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17 May, 2006
Why have kids?

My wife doesn't drive. She drove for a very brief period, then realized and accepted that she's a bad driver.

It's abnormal not to drive. So when people find out that my wife doesn't drive, they pressure her to start. They don't suffer as a result of her not driving. They just, apparently, can't stand to see someone being abnormal.

But my wife doesn't enjoy driving, and she knows she's bad at it. People's lives would be at risk if she chose to undertake this activity she doesn't even like.

Imagine if every bad driver agreed to stop driving. There would still be weather, pedestrians, animals, mechanical failure, and bad roads. But there would be far fewer accidents.

Now apply the same principle to parenting. Imagine if everyone who disliked the idea of parenting and who knew they'd be bad at it decided not to have children. Some kids would still turn out misguided. But the world would be a far happier place.

I researched the psychology and sociology of childlessness. Some of the research said that on one hand, voluntarily childless people are seen as "selfish, irresponsible, immature, abnormal, unhappy, sexually incompetent, unnatural, or in poor health", while, on the other hand, "surprisingly few questions have been raised about women who are committed to childbearing but who have minimal potential for carrying out the complex tasks of mothering."

These quotations show that little critical thought goes into most people's attitudes towards childlessness. However, someone who has children just because they want to, but who lacks the skills to raise those children would seem irresponsible and immature. (The same report said "the description of the childless as immature or abnormal has only limited support in empirical literature.") And forget about being "unnatural". Nobody in an industrialized country has been natural since Henry David Thoreau.

Also, the cost to society of voluntary childlessness is the price of a sterilization procedure. The cost of unfit parents is vast and immeasurable. Maybe if we stopped pressuring everyone to have kids, and let people make up their own minds, the crime rate would go down.

One report stated that childless research subjects showed "more capacity for independent thought" than the parents. Given societal pressure, that's no surprise.

In one study, childless men were more likely to have a postgraduate degree and reported more annual income than fathers. Also, "childless wives showed a far greater amount of schooling". The report stated that "childless men may be characterized (more than fathers) as rejecting standardized or conventional solutions to problems, interested in independent achievement, inclined to experiment, not valuing tradition for the sake it, and more flexible". People with these qualities brought you things like electricity, microwave ovens, universal suffrage, and the wheel.

Other researchers described childless women as "self-reliant, assertive, skeptical, not easily influenced, and placing a high value on personal freedom." These days many see being easily influenced as a good quality. I've even heard people complain about someone muting the TV commercials.

Don't get me wrong. I obviously know wonderful, loving, caring, committed, responsible parents. I just fear that many, many people become parents because others tell them too.

The general consensus among reports I found was that "the voluntarily childless are as emotionally stable and are as satisfied with their lives as the parents."

But one report's conclusion said it best: "Just as we should never sterilize people who want children, so we should not impose children on those who do not want them". If those unfit for parenthood can have kids, then those fit for it should be allowed not to.

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