The problem is selfishness, and the comment by the woman about not having camper van holidays sums it up perfectly. I have three daughters and only three grandchildren - and they, I suspect, were reluctant decisions or accidents. Young people want a comfortable lifestyle, holidays and breaks aplenty, and they don't want kids because they see them as messy, time-consuming, expensive, intrusive - ghastly little humans which would upset their life. They have no idea of the pleasure babies and children bring - far outweighs anything they can buy with their credit cards.
I understand this because I was once in this position. Well, I didn't have a comfortable lifestyle, but I could keep body and soul together with my student grant and vacation jobs. The prospect of a baby and having to keep three people on my income horrified me - in fact, I didn't think it could be done and poverty would grind us down. Our beautiful relationship would collapse under the strain. But my girlfriend saw a baby as the solution to our problems. I was persona non grata to her mother who had threatened all manner of legal steps to prevent us living together. Having a baby was the solution! We would be allowed to marry and that would be that.
Actually, once pregnant (unplanned) permission to marry was refused. But we sidestepped that by visiting her father - the parents were divorced - and he was much more co-operative. So we married and the baby was born six-seven months later. And things worked out fine. My young wife was a natural with babies and I could not believe I had been so apprehensive about married life with a baby on a shoestring. Life was actually marvellous.
Unfortunately, those same babies which gave us such joy never learned the lesson from their parents. Partly, I suppose, because they never felt they had the right partners but also because they were much more affluent than their parents and so felt they had much more to lose - not appreciating that what they would gain far exceeded any material cost.
There is no 'right time' - children arrive often when least expected and rarely to any sort of plan. Once they have arrived, life changes completely - and for the better.
No matter how income seems stretched beyond all bounds, somehow things work out.
It's absurd and maybe obscene to live in what is still, despite everything, the most peaceful and prosperous civilisation the world has known and refuse to have children because it's "not a very nice world". What if previous generations had thought that, with far more reason?
I agree with the author. I work with several women in the twenties and thirties. None of them have children. To the best of my knowledge they have no underline health conditions. The one thing I do notice is their employer will bend over back wards for them for minor needs they have. Of this group most are not in long term relationships. They don't own a home. They all go on multiple holidays each year. I mentioned to one of them how I have noticed the number of pregnant women working there is extremley low. In the noughties and most of the 2010's there were plenty of pregnant women. I wonder if some employers are discouraging female employees having kids. I could be one hundred percent wrong.
As you've pointed out before, these increasingly scarce children will have increasingly fewer siblings, aunts and uncles, and cousins, and so are likely to grow into less good (and less happy) people than they'd have been otherwise. It's all very sad.
I agree Laura, a world with fewer children would not be good. My middle granddchild asked me recently "when was the best part of your life" he is 19 and full of questions. I answered quite honestly "when you three came along". I have two grandsons and a grandaughter and I would do anything for them and my daughter, as well as her sister who has no children by choice.
Your grandchildren are lucky. And I bet they keep young? You can't indulge in the natural grumpiness that can come with old age if you have grandchildren you care about.
Yes you are right Laura, we were lucky to do some child minding when they were at school while their mother worked. It was a joy rather than a chore. As you say they do keep you young.
I take issue with your reason for more demand for child-free hotels and holidays.
It's not that those of us without children hate children. It is that the parents of many children have no control over their offspring: they have no manners, scream, shout, misbehave, are greedy and selfish and generally objectionable. Much, in fact, like their parents.
Yes now that is true. That can be very true and if you have worked hard for your break I can understand why you want it to be civilised.
It's a two way street. Children should be raised be civilised, and the adults around should help by being patient but also not having to put with ridiculous behaviour.
Also, a lot of adults 'set children up to fail' by expecting them to sit for too long etc.
The problem is selfishness, and the comment by the woman about not having camper van holidays sums it up perfectly. I have three daughters and only three grandchildren - and they, I suspect, were reluctant decisions or accidents. Young people want a comfortable lifestyle, holidays and breaks aplenty, and they don't want kids because they see them as messy, time-consuming, expensive, intrusive - ghastly little humans which would upset their life. They have no idea of the pleasure babies and children bring - far outweighs anything they can buy with their credit cards.
I understand this because I was once in this position. Well, I didn't have a comfortable lifestyle, but I could keep body and soul together with my student grant and vacation jobs. The prospect of a baby and having to keep three people on my income horrified me - in fact, I didn't think it could be done and poverty would grind us down. Our beautiful relationship would collapse under the strain. But my girlfriend saw a baby as the solution to our problems. I was persona non grata to her mother who had threatened all manner of legal steps to prevent us living together. Having a baby was the solution! We would be allowed to marry and that would be that.
Actually, once pregnant (unplanned) permission to marry was refused. But we sidestepped that by visiting her father - the parents were divorced - and he was much more co-operative. So we married and the baby was born six-seven months later. And things worked out fine. My young wife was a natural with babies and I could not believe I had been so apprehensive about married life with a baby on a shoestring. Life was actually marvellous.
Unfortunately, those same babies which gave us such joy never learned the lesson from their parents. Partly, I suppose, because they never felt they had the right partners but also because they were much more affluent than their parents and so felt they had much more to lose - not appreciating that what they would gain far exceeded any material cost.
Too much bloody affluence!
Children are a precious gift.
There is no 'right time' - children arrive often when least expected and rarely to any sort of plan. Once they have arrived, life changes completely - and for the better.
No matter how income seems stretched beyond all bounds, somehow things work out.
It's absurd and maybe obscene to live in what is still, despite everything, the most peaceful and prosperous civilisation the world has known and refuse to have children because it's "not a very nice world". What if previous generations had thought that, with far more reason?
I agree with the author. I work with several women in the twenties and thirties. None of them have children. To the best of my knowledge they have no underline health conditions. The one thing I do notice is their employer will bend over back wards for them for minor needs they have. Of this group most are not in long term relationships. They don't own a home. They all go on multiple holidays each year. I mentioned to one of them how I have noticed the number of pregnant women working there is extremley low. In the noughties and most of the 2010's there were plenty of pregnant women. I wonder if some employers are discouraging female employees having kids. I could be one hundred percent wrong.
There are already more adult-free spaces than you might think, Laura. The House of Commons, for example.
Very good.
Not forgetting the made-up peerages in the Upper House.....
As you've pointed out before, these increasingly scarce children will have increasingly fewer siblings, aunts and uncles, and cousins, and so are likely to grow into less good (and less happy) people than they'd have been otherwise. It's all very sad.
Yup. The doom loop is real. There will be a tipping point.
I agree Laura, a world with fewer children would not be good. My middle granddchild asked me recently "when was the best part of your life" he is 19 and full of questions. I answered quite honestly "when you three came along". I have two grandsons and a grandaughter and I would do anything for them and my daughter, as well as her sister who has no children by choice.
Your grandchildren are lucky. And I bet they keep young? You can't indulge in the natural grumpiness that can come with old age if you have grandchildren you care about.
Yes you are right Laura, we were lucky to do some child minding when they were at school while their mother worked. It was a joy rather than a chore. As you say they do keep you young.
Many, many children love to travel, so that's a poor reason not to have kids.
I take issue with your reason for more demand for child-free hotels and holidays.
It's not that those of us without children hate children. It is that the parents of many children have no control over their offspring: they have no manners, scream, shout, misbehave, are greedy and selfish and generally objectionable. Much, in fact, like their parents.
Yes now that is true. That can be very true and if you have worked hard for your break I can understand why you want it to be civilised.
It's a two way street. Children should be raised be civilised, and the adults around should help by being patient but also not having to put with ridiculous behaviour.
Also, a lot of adults 'set children up to fail' by expecting them to sit for too long etc.