4 ms·

What an unusually low-value comment from an otherwise high-value commenter. Do you take issue with the label “child free” or with the fact that some couples wou

by Permit 5y ago

What an unusually low-value comment from an otherwise high-value commenter. Do you take issue with the label “child free” or with the fact that some couples would prefer not to have children? Or maybe with the idea that an organization advocates for these people?

istjohn 5y ago
It's silly for people who've decided they don't want to be parents to then style themselves as marginalized and build an identity around opposition to their imagined persecution. There's nothing wrong with not reproducing, but really you have more in common with parents of one child than they have in common with parents of six children. I don't have any pets. Do I need a special interest group?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > Do I need a special interest group? It depends on the culture that surrounds you.
rayiner 5y ago
All of the above. I’m from a Muslim country—in Islam, getting married and having children (if you’re able) is a moral duty. I was never a practicing Muslim, but I believe that this view is basically correct. Society as a whole needs to be engaged in the project of raising the next generation, and that breaks down if having children is treated as an individual choice. Raising kids in America—especially in urban areas among more educated people—is just such a sad, atomized experience. Not only compared to back home in Bangladesh, but even my own upbringing in America. America has been good to my family but I’m genuinely worried whether we came here in some sort of terminal stage of American society. I’m terrified my own kids are going to adopt these ideas. What would have been the point of leaving all our friends and family behind to immigrate here if our family just dies out on this stupid continent?
- arrow7000 5y ago
  So because you think it's a moral duty other people shouldn't get access to birth control?
  - rayiner 5y ago
    Did I say anything about birth control? I’m not Catholic. I’m talking about defining “child free” as some sort of identity instead of being a disappointment to your mom quietly. It’s like building an identity around stealing other people’s lunches from the office fridge. If you’re going to do it, do it in a way that maintains plausible deniability.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      As a Catholic: this is a bad, reactionary take. Pull up any of the dozens of lists of "famous childless people" Google will give you and note how many of them you wouldn't ever think to accuse of "stealing other people's lunches from the office fridge". Our duty is to leave the world a better place than we found it. One way to do that is indeed to raise children to keep the ball rolling forward, but there are others. Obnoxious cosmopolitan liberals are, well, obnoxious about valorizing childlessness, which is not by itself a moral virtue. But forgoing the comforts of family in the service of a greater goal is. You're trying to take soi-disant elites down a peg, as you often do, but you've wildly overshot your mark here.
      - rayiner 5y ago
        Like I said I’m not Catholic. I suspect my view on this is strongly shaped by Islam, as a matter of acculturation rather than theology. The way I see it, America isn’t morally different from a Bangladeshi village. Our efforts are more specialized and allow us to subsist in greater comfort. But the history books won’t talk about 99% of people involved with Facebook any more than they’ll talk about Bangladeshi rice farmers. For all but a few of us, our kids are the only legacy we’ll leave. I’m not taking aim at “elites.” Living life to maximize personal self-gratification is pervasive in American culture. I’m mad at the elites only insofar as they’re fishing for moral justifications for this practice, where I think non-elites at least are a little beholden to traditional socialization and feel a little guilty for “not doing what they’re supposed to do.”

by Permit 5y ago

istjohn 5y ago

It's silly for people who've decided they don't want to be parents to then style themselves as marginalized and build an identity around opposition to their imagined persecution. There's nothing wrong with not reproducing, but really you have more in common with parents of one child than they have in common with parents of six children. I don't have any pets. Do I need a special interest group?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Do I need a special interest group? It depends on the culture that surrounds you.

rayiner 5y ago

All of the above. I’m from a Muslim country—in Islam, getting married and having children (if you’re able) is a moral duty. I was never a practicing Muslim, but I believe that this view is basically correct. Society as a whole needs to be engaged in the project of raising the next generation, and that breaks down if having children is treated as an individual choice. Raising kids in America—especially in urban areas among more educated people—is just such a sad, atomized experience. Not only compared to back home in Bangladesh, but even my own upbringing in America. America has been good to my family but I’m genuinely worried whether we came here in some sort of terminal stage of American society. I’m terrified my own kids are going to adopt these ideas. What would have been the point of leaving all our friends and family behind to immigrate here if our family just dies out on this stupid continent?

arrow7000 5y ago
So because you think it's a moral duty other people shouldn't get access to birth control?
- rayiner 5y ago
  Did I say anything about birth control? I’m not Catholic. I’m talking about defining “child free” as some sort of identity instead of being a disappointment to your mom quietly. It’s like building an identity around stealing other people’s lunches from the office fridge. If you’re going to do it, do it in a way that maintains plausible deniability.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    As a Catholic: this is a bad, reactionary take. Pull up any of the dozens of lists of "famous childless people" Google will give you and note how many of them you wouldn't ever think to accuse of "stealing other people's lunches from the office fridge". Our duty is to leave the world a better place than we found it. One way to do that is indeed to raise children to keep the ball rolling forward, but there are others. Obnoxious cosmopolitan liberals are, well, obnoxious about valorizing childlessness, which is not by itself a moral virtue. But forgoing the comforts of family in the service of a greater goal is. You're trying to take soi-disant elites down a peg, as you often do, but you've wildly overshot your mark here.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      Like I said I’m not Catholic. I suspect my view on this is strongly shaped by Islam, as a matter of acculturation rather than theology. The way I see it, America isn’t morally different from a Bangladeshi village. Our efforts are more specialized and allow us to subsist in greater comfort. But the history books won’t talk about 99% of people involved with Facebook any more than they’ll talk about Bangladeshi rice farmers. For all but a few of us, our kids are the only legacy we’ll leave. I’m not taking aim at “elites.” Living life to maximize personal self-gratification is pervasive in American culture. I’m mad at the elites only insofar as they’re fishing for moral justifications for this practice, where I think non-elites at least are a little beholden to traditional socialization and feel a little guilty for “not doing what they’re supposed to do.”