Without boasting and false embarrassed to admit it: my three - two-thirds of unplanned. Moreover, my wonderful ex-husband and their three children never bothered to actively read the online community of childfree. As the mother of many children and former wife large, childfree one day I decided to explore this phenomenon carefully.
History
The term "childfree" (free the children) appeared in opposition to the word "childless" ("childless"), which, according to some, means that children are "missing" and they are desirable. Childfree claim that their life is abundant and without offspring. Some may love children, some remain indifferent, someone, perhaps even experiencing to dislike him, but common to all childfree signs are the lack of child and unwillingness to become a parent as such.
The history of the word is not quite unclear. It may have been introduced in the 1970s by the National Organization for non-Parents (now no longer existing). Gained popularity in the 1990s, when Leslie Lafayette formed one of the first modern groups childfree, the Childfree Network. In English, the word has become part of everyday speech, among childfree often shortened to "CF".
Meanwhile, in the European countries with a total growth of living standards such mindsets are becoming more common. Actually the childfree movement can be considered as private manifestation of the General trend, which is characterized by expression of middle youth ("Mature youth" or "forever young"). In Britain in the late 90's so began to call people aged 30-45 years (i.e. classic middle age of "adulthood"), which tend not to identify with the stereotype of "those over thirty".
The traditional way people starting to gravitate towards the quiet way of life, worries about family, children, wealth, "Mature boys" oppose a new type of relationship to their age and life in General. They see themselves not as old men, but rather as the vanguard of the youth culture and try to match it with their way of life, appearance and activities. However, they may combine trips to Nightclubs and passion for extreme sports with the cultivation of the beloved garden.
The famous childfree:
playwright George Bernard Shaw:
"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children! ";
actor Christopher Walken: "I'm too selfish to have children. Besides, my wife has enough worries with me";
actress Faina Ranevskaya: "The family is able to replace you all. So well think that you more - or all the family";
ballerina Maya Plisetskaya (on the question of why she has no children): "Women with children a lot, Maya Plisetskaya - one".
Philosophy
Reasons not to have children outlined in a few simple paragraphs. These "reasons" or "rules of childfree" there are a few options - there is a Russian and English version, there is a version with a sense of humor and is quite wealthy reasoning. And due to the fact that I have three children, I understand very well what some of these items. And maybe understand even deeper than childfree.
Wikipedia gives the following definition:
Voluntary childlessness is a fundamental unwillingness to have children, despite the availability (we are not talking about people who are infertile, postpone having children to a later date or do not have a firm position on this issue).
Voluntary childlessness can be based on very diverse (including mutually exclusive) options personal beliefs; this circumstance does not allow to speak about "the beliefs of childfree" or even about "ideology of childfree".
At the time of the origin of the movement childless volunteers (in the 70-ies of the last century in the United States) the main motive for refraining from procreation proclaimed as the reluctance to increase the population. "Man - as the main source of pollution and environmental destruction should not breed".
However, this sublime argument has faded into the background of the modern followers of childfree that as the main reasons for the rejection of procreation honestly put forward primarily care about their own comfort and personal growth. (However, hand on heart, who among us would not want comfort and personal development? And perhaps opponents of childfree more than just upset their own failures in this field? )
And fans to condemn childfree - a great many, because in the context of the demographic policy of the state people who refuse to have children, look awful. Childfree - selfish and don't want to follow the fashion in such a delicate matter as childbirth. The more rings the scale calls to increase the number of citizens, the more those who refuse in the process to participate.
The main slogan of the modern Russian childfree it seems at first glance quite complacent: "Live and let live". However, behind him for quite a motley company, individual members of which were shown in the judgments just wonders adolescent aggression! And if you were born childfree in developed countries as a movement for freedom of choice adults successful people, in the current Russian childfree a lot of boys and girls, in their 19 years calling to declare total sterilization. And in their mouth movement for freedom from children at risk of becoming a movement for the destruction of mankind in General.
However, some people tend to go to extremes - as the fanatics-childfree and fanatical parents, forget about everything for a child. And ugly scenes of childhood tantrums in public places or forever crying baby from the neighbors behind the wall, exhausted cares about children relative - such pictures any man will cause to doubt that parental happiness is possible in principle.
Sociology
In General, the observations showed that childfree-pairs are more educated, more popular as professionals and leaders, have more income (both spouses), tend to live in cities, less religious, less likely to adherence to traditional gender roles and customs;
David Foote of the University of Toronto concluded that the formation of women to the greatest extent determines fertility: the higher it is, the less likely you are to have children;
Women want to be childfree for freedom to work, men for the sake of freedom from work;
Many researchers have noted that childfree are less "socially friendly", it is more characteristic of selfishness and individualism;
During statistical studies were found the most common reasons to be childfree: unwillingness to sacrifice personal space for the sake of the child, the absence of a compelling reason to have children, unwilling to lose time, active aversion to children, satisfaction Pets and observation of the children of relatives or friends.
So what's the problem?
The highest calling...
The children really require huge financial, time, and more importantly, emotional costs, and I kind of understand those who voluntarily waives childbearing in order to direct the released resources to carry out their mission. In the Internet community childfree often debated topic of the "chosen people" of its participants, "we do not like it, our goal is not to have children". And we can say that the absence of the child imposes on the man even more obligations than the presence of offspring. But is everyone destined to become Maya Plisetskaya or Bernard Shaw?
Buddhist Lama OLE Nydahl at the meeting in Moscow in the summer of 2006 answered the question "why don't you have children? ". According to him, the decision not to have children they were adopted together with his wife, it is their deliberate step, because the presence of children, says OLE, "would have hampered our Hanoi activities". Lama is over 70, he is full of energy, travels the world and tell people about Buddhism. I have no doubt that such a person would be simply amazing children, but could then all the other people in the world to know who the Lama OLE?
...or simple selfishness?
However, for the "ordinary" or beginners, childfree that have not yet made their "higher purpose", really comes to care about their own comfort and development. Suppose we are not talking about reaching dizzying heights, but at least on the successful fulfillment of the plan: to get an education, open a business, in the end, just to get the most enjoyment from life. The older you get, the less I want to share with anyone. And even more inappropriate is an additional responsibility for another being.
What makes childfree to hate children and all that goes with it? The worthiness of childfree regret or, on the contrary, it's the happiest people in the world? Let us try to understand the psychology of this phenomenon in the second part of the article.
Source:
School of life
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