Customer Reviews

The Case Against Having Children,

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As someone who has chosen not to have children, it was refreshing to find a book that agreed with things I've been saying all along - that the maternal instinct is a myth and that many people have children for all the wrong reasons. While the title makes the book sound like it's anti-parenthood, that just isn't true. This would be a good book for someone who is considering parenthood to help them determine if they really want children or if they are just caving in to societal pressure. And if you do decide to have children, this book lists why it's best for everyone if you limit your family size.

While the book is a bit dated (published in 1971) I believe its message is still important today.

It is not surprising that this book, which was very well done I might add, has been overlooked in today's baby crazy culture where it is so "fashionable" to have a child regardless of how well the child is taken care of after it is born. Where many more opportunities have been made available to women since the book was published, more women have become college educated since ever before and women have "earned" the right do die beside their military colleagues in Iraq, there is STILL the underlying feeling that "having children is the only way they can gain recognition and attain a feeling of accomplishment." Childless women are STILL being given the cultural message that they are somehow inferior because they do not have children. "Through the Myth of the Maternal Instinct, society has established the rule that all women want children and being an exception to the rule means being something of a social outcast." The author states (and I agree) "This is a sad commentary because it suggests that women are only good for one thing, breeding." And this propogation of children is promoted in American culture DESPITE the fact that poverty, disease, war, crime and famine ALL have their roots in overpopulation. Americans IGNORE that their nation can only survive if people LIMIT their number of children yet the beat goes on. The author goes on to make the important point: "...just as a man is able to make a creative contribution to some significant society and ...achieve a high sense of personal worth without ever impregnating a woman, so a woman can accomplish a similar state of personal fulfillment without every having been impregnated by a man." Unfortunately it is the woman's own friends, relatives and neighbors that actively promote the idea that children are women's GREATEST contribution and definitely DO question the femininity and psych-sexual adjustment of those who choose to remain childless in order to pursue a career. This social attitude...is internalized by women, and results in a conditioned maternal drive." The author further adds that the final pressure that turns women away from finding alternatives to their conventional role is the fear that by adopting "masculine" career patterns they would be eliminating their sexual desirability. "Obviously this reflects the male attitude that women should be sexual objects whose primary functions are gratifying a man's erotic needs and having his babies and that women who aspire to do other than these things are incapable of normal heterosexual relationships." How very true even today in 2008 where women STILL make less than eighty cents of every dollar a man in the same job with the same education and experience make! Sadly whereas business, education and the professions are open to women and expanding, motherhood is still looked upon by many women as their ONLY way of producing something of value on this earth. This creates a situation where many gifted women who could truly have benefited from high education forfeit this to become wives and stay-at-home mothers. Women with less education are more apt to accept the conventional wife-mother role and to choose motherhood rather than careers or professions as their means of self fulfillment and self actualization. For them without children their lives would be wasted. This is truly a tragedy! The book leaves me thinking the old saying that even in 2008 "The more things change. The more they remain the same." For instance, a later book (1995) by Leslie Lafayette Why Don't You Have Kids?: Living a Full Life Without Parenthood revisits the same subject but explores further how childless individuals in this culture are treated as invisible members of society. THE CASE AGAINST HAVING CHILDREN may have a threatening title to some but others it can be considered a breakthrough book, one exemplary of the now apparently defunct Women's Movement which was, after all, about CHOICE not CONFORMITY. It is a real shame that there are so few books written on this subject. Perhaps that is one of the reasons there is no lack of abused and neglected children existant in our society.

You've already made up your mind, this book will only validate that decision.

But still you wonder...

Q: Are you thinking about having a baby, but you're in doubt?

A: I would humbly suggest, `when in doubt, there is no doubt.'

Unless you are 100% prepared to face the hardest job EVER invented, don't even think about tackling it.

And I don't mean 'prepared' financially etc, I mean PSYCHOLOGICALLY.

Unless you have gotten over your insecurities and feeling unloved, unworthy, unlikable - don't even think about it.

Unless you are prepared to devote the next 20 YEARS of your life to the being that you're contemplating bringing in to this world - don't even think about it.

TRUTHFULLY - are you having a child just to show your mother that you can? Just to live up to your family's expectations? Just to leave home? Just to answer for yourself the question `What is the meaning of life?' Just to negate your feelings of uselessness? Just to show other people that you are a `real' woman? If ANY of the above apply - don't even think about it.

Unless you can say with ABSOLUTE honesty that the ONLY reason you are wanting/having a child is so that you can love it, support it, cherish it, nurture it, adore it, help it grow, help it live in this crazy world AND help it to help this crazy world, then DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Your needs will always come second, the child's needs come first. ALWAYS. Wakarimasuka? Unless you understand and LIVE that, you will be unable to be the parent you'd like to be.

Q: How do you think serial killers are formed? Sadistic rapists? Wildfire starters? Bullies? Wife batterers?

A1: Genetics?

A2: Or were their parents, their upbringing, their environment, so corrupted, inept, ignorant and fearful that there was no other possible outcome?

It does take a whole village to raise a child, and unless you have one in your back pocket, you are going to be STRUGGLING; and feeling guilty about the struggle between parenting and work, between coping and not coping, and feeling like you are not doing good enough, or even just enough, and feeling like maybe you made a mistake, and feeling guilty that you are thinking like that, which in turn makes you feel even more like you are not the world's `best' parent, and that you are a failure. Which brings you to the depths of despair and depression.

As Geddy Lee from `Rush' says: `working at perfekt, got me down on my knees'.My Favorite Headache

Q: Do you need to be a `perfect' parent?

A: Depends if you want the `perfect' child. (- And don't you all?)

And if you accept that you can't have/create/mold the perfect child, what level of imperfection are you prepared to accept? What level of parenting or parenting `failure' are you prepared to tolerate?

And should your intended child be subjected to your `tolerable' answer?
Should our community, our planet, be subjected to that answer?

Regarding the issue of people not having children being regarded as `selfish', well this has been totally discredited elsewhere. So one may need to ask rather, is wanting to HAVE children the selfish view? (I want a friend/I want someone to love/I want someone to love me/I want someone to do ballet because I didn't get to do it/I want someone I can teach to be the next Bruce Lee because I wasn't good enough/My ego wants to know that I made that/I want to be immortal etc.)

So, if you're thinking that when you have a child, you'll be: more likable, more lovable, more worthy, more successful, a better person, more sociable etc. then isn't that just you wanting to `improve' your life, specifically, by having a child?

And wouldn't you agree that that would be selfish? Isn't that about YOU, and not the child. And thus, is that a valid reason for wanting to have a child?

6.7 billion of us and counting. Too many people for the mismanaged way the corporations run this planet. Your child is another burden on the planet. It will eat meat, use electricity, be driven around in a car, live in a heated/air-conditioned home, sit on furniture made from the forests cut down around us - in short it will be a consumer of the world's resources, just like you, just like me. And just like the other 6.7 billion others. Though the poor ones don't have furniture, or cars, or air con, or meat - in short it's WESTERN kids who are killing the planet - but I digress.

Have you thought about these points below?

WORKLOAD - tremendous. Mainly by THE MOTHER. Partner won't be around, or even if he is, won't do enough. On housework alone, it's estimated women do 70%. Changing diapers, getting up to feed, bathing, wiping, cooking, nursing, lullabying, reading, cutlunching, hoovering, cleaning the toilet etc. etc. - no matter how well intended hubby/partner might be, or says he is, it's always going to be the MOTHER'S burden. HER responsibility.

FINANCIAL - estimates go as high as over 300 thousand dollars to raise a child to 18 yrs of age. (I know what I could do with that!)

HEALTH - for the mother: there is the risk of death (yes, even now, some women still DIE giving birth) or other `complications' during childbirth, I won't gross you out here, but do your research on `what can go wrong?' Then there are the lifelong effects on the mother of any of those complications. Then there is the very real prospect of PostNatal Depression; which affects a vast percentage of new mothers. Who then feel guilty that they feel that way and thus seek no help and spiral down into a grief that can sometimes last for years.

For the child: what if you drank alcohol while you were pregnant, or coffee, of had a joint, or lived near high power electrical lines, or near a chemical factory, or near a freeway - in short, all the pollution that you were subjected to during your own life, and during your pregnancy WILL affect the health of your new born. And then if there are problems, these could be minor or major. Temporary or lifelong. And what if there is a genetic strain in your family's DNA, that results in a problem of some kind. Between pollution and genetics what if your child is born with a mutation, abnormality, defect? Are you prepared for that? And, in that unfortunate instance, are you prepared to give your life over TOTALLY as a `CARER'? With little or no government/community support? Can you imagine what kind of DAILY hell that would be?

Once again, it's down to you. It's your responsibility for bringing this being into the world.

WORK - time off work. How long? Can you afford it financially? Can you afford it intellectually? Can you afford it socially? Most people are validated by what they do, by their work. Are you prepared to give that up for the short/long term? Will you be employable in 1, 2 or 5 years time after having `raised' your child?

SEX - you love it now, but wait till you've been up for 22 hours nursing a sick child. You won't have the energy, the time, the inclination. Or if you do, he won't. Men can easily be put off sex, and things like baby poo smell on you, or seeing you on your hands and knees wiping up the latest mess etc. etc. can make Mr Happy, Mister not interested tonight. Then, when you do manage to get around to do it, in comes a crying child, saying that they want to sleep with you tonight. Or you hear a sound half way through, and your concentration immediately goes to the child in the next room. Or you're afraid of waking them up. Or...fill in the blanks.

SOCIALIZING - get used to baby talk for a few years. Get used to not talking about adult things for a few years. Get used to not being able to go out to a movie tonight on the spur of the moment. Or going away for the weekend. Or even if you find the time, having the ENERGY to do those things is another thing altogether. Or what about catching up with friends? Who may not have the time, the energy, etc. because they are PARENTS too. And your single friends? What single friends, they've all DISAPPEARED.

SLEEP - one word, deprivation. And all its consequences. Just don't operate any heavy machinery for the first two years. Like a car. Oh, and maybe defer any emotionally charged arguments with your partner as well. Things said cannot be taken back, and if you're tired, we know how things can sometimes come out wrong. And something as major as this, is no doubt one of the reasons why 50% of all divorces happen within 5 years of a child being brought into the, loving, `family unit'.

FEAR - `you don't know what fear is until you become a parent.' Heard that before? Fear of anything, EVERYTHING going wrong.

Fancy living on a knife-edge every time the little one's temperature goes above 99 degrees? Is home late from school? Starts choking on a sausage? Runs across the road without looking? Goes to a party with `friends'? EVERYTHING will set you off and you'll end up in a sweat driven panic. (This apparently lasts for the child's entire life.)

BABYSITTER - how easy is it going to be? Do you have that village? If not, do you really want some stupid 16-year-old cheerleader and the boyfriend she sneaks over, to watch over your child while you are out on your official `date night'. (- you know, the night that is supposed to get you and your partner both interested in each others bodies/minds again)

BODY IMAGE - whoa! A whole new world awaits you, the MOTHER. (`Daddy' surprisingly will have no ill effects from the pushing out and breast-feeding of mini-me)

Welcome to sagging breasts (take photos now so you can say how great they USED to look), expanded pelvis/hip/bottom area, erratic skin texture, hair LIMP and dead, bone density has left the building etc. etc. Not to mention that now wayyy stretched bit your partner likes (or used to like?) best. Your body will NEVER be the same again. On every level, right down to the cellular, your body will change, HAS to change, to accommodate, feed (inside), push out, feed (outside) the new unit.

But, maybe you can be like Madonna or any of those other celebs and get yourself a couple of nannies to help you out yeah? (- and maybe a surrogate to do the actual push out too?)

TEENAGE YEARS - are you a masochist?

WORLD - with global warming an ever darkening reality and its devastating effects just beginning, and social, financial, chaos looming at every turn, do you really want to bring someone new to that party?

I'll finish now with PRO points to having a child:

Umm?

Okay, this book makes some excellent points. However, just like MOST of the literature about choosing to start a family, it concentrates totally on a womans point of view. Just because women are given the uncomfortable role of popping out the babies does not mean they are the only active responsible party. Where is the guide for MEN about reproductive responsibility and decision making? Someone needs to re-write this for both genders so people can decide together.