moved from Main List: on not having children

[David]

Amy wrote:

> 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.  

Well, as I understand it, the idea is that in your unproductive old 
age you will be a burden on others instead of your children.  In 
societies where children do not directly support their parents, you 
are failing to do your bit to optimise the demographic profile to 
maintain a functioning economy.

Put at its most general, the decision to have children is clearly 
not a socially neutral one.  In most times and places, the benefit 
analysis would fairly clearly have tilted towards the production of 
new human beings (and of course, even today in conservative 
societies the state has impressed on women the duty of child-bearing 
to keep the army, or whatever, up to strength) and there was 
therefore a corresponding social pressure.  World overpopulation is 
now reversing that historical trend, so that in some socieites (eg 
China) there is now legally backed pressure *not* to have children.

In either case, I think that the idea that reproduction is a matter 
for individual choice will always be an elusive aspiration: the rest 
of us simply have too much riding on your choice for us not to 
interfere, whether you (or we) like it or not.  This applies just as 
much to men as to women.

David