moved from Main List: on not having children

[Amy Z]

Gimme an E!  Gimme an L!  Gimme a K!  Gimme an I!  etc.!  Great to 
have you back, Elkins.  Especially your subversive opinions.

> And that supposed "biological clock?"  Haven't heard the faintest 
> tick out of that sucker yet.  Why, if it weren't such an absolutely 
> *subversive* suggestion, I might even think that thing to be nothing 
> but a big, ugly, sexist *myth!*

Waaal, the pressure on women to find a Man by 20 so they can have 
Child Number One by 25 and Child Number Two Point Three by 30 is the 
stuff of big, ugly, sexist myths.  But the biological clock itself, 
complete with ominous tick, is not.  There *is* an age at which women 
can no longer bear children, unless menopause is another myth.  So 
them that wants 'em can't wait *indefinitely.*  That, surely, is a 
fact.

Future breeder though I am, but I have never been able to comprehend 
the accusation that a lack of desire to have children is selfish.  The 
way I use the word, it means putting one's desires ahead of others' to 
an unkind degree.  How on earth does that apply to the choice not to 
have children, unless one believes that each unborn child is a soul up 
in heaven looking longingly down at the earth and wishing someone 
would conceive it?  (Someone should tell the little angels that 
they're better off where they are.)  Or unless one honestly thinks 
that each and every woman owes it to her parents to make them 
grandparents?  I can see some selfishness in that situation, but it 
ain't the un-mom who's being selfish . . . 

No, the only interpretation I've been able to come up with is that 
some people think that doing what one wants to do is selfish, even if 
it doesn't hurt anyone or even interfere with anyone else's fun.  Or 
maybe they just think it's selfish for *women* to do what they want.

Amy Z
who just saw Whale Rider and is feeling