I honestly have no clue what type of social circles these people must run in; I don't know a single person that felt the need to have children because you're 'supposed' to.

Yes, while there is a genetic drive to procreate, I'd guess that 99% of parents had the child because they simply desired to have a child.

Women that do otherwise are, quite frankly, idiots.

Some people are just stupid; this type of thinking is just a different manifestation.

>>When I became pregnant with my first child I had assumed that everyone else at the midwife’s office who had planned their pregnancy had done so with the same fervent thought and determined desire. I swiftly discovered that I was wrong.

This is the weak part of supermommy's weird scold. (Agreeing with Pete the Streak here).

I had my kids because I very much wanted them with the guy I loved. But I never felt the urge to crow about my spawn being the crowning glory of "fervent thought & determined desire".

I'd have felt a complete twit!

Best time to have a child? When you are finally ready to be an adult, i.e, take on responsibility for another person, and realize you are not the center of the universe. No wonder motherhood is such a dicey proposition these days... .

Afsaneh Knight is certainly right about this.

Evolution has made conceiving children quick, easy and pleasurable in order to promote the species; it is the raising of them that is lengthy and arduous. After conception, of course, it is too late to change one's mind.

Like animals, early humans made children not because they wanted to raise them, but because it felt good to have sex. Modern humans have an advantage over this ancient impulse: they can reason; they can foresee the consequences of their actions if they choose to do so.

People who conceive children without thinking about the consequences are not stupid so much as they are allowing more primitive impulses to prevail.

I just had kids to make sure they would be paying into Social Security when it came my time to collect.

Hey Amy, I think you should have some too! I don't want my kids having to support you and Gregg! :-)

Seriously though. Having kids *is* a full time job, and I enjoy the two that I have. Like a career, being a parent is something that you have to want to do because you enjoy the challenges and the results of the work that you put into it.

There are a lot of people who just get a job to make money and they never love their job. They never put their all into it, and they never get results that they can be excited about. Same thing with kids.

People who conceive children without thinking about the consequences are not stupid so much as they are allowing more primitive impulses to prevail. -Norm

Norm, I believe that allowing primitive impulses to prevail over reason is the definition of stupidity

Husband and I knew (and discussed, at length) before we got married that we wanted kids. We also know that we do not want more than two. There will be no "trying for a ____." We've gotten to spend a lot of time with just the two of us, and now we're finally ready (and in a position) to start a family. I think that most of our friends who have families thought it out in a similiar manner, but not all. I feel sorry for my friends who are in their late 30's right now, looking for a husband to procreate with. It's odd to me that they've just now decided that this is a priority, and that having a child is something you MUST do in order for your life to be complete.

> I don't know a single person that felt
> the need to have children because
> you're 'supposed' to.

Are you certain? It's a great point, but only if it's true. Have you asked every parent in your life about this?

> I'd guess that 99% of parents had
> the child because they simply
> desired to have a child.

For those of us who haven't felt the throb, you're begging the question. What's "simple" about it? The fantasy scenarios which would cause me to desire a child are extremely complicated... 'Marriage to Jessica Alba, which would –through a series of legal machinations too detailed to list on this page– stabilize a crumbling pharmaceutical enterprise that happens to be on the cusp of curing cancer', or something like that. Complicated, not "simply" anything.

Deciding to have my children was neither simple nor complicated. I wanted them, whether their father did or not. He thought he did, but, obviously, he then decided otherwise. My life irrevoccably changed with their births, but I love them to death and wouldn't have it any other way. I stepped up to the responsibility not only because I had to, but because I could. I would never have been able to give up either of them, no matter what. That the ex could and did just drove home the point that I did not choose well with whom to procreate; that I am doing the best job with them that I can proves that I am up to the task, and succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. (Today is #1's junior prom, and she will look absolutely stunning in her long irridescent blue gown, silver lace shawl, and strappy silver sandals, with white orchids on her wrist and in her hair. She's beating up the piano just now, trying to relax before she gets dressed; the rest of her friends will be here around 5, in the limo, for pictures and sodas before they leave. #2 has decided she is the designated photographer for this event. Hopefully it won't rain until they're on their way!)

Let's remember that this it the ToL, so in all likelihood the author is lying. She may or may not know people who've said the things she cites, may or may not have experienced what she claims to have experienced, may or may not have kids of her own.

The purpose of these details is for her to press her argument that we should follow the BBC Nature presenters advice and restrict having children - though the population 'explosion' he's campaigning against certainly isn't occurring in the UK.

Oh and women are somehow 'oppressed into having children' - it's a wonder that we allow them any discretion over these matters as they obviously can't make rational decision regarding their own reproduction.

Flynne,

Enjoy the prom years ... they go by too fast!

There are sad cases where a person loses his ability to form long-term memories. When his doctor asks him "where are you and why are you here?" he makes up a story that explains his situation; he doesn't remember why he is in the hospital.

The desire for children is hard-wired by evolution. Any strong, inherited desire to not have children is highly disfavored. These genes do not reproduce well.

A woman can have the hard-wired desire for children without having an equivalent emotional desire. She finds herself wanting children, and may make up a story, however shallow, to explain her behavior. It is unlikely to be well supported or rational.

This isn't against women. Everyone is hard-wired to a large extent.

> Any strong, inherited desire to
> not have children is highly
> disfavored.

If only; one dawn's worth of morning wood, and all is lost.

> A woman can have the hard-wired
> desire for children without having
> an equivalent emotional desire.

I think they're essentially the same thing. It's not that weaker mothers don't have 'emotional desire', it's that they don't have emotional competence, or some other skill set which we could probably insist be developed.

Hi -

You'd be surprised by the power of hormones. These vary from person to person: I know childless couples that are just fine, and others who started having kids when they were in their late teens and only stopped when #6 was born 15 years later. Both are legitimate choices, legitimate life styles and completely and perfectly normal. But you can't take one person's desires and behavior and generalize it to a greater population: hence opposite behaviors are perfectly normal within a greater population...

Some women get hit harder by hormonal development than others: your body's pattern of hormonal production isn't constant but changes significantly over your life time. Menopause is a royal bitch for many women because it's basically a second adolescence, with all the hormonal rages and swings involved.

Genetics plays a big role, but it is poorly understood. We are greater slaves to our hormones than most would believe: they affect our emotions, which affect our thinking, which effects our behavior. I've known professional women who, in the late 30's, dropped everything to become a mother because they just plain felt they had to do it. Rarely is it a simple thing, but who ever said that women and their relationship to reproduction was simple?

Disclaimer: I have two kid sisters and two teenage daughters, and I adore women in general: the more I know about women, the more complex and amazing they become. :-)

I find the article's premise weak. She's really arguing that educated women with careers are idiots, since that's who tends to make the "must have baby now, it's time!" decision. I know moms who planned, and spent thousands on fertility, and I know Ooops moms. I know none who just felt they were supposed to have them, and did so. That's just idiotic inability to own your own choices.

> I know none who just felt they
> were supposed to have them

That's what Pete said, too. But I think there's a basis to the stereotype that Hollywood loves so much, of women who drift into adulthood only to realize that some currents are for swimming against. Lord knows this happens to men, too.

The writer of this article claims that she only knows of one long-term couple who chose not to have chiildren. That's pretty weird, because I doubt that I know as many people as she does, and I can easily think of four. I remember when one of them, a co-worker, was thinking about having kids and asked me my opinion. I asked her if she was happy with her life exactly as it was at that moment. If so, then don't have kids, because your life will no longer even resemble the life you have now once kids enter the picture. No one should be fooled into thinking that it isn't a huge life-altering event, and possibly the biggest mistake you can ever make.

"Norm, I believe that allowing primitive impulses to prevail over reason is the definition of stupidity"

Stupid is as stupid does.

The adult salmons swim against the currents to reach their birth place to reproduce. It is not an easy trip. They must dodge the bears, humans and jump over the man made dams.

When they finally arrive at the final destination, they reproduce and die to become the food for the next generation. This is one way kamikaze trip.

Are they stupid? Probably so. Not a sane and reasonable salmon should be doing this.

However, they will have the final laughs when the final sushi loving child free human couple disappears from the earth, because they were more interested in having iphones than the babies.

Who is stupid now?

So Chang's argument is that if all humans don't breed all humans will become extinct?!?

Back to math with you Mr. Chang!

People have to realize that having a child requires the guts and determination to take a wild animal and craft it into a citizen.

This is totally off-topic... but Amy, where did you say those stores in Paris were that sold large bras? What were their names again, and do you remember the metro stop?

Thanks!

I had my tubed tied at 24. Best decision I ever made, however I have had many people (and a huge helping from my MIL) push me to have kids, reverse the surgery, find another husband who wanted kids, all sorts of things that were none of their fucking business. In the end I started telling people that I am either

a) infertile (true but misleading) or

b)under court order to not have kids.

It gets people off my back and they leave me alone.

I didn't have kids for alot of reasons. The biggest was that I didn't just achingly want them. No kid should be unwanted. Plus, in a family of Catholics, my gene pool is certainly going to go on, whether it should or not.

-Julie

So Chang's argument is that if all humans don't breed all humans will become extinct?!?

Back to math with you Mr. Chang!

Actually I think that he is saying that all of us selfish consumerist people who don't have the common decency to rent out our uteruses to an intentionally caught parasitic growth will die alone by the light of our blackberries wishing for the warmth and comfort of kin.

Hehe, that was fun to write! Sarcastic tone set by me, not Mr Chang.

-Julie

b)under court order to not have kids.

It gets people off my back and they leave me alone.

I tell some people that I can't have kids since CPS took the last four away.

I tell some people that I can't have kids since CPS took the last four away.

Same basic idea. My husband has been known to tell people that he sacrificed all his kids in the last Black Mass. I've seen people run away from him after that one!

-Julie

The last one I reserve for people who attempt to 'shame' me because I must not like children. I will usually say, "I love children, they taste like chicken!" I know...you can hear the rim shot from here..but I get the best reactions from it. :-) Sorta like my 'Stupid people shouldn't breed' shirt. The silliest people get so upset by it.

-Julie

I get the same stupid questions from people, and they always assume that I don't like kids. When they ask me why I don't have children, I ask them to tell me why they do have children first. Then if they tell me, I I just say 'that's nice' or whatever and then change the subject.

You could also say, 'I don't want to wind up alone and neglected in a nursing home because my greedy spawn want my house.'. They might think you're bitter if you talk like that though.

I get the same stupid questions from people, and they always assume that I don't like kids. When they ask me why I don't have children, I ask them to tell me why they do have children first. Then if they tell me, I I just say 'that's nice' or whatever and then change the subject.

I've gotten these questions less and less as time has gone on. Now that I am in my 30s, I suspect that people assume I have fertility issues and don't want to broach the subject.