March 7, 2006
SECULAR ANTICULTURE HAS CONSEQUENCES?:
Behind the baby gap lies a culture of contempt for parenthood: In a society that values consumption, choice and independence above all, it's a wonder that we have as many babies as we do (Madeline Bunting, March 7, 2006, The Guardian)
A seven-month pregnant woman - her belly vast - was at a supper with a friend. He, being of the family type, told her she was very lucky to be expecting a baby. He was the first person who had said such a thing, she told him.It's a jarring anecdote because it so sharply puts into focus how pregnancy has become the occasion not for congratulations, but for anxious questions about childcare, leave and work. Watch how the announcement of a pregnancy among women is followed within minutes by the "What are you going to do?" question. We've replaced the age-old anxiety around life-threatening childbirth with a new - and sometimes it appears just as vast - cargo of anxiety around who is going to care.
This anxiety is the backdrop to the 90,000 baby gap - the number of additional babies that women would like to have had - identified by a recent Institute of Public Policy Research report on how the birth rate is falling below replenishment levels. How is it that in cultures all over the world pregnancies prompt congratulations rather than anxious questions about childcare? How is it that in a culture equipped, materially and medically, to ease child-rearing, we are so reluctant to enjoy new life?
The answer, I would argue, is that a bias against having babies has permeated our culture. This phenomenon needs a new word - anti-natalism - and it is this that prompts a good part of that pregnancy trepidation. [...]
[P]arenthood is against the grain of all the aspirations of our culture. Go back to the point where I started - the pregnancy anxiety around care. That anxiety is provoked by more than just the logistics of childcare availability, despite what the nursery campaigners argue. It's there because pregnancy sabotages three characteristics highly valued by our culture.
First, independence: pregnancy heralds at least one relationship of dependence, and there is often greater dependence on partners, mothers and, eventually, childminders and the like. But you've spent much of the previous 10 years attempting to eradicate any hint of dependence, either of your own or of others on you. Secondly, pregnancy is about a long-term commitment, and having avoided all such (including probably to your partner), you are, at the very least, uneasy about it. Finally, the big bump in your stomach spells out one thing for sure - a huge constraint on many choices, and choice has been integral to your sense of a life worth living.
In other words, the self we are encouraged to develop through much of our education system and early adulthood is of no use whatsoever to a new parent. What use is that sassy, independent, self-assertive, knowing-what-youwant- and-how-to-get-it type when you fast forward five years to the emotional labour of helping a child develop selfconfidence? Once there's a baby in the cot, you need steadiness, loyalty, endurance, patience, sensitivity and even self-denial - all the characteristics that you've spent the previous decade trashing as dull or, even worse, for losers. Forget trying to work out your own feelings - you'll be too busy trying to work out those of your children; ditto self-confidence and self-expression.
Ms Bunting need look no further than the pages of her own paper to find the celebration of selfishness and hyatred of dependents that's driving antinataliasm Posted by Orrin Judd at March 7, 2006 8:00 AM
Human beings are wired to respond to the appeal of babies. Notice the smiles when a little person is about and notice the return smiles from the child.
It's obvious everywhere. At lunch the other day, a captivating little guy of less than a year with a Calvin hairdo, was charming the other diners with smiles and waves. The atmosphere in the restaurant changed in the matter of moments from the workaday to a place of delighted smiles.
That's why abortion is so important and giving the baby up for adoption is discouraged. Once a baby is put into your arms, it's love at first sight and there's absolutely nothing that even comes close to it for pure joy and happiness. Our emphasis on death is dehumanizing women and denying them this greatest of all experiences.
The Cube is built for one.
Posted by: Luciferous at March 7, 2006 9:51 AMSome people support abortion for purposes of eugenics. Some support it to avoid paying child support. Still others just flat-out hate children.
Posted by: Mike Morley at March 7, 2006 10:08 AM
Finally, [children] spell out one thing for sure - a huge constraint on many choices, and choice has been integral to your sense of a life worth living.
While that's often true of young adults, most people find by the time they hit 30 that they aren't doing anything with those potential choices anyhow.
We develop a work/life routine, and while many dream of jetting off to Kathmandu or Machu Picchu, few actually do.
Further, it's not having children that's going to prevent most of us from being rock stars or pro athletes.
As for being dragged off on an impulsive adventure by a sizzling-hot member of your sex of choice - good luck.
Forget trying to work out your own feelings - you'll be too busy trying to work out those of your children; ditto self-confidence and self-expression.
Does Ms Bunting know no parents ?
Perhaps my experiences are atypical, but all of the parents that I know have grown more self-confident, not less.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 7, 2006 10:25 AMNoam -- all you say is true, but I think people can't give up THEORETICALLY having freedom and choice, even if their lives are pretty much set or even in a total rut. I think the problem is that people aren't taught to live their lives in stages -- you have your stage of youthful freedom, where you can travel and go clubbing and sleep around, and THEN you have your stage where you have kids, and some choices are foreclosed while other choices emerge. The Hindu notion of the stages of life is pretty useful -- the young student, the "householder" (who works and raises a family and is a responsible citizen), followed by an old age devoted to spirituality. When people get it into their heads that it's time for the next stage, they can actually look forward to it. But when you want that first flush of youth to extend well into your fifties, well...
Posted by: Lisa at March 7, 2006 11:05 AMI remember well when I brought each of my 3 kidlets home, put them in the bassinet, looked at them & thought, "Oh, &@#$! What have I done?!" That was the youthful, selfish part of me talking, followed immediately by the adult in me saying, "I can do this. I can do this." Then the mother in me would burst into tears and think, "I'm such a bad mother! My mom could do a better job!" ;)
Nowadays, I revel in my motherliness (my husband thinks it is sexy) and couldn't imagine anything less pleasant than a night in a bar trying to look cool & waking up the next day with a hangover. :P Hooray for motherhood!
Posted by: sharon at March 7, 2006 12:22 PMMr. Chomsky;
On the other hand, one thing you do give up that's not theoretical is the option of doing nothing. There really isn't anything you can't blow off at least for a while, except children. Of all the things I've missed because of the poopers, that's the big one. Learning to change diapers while shaking from the dry heaves was minor in comparison (and I used to literally throw up from getting other's people spittle on me – had to give that up as well).
Found a couple more examples of supporting abortion to save child support dollars: here and here.
Posted by: Mike Morley at March 7, 2006 3:02 PM