View Full Version : ambivalent about babies
Pretty_Penny
01-29-2010, 10:10 AM
and ditto what jaizaine said. thank you to all of those whom are sharing less than traditonally "acceptable" opinions and view points of their child birthing/parenting experience. i really appreciate your honest and candid responses.
A minimum of 7 kids?
I know I'll get shit for saying this, but I feel VERY strongly about it:
My own personal opinion is that it is extremely selfish and irresponsible to have more than 2 kids biologically.
Please, if you have 4 kids or whatever and you read that, it doesn't mean I think you're automatically a "bad parent" or a horrible person. I just really disagree with the choice.
Yeah you shouldn't be having kids you can't afford. Those assholes they keep putting on TV with like 19 kids piss me the fuck off, we are all paying their little shits stop treating them like heroes.
Pretty_Penny
01-29-2010, 10:13 AM
Yeah you shouldn't be having kids you can't afford. Those assholes they keep putting on TV with like 19 kids piss me the fuck off, we are all paying their little shits stop treating them like heroes.
Having kids you can't afford is only the tip of the iceberg for why I don't agree with having more than 2 kids biologically.
I think, even if you are a millionaire, you should stop at 2.
Do any of you feel like this?
I think a lot of people do, have kids anyway, and often make terrible parents. The kid thing was a deal breaker for the ex wife (even though from day one when we were dating I told her I had no interest, but that's another story...) and she was knocked up and re married within 6 months. Talk about a woman on a mission, but I digress.
I like my time too much, my freedom, my stuff, etc etc, and never wanted any. I don't like wiping my own ass all that much, I sure as hell wont do it for anyone else. Waking up, screaming babies not for me, and so on.
People always says "but it's different when it's yours."
Maybe so, but I never wanted to test the theory frankly.
Not exactly true, good fathers do change their lifestyles when they have kids. Most of my male friends with kids have become very scarce.
Yup, it changes the mans life no less then the woman's for the most part. Once it's out of the womb, feedings, trecking them around, etc, etc is all equal duty for the guys I know. So yes, my friends who have had kids, all of whom are involved good fathers, are scarce now. Obviously, if the man dumps all the responsibility on the woman, then yes, her life changes a lot and his not as much....I have a group of friends at this point who are all sorta in the don't want kids club, and it's like we are surrounded! :P
Bella21
01-29-2010, 12:40 PM
Meh, why do people have different political views? People are different. I'm almost 27 and I STILL don't want a kid. What is the point? I've been told my entire life, "You will one day". Yea, well I will let you know when that day comes. I think it was supposed to be a natural human instinct and then, a social norm and now... not so much.
miabella
01-29-2010, 02:04 PM
A minimum of 7 kids?
I know I'll get shit for saying this, but I feel VERY strongly about it:
My own personal opinion is that it is extremely selfish and irresponsible to have more than 2 kids biologically.
Please, if you have 4 kids or whatever and you read that, it doesn't mean I think you're automatically a "bad parent" or a horrible person. I just really disagree with the choice.
since some fraction of my kids greater than 1/7 will be adopted, i am pretty relaxed about however many i have biologically.
this is of course the other half of the baby-ambivalence: all the people who will line up to tell you it is selfish to have more than 2, or in some cases more than 1. and of course the ever classic "how can you think of bringing a child into this world!"
my personal opinion is that women should feel free to have as few/none or as many children as they wish, although i would personally prefer that more women had kids because i like humanity.
resource consumption doesn't come from little kids that poor people have, or even food-secure people. it comes from people who live in urban environments where they can mask their resource consumption because outlying areas bring goods to them after processing them external to the city. most people who have large families are food-sufficient and living in semi-rural or entirely rural areas where they have a low resource footprint. some are even energy-sufficient.
there is probably some class warfare stuff going on regarding the feeling that children are the biggest resource hogs out there and that having several pregnancies resulting in live birth is somehow a selfish and/or irresponsible act.
Jessie_tinydancer
01-29-2010, 11:54 PM
^ I agree with many points there but also agree with Penny. It's not just a resource thing but a time and attention thing. There are 4 kids in my family and the difference between the attention and care that I received as the first child vs. my younger brother is worlds apart. This has probably contributed to a lot of his issues. Don't get me wrong, my family was awesome. Very close. We were poor at times (definitely not enough money for 4 kids), but managed. But there is definitely a difference between each of us. Each child seeming to have more issues than the last.
AudreyLeigh
01-30-2010, 12:15 AM
Thank you for being brave enough to be honest and share this experience. It's almost "taboo" in our society for a woman to admit to not having a bond and disliking her baby.
But I'm sure it's more common than anyone realises.
Can I ask what made you decide to keep her after you were looking for adoptive parents and lawyers etc?
Yes it is and it's very sad because it makes the women who DO feel this way like they are horrible people when we aren't. People also assume they will be bad parents because of this which is very untrue. I am not a bad mom, I am a great mother. People won't being up things like this because they don't want to be judged. I could care less if people want to judge me - they don't know me and those who do know I am a damn good mother.
I kept her because her father would not sign the papers and I just couldn't lie about not knowing the father. I mean I could but I didn't want to. I also was upset that her parents (the adoptive parents I had chosen for her) had their hearts broken because hes a complete asshole. He wanted me to have an abortion so I thought he would be ok with adoption. When I asked him to speak with their attorney he told their attorney he would "fucking kill them if they tried to take his kid away". Yea, real winner there.
Main reason for not choosing other adoptive parents was that her parents were chosen - no other adoptive parents could (in my eyes) be her parents. THEY were her parents. She HAD parents and was not with them. I think it's very hard for people to understand this because when you hear about adoption it's typically very hard for the birth mom to give her child up. This was not me. You know the movie Juno? THAT was me. It's kind of hard to explain... I was so young and confused and heartbroken.
Hope that makes some sense.
Pretty_Penny
01-30-2010, 03:31 PM
My reasons for disagreeing with women having more than 2 biological children are these (in short):
-Overpopulation and limited resources
-The GIGANTIC amount of unwanted children already on this earth who have no permanent family.
-The fact that, and I'm sorry, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that a childs attention and parent-bonding time isn't limited when he/she is one of 5+ children.
I'm not saying there aren't parents who manage to give lots of love and attention to their many children. I just feel that, even in those cases, they could have MORE if they had less. The more things you try to do at once, the poorer the quality. That's just a simple fact with anything.
To make an analogy:
Say you're living at home and going to 4 classes of college a semester. Compare that to living on your own, working a full time job, and taking 4 classes a semester. Chances are, given that everything else is equal, you'll probably do a little worse in the second scenario. Can it be done? Sure. I'm just saying there will be a toll taken somewhere. Either the grades will slip a bit, or maybe your mental and/or physical well being wont be as up to par, etc.
Paris
01-30-2010, 03:54 PM
Here's a news story about people chosing to remain childless.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35158090#35158090
miabella
01-30-2010, 05:08 PM
My reasons for disagreeing with women having more than 2 biological children are these (in short):
-Overpopulation and limited resources
-The GIGANTIC amount of unwanted children already on this earth who have no permanent family.
-The fact that, and I'm sorry, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that a childs attention and parent-bonding time isn't limited when he/she is one of 5+ children.
I'm not saying there aren't parents who manage to give lots of love and attention to their many children. I just feel that, even in those cases, they could have MORE if they had less. The more things you try to do at once, the poorer the quality. That's just a simple fact with anything.
To make an analogy:
Say you're living at home and going to 4 classes of college a semester. Compare that to living on your own, working a full time job, and taking 4 classes a semester. Chances are, given that everything else is equal, you'll probably do a little worse in the second scenario. Can it be done? Sure. I'm just saying there will be a toll taken somewhere. Either the grades will slip a bit, or maybe your mental and/or physical well being wont be as up to par, etc.
most resources are consumed by Westerners (primarily americans) who don't have lots of kids, not people having lots of kids. again, urban folks can mask or obscure their insane resource usage rate and then lament the 'resource use' of semi-rural families of six.
we aren't overpopulated on a global basis, nor are we actually projected to do so. there are lower estimates of population available, even if people only ever refer to the highest, most optimistic (if you like) estimates. again, women aren't baby-machines and have been choosing of their own accord to downtick how many kids they have even in icky brown countries that are supposedly where all this overpopulation is. because america is a lot of things, but it ain't overpopulated. europe is far more dense population-wise than many south american and african regions, but we hear no plaints about the high population densities of european cities and how wasteful that supposedly would be.
so given that women are humans and not baby-factories, the population is likely to end up stabilized not far from the current levels, rather than increase dramatically.
and people are entitled to their opinions, but my reality has been that all the large families i've known are loving precisely because the parents aren't fixated potentially unhealthily on 1-2 'perfect' children, as happens all too often among parents who don't have many children. the siblings develop strong bonds and don't end up becoming helicopter kids, there is more stability, and the parents are less overwhelmed because they aren't feeling the pressure to over-parent, which is a real risk when you only have the one or two kids.
it is an extremely modern belief that parents should be the sole bond for a child, rather than a mixture of their parents and siblings and hopefully extended family. in the large families i've known, the kids felt loved by their parents *and* their siblings, and didn't get caught up in competition for parental affection nearly as often as the families with 2 kids did.
i would much rather my kids know that many people love them than to fret about ensuring that i and their father love them excessively and 'unconditionally' because they have no siblings or just one to love and be loved by as well.
a parent can parent too much and it can be way worse than not enough, which is why bonding, while important, shouldn't be considered the primary thing in parenting. parents don't have to have the modern super-close bond to raise healthy children and may do better at raising such children than the super-close-bond parents.
but i never really was acquainted with large urban families, so perhaps that is a different circumstance. the large families i know and have known were semi-rural or rural. and i know waaay too many helicoptered kids (urban, rural and semi-rural) with one or no siblings to really believe that stuff about 'your kids won't get enough WUV if there's more than 2!!!!'
hot4ablackchick
01-31-2010, 11:02 PM
Two kids just seems like so little when I have six!! Having twins didn't help, but I love my large family. I love going to the grocery store and everybody is just like, "Wow are they ALL yours?" and "You've got your hands full!" and "I don't know how you do it, I would be crazy with all those kids!" It was never my plan to have a big family, it just happend that way for me. Its not nearly as hard as many people think it is.
I know I may sound like an asshole or bad parent for saying this, but I could care less if my kids grow up and resent me for having "too many children." I don't think they will, but I did my best, they have parents that love them and let them know that everyday. They have parents that work very hard to give them the absolute best of everything. If they feel they didn't get enough time, or they had too many brothers and sisters, too bad. Thats life. No matter what, there are always ways to spend time together. Sure they are benefits to having a small family, but there are benefits to having a large family as well. I only had one sibling growing up (an older sister) so I was raised in a "small family." I do have a brother and stepsister, but they didn't come along until I was 14.
Pretty_Penny
01-31-2010, 11:44 PM
most resources are consumed by Westerners (primarily americans) who don't have lots of kids, not people having lots of kids. again, urban folks can mask or obscure their insane resource usage rate and then lament the 'resource use' of semi-rural families of six.
we aren't overpopulated on a global basis, nor are we actually projected to do so. there are lower estimates of population available, even if people only ever refer to the highest, most optimistic (if you like) estimates. again, women aren't baby-machines and have been choosing of their own accord to downtick how many kids they have even in icky brown countries that are supposedly where all this overpopulation is. because america is a lot of things, but it ain't overpopulated. europe is far more dense population-wise than many south american and african regions, but we hear no plaints about the high population densities of european cities and how wasteful that supposedly would be.
so given that women are humans and not baby-factories, the population is likely to end up stabilized not far from the current levels, rather than increase dramatically.
and people are entitled to their opinions, but my reality has been that all the large families i've known are loving precisely because the parents aren't fixated potentially unhealthily on 1-2 'perfect' children, as happens all too often among parents who don't have many children. the siblings develop strong bonds and don't end up becoming helicopter kids, there is more stability, and the parents are less overwhelmed because they aren't feeling the pressure to over-parent, which is a real risk when you only have the one or two kids.
it is an extremely modern belief that parents should be the sole bond for a child, rather than a mixture of their parents and siblings and hopefully extended family. in the large families i've known, the kids felt loved by their parents *and* their siblings, and didn't get caught up in competition for parental affection nearly as often as the families with 2 kids did.
i would much rather my kids know that many people love them than to fret about ensuring that i and their father love them excessively and 'unconditionally' because they have no siblings or just one to love and be loved by as well.
a parent can parent too much and it can be way worse than not enough, which is why bonding, while important, shouldn't be considered the primary thing in parenting. parents don't have to have the modern super-close bond to raise healthy children and may do better at raising such children than the super-close-bond parents.
but i never really was acquainted with large urban families, so perhaps that is a different circumstance. the large families i know and have known were semi-rural or rural. and i know waaay too many helicoptered kids (urban, rural and semi-rural) with one or no siblings to really believe that stuff about 'your kids won't get enough WUV if there's more than 2!!!!'
I think you seem to be sensationalizing what I've said.
- None of this addresses the bevy of unwanted children who already exist in the world
- I never said anything about having 1-2 "perfect" children.
-I mentioned repeatedly that having many kids doesn't automatically make one a "bad parent" and neither does having fewer, obviously.
- I also never said you can't "give enough love" to more than 2 children. I merely stated that the more children you have, the more difficult it becomes in one area or another.
-The issue of overpopulation is debated constantly because of varying beliefs in what exactly the "magic number" of overcapacity is. We can argue overpopulation till we are blue in the face, but in the end we will likely stay on different sides of the fence.
-I agree that you can be a horrible consumer regardless of if you have children or not. My point was simply that more people = less resources. Obviously problems like the "water crisis" can not be solved solely by people having less children. I never meant to imply as such.
hot4ablackchick
01-31-2010, 11:51 PM
My reasons for disagreeing with women having more than 2 biological children are these (in short):
-Overpopulation and limited resources
-The GIGANTIC amount of unwanted children already on this earth who have no permanent family.
-The fact that, and I'm sorry, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that a childs attention and parent-bonding time isn't limited when he/she is one of 5+ children.
I'm not saying there aren't parents who manage to give lots of love and attention to their many children. I just feel that, even in those cases, they could have MORE if they had less. The more things you try to do at once, the poorer the quality. That's just a simple fact with anything.
To make an analogy:
Say you're living at home and going to 4 classes of college a semester. Compare that to living on your own, working a full time job, and taking 4 classes a semester. Chances are, given that everything else is equal, you'll probably do a little worse in the second scenario. Can it be done? Sure. I'm just saying there will be a toll taken somewhere. Either the grades will slip a bit, or maybe your mental and/or physical well being wont be as up to par, etc.
Those are all good points, but why have any children at all? After all there are soooo many children without a good home, it is a bit selfish to have any children, when there are other children who need a home. If people want to adopt, more power to them. I could never adopt or become a foster parent because I cannot relate to children that aren't mine. I would just find them to be a nuisance and would never bond effectively enough with a 'foster kid' to be a good enough parent. I still struggle with my stepkids' and I LOVE them and their father. I just couldn't risk parenting someone else's child, and I know that makes me a bit selfish and silly, but that is honest. I sympathise with children that need a good home, but I couldn't do it. I would feel like the kid "owed" me something, because I took the time to care for it when I didn't "have to." I'll admit, I'm not a "I like kids," type of person. So the only choices for people like myself who would like to have a family, would be to do it themselves. I would rather be childfree than adopt a kid. Adoption can also be very very expensive, but perhaps that is because there is a great demand for infants, and it could be 'easier' and less expensive to adopt older children.
I'll agree that yes you will use more resources with a big family. Of course a large family who is energy efficient, recycles, and is not very wasteful, is 'better' than a family of 3 who is very wasteful, doesn't recycle and uses paper plates, etc. We use more water, we have to run the dishwasher about every day (its energy star rated though!), more people showering/bathing, more waste, etc. We have to have a large home for necessasity, so we use more gas to heat the large home. Theres no way to get around that, so we do use a lot more than an average family who are on the same level of "wastefulness."
I can't say that I have any issues with parent/bonding time. My kids have always been pretty independent, so perhaps having so many siblings doesn't affect them as it would other kids. Its never really hard to make time for all of them. I would say the Duggars are probably going to grow up extremely whacked with 19 children but who knows? I've seen that show and I just don't agree with how the older children have to pretty much raise the younger siblings. Each older child is assigned a "buddy" that they are responsible for. Theres nothing wrong with kids helping out their parents, or babysitting their siblings every once and a while, but no kid should be forced to "look after" their sibling all the damn time. I have a BIG pet peeve with that. With a large family and a big age difference between sibilings, you have to be careful not to do that.
Jessie_tinydancer
02-01-2010, 12:05 AM
This is a bit off topic, but it has come up a couple times... can I just say that adopting a child is the same as giving birth to one. My husband and his sister are both adopted because his mother could not have children. Trust me... it is exactly the same. His parents are bonded with his exactly the same and his family is exactly the same as any biological family. Neither he or his sister have any interest in finding their biological parents (they have different bio parents) or ever even think about them. Their adopted parents are their parents. There are hardly any people who even know they are adopted and people all the time say things like "You look like this person or that person" people who are not even blood related to them. I know you might think that you wouldn't bond with an adopted baby, but when you hold a baby in your arms and someone tells you it is yours and you are responsible for that child, it is just like one of your own. Any parent who has adopted will tell you that. Imagine how it would feel to read all these comments suggesting people could not love an adopted child the same way if you were adopted. I know it is just an individual opinion, but probably one people don't really truly think about because its not necessary.
I've bonded with my dogs like they are freaking children for goodness sake and I sure didn't give birth to them. One was also adopted at age 2 and I care as much about her as the one I got as a puppy!
Jessie_tinydancer
02-01-2010, 12:12 AM
This is a bit off topic, but it has come up a couple times... can I just say that adopting a child is the same as giving birth to one. My husband and his sister are both adopted because his mother could not have children. Trust me... it is exactly the same. His parents are bonded with his exactly the same and his family is exactly the same as any biological family. Neither he or his sister have any interest in finding their biological parents (they have different bio parents) or ever even think about them. Their adopted parents are their parents. There are hardly any people who even know they are adopted and people all the time say things like "You look like this person or that person" people who are not even blood related to them. I know you might think that you wouldn't bond with an adopted baby, but when you hold a baby in your arms and someone tells you it is yours and you are responsible for that child, it is just like one of your own. Any parent who has adopted will tell you that. Imagine how it would feel to read all these comments suggesting people could not love an adopted child the same way if you were adopted. I know it is just an individual opinion, but probably one people don't really truly think about because its not necessary.
I've bonded with my dogs like they are freaking children for goodness sake and I sure didn't give birth to them. One was also adopted at age 2 and I care as much about her as the one I got as a puppy!
Jessie_tinydancer
02-01-2010, 12:14 AM
^I have no idea why that posted twice. My internet is fucked cause my dumb room mate went over the download cap. Who downloads 50 gigs in one month...seriously? I use only 1 gig. bah... end threadjack and continue discussion..
hot4ablackchick
02-01-2010, 12:33 AM
This is a bit off topic, but it has come up a couple times... can I just say that adopting a child is the same as giving birth to one. My husband and his sister are both adopted because his mother could not have children. Trust me... it is exactly the same. His parents are bonded with his exactly the same and his family is exactly the same as any biological family. Neither he or his sister have any interest in finding their biological parents (they have different bio parents) or ever even think about them. Their adopted parents are their parents. There are hardly any people who even know they are adopted and people all the time say things like "You look like this person or that person" people who are not even blood related to them. I know you might think that you wouldn't bond with an adopted baby, but when you hold a baby in your arms and someone tells you it is yours and you are responsible for that child, it is just like one of your own. Any parent who has adopted will tell you that. Imagine how it would feel to read all these comments suggesting people could not love an adopted child the same way if you were adopted. I know it is just an individual opinion, but probably one people don't really truly think about because its not necessary.
I've bonded with my dogs like they are freaking children for goodness sake and I sure didn't give birth to them. One was also adopted at age 2 and I care as much about her as the one I got as a puppy!
I was in no way implying that people cannot bond with an adopted child, or that people with adopted kids are not "real" parents. I know there is sooo much more to parenting than simply giving birth. I just know that I never could. Maybe if my life was different and I had fertility problems and didn't have children, and then developed a dire need to have a baby. I'm pretty sure that if I was faced with that sort of challenge, I would remain childfree. If I ever considered adoption it would have to be a VERY YOUNG infant, and I don't think I would ever take the risk even then. This is not the case for me, so it would be extremely unfair for me to subject a child to sub par love and parenting. I would hate to feel resentful or constantly annoyed by a child that I am suppossed to love and care for. I am just not a good candidate for adopting. If someone can and genuinely wants to, I think that is great and a wonderful thing to give to a child that needs a good home. I would never discourage anyone from adopting if they chose to. I just know that its not for me. Wasn't trying to say that adopting is wrong, but I just couldn't do it.
Off topic, but it also annoys me when people say, "just adopt" to people who are having fertility problems. I just don't think anyone should be made to feel like crap because they don't want to raise someone else's kid. Nothing wrong at all if you do, but if its not for you, then its just not. I greatly admire anyone who wants to bring in children that are not their own, but I couldn't do it.
jaizaine
02-01-2010, 03:04 AM
I see what you're saying Jess but I think it takes a special kind of parent to adopt. Someone who absolutely adores children and has a really big heart. I know I could never fall in love with someone else's child. I would never adopt and this is a good thing because only those who will love the child like their own should adopt.
One of my best friends is adopted and her parents adore her. It's such a beautiful thing to do.
I don't care how many kids people have either. My mum is one of 9 children and they grew up poor with nothing but they had each others love and they are all so close still now. It would be harder to do these days with everything being so expensive but considering countries like Australia have zero population growth it's not a bad thing that some people chose to have more than the average (which is 2.3 children).