a strong drive to have children that is removed from the sex drive. Other mammals almost certainly don't have that. I mean enough people say it's a thing for me to believe it exists - it just doesn't seem to make biological sense

Shouldn't we be telling young people not to have kids unless they really want to?
How odd.
Why do you imagine people are having kids they don’t actually want?

Who is 'we'? I was responding to a poster talking about her relationship with her daughter.

I said that girls are often indoctrinated into wanting marriage and children. This isn't just carried out by parents, it's also common in society.

Do you have any evidence that many parents don't want children and tell them? Sounds like something you've made up for some reason.

I think it often works the opposite way. A very strong factor in my decision not to have children was having seen how miserable both my parents were. They’d never admit it, but they hated family life. I didn’t want to end up like them.

That was certainly a significant factor in me planning to be childfree (I chose, eventually, to have a child when I felt I was strong enough to do things differently), and in my three sisters’ decision to be childfree. Parenting definitely didn’t look in any way satisfying or enjoyable in our childhoods.

Me and about 3 other posters that have disagreed with you & other posters on the general idea that most people are indoctrinated into wanting children from a young age. That it is instilled, expected and there isn’t any other option. You didn’t qualify these generalisations with ‘often’ you wrote it as if it were universal or virtually everyone.

As for evidence, it’s everywhere many parents don’t want children and have them. Even the parents that thought they wanted children, 1 in 5 regret it. So there are many many children that are unwanted either from the start or after birth. The rates of child abuse is further evidence too.

A lot of the stuff in the article making things hard is material circumstances: cost of living, poverty, social isolation because of work/living arrangements, etc.

So it’s not entirely about how having kids is awful: it’s about how late capitalism makes things (including having a family) hard.

I certainly didn’t want to try having a family until I was fortunate enough to have a partner/ house/ job/ income that suited it.

So perhaps the answer isn’t to promote never starting a family as a route to happiness, but trying to improve everyone’s circumstances so it’s a choice they can make on grounds other than financial or suchlike.

Yes I agree. I think internally we know if we want children or not, and we look to what is around us to get messages as to whether what we want is acceptable or a reason to rationalise it as acceptable- because we do get conflicting messages on children. So I would say that their misery confirmed and supported your internal feelings that children were not for you.

Having parents doesn’t condition us one way or the other imho.

I think most men want children as well but like women, want it to be on their time frame/ when they feel ready. Sometimes it isn’t, such as with unplanned pregnancy/ failed contraception, the relationship isn’t well established.

I think it is in a lot of circles. I'm a younger millennial (30 this year) and for the past decade all I've heard is a variation of don't have kids/only if you really really want/you'll ruin your life etc. So much so I strongly considered not having any cause it seemed just only negative.
Had my first last year and I've never been happier 🤷‍♀️

What a bizarre thing to say. Some people want children, some people don't. The solution to society being stressful for parents isn't just to tell people not to have children.

Yes - I think humans are probably the only species to experience a conscious desire for offspring as opposed to an instinct to behave in a way which will produce them.

Yes, nor should children become a luxury reserved for the well off.

The article read to me a lot like a modern, more polite version of Victorian man opinions in papers that would tell the poor that their financial stresses and whinges were entirely their own fault for breeding like rabbits. (They’d be that offensive), and nothing to do with the fact Victorian man had crashed the economy, ruined the jobs market, ruthlessly suppressed wages while pushing up the costs of living, and they certainly weren’t having any difficulty affording their children even at a 1:1 nanny to child ratio! Harumph.😤

I haven't seen the other poster who disagreed with me. They can't have quoted me. You can't assume everyone disagrees with me.

If people can't work out that a generalisation doesn't mean every person in the world without exception, then I'm not sure what to say.

If you have never heard a girl talk about marriage or playing with dolls, I'm wondering where you've been hiding. If you've never seen an advert with the perfect family as an aspiration then what can I say? It's all around us, the perfect home, the perfect wife, the perfect child. It's sold as a dream; the indoctrination starts early.

There's also a lot of pressure from others on starting a family. It can make you feel like an odd ball. However you've never observed that. Nor have you spoken to people from other cultures where marriage and family is a given, not a choice.

Again you haven't presented any evidence that many children are unwanted and abused. You're just making stuff up. Yes some children are bound to be unwanted, doubt that's common.

I agree with you. Women now have more options and rights than before and there's just no need for the marriage/children schtick as the 'ultimate' achievement (which it really isn't). Men generally don't say that becoming a husband and father is their best ever achievement so why is that such an expectation or benchmark for women?

Having children is life-changing and not always in positive ways. Yes, for some women they are the more desirable thing and there's no question of not having them (if they can), but not all women feel that way and nor should they.

Route to happiness is achieved from women being fulfilled in their careers and having their decisions respected. That's my opinion anyway.

There's also tons of adverts showing "perfect" couples having lovely romantic times. Even the latest advert for Disneyland is an adult couple.

Indeed. Gives the impression that life is perfect if you're in a couple which isn't great for the singles amongst us. Yet more indoctrination.

Really? I know lots of men who say that their children are their proudest achievement.

I'm glad your career is fulfilling and makes you happy. I have the exact job that I wanted doing something I am passionate about and I would immediately drop it if I won the lottery (unlikely as I don't play) without a backwards glance. I am not career motivated.

Without having children I would have been miserable. My daughter makes my life fulfilling and everything else I do is for her benefit.

There is no "route to happiness" there are people wanting different things and it's quite patronising to assume that people who chose something different must have been indoctrinated into it.

I think that studies show that single women are actually the happiest. Probably meaning those who choose to be single and childless.

I'm certainly encouraging my DC to consider a life where they enjoy their careers and please themselves.
The truth about marriage and children is that majority of the time it's just grind.

I haven't seen the other poster who disagreed with me. They can't have quoted me. You can't assume everyone disagrees with me.

Not everyone who posts an opinion quotes a poster with an opposite opinion, try RTFT before assuming I’m assuming kwim?

If people can't work out that a generalisation doesn't mean every person in the world without exception, then I'm not sure what to say

A generalisation must apply to a supramajority and the cause:effect relationships you posit that underpin the generalisation must also be valid for the generalisation to be true. Yours fails on both counts imho and that of others on this thread.

If you have never….
I have, but not to the scale required to make it a sweeping generalisation which isn’t to say such pressures do not exist. I think the pressures exist side by side with messages saying the opposite, the pros of being childfree. Your sweeping generalisation was probably last valid in the 1970s for the U.K.. It is outdated.

Again you haven't presented any evidence that many children are unwanted and abused. You're just making stuff up.
If we are going to go there, you haven’t technically presented any evidence for your comments. I respect you enough to not say you are making things up, I suppose my mistake is to expect mutual respect in this conversation. You only need to do a bit of research to see that many children are unwanted and abused.