<p>I have a SIL who has never wanted children- she is in her mid 40s divorced but engaged, and seems relatively happy.
Both of my girls have said they don’t want kids- I am not going to try and convince them otherwise.
I know you can have strong relationships with people who are not your peers whether you give birth to them or not. Personally I think many people who have had children- shouldnt have.</p>
<p>ek, good point - I was making the wrong assumption that narrow people would be different as parents…</p>
<p>Intolerant, no. In fact several childless people I know seem to be pretty self-aware in that I don’t think they have the “knack” for being “Mom” or “Dad.” With no value judgments attached thereto. A child is not a miniature adult. To do well as a parent requires a certain kind of communications skill, patience, and particular type of empathy. I actually think that <em>more</em> people shouldn’t have children.</p>
<p>there are many diff paths through life- and I agree that kids need strong adult support through childhood and adolescence.
If both couples have demanding careers, that can be very difficult to raise children as well, particulary if you are not comfortable delegating a large part to others.
If your childs or your life takes twists and turns along the way- illness- or other complications- that demand even more time than kids usually do, a person who is determined to have it all, may grow very frustrated, and since it can be difficult to take your frustrations out on your bosses, it festers inside or they may even take it out on their family.
My oldest is 23- I haven’t known any women who have been able to work continually since the birth ( after the three month leave) of their children with the exception of my SIL who was able to have her child raised with a great deal of help from her parents who retired from their jobs when their grandchild was born.
If I had had help, I think it would have made life so much easier- after a time I had to quit my job/finishing education, because I was still expected to work two jobs- I expect many women find the same thing. Many men of my generation still expect life to be the same after children, for them anyway. I rarely see men taking up enough slack so that their wives are not working a full second job once they arrive home.
I do know men where the situation is reversed and they are the stay at home parent, but that situation is still unusual
I recently returned from a 3 day field trip where several men who were retired and who didn’ thave kids were serving as chaperones, and a great point was brought up. During WWll men who served abroad were guarenteed their jobs after they returned. If our country values families as much as it purports to, why can’t we fund a parent to stay home with their child for 4 years and guarentee their job when they return? ( I think it would have to be limited to 4 years total- despite how many children a family decides to have)</p>
<p>You do (cyber) know one woman who has worked continuously since giving birth to two boys.</p>
<p>Moi. </p>
<p>Yes, with nannies and housekeepers. Yes, with my own business so that I could work a 35 to 40 hour week–and be there for illnesses and school plays and field trips and six weeks of holiday time and whatever else I felt like. Yes, with a 100% egalitarian husband.</p>
<p>Please don’t mark me lower because I hired nannies. My boys have three sets of grandparents because I hired a Chinese nanny who looked 50. She was actually 65. She never had children of her own and she and her husband worshipped my boys. (Have you ever seen the movies “The Last Emperor” and “Eat Drink Man Woman”? That was the childhood of my boys. I didn’t send them to pre-school because life with Sung Po and Kuong Kuong was so rich).</p>
<p>They are 85 and as spry as can be. We still keep in touch. They want to go to S1’s university and do a bit of cooking for him. When they say cooking, they actually mean nine or ten courses of superb Shaghaiese cuisine. I know they are miffed that they haven’t been invited to cook there but I don’t know how to explain American dorm life…</p>
<p>It is difficult to raise lovely children with or without working full-time. I don’t mind when people say it’s hard–but to say it isn’t possible…well…that simply ain’t true. And it isn’t that hard either–with the proper set-up.</p>
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Forgive me, as I am just catching up on this thread and evita’s comment was way back on p. 4. </p>
<p>I agree that we have achieved the holy grail where we have choices and - in this thread at least and to greater/lesser degree IRL - those choices are respected.</p>
<p>What ISN’T working is the price which sometimes has to paid when the choice is work. Or when the choice HAS TO BE WORK, for those whose economic circumstances require full-time work as a single parent or family where both incomes are needed. And the reason the price has to be paid is that the working world - 35++ years after the Women’s Movement sprang onto the scene - is still designed as if every working person has a support staff (read “wife”) at home. Our 9-5 world was built around the working husband who had someone at home cooking, cleaning, “raising the children”, facilitating his career path. It has changed only at the margins and only for the lucky ones.</p>
<p>So, it’s back to marite’s point, imo: what’s needed next is a more broad-based re-engineering of the work world. Maybe we need a WPC (“Work Place Confidential”) to co-exist with CC’s College Confidential. The collective smarts, energy and insight of those on this thread alone - if we ruled the world - could get us a lot closer to where we need to be.</p>
<p>When I was a teenager I never wanted kids --I am definitely not the nurturing type, and patience isn’t my virtue either. My view changed when my own mom died and I was in my mid-20’s – suddenly I realized that all that was left of my mom was her offspring, and it dawned on me that if I wanted my mom to live on the way to do that was to have children of my own. I don’t know if that’s the best rationale in the world - it was more of an emotional thing, in any case. </p>
<p>Anyway, the point is, views change. My kids are very happy with my parenting skills – I never did get the “nurturing” and “patient” part, but fortunately my hands off and laid back style of parenting turned out to be the perfect match for two very independent-minded and creative kids. Actually, both of the kids cringe and shy away if I start to get too nurturing, which happens when they get sick and I start getting sympathetic - then its “go away and leave me alone!” They like having the mom who can be depended on for a ride or advice when asked, but who otherwise stays out of their way. So it turns out that I didn’t need to be a good housekeeper or a great cook or the huggy type to parent well anyway. In the long run parenting turned out to be a lot of fun and also paved the way for a career change that has been good for me. </p>
<p>As to the personality of older adults who are childless - I don’t know. They do seem more self-indulgent, but maybe that’s simply because they have more time on their hands and no particular reason to spend the time talking to us about college admission. I’m sure our childless friends have been bored to tears over the years by our seemingly unending preoccupation with potty training and preschools and piano recitals and puberty… so I wouldn’t judge. We are all shaped by our experiences. When an intelligent 32 year old with a law degree is singing along to Big Bird’s Greatest Hits… well, maybe that wasn’t the finest hour of my life and career.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mark anyone “lower” because they have help- but that is not an option for many families-many families have grandparents who are far away and unable to distrupt their lives just becuase they have grandchildren- neither my mother or my inlaws were willing or able to help out for more than a couple hours every few years and despite having stand in grandparents in the neighborhood- we did not find a suitable situation for both parents to work full time and still have enough energy and patience to be parents as well.
Not everyone can afford a nanny or quality child care</p>
<p>One situation I never wanted to be in was like some of my friends who very much wanted children but never found the right guy to settle down with. Now they’re late 40’s early 50’s and childless. I was 37 when I had my first. It took me a LONG time to find Mr. Right, and if I hadn’t met my husband I probably never would have. I had my daughter at 41…right under the wire. I feel incredibly incredible fortunate.</p>
<p>I have worked full-time since my kids were born. I had a three month leave with my oldest, who will be twenty this month, and five weeks with the youngest (just turned 17). It helped to be younger - the first time I was pregnant I was twenty four. We had a live-in Nanny when the youngest was born until he was about two or so. We have a very interesting division of labor in my household - H does all the cooking and yard work - I do all the laundry, cleaning, bill paying, and keep track of everything and everyone. A year ago, I finally got a job with an 8 mile commute, I used to drive an hour each way in and out of the city. I wouldn’t have wanted to start in my 30’s or 40’s, I don’t think I would have the energy. My SIL is doctor who works part-time and has two small children at 45, she is exhausted. I think we have been available to our kids - especially the youngest, who is still home. We ski together, watch sporting events (Go Sox, even if it is the wild card). I can’t imagine not working all these years, we were young enough when we started to really need two incomes. Now we need them to pay tuition. Marite - you are right, I think it would be too stressful to have to depend on one income.</p>
<p>OTOH, we found that depending on only one income felt safer. Our thinking was that if my husband ever lost his job, we could sail along without major changes on my income.</p>
<p>lkf:</p>
<p>I agree that living as though a family had only one income feels safer. My H was laid off a few times; each time was short, but we were able to depend on my income for those times and did not have to retrench significantly.</p>
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<p>True. My brother is a high-end waiter and is wife is an accountant. He leaves for work at 4 and his wife arrives home at 5:30. Grammas and grandpas picked the kids up from school when they were little. Otherwise, they walked home.</p>
<p>e-kitty…I know it can be tough–but it can also work out–on many different income levels. That’s the message young women need to hear. There are a hundred and fifty ways to raise children. As long as you find time to love and nurture your children, you will be a wonderful parent no matter what combination of work/stay-at-home you choose.</p>
<p>Nicely summed up.</p>
<p>One thing about these young women making life plans that they don’t know yet is that life throws us major curve balls. What comes to mind are two friends who were very successful careerwomen. Neither one of them had the slightest interest in being parents, and their husbands were ok with their decision. Then both of them had “whoops!” babies…one apiece. They both stopped working and are such good mothers. (not because they’re not working but because they’re involved, patient and caring)…If you’d told either one of them that they’d be at home mothers they wouldn’t have believed it. One was even called Murphy Brown at the office when she found out she was pregnant!</p>
<p>TheDad - great post (#204) - very few people think that way.</p>
<p>I recall hearing that some 70% of people who have children say that, if they knew then what they know now, they would have either delayed having children or not had them at all. I do find that a lot of people who are gung-ho about convincing everyone to procreate either have always wanted children or just don’t get how hard it is to raise them. </p>
<p>Thank you again for that post. I’m printing it off and cutting it out for my parents when they start in on my lack of materal genes.</p>
<p>Aries, there are usually plusses and minusses to everything but anent having children, I think that <em>I</em> did much better by marrying late (30) and then waiting a few years to have a child. Better for me, better for the D.</p>
<p>The more I observe of marriages, the more I think the Romans(?) had the right idea: no marriage until you’re 30. Of course, from this comes a relaxed attitude towards premarital sex.</p>
<p>I knew I always wanted children, but also knew I needed to be done with school & set in my career before adding a spouse & kids to the mix. It worked well for me–I married at 29 & added kids a year later. I have friends who had kids earlier & many who were on timetables similar to mine. Different routes for different folks. My neighbor always says she would NEVER have had kids if she knew then what she knows now–hubby & I are glad we have our two kids & would do it all again in a heartbeat.</p>
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<p>Hi EK, </p>
<p>You can add another cyber person to your list. I returned to work when D was 6 weeks old (at the time I thought I would go stir crazy being at home and really needed to interact with adults). I believe that it did make me a better parent. No nanny, no housekeepers raised D as a single parent most of her life (at some level I was greatful for being a single parent because I did get to make unilateral decisions about the things I though was really important to me in raising D). I became really great at time management and I also found out how many married women are themselves single parents because everything concerning child rearing fell on them.</p>
<p>I will be the first to tell you that it took a village to raise my child (I have a large family and a great network of sister friends who have taught me so much over the years). They pitched in and took of the slack. The greatest gift I have ever been given is when I was finishing my first stint at grad school (went with child in tow) and my younger sister told me, “go to school I will pick up Chicky after school, take her home and keep her until you get home and yes, I’ll even coach her basketball team”.</p>
<p>If you had to think out every single process of child rearing you would never get it done. Like the Nike ads say, you JUST DO IT. Of course there have been oops moments, days that things did not go well, there have been things that have been do overs. It has definitely been a learning experience and you definitely learn to think outside the box. </p>
<p>I remember trying to be the perfect cookie baking mom. In the end you do what works for you. I learned how to put value on my time and I found Mrs. Fields made som pretty good cookies. I remember the first time I gave my daughter pizza for dinner and I felt guilty about it until I spoke with another (older) parent who tole me , make a side salad add a glass of milk or juice and you have a balanced meal. It is important that your child eats everyday not necessarily that you cook the meal. From that point it has been ok. So yes, I have picked up dinner on the way home every thing from dinner food to sushi and Tribeca is definitely not at a loss for picking up a good meal. WHole foods, balduccis and citarealla were lifesavers. Put that dinner on a nice plate, with cloth napkins, fresh flowers and had one of those rice krispie treat moments (when mom is in the kitchen reading then throws the flour in her face and blows at her bangs like she has worked hard all day).</p>
<p>I did make modifications that worked for us including :</p>
<p>Getting a variance so D could attend school in the neighborhood that I worked in. I was able to drop my child off at school every morning and chit chat with the teachers just like stay at home moms. (I realize now that D is away at college how important a little thing like that was to me and how many working parents never get the opportunity to do this). I have never been no more than 10 minutes from my child until the day she went off to college.</p>
<p>I also work for a very family friendly company. I had managers men and women who were parents. My male managers had working wives so they were also active participants in the raising of their children. When I became a manager, I paid it forward and did the same thing for people who worked for me. I have been able to work virtual and create my own hours. This meant I was able to be a PTA parent from K-12 (chaired PTA a few years, was always active on committees), Came into the classroom to read, was a class parent, went on every class trip (until D went to high school) never missed a parent teacher confrence, was a swim mom, dance mom, and got really great at making those cupcakes for the bake sale. </p>
<p>I dropped off laundry or went to the laundromat (because it meant getting all of my laundry done at once) if I did not have the time to do the laundry at home. I chose my battles reagarding how clean my house would be, picked up, spot cleaned and saved the “big cleaning” for once a week. If my house is not spotless enough for you -stay home.</p>
<p>I thank God for my friends who were stay at home moms who invited my kid on playdates when school had half days, and did not count it robbery when I scheduled vacation days to reciprocate.</p>
<p>The greatest lesson I learned as a parent is that you don’t have to be perfect because no one is. You do what is best for you and your family and that means different things to different people. Overall, I could not imagine what my life would be with out Chicky, like Himom I would do it again in a heartbeat and I wouldn’t give nothing for my journey.</p>