moved from Main List: on not having children

[ssk7882]

The inestimable Vulgarweed wrote:

> Well, that can of worms is the whole point, isn't it?

::rolls gleefully in pile of newly-liberated worms::

As a child, you know, I was rather often accused by my peers of 
secretly *eating* worms?

How right they were!  At least on the metaphoric level.  

Kirstini wrote:

> I've been following this thread with interest, because 
> I really envy women who manage to make either decision 
> and stick to it with no regrets.

Well, it's easy enough when neither option holds the slightest bit of 
appeal.  Life's a whole lot tougher when you want both than when you 
want neither, that's for sure.

> Starting out at the beginning just now, I rather 
> feel as though there are various pre-prescribed 
> "lines" to follow, and personal choice is therefore 
> reduced to throwing allegiance in with one or the 
> other. 

Yes. It's thoroughly depressing, isn't it?  Just look at how quickly 
this list polarized into "career vs. children" while discussing this 
topic.  It's like watching the Patriarchy In Action.

Linlou wrote:

> It really is two sides of the same coin where the coin 
> should really be melted down and made into nice shiny 
> buttons or something.

Absolutely! 

Anyone else here find themselves forcibly reminded of that Sorting 
Hat? (Which I am now feeling terribly guilty for once having 
lambasted as ESE, by the way.  Poor old Hat.  It's not its fault!)

Kirstini:

> I also wonder if my mother and Elkins' would rather 
> like to settle down with a nice cup of tea some 
> time, as my mum, too, is far more interested in my 
> having a sparkling career (in academia? Shurely some 
> mishtake?) before I present her with any 
> twinkly-eyed grandpuppies. 

Tea with the Crouches?  

<shudder>  

Oh, gah.  Better your mum than me!  ;-)

(By the way, just for the record?  The HP books are *Tough Reads* for 
black sheep. They really, really are.  They're just harsh.  And they 
keep getting worse, too.  I found parts of OoP literally painful to 
read.  Just wanted to get that off my chest, you know.  Since we were 
on the subject of family and all.)

Yes, my parents were exceptionally ambitious on my behalf. It 
interested me a great deal to read that you have an "under-achieving" 
(but well-paid!) brother, Kirstini. I always felt very much as if I 
were sort of playing the "son" in my own family dynamic, and 
sometimes wondered if things might have been a little bit different 
if only I had brothers.  But thinking about it, it probably wouldn't 
have made much difference.

> That was a rather long-winded way of expressing my 
> envy, I suppose. 

<sympathetic smile>

Yeah. Reading this thread is making me feel rather fortunate, really, 
that I've never wanted either a career *or* children.  (Or, for that 
matter, much in the way of shoes.)  

But you know, plenty of women do manage to have both, and I dare say 
that some of them even manage not to have to go barefoot while they 
do so.  The key, I suspect, is a support network of friends and 
partners who are willing and able to help shoulder the burden -- and 
that applies even to people who don't want children.

Then, I live in a communal arrangement.  So now you're just hearing 
*my* party line!  

> I suppose reading over this, I didn't really have too 
> much to contribute to the discussion after all. I just 
> felt like a gossip. 

Isn't that precisely what this list is for?

> Feel a bit better now, oddly.

Good!

-----------------------

"I also don't like all this sprogging at an early age."

-- Kirstini, on the main list, message #62884

-------------------

Offering Kirstini's Affective Fallacy a kindly pat on the neck and a 
nice big lump of sugar,

Elkins

(who has friends who referred to their child as "the sprog" so 
consistently while he was in utero that the nickname stuck even after 
his birth -- the boy is now school age, and proudly insists that both 
peers and teachers address him as "Sprog.")