Is there anything more irritating than hearing people say “you should have a baby,” “why haven’t you had a baby,” “you’ll make a great mother,” “have a baby already, sheesh,” and/or “have more babies!” Really, all of that is really saying to women, “you have a uterus, stupid, use it–what the hell is wrong with you?!..forget your career and aspirations.” Yep, I’m sure that’s the kind of thing hard working women in the professional world want to hear. Women who got there through hard work and remaining childfree thanks to the “miracle” of contraceptives. And what about college women? Should we keep telling them in a sense they should only enjoy having a career for what–two to five years and then start popping out those babies, because that’s what they’re “supposed” to do? Or at least expected of them because well, they do have an uterus and some ovaries. Of course there’s nothing wrong with women waiting to have children until they’re relatively financially stable and their careers are where they want them to be. A lot of women do that nowadays. And there’s nothing wrong with having children and women wanting to be mothers someday. I don’t want any children, but hell, if this woman over here or there wants children, then go for it. My only problem is this guilt-tripping and nagging crap we see in the media, the obsession over pregnant celebrities, and the relentless fussing over and even antagonizing of professional women (or women in general) who choose not to have children. Not to mention this ridiculous notion that women must be in constant worry over the state of their ovaries and center their whole lives around them. Now I’ll let this post from Ms. Musings continue with the gentle criticism over this obsession of women’s reproductive choices in relation to their careers.
Tina Fey, the Saturday Night Live writer and weekend news desk co-anchor, is reportedly due to give birth to her first child in September. While ms.musings usually doesn’t go ga-ga over celebrity pregnancies, we will this time, just to resurrect one of Fey’s funniest and most poignant SNL news commentaries — this bit from 2002, sparked by the abundance of must-have-baby media and Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children.
To the article…
The cover story of New York Magazine this week is Baby Panic. This goes perfectly with the other magazines on my coffee table — Where Are The Babies? (US), Why Haven’t You Had A Baby? (People), and, For God’s Sake Have A Baby (Time). Thanks Time Magazine, this is just what I need — another article so depressing that I can actually hear my ovaries curling up.
I would be worried if my ovaries shriveled up for hormonal reasons. But if my uterus shriveled up I would be dancing around like an idiot for joy. That would finally get people to stop being so condescending and rude to me whenever I say I don’t want to have children. Sorry to gross you folks out and interrupt, moving on….
According to author Sylvia Hewlett, career women shouldn’t wait to have babies because our fertility takes a steep drop-off after age 27. And Sylvia’s right — I definitely should’ve had a baby when I was 27, living in Chicago, over a biker bar, pulling down a cool 12 grand a year. That woulda worked out great.
But Sylvia’s message is feminism can’t change nature, which is true. If feminism could change nature, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be all oiled up on the cover of Maxim.
Ladies, there’s no reason to panic though: it’s out of your control anyway. Either your cooter works, or it doesn’t.
My mom had me when she was 40, and this was back in the 70s when the only “fertility aid” was Harvey’s Bristle Cream. So, waiting is just a risk that I’m going to have to take.
And, I don’t think I could do fertility drugs, because, to me, 6 half-pound translucent babies is not a miracle! I’d rather adopt a baby. I don’t need a kid that looks like me. I was not a cute kid. I looked like a cross between that chick from the Indigo Girls… and the other chick from the Indigo Girls! Not a cute kid.
So who cares if you made Partner at the law firm, you finally got some tenure at the university, you just earned your bachelors degree, you bought your own home out of the city–did you have that baby you were supposed to have, because you’re still a female and hey–there’s fertility drugs to help out! And the woman over there/here can have a child or more if she wants to. Nothing wrong with that. But give me the crappy studio apartment in NYC, with the always irate landlord/lady, ridiculously high rent, mean neighbors who hate my dog, and the 9 to 5 job any time over children. That’s my life choice so prego-obsessers can go bother someone else about their ovaries. Or just stop guilt-tripping and nagging women about maternity all together. Let women make their own decisions on entering motherhood or not, without the guilt-trip and nagging–please. We’re not stupid, we can make our own decisions without the constant nagging from ovary-obsessed, rude people. And many of us do anyway. I’m sure there would be a lot more happier mothers out there if some didn’t feel as if everyone around them–via gentle words and subtle nagging–pushed them out of their careers and into motherhood, without giving a damn about how she felt. Many of these women wanted to be mothers anyway, but when everyone else wanted them to and not when the women wanted to? Whose going to have to go through pregnancy, labor, usually have most of the caregiving burden (though that’s changing thankfully), and of course sacrifice their career for awhile? And there are the women who ignore it, have children on their terms and a ‘huzzah’ for them. How do you do it?
/end of rant. Oh and Happy Friday.
I had a tubal ligation when I was 27 because my husband and I had decided we did not want to be parents (whichI thnk is not the same motivation as not wanting to have kids). I’ve never been the least bit sorry. And to all those people (e.g., my mother) who kept saying “but what if you’re wrong about having kids”, we would just say “better that than to have the kids and find out we were right.”
Pseudo-Adrienne: This really bugged the piss out of me before I had my daughter, and you know what? It still does. Being a woman over 25 in the Midwest and saying that you not only don’t have any children, but have no plans for them either, makes people look at you as if you’ve said, “…and in my spare time, I like to grill up filet of child.”
The flip side of this is, of course, that once you have that child, you don’t gain that aura of “legitimacy” that mothers supposedly have….no, you just segue into a “bad mama” stereotype if you don’t resemble June Cleaver (and who does?).
Just shows you how many battles we still have left to fight, ya know?
Y’know, thinking about body parts that aren’t being used….. we need more news items about the poor unused nipples on most men. One assumes, if one assumes such things, that the gods put them there for a purpose, so get to it! While we’re at it, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other anatomical parts that aren’t being used….
La Lubu is right! Right before we got married, I was appalled at number of so-called friends who were angry when I explained that we weren’t sure about having kids. I thought explaining that my husband is a cancer survivor would shut them up–hey, I’m glad he’s alive, so I’m not going to bitch about fertility problems–but they continued to look like I also “grill up filet of child.”
Now that we want to have kids, this talk is equally painful. It would be so much easier if people minded their own damn business. Instead we get comments like why haven’t you had a child yet? Don’t you like kids?
Argh!
I’m amazed at the pressure on females to have babies. I had no real interest in marriage and babies until I hit my early-mid 30’s (which shocked the shit outta me, to be honest). I thought the folks who were quick to pressure kids were in my parents’ generation, and thought the folks who grew up in the 50s/60s wouldn’t put the same pressure on their children. My cousin is 48, her older daughter is 24 (and not in a committed relationship). . .just last week my cousin’s ex husband told the daughter that he doesn’t want to wait too much longer for grandchildren. (My cousing and I both flipped when the daughter mentioned this at our Seder on Saturday – what the hell is worng with this man??!?)
Argh. I’m only 22, out of college a year and still unemployed, and people ask me when I’m going to settle down and have children. Why am I single? Don’t I like children? If I dare explain that I happen to prefer being single, and no, actually, I don’t like children… well, you’d think I’d just confessed to being the genetically-engineered love child of Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Then comes the “It’s different when it’s your child” comments. Yeah, maybe so. But if it isn’t, I don’t want to find out the hard way.
It doesn’t help, of course, that I know 6 or 7 people my age who are getting married within the next year, and two women younger than me who already have kids. Not to mention two brothers who are similarly disinclined, which makes my mother put extra pressure on me. It’s my job, after all, as I’m the sentient incubator.
Not that I’m bitter.
Now, I do like to grill up filet of child. Is this a bad thing?
Me, I prefer toddler ghanoush.
God, it’s too late in the week to even make a decent pun.
Can we just all pretend I got that right? Please?
piny: sure :)
Amanda: deep fried would be a bad thing, grilled is perfectly fine
I agree with AndiF and Suzanne about not wanting to find out the hard way that I’m not mommy-material. Children are not sweaters that we can return to the store if we decide we don’t want them after all.
A married woman I know found out that she was infertile. She (and her husband I presume) thought for a moment about fertility treatment – and then decided that she would do just fine without having children.
More people should resist the pressure to have children.
Is there anything more irritating than hearing people say “you should have a baby,”? “why haven’t you had a baby,”? “you’ll make a great mother,”? “have a baby already, sheesh,”? and/or “have more babies!”?
Yes. Hearing people say “Why did you have a baby?” or “Did you have to have so many babies?” or “There are already too many babies in the world,” which they generally do in earshot of your baby.
I notice that some people are saying, “We’ve had that said to us,” whereas Pseudo-A’s post spoke of women in particular. Men, by themselves, just don’t get asked that, except as part of a couple (“When are you guys . . . “). It’s particularly troubling when it comes from feminists: a feminist celebrity in her Seventies asked me and my wife, “Have you had children yet?” At that point, I was on the verge of making one of the unforgivable remarks mythago cites above. At least my wife and I are lucky in that our parents all think we are too immature to raise children and don’t ask us to.
You can’t imagine the shit my husband and I get–
We did want a baby, but rather than pump myself full of fertility drugs and spend thousands of dollars on in vitro, we just opted to adopt. Now, you would think that just having a baby would be good enough for the baby police, but no. Everyone was just tremendously appalled that we weren’t even going to try fertility treatments so we could get pregnant and have our “own” baby. We not only got this from annoying family members, but also from nurses, acquaintances, etc. When I tell these clods how much I love adoptive parenting, and how glad I am that I didn’t have to go through pregnancy, they all think that I am either a pathetically deluded liar or an unfeminine monster. And since our child is a different race than we are, even strangers who have no idea whether we tried fertility aids or not get to comment. If I had a nickel for every time a complete stranger asked me why I don’t have “real” children, I’d be rich enough to hire a great lawyer to defend me against the charges of the well- deserved assaults I’d like to make to these morons. : )
Oh…. and I almost forgot the icing on the cake:
I am the sole bread-winner of my family while my husband is a stay at home dad. Imagine the hell I get when I tell people that, no, this is not just a temporary arrangement, that I choose to work, and have no desire to stay home with our daughter. Again, I’m either a liar or a monster.
Someone did make the “you’re pregnant AGAIN?” comment to me when I was carrying my (gasp) second baby.
Along with women having the freedom to choose not to be mothers, or to postpone motherhood until after a career, I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to.
More flexible schedules and on-site day care in businesses and colleges. More support for telecommuting and job sharing. And less expectation for employees to work tons of overtime and take work home in order to get ahead professionally.
LAmom: from your keyboard to G-d’s eyes!
I don’t have children because I live alone and can afford to support myself only and save a little. There is no way I could buy an infant clothing and diapers let alone pay for its medical etc bills. So I just don’t have someone I can’t afford to support.Plus I do shift work which would make daycare difficult.
I’m 20 and I’ve been quite vocal about not wanting to get married/ have children. Yet, no one believes me. They all roll their eyes and pat me on the head and say “when you grow up you’ll feel different” blah blah blah. I’m pretty sure I’m already grown up, and my oppinion’s not gonna change.
Why does anyone feel they have a right to an opinion about anyone else’s choices in this area? Even before I considered myself a feminist, I would have considered such nosiness rude. Shut up, stupid people.
I do remember Miss Manners addressing such questions with this advice: when people ask you an inappropriate question such as this, you respond with a smile “Why do you need to know?” and just keep repeating it. They have no good reason to know, and if they offer a lame one, you can just say “Oh, that’s just not something we feel comfortable talking about!” and don’t cave.
What I find hard is when you’re not prepared for such rudeness; one person asked me if my pregnancy was “planned” which, if you think about it, is none of their damn business. I mean, what if it wasn’t, and I was scared shitless? Anyway, in my surprise at being asked I just blurted out “Yes” instead of sidestepping the question.
I want to see our society make it more convenient for women to pursue motherhood and their professional or educational goals simultaneously if they choose to
I’d like our society to make it more convenient for everyone to combine professional, educational and family life.
I can imagine, emma. I recommend the Icy Stare of Death.
You know, I get baby pressure from people, and I’m not even married. There have been a few times when people have gone off on me for having the gall to answer their rather inappropriate question (Do you want children?) honestly (No, I don’t.).
Not my parents, who don’t think it’s their business or anyone else’s. They’d be pleased as punch if I got married and had a kid if that’s what I wanted. As long as I’m happy and I’m living ethically, they’re happy for me.
Now, if only I could get some other people who aren’t even related to me to follow their example. . .
It’s very easy: don’t answer their questions.
I am a proud childless, husbandless concert flautist and want to remian so. There is nothing selfless about not wanting to have a child. Hell, there is just as much about having a baby that is selfish . I am a transsexual anyway, and I won’t have my uterus for long. It enrages me the lack of respect for women’s personal choices. Women are looked down upon a great deal more often for having an abortion than for have seven kids they can barely care for? *Vomits.*
Pro-choice, people, whatever that choice is. Love it and leae it be.
Lucio you’re 15, I sure as shit hope nobody has actually had the audacity to ask when you plan to have children!
Actually, I have had quite a few people ask me that, including my father when he is in a sentimental fervor, and needless to say, my nuclear family-obsessed peers. Of course, I just stick to my convictions that I have a different goal in life. And I’m lovin’ it! A major in flute and pipe organ, plus a large home all to myself with the occasional visitor.
Another kind of baby policing.
Agreed with everybody. I do think that the world could stand to be less populated; but from what I’ve read, that seems to have less to do with the people who choose to have a couple kids than it does with people who can’t get family planning services, or are pressured by their culture into not using them. And yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system. [What worries me is the possibility that it might never end: in 30 years, I might be 58 and postmenopausal, and getting constantly asked why I didn’t have children when I had the chance.]
I too get tired of being asked when I’m going to get married and reproduce, and of hearing the “it’s different when they’re yours” spiel [yeah, but is it different enough?] and the “you’ll regret it if you don’t” spiel [what if I DO and regret it? I can’t put it back]. On occasion, I’ve been asked if I don’t like children, and responded by asking the person if they owned a lion; upon hearing “no,” I’d ask them if they hated wildlife, the point being that not everybody that likes lions likes them enough to take care of one. Sometimes that works. If it doesn’t, I just tell them I can’t handle the noise, which is true, and leave it at that. Either they can deal with it or they can’t.
I’ve read people’s reasons for having children, and for not having children, and I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both. And those reasons weigh differently for everybody, so you can’t decide for somebody else what they should want, or presume to be able to predict–better than they can–how they’ll cope with parenthood.
Minor quibble:
I think there are plenty of selfish AND unselfish reasons for both.
What exactly are the “selfish” reasons to not have a child? In order to make this claim, you’d need to assume that there’s a person out there that would be disappointed if you didn’t give birth to it. You can’t be “selfish” unless you’re depriving someone of something, and seeing that the child you might have had does not exist, it’s logically impossible to be “selfish” in choosing not to have kids.
I suppose one could claim that a woman who decides not to have kids is depriving society of something, but that still assumes the existence of something that doesn’t exist–namely, the child you might have had who might have improved or contributed to (or destroyed, for that matter) the world.
I agree with pretty well everyone here!
I’ve always been pretty vocal about my aversion to motherhood, and I don’t know why people think this is one thing they are free to comment on.
Just this evening my 22 y.o. neighbour said to me ‘oh, in five years you’ll change your mind’. How would she know? If I said I was making any other type of life choice (where to live, career, etc) I wouldn’t get any of these comments.
As if motherhood or the biological clock is something women have to succumb to, regardless of what our personal choices might be.
“But give me the crappy studio apartment in NYC, . . . ridiculously high rent, . . . and the 9 to 5 job any time over children.”
Pseudo-Adrienne — if you don’t have children you can work 9-5 and afford an apartment in New York City? Damn where have I gone wrong? If I had known being childless can allow me to work 9-5 . . .
I have to go now. I have to get rid of my kids. I guess my wife will have to go also. Oh and anyone else for whom I have a responsibility. I can’t believe I fell for that crazy “duty to produce good citizens for the betterment of society” crap my mother, grandmother, and teachers told me about. I knew they were wrong. Dammit! I knew I should have just done what was be for me and f**K everyone else. I guess it is all for the best since I “procreated” with a mate of good genetic makeup :-)
(I hope no one takes this seriously — East Coast Cynicism).
[From Pseudo-Adrienne–I have no clue as to what you are trying to say. I have East Coast relatives by the way, so I know that particular brand of cynicism, but I have no idea as to what you are trying to say. Elaborate, please…]
IAnd yes, it’s VERY rude to stand there in front of somebody who’s just had a kid and say that there should be fewer babies. It’s also VERY rude to ask somebody what they plan to do with their reproductive system.
Sentence #2 is the same as sentence #1–telling somebody “you shouldn’t have kids” IS telling them what you think they should do with their reproductive system.
I think it’s possible that people say “Oh, you’ll change your mind” because it happens so often. This does not reduce the annoyance factor of someone saying it, of course, but it’s something to keep in mind. I’ve been a personal witness a few times to people doing a complete 180 about kids. So while I would never say “you might change your mind” to anyone directly, I have started thinking it.
People change their minds about things all the time in their life, both about having kids and deciding not to have kids.
Maybe the best answer to someone who says such a comment is “Perhaps you’re right, but there are plenty of women out there who’ve lived their lives and never regretted not having kids. I could easily be one of those women.”
Or, depending on the context, the best answer could be “mind your own beeswax”. :o)
I know someone who changed her mind about wanting kids when in her 40s (she fought her way into a tubal ligation in her early 20s). She still didn’t regret having had the operation, and she chose to adopt.
Leslie Stalh had a very insulting piece about silly young women who don’t have babies when they are young after Hewlett’s book came out. She had a panel of rich successful New Yorkers saying how they had all been duped by feminism into losing their fertile years at work. I was furious! And when I tried to stir up controvery about it at a family gathering, everyone agreed with Leslie Stahl-“these girls think they can just wait”, etc… It was crazy- they didn’t have kids because they weren’t ready, and they were foolish for not being ready? Huh? Women have always had children in their 30’s and 40’s, only it usually wasn’t their first. My husband’s mom had him at 45.
But childless people should cut the pro-fertile people some slack, and roll their eyes instead of being offended. They love their children, and want to spread the joy, and it is a joy, around. Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them. This coming from a mother of an only child ( talk about social disapproval!).
My paternal grandparents had my dad when they were in their forties, my maternal grandparents had one of my aunts in the forties as well. My mother has (or had) uncles who were younger than her,as my great grandmother was still having children when my grandmother married etc. They were RC and didn’t use contraceptives
I would like a baby now, but it would be selfish if I did,as my financial resources would not support one.
Modern paradox: the thoughtfullness that makes some people childless would also make them great parents.
Does anybody else feel suspicious whenever David Brooks and others talk about the dangers of falling fertility rates?
Elena,
I’d have to disagree with your paradox since I believe that our ideas about why we weren’t suited to be parents would quite right which means that we would have not made good parents. OTOH, we’ve often thought that if most people put the effort into thinking about being parents that we did, there would be no kids.
Re Brooks: I’m not all at suspicious, I’m certain that they are worried that white women won’t have enough babies and they will be outnumbered.
To all of you who are tired of being asked about having children, people will eventually stop because after you hit a certain age, they figure you don’t have kids because there is something wrong and they don’t want to be hurtful. Of course, this does not include your mother who will keep bringing it up until you hit menopause (apparently, in my case, believing that she could make my tubes grow back through the proper application of guilt. But I would just remind that she used to always tell me that “some day I would have kids of my own and then I’d be sorry”. So clearly this was all her fault).
Elena:
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”
There are those of us who do not wish to fertilize the earth with our spawn. And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
Humans are only DNA’s way of reproducing itself. Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive. Somehow, humans have internalized this molecular message.
Just tell that nagging bit of DNA to bugger off.
I have never wanted kids. I didn’t like kids when I was one. When I outgrew some toy or other and it was offered to a cousin for her smaller child, she said ‘oh, no, you should hang on to that for her kids.’ Little five-year-old me piped up something along the lines of ‘I’m not going to have kids, and anyway we can’t keep everything or we’ll not be able to get in the door.’
I’ve pretty much stopped getting asked, now, by people I know, but my mother gets it. ‘Got any grandchildren yet?’ She’s got so fed up with saying no and explaining to the ‘oh she’ll change’ people that she’s perfectly fine with me *not* sprogging and that she really doubts I will change my mind, that she’s started to tell them about the beautiful 2-year-old with her black hair and big brown eyes. She then pulls out a picture of my boyfriend’s rottie. It upsets them less than saying ‘well she might change her mind about jumping off tower bridge as well.’ Not by much, apparently.
Most of the people asking seem to think that working is something you do until you manage to breed and the state has to keep you. I encountered more than one young girl who thought having a kid would be *easier* than working on a supermarket checkout. I told her I was far too lazy to have a kid, five minutes after telling her about the week of 16 hour days I’d just done and she thought I was joking. 9 months later, she understood.
I will cut pro-fertility people some slack only when they stop making comments like “one hug from a three year old and all the worlds troubles go away, you’ll see, you just have to have one.”?
Eeeeugh! No, that is completely wrong. It is the opposite! Having children makes you much more unhappy about the state of the environment and the world, because we’re leaving it to them (and we all bear a minute amount of the responsibility for the world’s fucked-upness.)
But pseudo-Adrienne, you fall into a trap when you cite career and college as an argument for remaining childless. Note this isn’t an argument either way for having kids / not having them – but if you don’t have them in order to further your career or enable you to study, that is not a 21st century solution- that is the nineteenth century solution! Men don’t have to choose between having children (if they should want them) and having a career or getting a degree, and neither should women.
The sad think is that having a child doesn’t get you off the hook with the baby police. As soon as the baby is one people start asking you when you’re having a second. You can’t (gasp!) mean to have an only child! (Actually, yes, I do. My pregnancy was 9 months of nausea and fatigue and I don’t want to repeat it. The kid seems happy, I’m happy, my partner is happy, where’s the problem?)
You know, if this were really true, there wouldn’t be so many happy childless people out there. There wouldn’t have been so many happy childless people all through the ages, either.
I really don’t buy into the attempts to impose genetic/biological explanations on human behaviour (except for things like breathing, eating, sleeping etc.), because there is far, far too much variation in that behaviour to make them plausible.
Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, I have never not once heard my biological clock ticking or had an uncontrollable urge (or even controllable, really) to get myself impregnated. Never. If I had some sort of genetic coding driving me towards reproduction, wouldn’t I have had at least a few twinges? Like, lots of them instead of, well………none?
Nahhhh, I just do not buy it.
Thus, from DNA’s perspective, if you aren’t reproducing, then you don’t deserve to be alive.
DNA is a molecule. It doesn’t have a ‘perspective.’ From the standpoint of evolution, your siblings share your genes, so if you’re helping your nieces and nephews it’s all good. In fact, it may be better.
And there are those of us who wish others would stop fertlizing the earth with *their* spawn.
And then there are those of us who are happy to let you decide whether or not you wish to spawn, but would prefer that you were happy in your choice without sneering at everyone else’s. As Elena said, “Privacy and decisions should be respected, but people are sometimes rude for what seems like happy reasons to them.”
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind” is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
By the way, why is everyone talking about getting into extended discussions about whether you will or won’t want kids? Anyone who tries to argue your choices is being an ass.
Yes, but if someone’s harassed, daily, about having children, sooner or later they’ll have a long conversation about it.
Does the “selfish gene” argument remind anyone else of what Marx said about commodity fetishism? That is, talking about the decisions of actual people as if they were the decisions of non-sentient or abstract entities?
Does anybody else feel suspicious whenever David Brooks and others talk about the dangers of falling fertility rates?
Elena: you bet your sweet ass I do! I’ve debated “Pro-lifers” who keep pointing this out and am perplexed by the implication that having more babies will, indeed, save this country. It was a faulty argument when it was used in Romania and it’s equally erroneous now.
One reason I suspect people say “you’ll change your mind”? is that (to be fair, because of all the pressure) people often disclaim that pressure in absolutes: I will NEVER want kids, I will NEVER get married, I would NEVER have that kind of a job. And of course, people do change, and it’s hard to predict whether you will NEVER want or do something.
Mythago – I agree wholeheartedly. I (truly) had no interest in marriage and babies. It’s not that I didn’t like children, it was that I fully planned on being married to the lab and feared that I would not be a good parent. When I first started having thyroid problems as an adolescent, my doctor ruled out exposure to radiation because it could lead to significant fertility issues and he was sure that, since I was 13, I would change my mind about wanting to have children (he completely ignored my assertion that if I did change my mind about having children, I’d adopt – 25 years later I still don’t understand some people’s need to have a biological connection to hteir child). This being said, I was careful about my terminology even back then . . .it wasn’t never, it was I don’t expect/plan, I can’t imagine, I doubt I’ll change my mind, etc. When I got pregnant at 19 and was considering my options I came to the realization that I would be willing to re-consider parenthood if I was in a stable, loving relationship conducive to raising a child in a warm, nurturing environment. I’m still single, therefor still childless (unless psycho the wonder puppy & barfo the cat count as children). I don’t rule out single parenthood completely, I’d just limit it to adopting a child that doesn’t seem to have the option of what I’d consider a more ideal environment. Sadly, it’s taken my family ages to understand and respect that.
Yes, but if someone’s harassed, daily, about having children, sooner or later they’ll have a long conversation about it.
Preferably with the idjits doing the harassing.
Brooks’s spew isn’t novel. Anyone else remember The Birth Dearth?
I think another related issue to this one is the people who do NOT have children but feel they have the right to involve themselves in issues regarding children…that’s never discussed much…
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
For instance, I know many men and women who chose NOT to have children themselves, yet have non-stop opinions on laws and public policies that will affect the rest of us who have chosen to take the leap of faith and have children ourselves…
So that’s the flip side of this issue…
I mean you should have a stake in the game before you give yourself the right to make judgements on other people and their children.
You don’t need to be a parent to care about children. Even if you don’t have nieces and/or nephews, and even if your friends and neighbors don’t have children, and even if you don’t work in a field that affects children, you can still be concerned about them. In fact, parents may be too close to their children to really understand what’s good for them; it may take an objective outsider’s perspective to make sure they get what they need. (I don’t really believe that, but it’s the parallel argument.)
Besides, if we limited (valid) opinions only to experts, well, we might as well dismantle our society. Most people vote without knowing much, if anything, about their party’s platform and legislative history and what real impact their agendas will have on their lives.
Also, we as a culture tend to criticize people who think, “Well, this issue doesn’t affect me, so I won’t bother getting involved in it.” Lots of things that affect children affect a society as a whole–early childhood education and health care for kids are the ones that have been getting the most attention lately. It’s actually irresponsible to dismiss these concerns just because you don’t have children.
I understand what NYMOM was getting at, though I do have to agree with Hestia that we shouldn’t take the attitude that only those things that concern us personally should interest us.
I do think there are a lot of people who are childless by choice because they *dislike* children, and then feel they shouldn’t have to pay for public schools or other services that benefit children and parents. Or who are constantly criticising parents when they have no idea what caring for a child is like. That I find wrong.
But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children–and people who are parents–should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way.
“But I don’t find it wrong that someone like me, who is childless by choice, but who has a lot of respect for children”“and people who are parents”“should be interested in how children are treated in our society. It may not affect me directly, but it does affect me in some way. ”
But then people can say the same thing about a women’s decision NOT to have children…It doesn’t affect them directly but it affects us ALL in some way. For instance, fewer people paying into the social security system for a pension (which they are now estimating might require 9 McJobbers paying taxes in the future for ONE decent pension)…
I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????
Fewer nurses, police, firemen, etc., are all repercussions of these private choices.
Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…
I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…
This is what leads to men having an unfair advantage since they speak for their own gender neutralized interest and then have many women, who have opted out of childbearing, speaking for their interest too…
Sorry, but THAT should NOT be allowed…
NYMOM,
I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge. I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant, I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black, I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc. Apparently I will have to limit my concerns to those that directly involve short, post-menopausal Jewish women who live in Indiana.
Well, I think not. However, I would agree — if this is what you are getting at — that the opinions and ideas of those who are directly affected by an issue have more value and authenticity than those of individuals who are not.
NYMOM: “I mean why should my two daughters and granddaughter have to pay extra for someone else’s pension; when that person chose not to have any kids and spent their money on new clothes, nice vacations and condos that I could not afford since I was raising the future citizen/taxpayers who were going to pay for these things, like retirements or nursing home/medical care, etc.????”
*****
most of the people i know who do not have children do not live in this life of luxury that you imagine. i don’t have children #1 because i don’t want them and #2 because i have a parent to support. it’s not ALL tropical vacations and convertible BMWs for those of us without children. i actually live paycheck to paycheck and supporting a child would throw us both out on the street.
NYMOM: “Plus I personally find it outrageous that so many policy makers, judges, professors, etc., are NOT mothers, but feminists who have already decided they do NOT want any children, yet feel it is okay to make public policies and laws negatively affecting other women who are mothers…”
******
i don’t know of ANY feminists who support laws that harm women and their children. in fact, i would think that’s the exact OPPOSITE of what feminists support.
NYMOM: “I think that if you have decided to remove yourself from the game and have no stake in the ultimately outcome, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in the process that will impact other women and their children…”
*****
actually, i think EVERYONE has a stake in the ultimate outcome of children. i choose not to have children of my own but i still have a stake in how other children turnout because they will eventually be the adults running the show. therefore we ALL have a stake in making sure that other people’s children are taken care of, fed, housed, educated, nutured, respected, etc.
it’s not like all people who don’t have kids wish the worst for everyone elses. in fact, it seems to me that the majority of people making policies that negatively affect women and children are those people who DO have children and don’t feel like they should have to sacrifice their own children’s abundance to share with those less fortunate.
(just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too.)
xoxo, jared
“I am absolutely dumfounded by your statement and can only hope that you really don’t mean it quite the way it is coming out. Following your principle, the number of things I am not allowed to care about is huge.
I can’t be concerned about abortion rights because I can’t get pregnant”
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
“I can’t be upset about racism because I’m not black”
Again, you can care but surely you would agree with most African-Americans who want to be the final decision-makers on their own programs and communities…
“I can’t care about the quality of education in America because I don’t have kids, etc.”
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
NYMOM wrote:
By this logic, I, a childless persyn, should not have to pay higher property taxes* everytime teachers need to buy pencils. As a matter of fact, all taxes should be individualized so I don’t have to pay taxes for any services I don’t use. Itemizing *everyone’s* taxes, that’ll fix the problem! /sarcasm
Nio
*In NH, where I live, school funding comes from property taxes. Towns such as Hollis, NH, where the cheapest house is $300,000 and property taxes are incredibly high, have fantastic school systems. Funding from this source creates a disparagy (sp?) in education. But, hey, I don’t need to worry about that, I don’t have kids! /sarcasm
“…just my 2 cents coz it’s annoying when those of us who are childless are painted as cruel and heartless too…”
Not at all…I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
Why should we live and be judged by women who have chosen to be childfree…Yet have no problem forcing other women to place our kids in all kinds of gender-neutralized custody arrangements, MANY of them approved and implemented by feminists and MRAs supporters…
As, you must admit, that feminists are the authors of our current gender netural custody laws and thus the ‘mothers’ of the fathers rights movement…
Chosing not to have children yourselves ,you should NOT be leaving other mothers to labor under the burden you’ve place on us by your ideas on children…
That’s all I’m saying, it works BOTH ways…
No, people should NOT be pressuring women who wish to be childfree to have children, that is wrong. But the flip side of that is you should forfeit your rights to force those of us who DO chose to be mothers to follow your gender neutralized ideas about motherhood…
However, I do NOT think you are cruel or heartless if you chose NOT to be a mother…it’s your decision and should be respected…
NYMom, I don’t care if someone has children. I’ve followed this discussion mostly just to see how people assess this issue in their own lives. I’ve seen women change their minds, and I’ve seen women stay the course with decisions they made early in life not to be parents.
But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children.
I am a mother and I can’t sit here and say that I am the better parent or that I would deserve primary let alone sole custody of my daughters. Not all fathers can say this, but my husband more than stepped up to the plate to share equal parenting duty. How will men ever be encouraged to become stronger parents if they are legally presumed to be inferior?
But women who choose not to have children–particularly the career women you keep referring to–sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them? If you as a mom decide to quit your job because it’s perfectly legal for your employer make your job unbearable, would you then lose the right to complain about the laws?
And this is just plain inaccurate. Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. Blaming feminists for them is like blaming NARAL for Operation Rescue. And no feminist has ever said that women should be treated as though their circumstances were in all respects equal to men’s. If that were true, EC and abortion wouldn’t be feminist issues, because feminists would be incapable of recognizing the unique impact of both on women’s lives. They wouldn’t even be able to recognize the problem of sexism overall, since the impact of misogyny is nothing if not disparate. Nor do any of the feminists here seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that parenting carries the same social meaning for women as for men.
I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any. Feminists support women’s choices regardless of whether they’re mothers or not. I think you’re speaking from a stereotype that simply isn’t true.
I respect your decision not to have children but you have to understand that should, by rights, limit your input into the rights and decisions other women make who chose to have children…
I wholly disagree. You’re suggesting that even though I support public schools and parental leave and tax credits for dependents, you’d dismiss my opinion if my neighbor, who’s a mother, opposes all these things. You’re also implying that, for example, people who aren’t actually involved in politics (including you, I assume) shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Right?
I believe, on the other hand, that an individual’s personal life is basically a moot point (until you get to hypocrisy, but that’s something else). What matters is the argument itself and the issue in question. There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.
(For the record, I don’t have kids but I work in the field of early childhood education.)
Never wanted children. Never regretted not having them. I’m glad other women want them and have them, but that’s their choice. That’s what fminism is about: choices that are right for the individual, and not imposed by outsiders.
however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch.
The U.S. in general has a nosey culture. I guess the Europeans are right when they say we are square! In one corner, we have the people who think they are the center of the universe and therefore everything they think and do needs to be broadcast to the masses. In Corner #2, we have the people who think they are entitled to know everything about anyone they decide to be interested in. In Corner #3, we have the people who fiercely protect their privacy. And in Corner #4, we have the people who try to keep from knowing too much about those around them. At one time or another, most people live in each of these corners. The conflicts arise when people from opposite corners try to interact.
I tend to live in corner #4 most of the time, with visits to #3 as necessary. Maybe I’m sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t really want to know what The Runaway Bride has to say, or what form of sexual gratification my neighbor prefers. So even though I’m occasionally curious about when or if I’ll be an aunt, I wouldn’t dream of asking my siblings or their partners about their baby status is. This decision should be theirs alone, and so what if they keep it to themselves.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter to people living in corners #1 and #2 what life stage you’re in – they have an opinion they want to “share” with you (which of course means you have to agree with them, which gives them positive strokes and a pleasant feeling of superiority because they’ve enlightened you). If you’re a teenager, you have to know what you want to do when you grow up. When you’re in your twenties, you have to settle down with someone. If you haven’t had kids by the time you’re in your thirties, then you hear all about how you have to have babies. (One thing I find sad and amusing at the same time is how some parents are so desperate for grandchildren that they don’t actually seem to care how many parents the poor things will have.) If you actually do get pregnant, then you hear about childbirth; once the baby actually appears on the scene, then you hear about how it should be brought up. And so on.
I agree that women should be able to build a career independent of her childbearing choices. I also think that men should be able to fold family obligations in their worklives. It’s just as condescending and discriminatory to tell a woman she has to cut back at work or quit her job when she has kids as it is to tell a man he can’t take time off from work to take care of his children. I also think it’s discriminatory to expect someone to work overtime or handle the high-maintenance projects at work just because they have no children. People should be able to do their jobs independently of their home lives but also with consideration for whatever their home lives happen to be. And it shouldn’t be anybody’s business what your choices are, unless you’ve filled out your tax forms wrong, of course. :)
On the public policy level, obviously what we decide impacts society as a whole. If I decide to reproduce and am successful, I have added another human being to the pool, for good or for ill. If I don’t have children, then that affects the future of the pool as well. Ms. Jared is right that we all have a stake in what happens to the children. But children aren’t sacred objects – they are human beings. We shouldn’t idolize babies and children to the point where the whole culture is obsessed with making life perfect for them; that’s impossible. And being a parent shouldn’t entitle us to High Priest(ess) status, either. We should just do our best to make the world a better place for everyone, and the rest will follow.
“But you’re grinding your axe against the wrong kind of stone. Gender neutral custody arrangements are not being foisted on the world by child free women. Please. As one who has done research in this area, I can tell you that gender neutral custody arrangements are all but required by notions of equality between the sexes, and are pushed most often by fathers, not women who don’t have children, who, I imagine have other things on their mind. Yes, feminists do generally support such measures, but most feminists actually do have children. ”
No…if you look back on early feminists writing, you’ll see that gender neutral treatment of men and women vis-a-vis children has been around long before our legal system began treating mothers and fathers exactly the same…and feminists were the first ones to push the idea…
“But women who choose not to have children”“particularly the career women you keep referring to”“sometimes choose that way because their options are limited by laws hostile to motherhood. Why should they not be able to influence policy decisions that might make motherhood possible for them or women like them?”
Well we were discussing women who has decided not to have children more or less permanently as I understood the discussion…not ones who had delayed to get laws changed…
“Father’s rights people, aka anti-feminists, do not believe in neutral custody laws, for one thing. Father’s rights movements are part of an anti-feminist backlash. ”
No…fathers rights advocates are strong supporters of gender neutral custody as are feminists. The Fathers right movement is NOT part of the anti-feminist backlash (not on the surface anyway) but the logical conclusion to feminists pushing for gender neutral treatment of mothers and fathers…
NYMOM,
You can care about it but surely you must admit your imput into the decision-making process should be limited precisely because you can’t get pregnant. You cannot and should not be the final authority on abortion, that should be limited to the people who CAN GET PREGNANT…
Again their parents are and should be the fnal decision-makers in this area as well…
Of course, I have no right to say anything about other people’s decisions about their kids or their pregnancies but that’s true whether or not I have kids or can get pregnant. But no, I don’t see that being able to get pregnant makes anyone the final authority on abortion rights — she is only the final authority on whether she has an abortion or not. And no, I don’t being a parent makes you the final authority on education; I think it makes you the final authority on the education of your children.
Just as you do NOT want people making either comments or decisions regarding your life choices, we would like the same respect…
Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ]
“I’d like to hear, NYMOM, more about the ways in which you think feminists oppose mother/parenthood. I really don’t think there are any.”
No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…
Feminists must accept responsible for this, on every level, even giving intellectual support to the fathers’ rights movement as well as actual support through female judges, attorney and other public policy makers who have assisted men in this area…
As I said earlier, feminists are the mothers of the fathers’ rights movement….they spawned it by their rhetoric…it’s not a backlash at all but a logical outgrowth of feminist rhetoric…
“…however, in the fate-loves-a-jest category, now I’m in a relationship where I am functionally a step-parent to a coupla surly teenagers. ouch…”
Yes, bonding with teenagers as infants makes raising them later, tolerable…I can’t imagine interacting with a surly teenager without the early memories of mellow babyhood to tide you over…
“Hey, comment away; I’m a big girl and I can take it (if my mother can’t scare me, nobody can). Though I don’t think I made any comments about your choices and I can’t imagine why I would. Nor I did I see anybody in this thread making comments against women with children. [Okay I have made a couple of remarks about my mother but, trust me, she can take it, too. :) ] ”
No…I thought the point of the thread was women who chose to remain childless being annoyed that others felt they had the right to comment on their decision…and I agreed with them, no one had the right to make a comment on another women’s decision to remain childless…
I was just curiously as to why so many professional women, who chose NOT to have children think it’s okay to be so intimately involved with the lives of mothers and their children…making public policies, laws, etc., writing columns, etc., when they chose to NOT take the leap of faith to have children themselves…
It works both ways was my point…
Also with fathers…one of the most popular fathers rights advocates has no children himself (Angry Harry) yet he’s constantly telling other men who are fathers about how they should live their lives…
I kind of think it’s the sort of thing you need to experience first before giving advice to others on this aspect of life.
“There are a wide variety of opinions regarding the raising and care of children among both mothers and women who don’t have children. In some cases you’ll agree with a mother; in another you might agree with a childless woman. It has nothing to do with these categories in and of themselves.”
I missed this…
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
Sorry…
“No…most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children, even the US census shows that previously well over 90% of mother had custody of their children, this has now fallen to between 67 and 70%…and fathers getting custody of children from mothers is growing by leaps and bounds, so it will grow even more causing more mothers and children to be separated…”
NYMOM: Divorce causes parents to be separated from their children. You give no chronology for your statistics, you give no source (other than unspecified US Census data) but even if it is true, I am trying to understand why I or anyone should accept your apparent presumption that the mother child bond is more important than the father child bond. Early feminists did agree that gender neutral custody arrangements were appropriate, however, more than one state law imposing a presumption in favor of the mother was overturned by state courts on their own in keeping with the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. And if a child free woman is a teacher (like my sister) can she still have a say in policies affecting children? What about aunts and and other assorted friends and relatives?
“And what the heck this has to do with child free women is still beyond me. ”
That many of the women making these decisions like Judge Arlene Goldberg (of Bridget Marks’ fame) for instance, are feminists who never married or had any children…probably Goldberg’s best friend is her cat. Thus I feel women like this should have NO right to participate in decisions that impact mothers or their children…
I don’t consider it just a ‘legalism’ as you appear to paint it when this happens…but a sundering of the most important bond any child has or probably will ever have, the mother/child one…
Feminist support of gender neutral custody under this ‘equal protection’ clause is wholly responsible for these developments in western civilization….Even the language of ‘equal protection’ serves as a smoke screen really to obscure what is really happening….That many feminist women, who have nothing at stake as they have chosen NOT to have children themselves, persist in making and enforcing public policy that supports a vast gender-neutral social-engineering experiement, which has been foisted off on mothers and their children.
So my initial point is that if you haven’t invested anything in motherhood, you should NOT be allowed to impose any of the rules on others women who have… you have no rights in this area…I don’t care how many degrees you have been awarded…
most feminists by their support of gender neutral custody have caused millions of mothers to be separated from their children
You keep saying this, but provide absolutely no evidence that it’s true. Since everything I’ve heard is to the contrary, I can’t believe this unless you give some real, contemporary (versus “early feminism”) examples.
You don’t seem to understand that feminism isn’t about supporting all women all the time, regardless of the situation. If that’s what you think it is, then of any time a woman opposes another women you’re going to blame feminists. That’s unfair and plain wrong.
I don’t buy the “MRA derived from feminism” argument. Just because it was created in response to feminism does not mean that feminism is to blame for MRA’s actions. Are you responsible for every decision your (adult) children make?
Just like very other advocacy group you should have input but the critical decision-making regarding children should belong to the women who actually made the investment in motherhood…not the ones who just do it as a career opportunity.
Despite what you think, I did not take a low-paying job in the non-profit sector to further my “career.” I actually want to help people. Why are you trying to alienate someone who’s on your side?
You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers.
Hmmm, an interesting possibility just occurred to me: why is it that NYMOM thinks child free women have no right to make decisions that affect mothers but hasn’t said anything about men, child free or otherwise making such decisions? Most judges were and still are men. Were literally none of them involved in this miscarriage of justice and wholesale evisceration of the sacred mother child bond? (And where is that explanation of why the mother child bond is so much more important than the father child bond?) No, it’s the fault of a female judges (only one of whom is named) — who not only didn’t have children, but apparently had no concept of the most important social relationship in the history of mankind (what an irony that is): the mother child bond — what, did they have no mothers either?
“You’re blaming women who don’t have children and feminists for problems they didn’t create, don’t support, and aren’t enforcing. But I guess if you see it that way, you won’t mind my holding you personally responsible for the destruction of the environment, not only now but in the past and future as well. By having children, you’re creating consumers, and they’re breathing my air and eating my food and poluting my rivers. ”
You’re right and many of my neighbors DO make this argument and I have no rebuttal…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…and just because I decided to ignore them and have children anyway doesn’t make their entire argument invalid…
OR mine…
“…many of them feel ANYONE in western society should have children as one of our kids uses like 30 times what a kid in another society uses in the way of resources…”
I mean to say many of them feel NO ONE in western society should have children…
Typo…
NYMOM, you should be grateful to all of those pioneering feminists (male and female) who gave you any rights at all with respect to your children. The mother child bond has not been sacred throughout history, in fact, it barely gained a nod of acknowledgement through the course of time.
From that bastion of radical female judges, the Alabama Supreme Court (most citations are omitted.)
At common law, it was the father rather than the mother who held a virtual absolute right to the custody of their minor children. n1 This rule of law was fostered, in part, by feudalistic notions concerning the “natural” responsibilities of the husband at common law. The husband was considered the head or master of his family, and, as such, responsible for the care, maintenance, education and religious training of his children. By virtue of these responsibilities, the husband was given a corresponding entitlement to the benefits of his children, [**7] i.e., their services and association. It is interesting to note that in many instances these rights and privileges were considered dependent upon the recognized laws of nature and in accordance with the presumption that the father could best provide for the necessities of his children
* * *
By contrast, the wife was without any rights to the care and custody of her minor children. By marriage, husband and wife became one person with the legal identity of the woman being totally merged with that of her husband. As a result, her rights were often subordinated to those of her husband and she was laden with numerous marital disabilities. As far as any custodial rights were concerned, Blackstone stated [*689] the law to be that the mother was “entitled to no power [over her children], but only to reverence and respect.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 453 (Tucker ed. 1803).
By the middle of the 19th century, the courts of England began to question and qualify the paternal preference rule. This was due, in part, to the “hardships, not to say cruelty, inflicted upon unoffending mothers by a state of law which took little account of their claims or feelings.” W. Forsyth, A Treatise on the Law Relating to the Custody of Infants in Cases of Difference Between Parents or Guardians 66 (1850).
[There follows a discussion of the evolution of the tender years presumption beginning in the mid-19th century, and its continued viability in 1981, at the time of the decision.]
It is safe to say that the courts of this state, like the courts of sister states, have come full circle in resolving the difficult questions[**20] surrounding child custody. At common law, courts spoke of the natural rights of the father. Now they speak of the instinctive role of the mother.
The question we are confronted with is not dissimilar to the question confronting the English courts over 150 years ago: Is it proper to deny a parent the custody of his or her children on the basis of a presumption concerning the relative parental suitability of the parties? More specifically, can the tender years presumption withstand judicial scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as construed in recent decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States?
* * *
In Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 59 L. Ed. 2d 306, 99 S. Ct. 1102 (1979), the United States Supreme[**21] Court held that any statutory scheme which imposes obligations on husbands, but not on wives, establishes a classification based upon sex which is subject to scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. The same must also be true for a legal presumption which imposes evidentiary burdens on fathers, but not on mothers. The fact that the presumption discriminates against men rather than women does not protect it from judicial scrutiny. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 50 L. Ed. 2d 397, 97 S. Ct. 451 (1976).
* * *
Having reviewed the historical development of the presumption as well as its modern status, and having examined the presumption in view of the holdings in Reed, Frontiero, Orr and Caban, we conclude that the tender years presumption represents an unconstitutional gender-based classification which discriminates between fathers and mothers in child custody proceedings solely on the basis of sex.
* * *
Admittedly, the State has a significant interest in overseeing the care and custody of infants. In fulfilling this responsibility in child custody proceedings, the courts of this state, in custody determinations, have applied the “best interests of the child” rule. n8 Brill v. Johnson, 293 Ala. 435, 304 So. 2d 595 (1974); Carter v. Harbin, 279 Ala. 237, 184 So. 2d 145 (1966). We are convinced that the tender years presumption rejects the fundamental proposition asserted in Caban that “maternal and paternal roles are not invariably different in importance.” Caban, supra at 441[**35] U.S. 389. Even if mothers as a class were closer than fathers to young children, this presumption concerning parent-child relations becomes less acceptable as a basis for judicial distinctions as the age of the child increases. Id. Courts have come to rely upon the presumption as a substitute for a searching factual analysis of the relative parental capabilities of the parties, and the psychological and physical necessities of the children. The presumption has thus become what one writer refers to as an “anodyne” for the difficult decisions confronting the court.
You might also note that when this decision was issued, in 1981, only one other court in the entire country had determined that the “tender years presumption” violated the U.S. Constitution. About half the states had abolished it via statute, or as a result of the state’s own constitution. It is simply false to say that female judges, child free or not, were the primary instrument of change to laws governing divorce and custody.
“Hmmm, an interesting possibility just occurred to me: why is it that NYMOM thinks child free women have no right to make decisions that affect mothers but hasn’t said anything about men, child free or otherwise making such decisions? Most judges were and still are men. Were literally none of them involved in this miscarriage of justice and wholesale evisceration of the sacred mother child bond? (And where is that explanation of why the mother child bond is so much more important than the father child bond?) No, it’s the fault of a female judges (only one of whom is named) … who not only didn’t have children, but apparently had no concept of the most important social relationship in the history of mankind (what an irony that is): the mother child bond … what, did they have no mothers either?”
Well, I didn’t mention men as we weren’t talking about single men being pressured to have children but women, who were complaining about others who chose to get involved in their personal choice on whether or not to remain childless…but if I have to be honest the patriarchs on the bench (the ones feminists wanted to be chased off so we could replace them with women who were supposed going to be fairer to us) well those patriarchs have proven to be more supportive of mothers then other women once they get into positions of power…
“And where is that explanation of why the mother child bond is so much more important than the father child bond?”
There is no father child bond…
There never has been one.
Fatherhood, unlike motherhood is entirely a social construct and is whatever the surrounding society paints it as, nothing more, nothing less…
For older children and fathers, a bond exists, of course, built up over time and everyday interaction and affection. I would never deny it…but that’s not what I’m talking about right now…I’m talking about young children, even infants, being deprived of their mothers and these children maybe never seeing their mothers again, due to her lost of custody…and why…so some gender neutralized female social engineer can prove a point to herself of how everyone is exactly the same, there are no differences worthy of note in this situation. Or worse, to mine the reactions of these people to submit a paper to some psychological journal, talking about how women are neurotically engaged with their children. I consider these ‘professionals’ to be nothing more then parasites really, feeding off the misery of some poor woman who just lost her kids, so they can earn some research money from writing about her situation…
AND btw, there’s thousands of other professional women just like Arlene Goldberg, she’s just the first that came to mind…she’s a good example, however, of an entire generation of feminists who have managed to securely insulate themselves from life and thus feel safe from the misery they encourage to be inflicted daily on other women…
“You might also note that when this decision was issued, in 1981, only one other court in the entire country had determined that the “tender years presumption”? violated the U.S. Constitution. About half the states had abolished it via statute, or as a result of the state’s own constitution. It is simply false to say that female judges, child free or not, were the primary instrument of change to laws governing divorce and custody. ”
BTW, I wouldn’t care if GOD the father came down and pronounced as the 11 th commandment that a mothers’ right to her children violated the constitution…I wouldn’t care…it would still be wrong…just to let you know my opinion on the constitutional claims for this…
I’ve lived long enough to know that tomorrow or next month, year, whatever we’ll get a whole new Supreme Court and everything that was a God given right today will be turned on it’s ear tomorrow…
Just to let you know that constitutional rights bs means NOTHIING to me…
AND I never said it was ONLY female judges, lawyers and other professionals who were responsible for so many mothers losing custody of their children, but I did say feminists were historically responsible for the premise behind gender neutral custody, that there were no basic differences in the physical, psychological or emotional lives of women and men…that everything about us was just a culturally imposed norm… that is feminist doctrine…though and though…feminism invented that…not fathers rights advocates…although they did lift it from the feminist playbook for their own purposes…
“NYMOM, you should be grateful to all of those pioneering feminists (male and female) who gave you any rights at all with respect to your children. The mother child bond has not been sacred throughout history, in fact, it barely gained a nod of acknowledgement through the course of time. ”
…the wife was without any rights to the care and custody of her minor children. By marriage, husband and wife became one person with the legal identity of the woman being totally merged with that of her husband. As a result, her rights were often subordinated to those of her husband and she was laden with numerous marital disabilities. As far as any custodial rights were concerned, Blackstone stated [*689] the law to be that the mother was “entitled to no power [over her children], but only to reverence and respect.”? 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England 453 (Tucker ed. 1803).
Everything you just said is a distortion of our history…and applies to the small propertied class who had anything of value to be merged as you call it…
Feminists and fathers rights advocates have been pushing this bullcrap theory of history since the 80s when child support enforcement suddenly became an issue and everyone and his grandmother wanted ‘custody’ all of a sudden…since that designated who paid child support to which parent…
This is the exact premise every single fathers’ rights advocates uses…like mothers never raised our kids, it was a gift given to us by men and/or feminists…Please…you cannot use the rare example of divorce for a small group of women who had children who were worth something to reflect most of us who were worth little or nothing, married or divorced… and then extrapolate from that minscule group of divorced women to say that no mother ever had custody of her children…
Mothers who divorced were as rare as hens teeth. I think it would be safe to say that custody was not an issue until recently as I was never in any formal legal custody when I was a child (1950s), nor was my older daughter ever in custody (1970s) same thing…
My youngest, however, was legally in my custody since by the time she was born in the 80s every kid HAD to be in some sort of custody since mothers no longer automatically had the rights we’ve had for thousands of years…as in every society MOST mothers raised their own children, even today…it’s a small propertied class that has all these rules you refer to…
So what does your small group of divorce women say about the millions of other mothers. NOTHING…
This is nonsense claiming that mother never had legal ‘custody’ and thus implying that we never raised our children. Most children were in no form of custody unless they had an inheritance or an estate of some kind…so then a conservatorship of sorts (which you can see an echo of in Texas’s name for a custodial parents, conservator) was assigned through the court.
So this is feminist bullcrap that you ‘gave’ women rights to our children…when children were worth nothing, except to their mothers, women always raised their own children…you gave us nothing we didn’t already have…Actually you took away the presumption from us that we would always have rights to our own children without going to court, it was always a mothers’ right unless she was unfit…
NOW, every mother has to prove herself perfect in a court of law in order to be entitled to her children…that’s what feminists gave mothers…a big expensive, stressful pain in the rear.
NYMOM, you have said in the past that at one time you were a stay-at-home mom. Do you feel that mothers who do not work outside the home should have no say and no vote on issues involving employment discrimination against women? Or on issues involving anything that could be considered of substantial interest to employed women, such as family leave benefits, health insurance for their children, etc.? Because my feeling is that if you were to take that position, “yep! it’s none of my business, I’m not employed!” you would be contributing to your own oppression, and the oppression of other women.
Some of the women who are childless will never change their mind. Some of them will. Some of them are childless for medical reasons. Some of them are childless by circumstance. Doesn’t matter. They still live in this world, and if this world is a hostile place for children and their mothers, that will affect them too (provided they don’t live isolated in some remote cave somewhere).
I’m a mother. I’ve got a dog in this fight. However, I don’t think my opinion on our educational system, family leave, access to health care, environmental policy or anything else related to the raising of children is any more relevant now that I have a child, than before I had a child. I still wanted to see the types of laws and social policy enacted that benefit children, the same way I want to see laws and social policy enacted that benefit the elderly even though I’m not old yet! Assuming that because a person doesn’t have children, that they don’t give a damn about children is ludicrous. Hell, there’s plenty of people who’ve had many children, yet don’t give a damn about their own, let alone children as a class.
I also think it’s ridiculous to hold female judges who haven’t given birth up to a higher standard, or higher level of criticism, than male judges, none of whom have ever given birth.
What LaLubu said.
NYMOM, you are entitled to your opinions, but those who make custody decisions have to apply the law, whether you find it appealing or not. Your views on motherhood clearly do not jibe with mine, and I’m a mother too. There is lots of unfairness in world of custody disputes, where judges have to play Solomon every day, but none of it serves as a justification for accusing those women who aren’t mothers of being so lacking in empathy and so full of spite or bias that they should have no say in what happens in custody decisions (unless it’s to award custody to mothers). To look at the evolution of custody law over the last 30 years and come out gunning for female judges without their own children brings to my mind the late medieval European world, when young mothers were the most frequent accusers of older women of witchcraft. Wherever it is in the world, however it comes about, there are some people who cannot but blame social upheaval and distress on women, and usually, women with any degree of status or power.
“To look at the evolution of custody law over the last 30 years and come out gunning for female judges without their own children brings to my mind the late medieval European world, when young mothers were the most frequent accusers of older women of witchcraft. Wherever it is in the world, however it comes about, there are some people who cannot but blame social upheaval and distress on women, and usually, women with any degree of status or power. ”
Well unfortunately it’s general female Judges behind MOST of the more spite-ridden decisions…Glenn Sacks said it himself regarding the Bridget Marks’ case…so it’s not just ‘witchcraft’ as you put it, I mean let’s just turn on our TV sets to see how that crazy Judge Judy treats most young women who come in front of her…picture her in family court (where she spent many years working here in NY) and you have a picture of what many women here experience when they enter a courtroom. The NY Chapter of NOW has come out against New York changing its fault laws on divorce, btw, for precisely that reason because of the bias women face in the NY courts and, sadly, I have to say MUCH of it come from other women…
Many of the worse decisions emanating from our family courts in NY and across the country are spite-filled, politically correct, hateful to mothers rulings coming from feminist Judges…
Sorry to say it, but it’s the truth…
I was as shocked as anyone when I realized it…
NYMOM, cite one study, law review article or whatever that systematically tried to demonstrate sex-linked bias of female judges in custody cases and no or less sex-linked bias among male judges, (and that controlled for whether or not the judge had children). Because the only bias I can discern here is your bias against women who haven’t devoted more of their lives to their own family, even if they spend countless hours in service of others. My sister-in-law handles a lot of custody cases (no, she’s not a judge) and this is one complaint she’s never made — indeed, the only complaint of bias she’s ever made is the fact that it’s impossible for fathers to get custody in one of the rural counties where she works. Her experience isn’t universal, it can’t even be extrapolated to other counties, but neither is yours. Put up or . . . whatever.
“NYMOM, cite one study, law review article or whatever that systematically tried to demonstrate sex-linked bias of female judges in custody cases and no or less sex-linked bias among male judges, (and that controlled for whether or not the judge had children). Because the only bias I can discern here is your bias against women who haven’t devoted more of their lives to their own family, even if they spend countless hours in service of others. My sister-in-law handles a lot of custody cases (no, she’s not a judge) and this is one complaint she’s never made … indeed, the only complaint of bias she’s ever made is the fact that it’s impossible for fathers to get custody in one of the rural counties where she works. Her experience isn’t universal, it can’t even be extrapolated to other counties, but neither is yours. Put up or . . . whatever. ”
Typical response…when you have no defense demand a study…
AND your sister in law is lying to you btw, as there is NO WHERE in the US that fathers don’t get custody…Actually litigation favors them as has been pointed out in countless studies…
Of course, you don’t even know where in the country my SIL lives, HINT: it isn’t New York , it’s not even close, and yet YOU KNOW that she’s lying. Typical response, make completely unsourced allegations that you have no way to back up and then get your back up when someone asks for something approaching validation. As I suspected, this is all about your bias, no one else’s.
BTW NYMOM, evidence wouldn’t be hard to come by. You would start by simply determining the percentage of times that female versus male judges awarded custody to a mother or a father. You would have to define various types of custody arrangements, and you’d probably need some sort of “alternative, nec” arrangement bucket, but even knowing raw numbers would be a way to start assessing what you are alleging. You would need to have judges working in the same court system, with the overall same sample of parents (e.g., demographic and income differences could make a big difference even within the same metropolitan area, and certainly within the same state, as my SIL can tell you firsthand).
You would investigate discrepancies by pulling a number of random cases and try to come up with a check list of factors and note how judges handled them, by gender of judge and gender of parent awarded or denied custody. It would be hard to do it without bias when you know whether the judge is male or female, but you can at least make a prima facie case. That is, if you were interested in improving the system or educating those who work within it instead of just basking in the righteousness of your bias.
NYMOM, you have also failed to account for a very clear phenomenon that occurs in custody cases: most custody cases are not contested and in most of these the mother has primary custody. It is entirely possible that many of the remaining cases are contested precisely because a father views a mother as an inferior parent (if he didn’t there would have been a higher likelihood of consensus on custody). Thus, it is entirely possible that a higher percentage of children of divorced parents live primarily with their mother even as a higher percentage of children in contested cases are awarded to their fathers as primary guardian. There are a lot of potential lurking variables in something this complex.
What county your sister in law lives in I think you meant to say…as if it’s a different country obviously anything is possible…but our census covers everywhere in the US, not JUST New York.
Although everywhere but western society the cases that GO to court (where propertied children are involved) men win…and NOW we have feminists and fathers rights advocates ensuring that the same thing pretty much goes on here in western societies as well…but now it includes ALL children, as every women now is required to be ‘approved’ by people like your sister in law in order to continue being a mother to her children…
A new ‘right’ that feminists won for women as you stated in a previous post.
One we should be grateful for, thanks…
I wonder what the next new right is that you have in store for us…being drafted probably, that will be next…
AND no, it’s not so simple to get these figures as you say since Judges and others cover up pretty well what goes on in family courts…pretending to be concerned about the privacy of children…
AND of course, I’m biased, I never said I wasn’t…
I consider a mother to be the natural and best guardian for her children, just as it has always been since we first crawled out of the primal mists…why should we ‘fix’ something that isn’t broken just because men, encouraged by feminists gender neutral propaganda, decided they want to try something different now…so everyone has to happily jump through the hoops you all set up…
NYMOM, you have also failed to account for a very clear phenomenon that occurs in custody cases: most custody cases are not contested and in most of these the mother has primary custody.
Yes, that USED to be the case…but now (because men are more assured of victories due to gender-neutral feminists along with fathers rights advocates’ propaganda) more and more custody cases are being litigated.
It is entirely possible that many of the remaining cases are contested precisely because a father views a mother as an inferior parent (if he didn’t there would have been a higher likelihood of consensus on custody). Thus, it is entirely possible that a higher percentage of children of divorced parents live primarily with their mother even as a higher percentage of children in contested cases are awarded to their fathers as primary guardian. There are a lot of potential lurking variables in something this complex.
Oh, of course, MORE mothers have custody NOW…but you’ve left a mine field for young women going forward…where none of them is assured that she’ll be allowed to continue mothering her own children…What do you think I’m involved with this for myself…I’m a grandmother, my children are grown…it’s concern about the legacy feminists have left for them and other young women going forward, that’s the main problem…
Let me explain to you I’m not interested in studies to do a paper or book on so I can submit to some Journal…that is NOT what this is about…
Okay…
Still waiting for some evidence to back up your seemingly baseless claims, NYMOM. Don’t you have any?
No, it’s clearly not about getting studies or evidence to back up claims of bias.
I did 10 minutes of web research and found the following:
1. Studies show no overall systematic bias against mothers by judges, except by age, which is to say, that older judges favor the mother. No category of judges would admit a bias in favor of fathers.
2. There are no allegations (much less findings) that judges of either gender are especially likely to show bias. (This was NYMOM’s main point.)
3. There are allegations of systematic bias by advocates of both mothers and fathers but neither seems to have conducted robust studies (at least not recently).
4. There may be a problem in states that “outsource” custody evaluation to supposedly neutral parties who aren’t really neutral. Many individuals may feel that this personal bias translates into systematic bias.
5. There is not enough tracking to test propositions 1 thorugh 4 with any degree of real confidence.
6. Many women who litigate contested custody disputes where there are allegations of domestic violence feel threatened and intimidated particularly where they are forced to engage in mediation. They may give up rights out of fear. Some judges do not take such violence into account in assessing fitness or the impact of custody decisions, and the law often provides very little guidance, particularly where there has been no conviction.
7. Whatever statistics exist point to contested custody disputes resulting in the father getting greater custodial rights 40-70% of the time. Now, I don’t know about you, but that leaves me with a lot of questions. Assuming equal parental involvement, one might expect a number in the range of 50%. But that’s a wide swing and suggests that someone hasn’t organized their data very well (or the data isn’t very good).
8. Bias against either mothers or fathers is a problem if it exists. But there is just no evidence that whatever bias that exists is attributable to female judges, much less does it depend on whether a female judge has children.
9. Dressing up a problem of inherent bias against mothers in custody disputes, if it exists, as the result of female achievement and rejection of gender stereotypes is pathetic.
Not okay, not if you want anyone to take you seriously.
It’s about offering proof–any proof–of the claims you keep making. No one is insisting on footnotes, or parenthetical citations, or a peer-review. A couple of links, please, or an article, or a section of some law somewhere. Something. Anything. That’s not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is your apparent belief that repeating something often enough is the same as substantiating it.
Prove:
1) That more men are getting custody because of gender-neutral custody laws.
2) That feminists as a class prefer gender-neutral custody laws, or even that some prominent feminists do.
3) That female and/or feminist judges believe in gender-neutral custody laws or in giving women less presumptive custody.
Whether or not custody laws are gender-neutral, parents are still forced into taking adversarial positions over who gets custody. As awful as it is, it is still better than automatically handing the kids over to either parent. Maybe someday we can come up with a better system!
“Prove:
1) That more men are getting custody because of gender-neutral custody laws.
2) That feminists as a class prefer gender-neutral custody laws, or even that some prominent feminists do.
3) That female and/or feminist judges believe in gender-neutral custody laws or in giving women less presumptive custody. ”
Well you only have to look at our last census (2000) to see that father custody has increased by 67%…I didn’t THINK there was any disagreement about that issue, that more fathers are getting custody…
The other two are pretty self evidently true.
I mean must every comment someone makes be followed by a study…
The sky is blue…where’s the study citing that…
Let’s get real please…
Feminists DO support gender neutral custody, they invented it actually…that’s a given…and this has NOW led to EVERY woman having to justify keeping custody of her children…every mother has to accept that we can be taken to court at ANY time for ANY reason or NO reason at all and be forced to justify being allowed to have custody of our children…it’s very simple…
Custody of our children has now morphed into a club against mothers which can be used at anytime against us….
I wish feminist would just accept that this has happened and accept SOME responsibility for it, instead of endlessly trying to deny it…
Well damn people! Yes I am alive by the way. I’m finally finished with my first year of college and moved back home for the summer. Interesting discussion. Thanks for the feedback on this topic.
NYMOM, if you refuse to acknowledge the fact that feminists did not invent, nor do they all automatically support, “gender neutral custody”–if you can come up with no examples of feminists ruining mothers’ lives beyond this completely specious claim–if you refuse to back up your posts with any evidence beyond “Because I said so”–then that’s pretty much it, isn’t it?
You’re calling the sky green, and apparently no one can convince you otherwise.