February 12th, 2014
Over at the Federalist, Rachel Lu has one of the best pieces I’ve seen on the parent/child-free divide. Some highlights:
Parenting (as you’ve surmised) is hard. People used to get some preparation for it, through babysitting and younger-sibling care, and just by living in places where kids were a regular part of life. Nowadays many people spend their early adulthood in childless university campuses or urban “kiddie deserts,” and any children are seen, if at all, only on flickering screens. It is no longer strange to make it to age 30 without ever changing a diaper. Should we be surprised if adjustment to family life is often a bit rocky?
When and if people do take the plunge, they’re expected to soldier on side by side with still-childless people who, instead of running to support and congratulate new parents, often look from the sidelines with a skeptical detachment, or even a challenging “prove to me that this hare-brained childbearing scheme won’t sweep you away into irrelevance” glare. Obviously, this does not help. When parenthood was a natural, expected step along the path to established adulthood, it probably seemed easier, but also was easier. By recasting parenthood as a choice, we’ve increased the challenges for those who do choose it, while diminishing the available support.
Having spent several years of my own pre-maternal life among childless adults (often graduate students or young professionals), I could fill a book with all the complaints I used to hear from people who seemed to regard child-rearing as a kind of elaborate hobby. Among other things, that meant parents were obliged to prevent their offspring from causing any inconvenience whatsoever to the blissfully childless. A crying baby or underfoot toddler in a public place was seen by many as a heinous, inexcusable imposition, and I wish I had a nickel for every time a childless friend griped about the same True Parenting discourses that Graham discusses, remarking that “if you didn’t want to do this, why did you have kids?”
Right, great question. Why have kids if it’s not all going to be one non-stop Norman Rockwell dream? Why have kids if they aren’t going to please and fulfill you at every turn? People’s willingness even to ask these questions reveals how shallow their view of parenthood really is. They’re the kinds of questions that we really might ask a friend who was overwrought over an actual hobby (say, wind-surfing or knitting): why do it?
jahnghalt March 5, 2014 at 5:33 pm
Once my wife decided we would have children (both of us in our thirties) it became a fait accompli. I discovered a friend was right: “it’s not as hard as I thought it would be”.
Ivory Towers come in all shapes, sizes, and colors – the childless Tower just happens to be larger than most. The non-barren understand that on balance to rear children is gratifying and changes one’s perspectives. I used to look at babes, now I look at babies (and then look at the babes who carry them). What used to be occasionally irritating now sound like squeals of delight.
Who Knew?