According to Wikipedia, International Childfree Day was started in 1973 in the United States by the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, which at the time was the National Organization for Non-Parents. The day was originally Non-Parents’ Day.
I like the name Non-Parents’ Day, but Childfree is better. Many childfree people aren’t against children being born in general; they just prefer not to have children themselves. Maybe it’s for reasons that have to do with their experience as a child or it’s about overpopulation or global resources. There are actually many selfless reasons to not have your own biological kids (and selfish reasons to have them).
But I am against anyone having another baby ever again. The world has always been a painful place, but as we feel the effects of a warming planet with its deadly weather events, increasing temperatures and unpredictable disasters, giving birth looks more and more selfish and inconsiderate. Why give birth to another human being now if it’s going to have to suffer through what’s coming??
Answers? Anyone? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’d love a reasonable response.
There are people who don’t believe the planet will become warmer over the long-term, but I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about clear-eyed, reasonable people who are learning that — besides the weather changes — there will be more warm-weather insects carrying disease and ancient viruses released from the ice. And that’s not to mention how hotter temperatures and crop-destroying weather will affect food availability.
Much of this is decades away, so maybe it’s not today’s babies that will have to face all of this, but their children. Still, why would you contribute to a population that will have to suffer in an expanding number of ways in the next 100 years? And there’s no hope of turning the earth’s temperatures around so this is how it’s going to be until the homo sapien species dies out.
One response I’ve heard with stunned ears is “Maybe my child will come up with the solution for all of it.” Christ on a stick, what hubris!
To those of you who chose not to have children, THANK YOU. Humans are not going to turn this global crisis around, so the fewer people that have to struggle through it the better.
To my childfree fellows, Happy International Childfree Day! (I’m 53 and doubt I’ll ever regret not having kids.)
Meridith – OHHhhhh. "Human beings by nature are 'defiantly optimistic.'" That's actually one of the better explanations I've heard of why people keep goddamn having babies. I don't expect it to be a rational reason. In fact, consistent with parents being irrationally optimistic they also sometimes give a blind, knee-jerk "Why didn't you want kids?" when I say I didn't want them. One time I answered with, "They're a hell of a lot of work, expensive, at first they deprive you of sleep all the time," and the man cut me off. Clearly a parent, he smiled and said, "Okay, okay." So why did he ask? Parents don't think and they don't think.
Maybe he expected things he hadn't heard before, like "Because I'm a traumatized, shattered person who couldn't possibly care for a child," or "I'm missing the part of my brain that would contain maternal instinct, so I'm broken" or "I'm incapable of fitting into society or acting like a decent human being." I mean it's not like anyone has to think for more than a second to come up with reasons someone might not want screaming, high-maintenance, unpredictable children in her life.
Hi Regina, great post! Happy child-free day from a fellow child-free person. I also don't plan on h aving children ever, but I'd still like to attempt to provide an answer that I've heard about why people continue to have children and why we keep getting asked why we didn't have children.
I think this is difficult to understand for us because we are trying to compare ourselves and our conscious, logic-based choices to people to do not use that type of reasoning when it comes to having a child.
The vast majority of people do not sit down and weigh out pros and cons before having a child. Statistically this is just how it is. Biologically, we are driven to reproduce, and historically, there has never been a question if one should reproduce but simply when. For this reason, it's very socially acceptable for people to have children, and extremely atypical for people to not have children.
Most people don't approach someone with a child and ask, "why did you choose to have this child?" More commonly, people hear someone say that they don't have children and immediately they assume that it is either a conscious choice or that there was some sort of reason why they couldn't have children. And if you say that you did make the choice not to have kids, immediately people will want to know why. If you are not part of the status quo, you will have to be ready to explain with logic based reasoning, even if the other side derives their reason8ng from a place that is fueled by emotion.
Most people have children for emotional reasons so trying to apply logic to support their choice is pretty difficult. I read somewhere that people who are intelligent, well-informed, and very aware of are hazardous future continue to have children because human beings by nature are "defiantly optimistic".
And that is definitely something I agree with regarding humanity. We keep holding out for hope even when there is no logical reason to continue on. It's what makes us amazing and despicable, for better or for worse.