Life in Capital Letters

I am another member of this age group who has not had children by choice, with the enthusiastic agreement of my husband. I never had much interest in having children. If our society provided what is available to families in Europe – health care, basic economic security, paid maternity leave, day care, vacations, etc. – I might have done it. But in this country people scream about “family values” until you actually have a family. Then they start screaming about how having children was “your individual choice,” and that society has no responsibility for you and your kids. Meanwhile, there is an orgy of judgment about your every move as a parent, like when you don’t bring 40 hand-made, locally grown, organic, sustainable pate en croute to your 3-year-old’s Halloween party (my kid would have been middle class). Thank God I saw this scam for what it was, and steered clear of the whole thing. 

As far as I am concerned, whenever someone or something tells you that as a woman you have an inherent biological need or “responsibility” to do something, there’s likely to be lots of boring, dirty, unpaid and unrecognized labor involved.

- a commentor on the article found here

This is why I don’t want to have kids. It’s a raw deal for any mother these days.. No support from anyone. Your job wants to fire you every time you need to take your sick kid to the doctor. You’re a monster if you feed your kid sugar or anything that’s not natural. Your husband probably doesn’t do half the housework that you do and - thanks to our society’s fixation with airbrushed beauty - he will probably find your body disgusting after bearing children. If your kid ends up having autism, it’s somehow your fault for eating pesticides while you were pregnant.

The government will continue to tax you until you’ve got nothing left, without giving you anything in return. (FYI, I’m all for taxes if they go for things we need and not to drop bombs in developing nations.) The educational system sucks, so unless you want your kid to be an idiot, you’ll have to spend 1/4 of your income sending them to private school. You’ll spend another 1/4 of your income on healthcare that won’t even begin to cover all of your expenses if you have a severe illness.

In other words, in order to have a family in this country you have to have a high paying job and/or you have to work 60 hour work weeks. In either case, you probably won’t get the vacation time you deserve and your kids will grow up not really knowing you.

No thanks, I’ll stick to having pets.