Following up on reasons for and against having children, reasons that arose from the comparably new distinction between sex and procreation, Business Insider has published a variation on this theme entitled “The Perks of Being in a Relationship Without Kids.” Most of the benefits can be extracted from the acronym that describes these relationships, Double Income No Kids, or DINKS. Four reasons provide the explanation for why it’s better to have no kids when you’re cohabitating or newly married.
First, shared expenses. Regular expenses are cut in half, and if one spouse loses their job, one can simply rely on their partner while they search for a new means of income. Second, both spouses can contribute toward savings and major purchases like a car, vacations, new appliances, etc. The third reason is the simplest and needs no support: It just means more money, a self-evident good. Finally, it also means that one can “have someone to rely on,” their boyfriend or girlfriend: “I would definitely take care of my boyfriend if he needed me to, but I don’t know that I can say that I would have the same commitment for helpless children who constantly need to be watched over and taken care of.”
It seems to me that these four reasons collapse into one: Convenience.
Since sex and procreation no longer have a necessary causal connection, children are reduced to a choice. But this reduction wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if the choice was not described in the way that it usually is: Where children are immediately associated with financial, emotional, and physical burden, and one isn’t committed to any particular moral system in which life is an invaluable good, choosing contraception and abortion seems to be the most sensible option for cohabitors and newlyweds.
Read more here
April 11th, 2012 | 3:30 pm
One of the commenters summed it up quite well: “That’s a lot of words to essentially say ‘Without kids, we have more money.’” I don’t suppose one goes to Business Insider for profound insights into the meaning of life, but I would think you could stop people at random in the street and expect at least nine out of ten to come up with comments that were not this utterly inane. I certainly don’t newlyweds giving themselves a few years to get on their feet financially before they have children, if they want children at all. (I don’t think they are mandatory.) But I bet this young woman would have come across as more in touch with emotional reality if she had discussed the pros and cons of getting a pet goldfish. One gets the impression she doesn’t consider children to actually be people.
I suppose there are people on earth like this, but I would have to say that in the office where I work, there is no more joyful event than a new baby.
April 11th, 2012 | 3:37 pm
I prefer SILK, Single-Income-Lotsa-Kids. My wife and I have managed.
April 11th, 2012 | 4:46 pm
There was a time when people were so forward-looking and outward-looking that they were willing to spend a lifetime working on a gigantic Cathedral they would never see completed. They put intricacy, detail and craftsmanship into them that gave glory to God; they fully expected them to still be standing when Jesus returned. Contrast that outlook on life and that generosity to future generations with contemporary society, which, to a large extent, is so self-absorbed that it doesn’t concern itself with whether there will even be future generations, much less concern itself with generosity to them.
In ages past the gift bequeathed to the next generation wasn’t so much Cathedrals of stone but the wisdom of the hearts of flesh that built them. Those Cathedrals are testimonies to what the experience of countless generations had finally decided really mattered.
Contemporary hearts of stone concerned only with satisfying the flesh that houses them have discarded that inheritance and have no gift themselves for future generations or concern that there be any such thing. Such that there is will probably be better off without an inheritance of the popular “wisdom” of this short-sighted, selfish generation; they will rely on the true wisdom of that marginalized, radical, willing to struggle and do without segment of our society that was generous enough to pass on the gift of life to them.
April 11th, 2012 | 5:16 pm
David, it’s one of those rare planet-alignment days when I wholeheartedly agree with your take here.
On the post itself: the final reason given is a profound moral inversion; commitment is precisely ABOUT being there when you won’t necessarily get something in return, at least not in equal proportion and timely fashion. But unless and until someone can at least start to grasp that, they’re probably better off pursuing the logical end of their intensely selfish perspective, than bucking it.
That’s not to say that people need to become unselfish before they have kids — God knows (literally) I’d never have had any, and you learn to die to self in the process of having and raising them. But if the selfishness is so blithely embraced as in that article, you probably need to come to a different perspective first.
April 11th, 2012 | 9:46 pm
Humanae Vitae and its teaching on the real meaning of conjugal love is looking more and more prophetic every day
April 12th, 2012 | 4:21 am
One recalls a remark by Sir Boyle Roche in the 18th century Irish House of Commons, speaking on the ever-topical subject of burdening future generations with debt.
“What, Mr. Speaker!” said he, “and so we are to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honourable gentleman, and still more honourable House, why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us?”
April 12th, 2012 | 11:38 am
I’m wondering about the implications of all this: if someone doesn’t want children then they are (to a greater or lesser degree) evil? What is the proper response to a childless person– shaming, holy ostracism, a life without sex or intimacy, even if you’re married? What is the age at which a childless person should feel ashamed of themselves for not having procreated? I’m 31. Am I lost to selfishness and the worship of death?
Do you guys seriously feel that people have no right to choose in this matter? What if the Duggars criticize you for not having ENOUGH children? I mean, if it is a moral imperative to have children, and children are an intrinsic good and all.
April 12th, 2012 | 11:54 am
@Eric,
What are you arguing? Is it your assumption that people should be able to do whatever makes them feel good?
You set up a straw man and then ask if it should be applied to you. I hope you become aware that you are talking to yourself when you do that.
Try this data point. Some on this blog believe that vowing celibacy can be a great good. No children involved at all. So it’s not about being childless.
April 12th, 2012 | 1:06 pm
Mike,
“Try this data point. Some on this blog believe that vowing celibacy can be a great good. No children involved at all. So it’s not about being childless.”
So it’s alright to be childless as long as you it represents a great sacrifice on your behalf? I was being a bit sarcastic, but the questions were honestly meant. From my perspective, I see a bunch conservatives, many of them celibate, shaming people (women especially) who deign to choose a course for their own lives that said conservatives find threatening.
So if it’s not about childlessness, and if it’s not about cynically controlling people, then what is it about?
April 12th, 2012 | 1:33 pm
In response to Eric:
There are many valid reasons for a particular person to forgo having children.
There are also selfish ones.
Doing anything for selfish reasons is selfish.
Selfishness is considered a vice among those who hold the Christian virtues in high regard.
I don’t really think this article is saying more than that.
April 12th, 2012 | 1:52 pm
@Eric
You still don’t get it. It is not childlessness per se, but the attitude toward children as such which is so troubling. Just as a man may remain unmarried without regarding women as bothersome irritations, a couple may remain childless without regarding children as no more than economic crimps on their lifestyle.
IOW, it’s the dehumanizing that offends.
April 12th, 2012 | 2:21 pm
Pentamom, YOS,
Thanks! I do get that, actually. Here’s the thing: in my case, I lean toward never having children. I don’t say that’s set it stone, but that’s the way I lean. Economic considerations (i.e. “selfish” ones) are part of that calculus, but so are a lot of intangibles that complicate the pot immensely. I would say that the vast majority of couples who remain childless make their decision in just such a context. It is totally fruitless to stand away from all of the internal, environmental, psychological accidentals and point your finger because someone makes a choice you don’t approve of. It’s all good and fine to decry selfishness (if you define all selfishness as bad a priori which I do not), but how can you possibly tell given the complexity of the decision?
By making such a decision all about economic choice, I would argue that it’s Misula who has made an egregious straw man, not to mention dehumanized his opponents.
April 12th, 2012 | 2:46 pm
All is clear now. Eric saw himself in Misula’s description. Eric knows he is not bad therefore Misula must be wrong.
@Eric, Misula disagrees with you. You are free to disagree with him. Make your case. There is no need to do to him and those who agree with him what you think he did to you. People who disagree with you are not bigots, no matter how bad you feel about it.
There are people who believe that children are more than choices. Hopefully, you will accept them as human as you are.
April 12th, 2012 | 2:49 pm
Are we talking about Christian couples here?
Remaining childless makes much more sense, I would think, to those who believe that outside of the state there is no higher authority to whom they are accountable, and no accountability for how we lived this life in another that follows it. If a couple believes there is no one else’s will they must take into consideration, and given that the state is definitely not promoting the idea that couples have children, then, it seems to me, a couple would indeed consider the matter entirely up to themselves.
Christians, needless to say, don’t see things that way.
April 12th, 2012 | 3:01 pm
Please correct me if I’m off, but couldn’t one argue that it’s selfish to avoid anyone you find irritating? Is it deadly sinful to avoid the sorts of people whose company, by and large, is painful to you? It’d probably be more charitable to embrace them, of course, but is shying from them mortally selfish?
April 12th, 2012 | 3:36 pm
Hello, S.L. Hersey,
If you are talking about kids and grandkids being amazingly irritating at times, that is just a fact of life. ;o)
Since Dad didn’t actually carry out all those grave threats of violence to my health and well being my behavior prompted him to make – he was using hyperbole, of course — I suppose I ought to put up with my kids and grandkids when they are as irritating to me as I was to my parents. ;o)
April 12th, 2012 | 3:39 pm
From my perspective, I see a bunch conservatives, many of them celibate, shaming people (women especially) who deign to choose a course for their own lives that said conservatives find threatening.
I think if you dig a little under the surface of this language, you can find the metaphor of pathology – are conservatives pathologically threatened? Is it like a disease?
Perhaps you’re a little “threatened”, yourself, that you need to shame conservatives?
April 12th, 2012 | 3:45 pm
Harry,
I don’t see how the state figures into this at all. Plenty of Libertarians, for instance, are atheists, and some of those choose not to have children. They deny your God’s jurisdiction over their choices. If they’re right about the first, aren’t they also correct about the second?
April 12th, 2012 | 4:48 pm
Well, I think the question is simple. If you are going to have kids, you must REALLY want it. And that means, that you should have taken into consideration the sacrifices it implies. But the problem is most people usually don´t, and after having their kids, they don´t live up to the responsibility they have acquired. The real trouble here is thinking than procreation is inevitable and something you don´t have to think before having it. That is what is so irresponsible of the conservative mindset regarding that issue, and the consequences are catastrophic (see for example families in third world countries like mine -a catholic one-: the poorest families are the ones having more kids, and we have to thank the church for encouraging such irresponsible behavior).
April 12th, 2012 | 4:53 pm
How about we let Darwin keep score?
April 12th, 2012 | 5:00 pm
And will like to add, being a father is not simply a question of having the economic means to support your child. It also means you are willing to commit time to teach him many things, to try your best not to make him just an extension of your own ego, that you compromise to respect him as a free human being….stuff most people I know (liberal, conservative, atheist, believer, rich or poor) are not capable of doing or being (or even consider doing). In my experience, parents are usually very good to screw up their kids, in one way or another.
April 12th, 2012 | 5:01 pm
It seems to me that one thing we don’t want is for people to say: “I don’t want kids. However, it is selfish not to have kids. I don’t want to be selfish. Consequently, I will have kids even though I don’t want to.”
What was offensive about the blog post linked to is that the young woman didn’t even seem to think of children as people. It was more like she was considering whether to cover the living room floor in carpeting versus tile. If you think of potential kids as “kids” versus your sons and daughters, it’s probably better not to have them.
April 13th, 2012 | 12:06 am
Hi, Eric Mattingly, Sergio Méndez
Eric,
OK. Let’s leave the state out. I was just thinking that is the only legitimate authority above themselves that there is for some people. If atheists are right then it would seem much more reasonable not to have children, at least if the sorrows of one’s life outweighed the joy one found in it, such that one decided existence wasn’t something they wanted to inflict upon another. That would be a very depressing view of one’s existence. If an atheistic couple found more good than bad in life, and didn’t think it was wrong to bring another human being into existence, yet believed life on planet Earth was all there was, and when it was over one’s existence ended forever, then they would still be more likely to not have children simply because life on this planet isn’t all that great compared to the great scenarios we can imagine but don’t expect to ever actually come about. In other words, never existing at all wouldn’t be all that great of a loss.
Eric, Sergio,
For Christians, even a life of suffering has deep meaning. The saints tell us the cross, when accepted for the love of Jesus, brings with it not only suffering but a sweetness they don’t want to give up by being free of the cross. And then there is the eternity of joy Christians expect. That keeps the suffering of this life in perspective. It is definitely better to have a suffered a little while and then experience eternal joy than to not have existed at all.
I don’t expect those who really don’t believe in God or the next life to understand why people would have big families.
Sergio, you wrote:
The Church is not opposed to couples taking into consideration dire poverty when managing the size of their family. Here is an excerpt from Humanae Vitae:
The Church teaches that it is immoral to use artificial contraception as a means to manage the size of one’s family even when serious reasons dictate that it should be limited, not that one shouldn’t take into consideration serious physical, economic, psychological and social conditions.
You can read Humanae Vitae here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
You will find it quite reasonable and thoughtful. You also might want to do some research on modern Natural Family Planning. It is Church-approved, scientific, easy to learn, quite effective and does not have the side effects of using the pill.
And by the way, the poverty on this planet is not due to there being too many people. It is due to corruption, greed and the world not taking ending poverty seriously. If we put the effort into creating technology that would enable the poor to become self reliant that was put into, for example, creating technology that enabled us to put people on the moon, sustain their lives there and then bring them safely back to Earth – or put the effort we put into creating technology to increase military might – into creating technology poor communities could use to grow their own food and to create for themselves an environment in which to live that was commensurate with human dignity, it would soon be theoretically possible for any community of able-bodied persons of average intelligence to provide for themselves. But if we did that it would be much easier to see that poverty exists, for the most part, because of corruption, greed and the lack of the will to end it – not because there are too many people.
April 13th, 2012 | 4:26 am
” In other words, never existing at all wouldn’t be all that great of a loss.”
Am I alone in finding this self-referentially incoherent? A loss to whom – a counter-factual, hypothetical subject?
April 13th, 2012 | 8:16 am
Harry:
“For Christians, even a life of suffering has deep meaning. The saints tell us the cross, when accepted for the love of Jesus, brings with it not only suffering but a sweetness they don’t want to give up by being free of the cross. And then there is the eternity of joy Christians expect. That keeps the suffering of this life in perspective. It is definitely better to have a suffered a little while and then experience eternal joy than to not have existed at all.”
I am not a Christian, so I am not going to try to contradict you here. Although this looks like actively seeking martyrdom thru suffering, which is to me a despicable way to confront life, I doubt it is actually what the Christian doctrine preaches. One thing is that Christians believe that they will have to suffer for their beliefs, since the world will ridicule and persecute them for having such beliefs, and another is to actively seek suffering and pain. But you are the Christian, so you correct me in this one.
That said, yes, I have read Humanae Vitae. But still, does it changes the message that the Catholic Church favors big families without a critical thought from the parents? Let’s leave aside the question of contraceptive methods, the point is that the Catholic Church -in practice and in theory- encourages people to have kids and not think seriously about the responsibility to bring new life in the world. See what you just said about suffering, or what the author of this post means when he say stuff like that this articles against procreation reduce children to a choice. Children are not a choice for the church and many Christians; they are some “fact of life”. They happen, and the more you have the better. That is irresponsible.
“And by the way, the poverty on this planet is not due to there being too many people. It is due to corruption, greed and the world not taking ending poverty seriously.”
That is discussable, but yet it is not my point. My point is that families who are already poor are encouraged to have more children when they clearly lack the means to raise them.
April 13th, 2012 | 9:42 am
If a potential isn’t actualized, then it can be a loss.
God sees what could have been as clearly as He sees what is.
If what (who) could have been was in His loving Will, and His will was thwarted by our free will, then it is a loss.
April 13th, 2012 | 10:15 am
The atheist could only recoginize the loss in terms of an unactualized potential.
April 13th, 2012 | 10:32 am
Appreciate the guidance, Harry. Unfortunately, what I was more curious about were people like me & my wife, who find children horribly unpleasant company–not at times, but continually, and as a general species. The way certain people may feel about attorneys, golfers, and overly confidential drunks at a party, is the way some people feel about children … i.e., a sustained, gnaw-your-arm-off wish to escape their company.
When a married couple feels that way, I don’t know if “selfishness” is a fair way of describing the situation … unless literally preserving one’s sanity is selfish.
April 13th, 2012 | 10:49 am
Christians should accept martyrdom when it becomes obvious that to do so is God’s will, not actively seek it. (Although many saints have desired martyrdom but they refrained from actually seeking it, accepting God’s will in the matter.) Thomas More is a great example of one who attempted to escape martyrdom but accepted it in the end. As for carrying our cross, the words of Christ make it clear we are to do that.
This part of Humanae Vitae (which I cited earlier) seems very clear to me:
How does one take into consideration “physical, economic, psychological and social conditions” without critical thought?
April 13th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
Appreciate the guidance, Harry. Unfortunately, what I was more curious about were people like me & my wife, who find children horribly unpleasant company–not at times, but continually, and as a general species. The way certain people may feel about attorneys, golfers, and overly confidential drunks at a party, is the way some people feel about children … i.e., a sustained, gnaw-your-arm-off wish to escape their company.
When a married couple feels that way, I don’t know if “selfishness” is a fair way of describing the situation … unless literally preserving one’s sanity is selfish.
I believe that having children is the usual way of giving back to society. We take a lot when we grow up – we demand a lot. We require nurture. We consume resources. We incur a debt. Others nurture us because that is what we do for society; for whatever reason, we pass on and pass down.
Passing on and passing down is IMO more important than people recognize. Refusal to do so is hoarding.
But I do not believe having children is the only way to pass on and pass down. Priests and religious brothers & sisters are the first thought that comes to mind – surely they are serving the same sort of task that a dutiful parent does when he brings up his children well?
But a scientist who dedicates his life to his work might be doing the same thing – giving. If he does it right. It may be that a scientist (or a novelist, or a doctor, or whatever) is “called” in that way.
That doesn’t mean that just being a scientist (or a novelist or a doctor) is “enough” – but then just being a parent isn’t “enough” either. To give back so that future generations can enjoy what you enjoyed (and, hopefully, future generations can enjoy even what you were deprived of) is what matters.
Again IMO.
April 16th, 2012 | 12:23 pm
I don’t have much to say on the religious aspects but politically and ideologically, this is an interesting issue because it exposes the obvious tensions in the conservative movement between laissez-faire capitalists and social conservatives.
For any self-respecting capitalist, there is no shame in enlightened self-interest. A good capitalist negotiates and plans the best deals for himself in the office, then goes home and plans when to have children and how many to ensure he can pay their college tuition and will have adequate health insurance when the time comes.
For social conservatives, it’s vulgar to be introducing self-interest into questions of family and the bonds between generations. But these questions of economic security become even more pressing when the social safety net is trimmed back. Surely, doctors and lawyers who earn six-figure salaries don’t have to worry about supporting additional children. Now, try that with a 25-year-old working at your local car wash or Best Buy.
April 16th, 2012 | 12:38 pm
“But I do not believe having children is the only way to pass on and pass down.”
I would say that just as the U.S. has done fine with an all-volunteer military, it can do fine with an all-volunteer parent force. Some people make good soldiers; others don’t. Same with parenting and it has to be said that some people can be just as selfish in the decision to have children as others are in the refusal to do so. There are plenty of high-achieving “alpha males” out there who have kids because that’s what they think they are supposed to do and then proceed to neglect them and their spouse. If you are that guy, maybe it’s best for everyone if you just focus on your career and not ruin other people’s lives.
The reality is that there is no shortage of Americans or immigrants resident in the U.S. volunteering for parenting duty. If that still isn’t enough for some people, more immigration from poorer, high-fertility countries ought to provide a win-win solution.
The bottom line is there is no reason to badger people into having children who don’t want children and might not make particularly good parents anyway. It is like badgering someone into becoming a soldier or a cop or a firefighter when that isn’t what his or her heart is set on.
April 16th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
The bottom line is there is no reason to badger people into having children who don’t want children and might not make particularly good parents anyway.
I thought I was arguing in favor of not badgering people into having children.
But as for the all-volunteer parent force, while I agree that nobody who doesn’t want kids should be forced to have them, do not obscure the fact that both families and nations require commitment and ongoing work to persevere. A family that stops reproducing itself dies. A nation that hands over the task of self-preservation to immigrants is a nation that commits suicide; the new people might be very nice, but the nation they are going to create is going to be based on their own culture, not the culture of the people who didn’t care enough about their nation to preserve it.
April 18th, 2012 | 1:42 pm
[...] We Probably Shouldn’t Have Children, II (FirstThings.com) [...]
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