Womens Right NOT Have Children and the Stigmas That Go With It..

[JRS]

I read a very interesting article from BBC News today about the women, who choose not to have any children:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10786279

I was suprised a bit that women have to endure so much negative commentary about they choice.
But as I suspected, things got more interesting in the commentary section:

Will there be a second article called "The men who choose not to be fathers"? Women aren't the only people who can choose not to have children. The article treats an issue that is not limited to women in a rather old fashioned, sexist manner.
​

Pete Birkinshaw, Manchester

Well Pete, are men now able to get pregnant and give birth? If so, then there would be a second article on the topic. The issue resolves around a woman's choice to put HER body through pregnancy, or not. And if a woman should be pressurised to do so. So the article is not being sexist at all; it's about women being liberated and making their own choices.
​

Linda, London

So, what do you all think?
- Are you suprised that not having children is such an stigma even today?
- Why do you think its an stigma?
- Is it womens sole right to choose about not having children..and do men have any rights concerning this matter?

Discuss and comment

 

[O'Dib]

If men want kids, they should make sure their partners are interested. Even so, there are options, like sleeping around, donating sperm, adopting, etc.

 

[Hermiod]

Will there be a second article called "The men who choose not to be fathers"?

More accurately, given this is Britain, the article would be entitled "The People Who Choose Not to Be Secondary Parents".

So, what do you all think?
- Are you suprised that not having children is such an stigma even today?

No, not at all.

- Why do you think its an stigma?

Because our society is founded on religious dogma that says we should go forth and multiply. Women have been given this arbitrary role as mothers and homemakers and as such need to be protected. If they don't fulfill their role then somehow they're not meeting their end of the bargain.

All over the world, the better educated women are the less children they have simply because education gives women choices. It teaches them that they don't have to be baby making machines.

Men suffer for this just as badly - for men if your life is not school, university, job, car, wife, house, bigger house, kids, even bigger house, grandkids, pension, retire, death with no room for the things we thought were fun while we were young then you are 'immature'.

- Is it womens sole right to choose about not having children..and do men have any rights concerning this matter?

I will not say that men have the right to make a woman carry their child.

However, men should have the right to say 'no children' and not have this used against them in divorce proceedings and more money should be put in to researching longer term contraceptives for men - the 'male pill'.

 

[Deckerd]

The women in my office who don't have children, from choice, outstrips those who do by 3 to 2. Only one of the 4 men has kids. I don't know what that says but none of us is stigmatised one way or the other. I think the stigma thing is no longer applicable.

 

[kathryn i am]

I think the stigma is still very much alive and well. My husband and I got married last year, and since then have endured an almost-constant barrage of "when are kids happening?" This from members of our family who knew before we got married that we were not planning on having children ( ) but also from nearly complete strangers who assume that we must have gotten married because we wanted to reproduce.


*ahem*

Sorry. It's one of my pet peeves that it is automatically assumed that I want children because I am female and married.

And then, of course, I hear "but you're a teacher, don't you like children?" Of course I like children - I just don't want them to be mine

 

[Deckerd]

Maybe it's the perception of marriage that's stigmatised, rather than the women themselves.

 

[TheBrew]

Maybe it's the perception of marriage that's stigmatised, rather than the women themselves.

As you well know, the perception of marriage is a bit off in many Western Countries (especially most of the U.S.)

 

[Deckerd]

Then "it's a bit off" everywhere, since globally it's accepted as a precursor to having children.

 

[TheBrew]

Then "it's a bit off" everywhere, since globally it's accepted as a precursor to having children.

True, but since the OP was about a western country (the supposedly highest civilized ones), I was trying to focus on that segment.

 

[Deckerd]

This from members of our family who knew before we got married that we were not planning on having children

That's what families are for

but also from nearly complete strangers who assume that we must have gotten married because we wanted to reproduce.

That's just rudeness. Rudeness exists in all walks of life and I don't think you can single out marriage as a special case.

 

[Jan]

There's only stigma or pressure if that's what you allow. When people ask if I have kids, I just reply that no, I never wanted any. Most of the time, that's the end of it. Sometimes parents will extoll the joys they've experienced but I simply say that it's not for me.

I don't feel pressured or stigmatized when somebody tells me 'you don't know what you're missing' when the subject is a food item I don't care for, why would I feel pressured or stigmatized when the subject is children I chose not to have?

Jan

 

[Teelie]

Children are a very complicated issue. On the one hand, everyone seems to be expected (to varying degrees) to have children. Even one child if that's all you want, but if a couple doesn't plan or want any children, I still see the slightest disapproval of the majority of people when they hear that.

Then of course you get, who has a right to children? If a woman is pregnant, she has a right to keep or terminate the pregnancy. If a man wants to have a child or not is mostly not his right. He's either stuck with keeping an unwanted child and paying child support (regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy) or he's left with finding a woman who will have a child with him. He can't (and shouldn't) force a woman to go through with an unwanted pregnancy.

A woman can have a child whether the man wants it or not, the man just gets to carry the burden if he chooses not to but she goes through with it. The opposite is not true for a woman; she doesn't want it, she terminates the pregnancy and the man has no recourse of keeping the baby.

Partially, this is just biology, but it's also social. Human rights to their own body (women's rights is a sexist exclusion of men if you think about it) is firmly correct in being a right. No one should be forced to do something with their body they don't wish to. But that's the conundrum of a man wanting a baby but the woman not.

I know I've gone slightly off topic here but it's more important to look at this from both sides. Women might be the one who carries a child in their body but men are not just glorified sperm donors, no matter what misandry there is about mens roles in rearing children. Women can do it all alone without a spouse, but so can men. Society just chooses to give women more leeway when it comes to this particular discussion.

There is no simple answer to the right to or not to have children. You can just as easily say for a man to adopt a child if he wants one (despite single parents, men particularly being discouraged from doing so) but you wouldn't say that to a woman, would you? All because of a biological limitation. Yet to use biological limitations in virtually any other fashion is considered sexist and unacceptable.

Married couples are unfortunately stuck with the constant questions of "when" as opposed to "if" since marriage is seen as the start of a family, instead of the completion of one if those two people aren't desiring children.

 

[Hermiod]

^If we had a round of applause smiley you'd get one from me for that.

 

[Marie1]

I was drawing (for an art contest) the other day, and a family member saw me, sighed and said "Can't you have children and teach them to draw?" LOL!

I'm "good with kids" but I don't want them- I can put up with them a while, then I want them to go back to their parents.

So, there's a "stigma" to a point, but some people are silly and nosey and their opinions on whether I devote 19 years + to being responsible for another person isn't their business.

 

[SiorX]

.
Partially, this is just biology, but it's also social. Human rights to their own body (women's rights is a sexist exclusion of men if you think about it) is firmly correct in being a right. No one should be forced to do something with their body they don't wish to. But that's the conundrum of a man wanting a baby but the woman not.

I know I've gone slightly off topic here but it's more important to look at this from both sides. Women might be the one who carries a child in their body but men are not just glorified sperm donors, no matter what misandry there is about mens roles in rearing children. Women can do it all alone without a spouse, but so can men. Society just chooses to give women more leeway when it comes to this particular discussion.

For what it's worth, paternity leave; equality in provisions for single fathers (changing facilities in public toilets, leave from work for family issues etc); recognition of "non-traditional" family models; and wishing the media would shut the fuck up talking about fathers "babysitting" their kids are favourite hobby horses of any number of women's rights activists. 'Women's rights' doesn't preclude men having rights too.

I decided quite early on that I never wanted to have children - if I get to that point in my life I'd much rather foster or adopt. I've spent ten years saying this when asked only to be told "you'll think differently when you're older". I can only assume I'll continue to hear that until I'm in my thirties. Then the script will change to "time is running out". And then I'll just get pitying looks. Joy of coming from a very family-oriented community.

 

[Teelie]

^If we had a round of applause smiley you'd get one from me for that.

Thanks, sometimes I go off on a tangent about an opinion but seeing this discussion and being personally invested (married, no kids [yet or definitely]) I had a lot to say on it. I could say more but I'm not writing a thesis on it.

I've endured the "when will the children be?" or "is there one on the way" when we first got married questions and I'm at this point unsure I want to. I'm firmly in the middle on this one. I can see both sides. Having kids is both a great burden and a great gift (though gift seems so kitschy a word) but the same is true of not having children.

Children are a huge responsibility, not having them a huge freedom from that responsibility. They're also often a source of all those good things (pride, joy, happiness, success, etc) that people need but it's no simple or easy task to just have a child and raise it for upwards of 20 years and then just shrug off those previous decades of parental worry and habits.

That's why I think before anyone thinks about having or not having children they should consider the ramifications. What is really the best choice for them, regardless of family or societal pressures?

 

[Kestra]

I think there's a lot of stigma still, but it depends on the company you keep for the most part. It's all really stupid. Two people who enter into a long-term commitment together should talk about many important things. Knowing each other's views on religion, finances, values, goals, and children are just some of the basic things.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Because our society is founded on religious dogma that says we should go forth and multiply. Women have been given this arbitrary role as mothers and homemakers and as such need to be protected.

While I fully support the right of anyone, male or female, to have all opportunities available to them and to live their lives as they see fit, I wouldn't apply the label “arbitrary” to something that's innate in our biology and the result of millions of years of evolution.

Well Pete, are men now able to get pregnant and give birth? If so, then there would be a second article on the topic. The issue resolves around a woman's choice to put HER body through pregnancy, or not.​

Linda, London

There's a lot more involved in choosing to have children than just putting your body through pregnancy. There's the eighteen or twenty years AFTER the kid is born. And that, of course, applies to fathers as well.

As for myself, I've voluntarily opted out of contributing to the gene pool for a very simple reason: I dislike children. They're messy and they make noise. A LOT of noise. I hate noise.

 

[Hermiod]

^As I said earlier, children have mothers and secondary parents in the UK.

 

[sidious618]

Here in America there is a massive stigma about it. Even here in New York, supposedly the bastion of liberal ideas, I get funny looks and "wtf is wrong with you?" comments when I opine I do not want kids.