On the decision/excuses of deliberately childless women - Part 1


Posted On: Monday - May 16th 2022 11:30AM MST
In Topics: 
  Feminism  Female Stupidity



This is the Part 1 of the final two posts about the truthful but depressing Lionel Shriver article No kids please, we're selfish from back in '05. The situation has probably gotten worse since then.

Our first post on Mrs. Shriver's article was On Motherhood - for the individual an society - Lionel Shriver. Near the end of this long article, the writer included the stories, I'd say "excuses" of 3 of her close friends who were, and still are*, childless. Peak Stupidity has post on each of their stories with a small bit of commentary: Gabriella - - Nora, and Leslie .

Three common threads in the women's excuses were "traveling", "my work", and seeking perfection in a mate. Regarding the traveling first, I don't know how well-off the 3 women are**, but when you're single with no children, you can come up with the money for the "traveling abroad". That is especially the case if you are not trying to build a future, like most men are, in order to get women, for one thing. What's the big damn deal about traveling the world for these women? It's great to learn about the world outside, mind you, but c'mon! Not having children so you can travel the world seems like a poor excuse. Mrs. Shriver herself is tops in this respect. I have only read a little big of her biography - see Lionel Shriver Is Looking for Trouble - thanks, SafeNow, for this one - which Peak Stupidity discussed in Ya gotta like Lionel Shriver!. In her novels, however, it's pretty clear that she writes of what she knows, a good thing IMO. The stories take place in or around NY City, the New York Times is The Word, and the women narrator in We need to talk about Kevin is a world traveler***.

Getting a bit off-the-wall here, I also see this traveling urge as having a romantic element. Face it, guys who travel the world are always looking for girls, as they are looking for girls anywhere they might be. Friends who've been to Eastern Europe, for example, have stories ... Even if it's not in their conscious minds these women are hopeful they will meet that tall, dark, and handsome "Mr. Right". Yeah, yeah, gotta see the Bushmen [/Elaine Benice of Seinfeld]. right, that's the ticket ...

A much bigger factor in keeping not just these 3, but many women, from having children is the constant barrage of the narrative that women should go to work, during the entire 55 year-long push for feminism. That they can "have it all", a career and a family, is what women have been told. These 3 women realized that this doesn't work very well. For those who've tried it, it's great that they have children. However, the stress of it and the disappointment in said career taking a back seat are what have women like these 3 making the decision to not have children. These women all are of the opinion that their work is more satisfying than raising children would be. They don't know for sure though, since they haven't done the latter.

The latter common idea written by all of these 3 women is that they will not "settle" for anyone but the very best in a husband. Lionel Shriver is the only one of the 4 in this story who seems to have a happy marriage (to a Jazz musician). She has written this in both the interviews I've read and in her fiction, the women protagonist in the 3 books I've read being very much like herself.**** In fact, none of them wrote anything about being married, and Gabriella is the only one who talked about a long-term relationship, which didn't work out. (She used the word "partner", so I don't think it was a marriage.)

As is often the case here, this was to be one post, but it's already long, and I'll cut if off here. In Part 2, I'll have discussion on what is the root cause of these female mindsets we read about.



* Actually, that's not a sure thing. The 3rd women, "Leslie", was only 26 y/o when Lionel Shriver wrote the article. She could have changed her mind since then.

** Although Gabriella hints at "not so much": Firstly, my work. Not in the sense of ambition and earning power (ha ha)...

*** There's a scene in which the evil boy Kevin defaces and tears up the narrator's irreplaceable souvenir maps that she'd spend a lot of time putting on the walls of her study.

**** The Mandibles of which Peak Stupidity has a 6-part review, is a possible exception, as her "Lat" husband high-tailed it to Mexico after the SHTF.

Comments:
Moderator
Tuesday - May 17th 2022 5:49PM MST
PS: Mr. Blanc, agreed, but on the one-child-only decisions, there could be the factor of couples having that child later in life. They've got the resources then, but they may find it too risky or, yeah, hard enough raising the one at a later age. They say that childbirth is easier for a woman each time, but then there's an age factor too. I wouldn't know. Unless I go Trans, it's out of the question, and I don't wanna know!
Moderator
Tuesday - May 17th 2022 5:45PM MST
PS: Dieter, thanks again for the European and artsy perspective.

Maybe the 20 y/o you met will get the traveling bug out of her system. I would think a missionary would have some children. (I mean, she already must know the missionary position - OK, that was too easy)

I didn't know that Bob Dylan had a number of kids before. I've read something about the Somewheres v Anywheres before, likely on Steve Sailer's blog.

It''s amazing how little I see on-line about the Yellow Vest movement considering they've been at it for f hand-full of years now. Maybe if they did have money, they could get more exposure
Moderator
Tuesday - May 17th 2022 5:38PM MST
PS: I bet college was fun during that era, UsNThem. You and your wife may have been outliers in being sure you wanted kids, especially at that age. The baby boom had ended, what, a decade back? Lots of people took the dire warnings of the Club of Rome and that sort very seriously, or, at least that was a good excuse.

Lots of White people took this to heart, along with, IMO, having parents who were used to lots of kid being the norm and not bugging their kids about grandchildren. Only thing is, the worst populations of the world were NOT given these warnings as that'd have been racisss!
MBlanc46
Tuesday - May 17th 2022 1:34PM MST
PS Yeah, Mod, it’s possible that the mother-child bond is among the greatest of human experiences. But to know that, one would have to experience it. And monumental social forces are in place to discourage women from experiencing it. On the other hand, the large proportion of women who have only one child suggests that it might not be as delightful as all that.
Dieter Kief
Monday - May 16th 2022 11:07PM MST
PS

Travel = to look at the world = to oversee it = to be (=to feel being...) in control of it.

Just spoke to a twenty year old who traveled Africa for half a year - alone. She was immensely proud. She also did some (christian) volunteer work for some months. She felt admired most of the time. - The world is thus transformed in the middle-class-comfort zone and becomes a: Daydream Nation (see (philosopher) Ernst Bloch/ Sonic Youth.

(Btw. - German artist Gerhard Richter just turned 90 recently - he painted the candle on the LP-cover of Daydream Nation.google for details: Gerhard Richter and Sonic Youth partner on Daydream Nation - QAGOMA Blog).

Now- this cover-candle is part of a series of vanitas-paintings Richter did in the 80ies.- A medieval Christian tradition which loathes: Earthly pleasures for - being vain...(vain sharing the Latin root of vanitas). - Isn't that ironic: The basics are clear. When in doubt - go back to Sonic Youth...(or Bob Dylan who too ironised the pleasure-seeking classes by telling them: I never seek pleasure / 'cause pleasure causes pain (Btw. - the anti-pleasure Dylan (who has lots of kids....) IS one of the influences of Sonic Youth:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sonic+youth+about+bob+dylan&docid=608045658650737354&mid=2A8B1DC7AB19500917AB2A8B1DC7AB19500917AB&view=detail&FORM=VIRE ).
 
Another thing: Traveling to low IQ countries (= to africa...) is sweet, because - see above: You get a subconscious/ half conscious feeling of sovereignty - in your own personal vision of the Global Daydream Nation - because you rise way above the average there - by pure magic!


(Did I mention that this is pretty much a middle class thing? It is the initiation into the tendentially globalist Anywheres' State of Mind (see David Goodhart's very insightful Brexit book the Road to Somewhere, in which he develops the dichotomy of the Anywheres (Globalists) and the Somewheres (the steady ones, the anti-immigrationist Brexiteers*****).

***** lots of Yellow-West-protest folks in France are distinctly not middle class in that they simply don't have the money to travel much: Yellow-Wests = smokers and diesel-drivers (= outdated backwater folks...the flyover-country-phenomenon - - - which (very telling!) social metaphor reflects the travelling/non-travelling class-seperation too: Those who travel (=fly) and those who don't - and thus are Are Being Flown Over.... 
usNthem
Monday - May 16th 2022 6:56PM MST
PS
I think another thing that feminism wrought, along with "my body, my choice", was women invading college campuses en mass, probably beginning in the 60's, but for sure the 70's and beyond. Don't get me wrong, as a guy attending college in the 70's, scads of scantily clad "liberated" gals (at least where I was) was a blast. But I also met my wife there and we didn't even consider not having kids. Our feeling was that's just what you do when you get hitched - the idea that we'd live our lives childless and travel, or whatever, never even entered the equation. How arcane...
Moderator
Monday - May 16th 2022 4:22PM MST
PS: Mr. Blanc, traveling is fun till you get sick of it. It's more fun when you're young. Yes, that and even being a cube-dweller (or worse yet, working in one of those open offices) is more fun than pregnancy, childbirth, and diaper changing.

However, that's the "short" of it, in my opinion. This is for the next post, but the point I will make is that raising children - unless you have that Kevin in Mrs. Shriver's novel, haha - will usually result in a long-term happiness that those without them may not be able to imagine. This is especially the case for women, as many men would rather not be tied down so much. (For the married women, tying someone down is the whole point.)

The mother/child bond is really something else, and it is obviously very fulfilling for most women. You've got to put off some short-term fun though.
MBlanc46
Monday - May 16th 2022 1:05PM MST
PS Traveling is fun. I think that’s the long and the short of it. Pregnancy and childbirth and diaper changing are not fun. And while sitting in a cubicle, or even an open-plan office, pushing pixels around for Global International Corp. might not be fun, it’s probably more fun that pregnancy, childbirth, and diaper changing.
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