Why do so many women end up involuntarily childless? Is it because men are ruining their lives, with sexism and discrimination and refusal to commit? OR is it because women are deliberately making choices that lead them to involuntary childlessness? This interesting article answers that question. It comes from the far leftist Huffington Post.
They write:
The Huffington Post and YouGov asked 124 women why they choose to be childfree. Their motivations ranged from preferring their current lifestyles (64 percent) to prioritizing their careers (9 percent) — a.k.a. fairly universal things that have motivated men not to have children for centuries. To give insight into the complex, layered decisions women make, HuffPost asked childfree readers to discuss the reasons they have chosen not to have kids and gathered 270 responses here.
They grouped the responses into 5 categories:
- I want to prioritize my career
- I don’t like children
- I had a bad relationship with my parents
- I don’t want the financial responsibility
- I like my life as it is
And here are some interesting quotations:
Category 1:
I am a first-generation college graduate in my family. My mother was a single mom my entire childhood, and I was there to see that struggle. Being a parent, for a woman, means for life. Being a parent, for men, seems to be something very different. I understand raising children is a big life change and I don’t want to sell myself short on my potential to become something more and maybe even create change. I am childfree because I want to travel, move, pursue my career wholly and be able to push myself to be an inspiration to other women. If a child comes into my life, it won’t be until I am happy and successful in my work life, and not until I am secure with my finances and a marriage. I don’t want to one day wake up as an old woman wishing I had waited to have children so I could live my own life first, make mistakes, learn new things and find myself. Today kids are not for me.
Category 2:
I’m nearly 47; my boyfriend (domestic partner) of 17 years is nearly 50. I’ve never been pregnant and have taken every precaution to remain childfree. I tolerate other people’s children when I have to. I’m happiest when there are NO children around. I definitely don’t want them in my home. I like my life as it is. My boyfriend and I are both scientists. We also raise snakes and spiders! We like to travel. We travel to ride roller coasters (members of ACE — American Coaster Enthusiasts) and to attend rock concerts. I am also a performer in a senior winter guard. My plate overfloweth! I see no reason to procreate. I would be unhappy. Why be unhappy?
Category 3:
I have a great relationship with my husband. We have the time and money to travel, and that gives us precious memories. I had a bad relationship with my dad, and maybe I’m scared to treat my children like that. I’m very happy with my decision. I have a great relationship with myself too.
Category 4:
My spouse and I have talked in depth about having children. However, we both decided that our desire to travel the world is a financial burden in itself. If we have kids, we will never have the means to travel, and at the end of our life, we would rather be 100 percent committed to fulfilling our own realistic dreams rather than only able to provide a subpar life for a child. Comes down to the fact we are selfish, but at least we recognize this and made the choice early enough to avoid damaging a kid
Category 5:
The thought of having to do kiddie crap every weekend makes me want to shoot myself. I like having the extra money to save for retirement and not worry about braces, summer camp or college tuition. I can travel on a moment’s notice. I can give my all to my job and not have to worry about daycare, sick days, or having to leave my co workers to pick up my slack. I’m the “cool aunt” to all my nieces and nephews. I have more time to do the things that make me happy and productive. My relationship with my guy is not strained due to the constant neediness of children. I don’t want to put my body through pregnancy and childbirth. I can give my dog all the attention he needs and deserves.
If I had to choose one comment to represent the entire survey, it would be this one:
The moment you have children, you’re life ceases to be about yourself. Kids always take priority and I feel like I can do more for this world than just generate offspring.
These quotations are very troubling to me. I don’t see that young women today are being serious about choosing men who are serious about marriage – especially men who are financially prepared to pay for things like houses and children.
Many women try to communicate maturity to others by saying that they want to get married “some day”. But all the actions right now show that they really see marriage as “boring” and “demanding”. Marriage and children “some day” is like planning for your retirement by winning the lottery. The every day actions of spending money aren’t preparing you in any way to win the lottery. Talking about marriage “some day” is just a way for the woman to signal to her family and friends that she will eventually want the responsibility of a husband and kids, but not right now. The problem with that is that making selfish decisions over and over and over is not the way to prepare your character to be content with caring for the needs of a husband and children. Being unselfish is a skill that you have to build by repetition and practice. Just like any other virtue. And men know that. Good men won’t marry women who won’t care for them or care for their children.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
If a pastor reads the post, then I hope he can recognize that travel is a stronghold for women.
I know at my church it’s seen as a pure virtue.
My wife went to a European country last year for work. I chose not to go. Folks at church thought not traveling was nuts. They didn’t say it was a sin, but it’s clearly seen as a plus. So it put me in the position of trying to explain to other Christians why my not traveling was a wise decision.
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YES! I keep running into women – young and old – who use travel as a way to feel sophisticated, and project sophistication. I saw that Sharon Stone was recently bashing non-actress Americans, saying they voted for Trump because they don’t travel enough. As if travel teaches you which health care and energy policies work in real life. Even the most lowly private sector worker has a better understanding of how prices are set in a free market than these travel-worshippers.
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we hope they are happy. You can choose to start a career late, like Grandma Moses. You cannot, as a woman, choose to start a family late.
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I wish that we could count on the previous generation of women to help the younger ones prioritize marriage. But what I often see is that the older ones are not content with marriage and motherhood, and they warn the young ones not to marry the boring good man (“broccoli”) until they have spent their earlier years having fun with career, travel, and no-commitment bad boys.
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I remember stumbling upon a book in the store titled “what I was doing while you were breeding.”
The childless will still have a place in heaven. The selfish will not.
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I feel like people who don’t want children, aren’t willing to sacrifice and love those children, shouldn’t have children. I think it’s a good thing for them to realize that before having a child and then being a half-assed parent to that child. :/
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I think it might be related to the loss of understanding that God created us to love us, and for our good. Young people don’t have that attitude.
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Feminism has taught women to live like men – selfish men, that is.
Selfish men welcome the increasing number of selfish women that feminism has produced because selfish women serve well the purposes of selfish men.
This metastasizing selfishness among both sexes has our society in a death spiral, not being able to reproduce itself, much less improve itself.
It is the loss of love for Christ that is at the root of it all.
Let us pray that every Christ-loving man will soon match up with a Christ-loving woman…and have children. Satan is working to keep the godly apart, and indeed it is hard for such men and women to find each other in a society like this. But we pray that they will not lose heart, and we should introduce them to each other whenever we see them isolated from each other. Every wintery knight needs and deserves a wintery dame.
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From the bio of the UnitedHC widow, ““I love spending time with my two boys and taking them to all of their activities,” she wrote about her personal life. “I also love boating, spending time with family and friends, playing piano, biking, and traveling.”
There is the signal again, “travel.”
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