February 26, 2004
THE ME GENERATION TO THE NTH DEGREE:
No Kids, Please: They don't want to have children, they don't want to be bothered by children, and they'd just as soon not live near children. It's the child-free movement, and it's growing. (Carlene Hempel, 2/22/2004, Boston Globe Magazine)
They don't appear to have much in common. Mike Crutcher plays bass in a Lowell band and teaches piano and guitar. Kathy Reboul is a social worker and, she reveals during dinner, allergic to peanuts. Lori Schneider is a former cop from Connecticut who's going back to school. Todd Larson of Allston writes about real estate for the Brookline Tab. They've gathered, along with 10 others, at Polcari's in Cambridge on a wintry Saturday night. They convene this way once a month, because that's what social clubs do. Except that while most clubs organize around something -- a model-train fixation, an interest in needlepoint, a love of good books or fine wines -- what this bunch has in common is what they don't have: kids.And here's the point: They don't want them.
"Here, we know we don't have to listen to touching stories or about home schooling or what kind of diaper anyone is using," says Schneider, 40, a four-year member of the Boston chapter of No Kidding. She's here tonight with her husband, though he's still in the closet and declines to give his name. As a teacher in Framingham, he fears his anti-kid sentiment might cost him his job.
This is life for the child-free. In a culture often defined by breeders, those who dare not have children feel they must band together. They need support to help fend off parents who are desperate for grandchildren, or friends and co-workers who wonder how these seemingly productive members of society could be so selfish. They're not interested in hearing about the latest family-tested flick from Pixar. They're tired of hearing: "But you'd be a great parent." They don't need tips on using a Chinese adoption agency. They can have kids, they just don't want them. And they're fighting back.
Over the last decade, the movement's been growing. Today, there are numerous support groups such as No Kidding, which was launched in 1984 and has a fast-growing number of chapters in big cities in the United States and around the world. The Internet now has countless e-mail groups and Web pages -- www.childfree.net, www.overpopulation.org, to name two -- dedicated to people who don't have kids. There are even extreme political activists pushing a kid-free society, such as Somerville-based The Church of Euthanasia, launched in 1992 to try to persuade the world with guerrilla-style tactics to stop having babies.
Such people are, practically by definition, not fit for membership in society. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2004 11:35 PM
Natural selection in action.
Posted by: TCB at February 26, 2004 11:53 PMCan we desurvive them?
Posted by: oj at February 26, 2004 11:58 PMThere have always been confirmed bachelors and spinsters.
The only difference here is that they now have the internet to find each other with.
HEY! I don't want any kids, and neither does my wife, and we sort of met on the internet... I do enjoy my role as eccentric uncle though.
I'm not getting anything snipped, though, in case I find myself as the last man alive somehow.
Posted by: some random person at February 27, 2004 12:45 AMDon't worry, SRP. My children will be there to take care of you with their tax dollars when you get old, cranky, friendless and demand the government pony up.
Posted by: NKR at February 27, 2004 1:12 AMNKR, I'm already cranky, and by the time I get old they'll be killing old people for being cranky.
Posted by: some random person at February 27, 2004 1:20 AMChild free by choice is code for worst kind of misanthrope. They sure like cats, though.
Posted by: Buttercup at February 27, 2004 6:53 AMReminds me of Florence King, who at least had the honesty to call herself a misanthrope.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at February 27, 2004 6:56 AMFrom the article:
Filmmaker Nina Paley's edgy, anti-breeding short, The Stork -- part of a larger documentary she's working on called Thank You for Not Breeding -- got picked up by Sundance last year.
Every time I hear the word 'edgy' I want to reach for my gun....
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at February 27, 2004 7:35 AMMichael:
there's a difference between bachelorhood and hating the species.
Posted by: oj at February 27, 2004 8:08 AMBruce: That's a great line. Mind if I use it in my message-board sigs?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at February 27, 2004 8:10 AMI don't think they're "not fit for membership in society" -- we could start reemploying the office of public fool, or court jester.
And they'll make great combat fodder when other folks' kids are about to rush the front lines.
Posted by: Chris at February 27, 2004 8:20 AMJesters are funny.
Posted by: oj at February 27, 2004 8:27 AMIt looks like Bros Judd have been suckered into drawing attention to Les U Knight's VHEMT(www.vhemt.org) - - curse you, Les!
At least the Shakers had the decency to raise children within their Shaker colonies, even though they declined marriage and sex, and willingly faced the necessity of convincing other adults to convert to their lifestyle.
Posted by: Larry H at February 27, 2004 8:32 AMAli - OK by me!
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at February 27, 2004 8:35 AMWhat better way for a sensitive white person to assuage his/her guilt. As Caucasians(and Japanese) disappear into history, we will hear the cry, "multiculturalism works."
Posted by: ed at February 27, 2004 8:52 AMThis is self-inflicted genocide!
Posted by: J.H. at February 27, 2004 8:55 AMHow pathetic this story is. The sterility (and I don't mean that in a merely biological sense) is so palpable.
Posted by: Paul Cella at February 27, 2004 9:15 AMThey don't want to have kids. Fine, don't have kids.
What is odd is that they need to have a club to support themselves in their decision. Rather lame, actually.
Posted by: Mike at February 27, 2004 10:00 AM"Sometimes, though, the pressure to give in gets to him, angers him even, and he struggles to square his decision with the consequences he has to face. For example, Larson is finding it difficult to attract a woman who will stay in the relationship once she finds out about his no-kids stance"
Don't you just feel his pain?
Mike, I thought that weird too. These people are seriously disturbed. Purposeless lives devoted to pleasure are high-risk emotionally. I don't know how many times I have rushed into Starbucks on a harried Saturday morning between endless errands and chores ("Coffee--black--now!")and become enraged at the site of all these adults in their prime lounging over triple mocha decaf lattes and thick newspapers while debating the city's exciting new recycling policy. Now I learn they are among the oppressed of the world. Move over, gay lobby, your time is up.
Posted by: Peter B at February 27, 2004 10:51 AMThe strangest part of this whole "movement" is that if this kind of vitriol was leveled at gays, blacks, women, latinos, government employees, etc. everyone would be up in arms over the bigoted and small minded hatred of part of the human race. But we're okay if its children. Sad.
Posted by: Buttercup at February 27, 2004 12:05 PMHear, hear, Buttercup.
Isn't this the sort of personal opinion that simply can't be wrong? Who can doubt that these people shouldn't reproduce.
But these people are performing a valuable service (actually, two valuable services) for the rest of us. How often do we get to experience an entirely proper and rewarding smug righteousness? Who can doubt that ten years from now, most of these people will have children and the rest will be bitter.
Posted by: David Cohen at February 27, 2004 12:20 PMThese people are missing out on a true joy. The greatest blessing from having children is that by pouring your worry and concern into the life and well being of others, you have less time to worry about yourself. This is the great curse of singleness/childlessness that they will realize after it is too late - having nothing to worry about but your own sorry carcass is just an earthly form of hell.
"They're not interested in hearing about the latest family-tested flick from Pixar."
That is the great thing about being a parent, you can act like a kid again, go see Disney & Pixar films, watch cartoons, etc and not be thought of as wierd. I got quite good at Mario Cart, Pokemon and other Nintendo games playing with my daughter. I'll take a Pixar flick over "Friends" or "Will & Grace" anyday.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at February 27, 2004 1:48 PMHear, hear, Mr. Duguette!
Posted by: Paul Cella at February 27, 2004 2:17 PMThanks Paul! It's Duquette, btw :-)
Posted by: Robert Duquette at February 27, 2004 3:35 PM