What do you think the population growth rate would be if sex were no more pleasurable than, say, typing?
Well, the geeky answer is that it would probably be the same as it is today: natural selection would have made sure that only those "mutated" humans who found "typing" to be very pleasurable out-reproduced everyone else and populated the globe with their offspring who also inherited the typing-loving gene ...
Ann Landers had a question in her column in 1975: If you had it to do over again, would you have children?
Pretty amazing results - people are willing to admit things when they're relatively anonymous.
Pretty amusing results, actually. (Wasn't the same fluff mainstream media just telling me that exercise is not good for losing weight?)
"If you had it to do over again, would you have children?
[W]e had received over 10,000 responses, and—are you ready for this?—70 percent of those who wrote said, “No. If I had it to do over again, I would not have children.
The 'No' mail fell into four major categories.
Category One: Young parents who were deeply concerned about global hunger, overpopulation and the possibility that we might incinerate ourselves with nuclear weapons. A San Francisco father expressed his sentiments candidly: “The world is in lousy shape. We would feel guilty if we brought a child into this mess. Later, if we decide we want a family, we will adopt."
[Um, OK -- so apparently this group of "parents" are representative of people who NEVER had kids, for their own personal reasons. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't see how it belongs in a story about people who regret having kids ...]
"Category Two: Parents who stated frankly that their children had ruined their marriage. “Our happiest years were the ones before the babies came,” wrote an Atlanta woman. “In those days, we had time for the theater, parties, rides in the country, weekend trips and best of all—each other.” ...
[LOL - this is exactly why I am not going to stop doing all the fun stuff my wife and I love doing just because we have kids. Seems the best way to avoid feeling resentment and bitterness is to NOT structure your entire world around doing what you think your kid wants to do all the time.]
Research shows that people typically regret inactions more than actions ....
Which is why I'm not postponing holidays and foreign travel just because I have kids ...
I believe that driving your kids to vacation places is far better than getting on a plane. The latter is a tremendous hassle for adults, such that undertaking it with kids in tow more than once a year would seem masochistic.
Not at all true in my experience.
Corinne Maier, a French mother of two, dared to write a book about 40 reasons not to have children. It has been controversial ever since it was first published in France in 2007.
Pretty funny, she's the same "shock-author" who is quite media-savvy at generating buzz for her business (selling books) by staking out controversial positions, seemingly just for the heck of it (see her previous cult-classic "Hello Laziness - The Art and the Importance of Doing the Least Possible in the Workplace" that generated the same buzz a few years ago; she knows how to sell books.)
As always, an interview with the author is more revealing than their shock-titled literary creations.
"Nevertheless, it is still shocking to read her declaration that there are moments when she regrets having children – a taboo thought that few mothers would dare to admit ....'Certain days I regret having had them – and I dare to say it.'"
Wow, gee shocking -- "moments" of regret on "certain days" ...
From the same interview, it's actually quite amusing that one of her biggest gripes is "stupid holiday destinations" that parents seem to think are required once you have kids:
"She lavishes scorn on the 'stupid' holiday destinations that adults choose once they have saddled themselves with children – such as Disneyland Paris, a 'village of animated idiots populated by underpaid people dressed as ducks'. 'No, I’ve never been to Disney and I’ve told my children that I will never take them,' Maier says."
Enfants terribles - Times Online
Well, I've got that in common with the author. I've never been to Disneyland, and I don't have it on my agenda for my kids either. I'd rather see the rest of the real world first.
My point was simply that you don't have to stop traveling to interesting places just because you have kids.
