Is anyone voluntarily childless?

[medusa]

Consider the slack cut.

 

But... 'acting out of self-interest' doesn't have the same rhetorical power as calling someone selfish - I know which I'd prefer to hear if I was definitively not going to have children and someone else felt qualified to pronounce on my decision. (Side note: they would RUE THE DAY).

 

So yes, it would make me happy if in future everyone who was tempted to use the term selfish would refrain. Jolly good.

 

We're all selfish in that everything we do on a daily basis, from breathing to eating, to working for money to who we have relationships with, is done because we want to do it, on some level.

 

If we follow through on that there is no such thing as altruism- everything we do, even if it seems altruistic, is done because it suits some part of us to do it.

 

A controversial statement which is used as a starting statement for NLP courses the world over is 'Mother Teresa was as selfish as Adolf Hitler' and when you look at it on the basest level it's true. What made Mother Teresa devote herself to the sick and poor? Was it genuinely selflessness? Or could it be that being 'altruistic' and giving in that way actually served her own moral ends to allow her to be happy with her lot in life?

 

If it's the latter then she may have been doing good things, but she wasn't only helping the sick and poor, she was meeting her own emotional needs by doing it too, thus making her as selfish as Adolf Hitler, who was meeting his own needs by being a twisted, evil **** (no real word there, just putting in the stars for effect, you can imagine your own expletive!).

 

In the same vein, my charity work, although it may help people and animals by my performing it, is really to do with me, my personal morals and needs and although I may be helping people, my reasons for doing it are to do with my need to feel useful to others to be able to say that I'm satisfying my own criteria for qualifying as a human being.

 

Am I selfish? Of course I am, because we all are.

[barny_100]

Excessive ice skating is not likely to post a threat to the planet. Overpopulation, on the other hand, is already the biggest danger facing humanity and adding to the problem is hardly going to help.

 

Yeh the billions of English are killing the globe *Awaits link to site showing how 1 English person uses the resources of x number of Africans as if that's an argument in itself*

 

It goes without saying it's a personal choice, and the last thing that should be done for the wrong reasons, but I do find the whole militant anti-children thing rather warped.

 

In the end for me if decent people don't try and pass on something through their children what will be left?

[Flowersfade]

I have friends who have struggled to conceive and it's been heartbreaking to watch what they are going through. If I ever found myself in this position I hope I dealt with it like you are. IVF/adoption isn't the option for everyone, so I don't know why some people assume it to be.

 

I think it's the saddest thing when the want for kids destroys people's happiness/relationship. Although it is obviously a very in-built desire for some people.

 

Struggling to conceive is heartbreaking I work with people who do it's heart rendering too see their desperation.

[medusa]

Oh- and to answer the OP's question.

 

I'm childless, but it's not by choice. My OH, though, made a conscious decision never to have children of his own, which I think is a loss to children the world over as he's fabulous with them and can entertain kids for hours (he's everybody's favourite uncle) but it's his choice and I respect it.

 

I did have a relationship once with a bloke who wanted children and said that it was not an issue that I couldn't have babies, but I couldn't live with the thought that I'd be depriving him of having the children that he so desperately wanted, so in his long term interests I broke up with him, to allow him to move on from the relationship and find someone who had more of a chance of being able to conceive than me.

[steiner]

Oh- and to answer the OP's question.

 

I'm childless, but it's not by choice. My OH, though, made a conscious decision never to have children of his own, which I think is a loss to children the world over as he's fabulous with them and can entertain kids for hours (he's everybody's favourite uncle) but it's his choice and I respect it.

 

I did have a relationship once with a bloke who wanted children and said that it was not an issue that I couldn't have babies, but I couldn't live with the thought that I'd be depriving him of having the children that he so desperately wanted, so in his long term interests I broke up with him, to allow him to move on from the relationship and find someone who had more of a chance of being able to conceive than me.

 

Thats a very mature attitude,if somewhat cold in its calculation.

[medusa]

Thats a very mature attitude,if somewhat cold in its calculation.

 

I could never live with myself if I had caused any other human being to feel how I feel about not being able to have children. It would be unforgivable and far worse than the pain of losing a relationship.

[Jessica23]

[...] Am I selfish? Of course I am, because we all are.

 

I entirely agree. And if we all owned up to our selfishness more often, the word wouldn't have the negative connotations that it has. I'm pretty sure that I'm not imagining those connotations, especially in the context of this discussion.

 

If I thought for one second that calling childless/childfree people 'selfish' was usually meant in the sense of 'doing what is right for them' or 'acting in their own interest' or variations on that theme then I would have no issue...but it all too often carries a whiff of judgement, and, more pertinently, an implication that to have children is somehow selfless.

 

Which irks.

[medusa]

I entirely agree. And if we all owned up to our selfishness more often, the word wouldn't have the negative connotations that it has. I'm pretty sure that I'm not imagining those connotations, especially in the context of this discussion.

 

If I thought for one second that calling childless/childfree people 'selfish' was usually meant in the sense of 'doing what is right for them' or 'acting in their own interest' or variations on that theme then I would have no issue...but it all too often carries a whiff of judgement, and, more pertinently, an implication that to have children is somehow selfless.

 

Which irks.

 

Of course it does, when you bear in mind that very few people who have children ever get called selfish, despite all the extra help which they expect to be there for them (from maternity services to childcare, state benefits etc) when they have their little ones.

 

Neither is more selfish than the other- they both are meeting your own wishes and needs in this life.

[steiner]

Of course it does, when you bear in mind that very few people who have children ever get called selfish, despite all the extra help which they expect to be there for them (from maternity services to childcare, state benefits etc) when they have their little ones.

 

Neither is more selfish than the other- they both are meeting your own wishes and needs in this life.

 

Whats selfish is having kids amd expecting the tax payer to pay for them,why should I work my ass off so some on benefits can have kids?if you cant afford them dont have them.

[Frumius]

Whats selfish is having kids amd expecting the tax payer to pay for them,why should I work my ass off so some on benefits can have kids?if you cant afford them dont have them.

 

I think that is probably right. Benefits for a person should generally be based on the needs of a single adult. I guess the problem starts when an honest hard working person with kids is rendered unemployed...but I guess that could be catered for. My problem is with people who have never and will never seek employment (my sister and brother-in-law) and still expects the state to support them and their kids.