3 ms·
Giving birth is a gender role, a biological gender role. Breast feeding, what the breasts are biological designed for in women, is not a gender role, it is a bi
by jriot 9y ago
Giving birth is a gender role, a biological gender role. Breast feeding, what the breasts are biological designed for in women, is not a gender role, it is a biological role. Having children requires sacrifice for both parties.
Do you think most men want to go sit in an office all day doing menial tasks to support their family? Since office work is fairly split evenly by gender, do you think men want to go work on oil rig or construction site all day to support their families?
- rayiner 9y agoGestation and feeding are social roles originally assigned to women due to their biological capabilities. But technology has decoupled the feeding role from the lactating capability. It will soon also decouple gestation from natural pregnancy. And judging by the fact that women have rushed into the work force while men have not rushed home, I do think it's fair to say that people would rather be sitting in an office than chasing a toddler around the house.
- jriot 9y agoWhy would you have kids if you feel taking care of a kid is the worst job in the world?
- rayiner 9y agoThat's like asking "why would you buy clothes if you think doing laundry is the worst job in the world?" Having kids is great, but taking care of babies and small children is often tiring, boring, dirty, and thankless. Some people like it and that's great for them. But we've also got this massive cultural hangover where we tell women how great and wonderful the job is because for the longest time, we didn't give them the choice not to do it.
- jriot 9y agoComparing doing laundry to taking care of your kids...
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoSpeaking of laundry, it increases by quite a bit. So yes, their comparison is a good one, though it understates the drudgery of taking care of children.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoWell, because there aren't always options for folks to avoid pregnancy nor get an abortion. I'd have been sterilized before I was 20 if it were an option to me. I've not had the unfortunate experience of being pregnant, though, and I'm 39 now. Happily childless. And because some folks have kids first, then find out how horrible it is. The first child doesn't always seem horrible, so they have another. And because even happy parents find a lot of the work involved absolutely horrible. I'm not sure if anyone gets joy out of waking in the middle of the night to feed the baby, change an overflowing diaper of shit, and/or deal with spit up and so on. Older children keep doing pretty disgusting things for years to come. Even jobs taking care of folks are considered low-rung, crappy jobs with horrible pay.
- jriot 9y agoHappily childless. Parenting thoughts from a non-parent - pass.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoJust because I'm childless doesn't mean I'm not aware of what others go through, nor does it mean that I've not taken care of children or infants. 'Tis part of the reason I'm childless. Edit: Besides, me being childless is exactly why I'm qualified to answer part of this question. I understood that, for most of my life, I had to hope that the birth control methods available to me didn't fail (basically condoms, since I can't tolerate hormonal birth control and couldn't afford to be sterilized, if I could even find a doctor).
- jriot 9y agoSeeing what other go through and taking care of others children is not the same as raising and caring for your own children. Regardless of how much you want to disagree with me, an individual's opinion without children holds little weight. Its equivalent to taking relationship advice from the neckbeard down in his mother's basement.