Kids are gross. Sometimes they are loud, unruly, sticky, maddening. For all these reasons and more, savvy adults are deciding not to participate in bringing children into existence. The “childfree” movement attracts people who want to celebrate the countercultural decision not to bear and raise offspring.
How strange that we have so solidified childbearing as merely a lifestyle decision. As if we had the power to draw forth our next breath of our own will, let alone call forth life from the mysteries of the universe. Even absent religion, there’s something astonishingly strange about it all. Amid packages of razors and whitening toothpaste, any woman might one day find herself searching for small rectangular packages with test strips to detect hormonal changes that would indicate another person is growing and developing inside her on a course to be born into the world. How is it that toothpaste and pregnancy tests, one so mundane the other potentially so life-altering can exist on the same aisle of the grocery store. How can that be?
Blind to the miracle of it all—our lives, people who may issue forth from us, emerging from origins unknown—having children is treated like choosing between a beach vacation and a mountain resort. To each his own! And the childfree contingent is convinced they got a much better deal on their holiday.
Granted, all things being equal, they probably did. The Reddit threads devoted to childfree living abound with examples of how horrid friends, coworkers, and extended family with kids are. The truth is, the people in those examples who had children are likely just as selfish as their childfree counterparts, but they did not have the advantage of discovering this and proclaiming it an asset and sound reason not to reproduce. In other words, both parties—the child-burdened and childfree—appear to be self-centered, a sure recipe for misery.
Rather than ask if you have to have children, maybe we should ask: Do you have to be miserable?
Enigmatic individuals like Childfree Kimberly rail against the supposed tyranny of children. Oddly, after defiantly making the decision not to have children, Kimberly and her fans gather to discuss ad nauseam all the annoying kids they see in the world, how insufferable the breeders in their lives are, and everything they continue to dislike about children. That is not all they talk about (judging from a quick survey of the general conversation topics), but it does seem a significant portion.
The lack of curiosity about why kids are so irritating means we might miss an important insight into why we are so irritating. Intentionally childless people tend to assume that parents are motivated by narcissism and enjoy everything in their children that is just like them. For even the mildly perceptive parent, the experience of watching a child develop is much more disturbing than pleasant. The character traits that are most like yours are laid bare, unconcealed, and on display, and this is not a pleasant thing. Nothing makes you aware of your flaws quite like seeing them mirrored in your child. But It is a worthwhile growth experience.
How we respond to the repulsive similarities between us and feral children says more about us than it does about the children or their parents.
People (minus the childfree by choice camp) often find it attractive when a potential date can interact with children easily. This is not simply a proxy for breeding and primal instincts asserting themselves. It’s also a valuable and attractive quality for someone to be open to new experiences and display the ability to make someone very different feel at ease. Most children know they are not in charge; somewhere deep down they know. In fact, many crave the certain knowledge that they are not steering the ship. They are looking for an adult to demonstrate command. How much of the behavior they display is a reflection of the adults who surround them? What does the child have to offer of himself if adults give him the opportunity?
What children offer is an innocent perspective. It’s packaged with all the sticky hands, shrieks, and snotty T-shirts that make the Childfree Kimberlys of the world fume. But it is there if we as adults learn to attune ourselves to it. In children, we see who we once were, indeed, who we still are. Fragile, fallible, gullible, selfish. We also encounter thoughts that we may have once had but would not be able to remember without effort, perhaps never able to recapture on our own. In coming to know children, we find ideas we can no longer grasp because our eyes have been clouded by leaving childhood.
That’s all vague and imprecise, but it’s just the kind of experience that’s hard to put into words. Perhaps what we could say instead is that approaching the peculiarity of children with an attitude of curiosity instead of irritation has the potential for tremendous growth within ourselves, growth that can, in turn, invite children into maturity instead of perpectual dissatisfaction and selfishness.
Disciplining the child can be not a futile fight with filth and disorder but instead an experience that changes us much more than the child. What do we learn about our own inconsistency, sloth, and small-mindedness by trying to bring a child beyond his own limitations can leave a mark. What we are likely to find is that the child can often be excused for his wrong-doing while we are without excuse. While the child behaves immaturely because he is immature, we behave immaturely because we don’t want to do otherwise or we have not developed the habits required to do so.
An author who portrays an inquisitive view of children is Elsa Beskow. In many of her books, she shows just how unruly and disobedient children are. The adults are often driven to shouting and exasperation. Through it all, though, there is a window into the child’s world, and the readers understand why they did what they did. The children are not excused, and there is every expectation that they should be punished for disobedience or negligence, but we are not repulsed by them.
The picture at the top of page, photographed from Randolph Caldecott’s The House that Jack Built, is a playful reminder that children have always been the way they are. Impish and disobedient, children will reliably talk too loudly, chew with mouths open, break delicate home décor, and track mud across the freshly mopped tile. If we are perceptive, or at least not daft, we will notice this and adjust our expectations accordingly. No one should allow children to remain uncivilized, but there should be patience for the process of transformation, the slow, steady maturation which we still experience in ourselves.
There’s no need to lose sleep over the childfree by choice. Raise your children well, and the childfree are bred out of the population in a single generation. To their credit, they’ve picked the nihilism fast-track, a commitment to principle we can all admire.
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