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Should childless couples be considered inferior?

Should childless couples be considered inferior?

  • Yes. Having children is a moral obligation to God/society/family/etc.

    Votes: 4 2.8%
  • No, they are free not to have children. They don't have to answer to anybody

    Votes: 105 74.5%
  • Not if they have reproductive problems.

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Yes, even if they have reproductive problems. They can adopt, you know.

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • They should get a medal for lowering world population.

    Votes: 20 14.2%
  • Other

    Votes: 9 6.4%
  • I don't know.

    Votes: 1 0.7%

  • Total voters
    141
No, because you are avoiding the question by changing the premise. What I want to know is, are you honest enough that is something happened (long term or short) that caused you to change your mind (no pressures from anyone else, no traumatic head injuries), would you come out here (assuming this site is still here) and admit it to everyone? I don't expect it to happen. I just acknowledge that this is a possibility (maybe probability is a better word), however slim it is.

In asking this question in this way, you are simply choosing to deny that there are people different from you, and insisting that despite the fact that you are not in our heads, you know us better.

So if you are simply going to reject the possibility that we know ourselves better than you do, why do you deserve acknowledgment?

Tell me, do you think you'll wake up one day and regret terribly that you had kids? What if I simply insisted this was a very real possibility no matter how you feel about it?
 
No, because you are avoiding the question by changing the premise. What I want to know is, are you honest enough that is something happened (long term or short) that caused you to change your mind (no pressures from anyone else, no traumatic head injuries), would you come out here (assuming this site is still here) and admit it to everyone? I don't expect it to happen. I just acknowledge that this is a possibility (maybe probability is a better word), however slim it is.

I'm not avoiding anything. I HAVE answered your question, albeit a little later than you wanted, and you obviously don't like my answer. Not my problem.

I have NO desire for or intention to either get married OR have children, so the "if" question you keep posting here clearly ISN'T going to happen. I'm NOT going to change my mind about marriage or motherhood, no matter how many times you ask it.
 
RD, I stopped reading at 'sluthood' and I'm not going to read the rest of that 'book' that would be just as slanted. If you can express your opinion more concisely, please do so.
 
In asking this question in this way, you are simply choosing to deny that there are people different from you, and insisting that despite the fact that you are not in our heads, you know us better.

So if you are simply going to reject the possibility that we know ourselves better than you do, why do you deserve acknowledgment?

Tell me, do you think you'll wake up one day and regret terribly that you had kids? What if I simply insisted this was a very real possibility no matter how you feel about it?


Not only that, as I've also pointed out...it's an individual decision and one that will only affect that individual (disappointed family not counted). We all have to make major decisions in our lives and live by them....whatever the consequences.

If someone regrets their decision not to marry or not have kids...oh well, that is the nature of life. Most single decisions dont define a person's entire life and we deal with it.


(exceptions are those decisions that kill you or leave you handicapped for life...like jumping out of airplanes, for example. Altho I've never had need to regret that myself :) )
 
RD, I stopped reading at 'sluthood' and I'm not going to read the rest of that 'book' that would be just as slanted. If you can express your opinion more concisely, please do so.

What slanted? I quoted from a feminist blog, feministe. Isn't what they write "approved feminist thought" and thus safe for your eyes to read?
 
What slanted? I quoted from a feminist blog, feministe. Isn't what they write "approved feminist thought" and thus safe for your eyes to read?

As I said, I did not read it but 'sluthood' was a non-starter.
 
As I said, I did not read it but 'sluthood' was a non-starter.

Then don't read it. Why should I care about your own personal standards? You feeling that it was worthwhile to write a comment telling me that you weren't going to read my comment reminds me of a little girl phoning her friend to inform her that she's not going to speak to her again because of a tiff. What's the point? The little girl should just not speak to her friend. If you don't want to read the comment, then don't read it. It doesn't help me at all to know that you're not reading that comment, there are thousands of people on this board who aren't reading my comment. I can't help it if there are feminists out there who valorize sluthood. I'm just quoting them. I'm not going to self-censor to please your peculiar tastes.

So, until the conversation picks up again on a different variant, we really can't speak about anything beyond my introductory paragraph in that comment. Too bad because I thought there was merit in my point. Now you can't disabuse me of that notion.
 
Then don't read it. Why should I care about your own personal standards? You feeling that it was worthwhile to write a comment telling me that you weren't going to read my comment reminds me of a little girl phoning her friend to inform her that she's not going to speak to her again because of a tiff. What's the point? The little girl should just not speak to her friend. If you don't want to read the comment, then don't read it. It doesn't help me at all to know that you're not reading that comment, there are thousands of people on this board who aren't reading my comment. I can't help it if there are feminists out there who valorize sluthood. I'm just quoting them. I'm not going to self-censor to please your peculiar tastes.

So, until the conversation picks up again on a different variant, we really can't speak about anything beyond my introductory paragraph in that comment. Too bad because I thought there was merit in my point. Now you can't disabuse me of that notion.

You quoted my post with an entire wall of text. No, I wasnt going to read a cut and paste from other people that started out offensively.

I only said I wasnt reading it so you'd understand why no response was forthcoming.
 
No it isn't, because the beast doesn't consciously think about this trophy-less race you're implying. :lol:

People who don't fully understand or haven't fully accepted the non-sentient and non-magical nature of evolution and how nature works attach a sense of value and meaning to it, and then try to reverse-engineer justifications for all the stupid **** humans do to each other.

The beast (including the state of nature human beast), in truth, doesn't give a crap about the childfree, because it doesn't have this kind of knowledge, and therefore can't misunderstand it. They are worrying about their own lives, and the safety of their own tribe, and that's it. The fact is evolution has no "winners" or "losers" in the way we think of it. It simply is. There's no value attached to it.
Just as I said - it's not rational, it's emotional/instinctual or subconscious if you prefer. And, yes, they are worrying about their own survival, I never said they weren't. The members of bigger, stronger tribes are more likely to survive.

There are "winners" and "losers" - the genes that continue through to the next generation are the winners. That doesn't mean an organism (evolution) is guided by anything other than the genes that continue.



We live in a society that still thinks what women do with their lives is any of its business. We are still debating whether women have a right to their medical care and their bodies in the public square. Some places have moved past this, or never had this in the first place, but we haven't moved past it, and therefore it's pretty clear where this crap comes from.
Sadly, yes we do, as much as our rational minds should say it's none of our business.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not trying to say it's right because I don't believe it is. All I'm trying to say is that it's understandable given our biological history. I can also understand the guy that walks in on his wife in bed with another man and kills the man. That doesn't mean I approve and it certainly doesn't stop society from throwing the guy in jail for a few years.
 
Just as I said - it's not rational, it's emotional/instinctual or subconscious if you prefer. And, yes, they are worrying about their own survival, I never said they weren't. The members of bigger, stronger tribes are more likely to survive.

There are "winners" and "losers" - the genes that continue through to the next generation are the winners. That doesn't mean an organism (evolution) is guided by anything other than the genes that continue.



Sadly, yes we do, as much as our rational minds should say it's none of our business.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not trying to say it's right because I don't believe it is. All I'm trying to say is that it's understandable given our biological history. I can also understand the guy that walks in on his wife in bed with another man and kills the man. That doesn't mean I approve and it certainly doesn't stop society from throwing the guy in jail for a few years.

No, it isn't. It's something people have the luxury of misinterpreting due to a poor understanding of science.

In our biological history, no one gives a crap what some random chick from the next tribe over does.

Humans by nature are rather gentle actually, because we don't really have to compete when we're in a nomadic state. Murder was very rare, because you have to be somewhat blunted to do it, and in those kinds of close tribes, it's nearly unthinkable.

And see, that's the point. Almost everything about humanity is flexible, depending on environment and culture. That's our survival mechanism: flexibility.

This culture, in which women are still generally considered more of a tool than actual people, is prone to pestering women about what they do with their uterus. That doesn't mean it's "natural." So if you don't think it's ok, stop making excuses for it.
 
Humans by nature are rather gentle actually, because we don't really have to compete when we're in a nomadic state. Murder was very rare, because you have to be somewhat blunted to do it, and in those kinds of close tribes, it's nearly unthinkable.

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! Please leave this pop science schlock out of debates. If you know something, state it, but garbage "science" doesn't really count as knowing something. Where'd you learn this, some anthropology class, for god's sakes. Peaceful and noble savages.
 
Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! Please leave this pop science schlock out of debates. If you know something, state it, but garbage "science" doesn't really count as knowing something. Where'd you learn this, some anthropology class, for god's sakes. Peaceful and noble savages.

This doesn't pertain to state of nature tribes, as is clear simply by their housing. They are certainly at least semi-agriculturalists, who do indeed make war and acts of violence at much higher rates.
 
In asking this question in this way, you are simply choosing to deny that there are people different from you, and insisting that despite the fact that you are not in our heads, you know us better.

So if you are simply going to reject the possibility that we know ourselves better than you do, why do you deserve acknowledgment?

Tell me, do you think you'll wake up one day and regret terribly that you had kids? What if I simply insisted this was a very real possibility no matter how you feel about it?

No, although given what others must have said to you in the past, I can understand why you would misconstrue my question in such a way. But here's the thing. I've never asked this question of you. Why? Because you are not throwing up "pregnancy is a disease" bit that Ocean does. With you there is at least this feeling of nothing is impossible, just extremely unlikely, which is certainly easy to accept. Maybe when you were younger you were that vehement. But you don't come across like that now. Ocean has been phrasing most of her statements regarding pregnancy as if she were a 20 something, which is what prompted the questioning in the first place.

I'm a little too late in the years to regret having the kids. They are grown and out of the house. And I will say honestly that there has always been some regret on them but it was more directed at the years wasted with their mother and not the kids themselves. However, I will won't ever say that it is an impossibility for that deep terrible regret to descend upon me. While I doubt it, much as I doubt that Ocean will change her mind, it is still possible. I at least can acknowledge the difference between possibility and probability. Logan's Law #1: Nothing is impossible, merely highly improbable. So then the question remains, can you and/or Ocean accept that it is possible, while being highly improbable, that something could occur that might cause you to change your minds?
 
I am childless because I am disabled and mentlaly ill to the point where it would not be good fo rthe hcild if I raised them (at leas tnot at this point, I'm 27). While my mental illness and disabilities could make me iferior by some people's standards, given the circustances as they are, being childless in my case is in everyone's best interest.

I personally do not consider any huan being inferior to any other. I do consider some behavior to be immoral (these mostly are considered crimes by everyone, since I'm very liberal in terms of ethics otherwise). In my opinion, making the choic enot to have children is not su ch an immoral behavior. I do not like the superiority complex many c hildfree people have, but then again I understand wher eit comes from given the general societal attitude that, even if childless couples aren't strictly speaking infrerior, their chice is often condemned.

As for th eperson who said criminals have parents too: at this point there is no way of selecting for future criminal conduct, so while you might think they'd betternot be born, you can't fault their parents for this.

Welcome to the forum! :2wave:
 
"Inferior" and "superior" are not the right words.

I believe it is fair to state that GOOD parents do more for the long term future of the country than those who do not have children, but BAD parents can do more harm.

The future of the country depends upon GOOD parents as their children are the future of the country.

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."
 
No, it isn't. It's something people have the luxury of misinterpreting due to a poor understanding of science.

In our biological history, no one gives a crap what some random chick from the next tribe over does.

Humans by nature are rather gentle actually, because we don't really have to compete when we're in a nomadic state. Murder was very rare, because you have to be somewhat blunted to do it, and in those kinds of close tribes, it's nearly unthinkable.

And see, that's the point. Almost everything about humanity is flexible, depending on environment and culture. That's our survival mechanism: flexibility.
It's you who has a poor understanding here.

You're not "in the next tribe", you're part of this tribe (American society) as you've just admitted. But if you want to follow that logic, why would "some random chick from the next tribe over" give a **** about what the people in this tribe are saying? Yet here you are, complaining about the things people say.


"Murder" (as in unacceptable killing) may have been rare but not killing or violence in general. Your "gentle savage" is an illusion. There were DMZ's between tribes long before modern warfare. They go clear back to when we were using sticks with fire hardened points as weapons.


Our unique and main survival mechanism is tool making. If you can't skin an animal and figure a way to wear it's pelt, then you don't survive the cold of the North. If you don't know how to carry some kind of shade around with you, then you don't survive the desert. If you don't have a weapon of some kind, the cat stands a much better chance of killing you. You just might be able to drive him away with a sharp stick or fire. Tool making is why we inhabit the huge variety of climates and ecosystems we do. Your "social flexibility" (what little we have, if any) is useless without it.


This culture, in which women are still generally considered more of a tool than actual people, is prone to pestering women about what they do with their uterus. That doesn't mean it's "natural." So if you don't think it's ok, stop making excuses for it.
Yes, it is natural to expect people to procreate --- and I wasn't making an "excuse" for the guy that murdered his wife's lover, either. Just because I choose to analyse something doesn't mean I agree with it - which I've already said more than once, now.

Normally we get along fine and we agree on virtually everything in this area of conversation (we agree now, too, for that matter) but this time you've gone over the edge. It's obvious that, for whatever reason, you're very emotionally involved in this topic - even more so than normal. I can understand that (I'm not making an excuse for you, either) but it does nothing to promote rational conversation. I'm sure we'll still be on the same side the next time, too, I just hope you'll keep your cool a little better and not throw around baseless accusations.

/thread
 
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Well, unlike some here who think I'm Mr Fundie Man, it doesn't bother me that you don't want children. Raising children is probably one of the more difficult and time-robbing practices known to humankind. One needs to be totally dedicated and involved in the process to be successful.

But, it is also the most rewarding and satisfying of all human endeavours.

Well, to make such a statement accurately, you would have to have personally experienced every, single human endeavour.

And since you have probably only 'experienced' a tiny fraction of them, then you cannot know how 'rewarding and satisfying' they all are.

You maybe right, but you cannot know it, you can only believe it.
 
No, although given what others must have said to you in the past, I can understand why you would misconstrue my question in such a way. But here's the thing. I've never asked this question of you. Why? Because you are not throwing up "pregnancy is a disease" bit that Ocean does. With you there is at least this feeling of nothing is impossible, just extremely unlikely, which is certainly easy to accept. Maybe when you were younger you were that vehement. But you don't come across like that now. Ocean has been phrasing most of her statements regarding pregnancy as if she were a 20 something, which is what prompted the questioning in the first place.

I'm a little too late in the years to regret having the kids. They are grown and out of the house. And I will say honestly that there has always been some regret on them but it was more directed at the years wasted with their mother and not the kids themselves. However, I will won't ever say that it is an impossibility for that deep terrible regret to descend upon me. While I doubt it, much as I doubt that Ocean will change her mind, it is still possible. I at least can acknowledge the difference between possibility and probability. Logan's Law #1: Nothing is impossible, merely highly improbable. So then the question remains, can you and/or Ocean accept that it is possible, while being highly improbable, that something could occur that might cause you to change your minds?

I'll tell you what Ocean's deal probably is. I see this a lot, and I've done my rounds with it as well, I freely admit; you can see a hint of it in my posting history. It gets more common as childfree people get older. This is why there are studies on childfree stigma management.

Childfree women can get some really abusive **** hurled at them. And it takes something that used to just kind of be background noise to us (we realized one day we won't have kids, and there ya go) and turns it into something that makes us feel like we're constantly under attack -- because some of us actually are. I've had people wish ill health on me and had a family member I was being punished by god for not wanting kids.

If you read Ocean's posts, she indicates she's in her 40's or so. She's not a spring chicken. I'm actually the youngest childfree person in this thread, if not the youngest on DP.

I do not think there is anything that would change my mind that would not also change my personality. And like I said, in such a case, I am glad I am already sterile.
 
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It's you who has a poor understanding here.

You're not "in the next tribe", you're part of this tribe (American society) as you've just admitted. But if you want to follow that logic, why would "some random chick from the next tribe over" give a **** about what the people in this tribe are saying? Yet here you are, complaining about the things people say.


"Murder" (as in unacceptable killing) may have been rare but not killing or violence in general. Your "gentle savage" is an illusion. There were DMZ's between tribes long before modern warfare. They go clear back to when we were using sticks with fire hardened points as weapons.

Our unique and main survival mechanism is tool making. If you can't skin an animal and figure a way to wear it's pelt, then you don't survive the cold of the North. If you don't know how to carry some kind of shade around with you, then you don't survive the desert. If you don't have a weapon of some kind, the cat stands a much better chance of killing you. You just might be able to drive him away with a sharp stick or fire. Tool making is why we inhabit the huge variety of climates and ecosystems we do. Your "social flexibility" (what little we have, if any) is useless without it.


Yes, it is natural to expect people to procreate --- and I wasn't making an "excuse" for the guy that murdered his wife's lover, either. Just because I choose to analyse something doesn't mean I agree with it - which I've already said more than once, now.

Normally we get along fine and we agree on virtually everything in this area of conversation (we agree now, too, for that matter) but this time you've gone over the edge. It's obvious that, for whatever reason, you're very emotionally involved in this topic - even more so than normal. I can understand that (I'm not making an excuse for you, either) but it does nothing to promote rational conversation. I'm sure we'll still be on the same side the next time, too, I just hope you'll keep your cool a little better and not throw around baseless accusations.

/thread

Yes, I am. You can't have a tribe of 300 million. I don't know any of these people, and I'd be getting the same crap if I were from the UK.

It isn't that I care what people say. It's that I view it as an outgrowth of oppressive social control and sometimes misogyny, so I make an effort to advocate against it simply on the principle of the matter.

Actually violence was relatively rare. We don't see it spike until the earlier forms of agriculture appear. I actually saw a documentary about one of these tribes that still exists, and it was interesting because one of the main women being interviewed was cheating on her husband and everyone knew it. What did he do? Nothing.

What little social flexibility we have? You're kidding, right? :lol: Human societies can't even agree on how many genders there are, or whether eating animals is right. We have as much social flexibility as it is possible for any organism to have.

There is nothing rational about this weird form of social darwinism promoted by people who know nothing about sociology or anthropology.
 
I'll tell you what Ocean's deal probably is. I see this a lot, and I've done my rounds with it as well, I freely admit; you can see a hint of it in my posting history. It gets more common as childfree people get older. This is why there are studies on childfree stigma management.

Childfree women can get some really abusive **** hurled at them. And it takes something that used to just kind of be background noise to us (we realized one day we won't have kids, and there ya go) and turns it into something that makes us feel like we're constantly under attack -- because some of us actually are. I've had people wish ill health on me and had a family member I was being punished by god for not wanting kids.

Yep, and I'm no exception. For some irrational reason, some folks get really riled at the idea that a WOMAN can reject motherhood as a life path for herself, since they've decided "that's what ALL women are supposed to do," and other such nonsense. Usually the hostility comes from members of the militant religionist camps, the ones who have been indoctrinated from an early age with that "be fruitful and multiply" command, but occasionally it comes from non-religious people too.

I've lost count of how many times I pointed out that I enjoy my life more BECAUSE I don't have children -- or husband either -- so why would I want to change that? The answer is simple; I DON'T want to change it, and have no intention of doing so. Since I have no intention of getting married either, the idea that I would "meet someone who could change my attitude about kids" is just a WISH in those people's minds. And as we all know, just because someone makes a wish doesn't mean that wish will come true. :lol:
 
I'll tell you what Ocean's deal probably is. I see this a lot, and I've done my rounds with it as well, I freely admit; you can see a hint of it in my posting history. It gets more common as childfree people get older. This is why there are studies on childfree stigma management.

Childfree women can get some really abusive **** hurled at them. And it takes something that used to just kind of be background noise to us (we realized one day we won't have kids, and there ya go) and turns it into something that makes us feel like we're constantly under attack -- because some of us actually are. I've had people wish ill health on me and had a family member I was being punished by god for not wanting kids.

If you read Ocean's posts, she indicates she's in her 40's or so. She's not a spring chicken. I'm actually the youngest childfree person in this thread, if not the youngest on DP.

I do not think there is anything that would change my mind that would not also change my personality. And like I said, in such a case, I am glad I am already sterile.

I do get it, and I understand it from a parallel perspective. I guess the biggest thing has been that those of us that have questioned Ocean about this, first, did so before she had revealed her age and second were not speaking from a perspective of "it's your place as a woman to have kids" but of "be careful what you say will never happen because it just might, especially if you are young." And then when we note that this is our point, one that we would give to any gender regardless of topic, we're still bashed upon the former point.

Honestly I hope that she doesn't change her mind given her age. That would involve much higher risks for her and a baby. The only thing I've been looking for is can she admit to the possibility that despite the improbability, something might happen to make her willingly change her mind (even if she wouldn't act upon it) and if such a change did come about would she say "Hey turns out there actually was something I never foresaw that caused me to change my mind"? You, by the way you worded your last sentence leave open the possibility. You also strike me as one who would say later, yes you are indeed changing your mind on the matter.
 
I do get it, and I understand it from a parallel perspective. I guess the biggest thing has been that those of us that have questioned Ocean about this, first, did so before she had revealed her age and second were not speaking from a perspective of "it's your place as a woman to have kids" but of "be careful what you say will never happen because it just might, especially if you are young." And then when we note that this is our point, one that we would give to any gender regardless of topic, we're still bashed upon the former point.

Honestly I hope that she doesn't change her mind given her age. That would involve much higher risks for her and a baby. The only thing I've been looking for is can she admit to the possibility that despite the improbability, something might happen to make her willingly change her mind (even if she wouldn't act upon it) and if such a change did come about would she say "Hey turns out there actually was something I never foresaw that caused me to change my mind"? You, by the way you worded your last sentence leave open the possibility. You also strike me as one who would say later, yes you are indeed changing your mind on the matter.

Yeah, but like I said, we never see these same pushes for an admission aimed at childfree men, so what are we to assume? And again, you're not in her head.

What I think could change my mind about being childfree is precisely the same thing that can change someone's sexuality. There are rare cases of people being struck in a particular area of the brain that has resulted in a switch of sexuality. That's what I think it would take.

However, such a switch of personality would not necessarily make me a better candidate for motherhood given all the other immutable factors, which is why I still wouldn't want to do it, and would hope the rather aggressive tubal procedure I had would prevent me from being able to get around it if I lost sight of that.

I could admit that my thinking has been impaired by forces outside my control, certainly. There's no shame in that. I could also admit if I did simply change my mind, but like I said, this isn't something I really decided. It's something I just know, and the traits of it were visible even early in my own childhood.

Everything we think comes from our brains, and therefore with sufficient pressure, anything can be changed.

So, question. Can you admit the probably equally remote possibility you might regret having your children someday?
 
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So, question. Can you admit the probably equally remote possibility you might regret having your children someday?

Already did so the first time you asked.

I'm a little too late in the years to regret having the kids. They are grown and out of the house. And I will say honestly that there has always been some regret on them but it was more directed at the years wasted with their mother and not the kids themselves. However, I will won't ever say that it is an impossibility for that deep terrible regret to descend upon me. While I doubt it, much as I doubt that Ocean will change her mind, it is still possible. I at least can acknowledge the difference between possibility and probability.
 
Honestly I hope that she doesn't change her mind given her age. That would involve much higher risks for her and a baby.

Great, then you won't be disappointed. I will NOT change my mind, and I don't WANT a baby. Nor do I want a husband. I enjoy my life of freedom far too much to give it up for either marriage or motherhood.
 
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