moved from Main List: on not having children

[naamagatus]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "David" <dfrankiswork at n...> 
wrote:
 
> 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.

I think that genenrally when people refer to not having children 
as "selfish", it's from a vague sense that the person in question 
simply does not want the bother and hassle. Having children entails 
an enormous investment - emotional, physical, financial - in a person 
other than yourself. So, not wanting to make that investment seems 
selfish. What these people do not take into account, apparantly, is 
that the most important thing a parent can do for her child is 
wanting her. 

> 
> 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.  <snip>

<nostalgic grin> This reminds me of the kind of attitude prevailing 
in Israel during the fifties and the sixties. The greatest fear then
(justified) was that the small Jewish state would be overcome by the 
millions of Arabs surrounding it, and all its inhabitants thrown into 
the sea (literally). The situation was seen as David vs. Goliath, the 
few facing the many. So, there was a lot of talk about numbers and 
demographics. In fact, Ben Gurion, the legendary prime minister, used 
to personally visit women who had born a tenth child and they even 
got reward money (!).



Naama