Writer's Block: Go it alone

[pyat]

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Maybe in the same way that "society" pressures me to eat too much fatty food. And it's worse around the holidays! Stupid society!

More seriously, I think it's biology that's putting the pressure on you, chum.

EDIT: Yeah, that was the very "off the cuff" answer. Obviously, it's more complex than that. A large part of it is biology. Most people are hardwired to want kids and family at some point in their life. I don't see that as society putting pressure on people, so much as society existing in a certain state that is shaped by our biology.

Comments

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

velvetpage and I had a brief chat about this when you visited way back when but...

you know, mr toad didn't get a lot of this, but back when I/we thought kids were an impossibility and was/were completely cool with that being the case and had been for oh, well over a decade, I would get hassled ALL THE TIME. as a woman, everyone (including strangers at parties) got in my business with highly inappropriate and nosy and cruel comments/questions/whathaveyou. and trying to change the topic rarely worked and OMG I can't even begin to describe how annoying and awful it was to have it *constantly* happen. and that's not even getting into the folks who decide you need their pity. thanks but no thanks. mr toad really never had this happen, but i'm sure there is a guy out there that had to field similar kinds of stupid.

anyway, now we have a kid (!!! still shocked, on a daily basis) and hopefully I will, against all of what I thought my future would be, manage to have many, many more but that will never change the fact that society is made up by an alarming percentage of nosy parkers. no doubt I will only have a year or so before the nosy parker brigade starts to ask when I will have another child and who knows whether that will actually happen and if it doesn't how much more annoying and painful will that be?

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

oh and i don't mean this harshly or anything. i really think there's a huge gap in how the two genders get treated with regard to this sort of thing.

[rikacmo.livejournal.com]

I would disagree.

I am terrified of babies and small children. They freak me the hell out, with their staring and their horrible, pudgy, grabby hands. Having to be around them is extremely uncomfortable, both due to the kids themselves and their parents, who expect me to know how to interact with kids and find them appealing.

Frequently, I am told "It'll be different when you have your own" and "You'll change your mind, or you'll regret not having them". I have never heard "It's ok, some people just aren't cut out for children.". Doctors will refuse to sterilize me because despite having been a legal adult for some time now, it is apparently not a decision I am qualified to make if I have not given birth.

I think possibly it may have something to do with plumbing, society after all does treat males and females differently. There is much more pressure if you have tits than there is if you don't.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

While "most people" are hardwired that way, some people aren't, obviously.

Presumably you ARE hardwired to want friends and at least sometimes desire sex, whatever your feelings are about kids.

Yet, I've met asexual people who felt pressured to have sex. I've met asocial people who felt society pressured them to have friends. But I'm not sure that was so much active pressure as not quite fitting in with the default. It's not the same thing.

I see it as more like being a devout Muslim in a secular country. People aren't so much trying to stop you from being Muslim, as happily eating pork around you and forgetting you can't eat it, and offering to make you ham sandwiches, etc. etc.

Not a wonderful example, but there you are. :)

And, not to say it applies to you, but almost everyone with whom I was in university said they would never have kids. Almost all of them did, or later changed their minds about it. Biology has a way of reprogramming us over time.

It doesn't happen to everyone, of course, and it would be patronizing and stupid for anyone to insist that "you'll change your mind!" in any given case. But it happens.

[rikacmo.livejournal.com]

There is pressure to have sex and have friends. If you're a virgin at 40, even if it's just because you were never interested, people are shocked and horrified. They'll crack jokes and make fun of you. Society at large thinks you must be a pathetic nerd and certainly not a man. Same if you have no friends. You must be a sad loser, or at least a huge jerk. In either case, you're assumed to be a bad person or at least a failure.

Perhaps another example would be being a devout Muslim in a Christian country and finding yourself under pressure to let go of your beliefs and adopt the correct and accepted point of view. You'll see the light sooner or later, after all.

I'll admit that it isn't an overwhelming pressure for me personally, as most people at least agree that I am not in an appropriate life stage to attempt raising a child. But the expectation that I will get on with it is definitely there, and the pressure that comes with that expectation. I look at where much of the pressure from the media is aimed, and it tends to land more squarely on a slightly older demographic.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Also, yes, I'm sure that as a guy I was treated a lot differently.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Although I am myself male, most of this is pretty much what I would have said. For many people the pressure may be innate and biological, but many of those people put PLENTY of pressure on those who DON'T have the urge themselves. Pressure and expectation.

And it's often very clear cut - witness child tax benefits and other things that people with kids get that those without don't.

Also, as mentioned here, getting sterilized can be quite difficult; you probably won't get any social support for it - even if your area gives social support for fertility treatments up to and including a few rounds of IVF(which isn't exactly cheap) *and* support for as long as your child is a dependent.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

And it's often very clear cut - witness child tax benefits and other things that people with kids get that those without don't.

The tax benefits are very low compared to the cost of taking care of a kid, even if you are in the highest tax bracket. They're also lower than the money you would be able to get if you were caring for an adult dependant with the same level of capability as the child.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

It's still the case that having a child is partly subsidized.

I'm also not so sure that it being greater than the money for an adult dependent is universal.

Too, I've been discussing the laws in Sweden lately. As I've had it explained to me, citizens there get a certain amount(and if I've heard right, it's a stipend, not just a tax credit, though presumably one can be made ineligible by enough income) just for having kids.

They also get EXTRA money for schooling if they have a child.

They aren't permitted to work full time and still get an education stipend - but if they have a child and are a student, they get extra money that neither group alone would be entitled to.

No, it may not entirely offset the costs of raising a child. But it's still subsidizing that child, and that says to me "This is what society expects you to do".

There's also different tax structures for married couples, which in some cases offer them an ostensible advantage. That's not always the case(and even where it is, in some places actually turning it into one is difficult to impossible), but there is still some social expectation, from the tax system on down, for marriage and childrearing.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, whatever it is is fucking me up pretty severely.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Do you feel that people are pressuring you to have kids, or you just really want to have kids, and have been stymied by various things?

I know that it's a sensitive topic for you...

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

I was totally going to link you to an BBC news article on a statistical survey of self-identified asexuals, but now I can't find it...

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Well, there are asexuals who do want a romantic relationship even if it doesn't involve sex...

There's something at all levels, certainly. With asexuals, or with anyone who eschews relationships, the greatest pressure is further up the chain; those who are in a sexual relationship have all the pressure firmly on the actual "having kids" part, but I'd be a fool to try to say that focus makes it somehow harder to bear. At least people in such relationships are *somewhat* following the norm.

Society has a tendency to pathologize anything that is different. Relationships and child-rearing are no exceptions; if you don't want a mate or a child, it must be because there's something wrong with you, is how the program is set up.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I'd say there's more pressure for fatty food. I mean, if I want to go out and eat something the options are largely fatty foods and the like, unless I want to spend a lot more money (and generally time for the whole meal as well).

[seritaph.livejournal.com]

Heh, for me it's a responsibility thing. Once, long ago, I sat down, assessed myself, and realized I had no right to screw up someone else's life along with mine via a relationship or -worse- by causing someone to be stuck with me as a father.

[rowyn]

I've actually never felt any pressure to have kids. Been in romantic relationships for most of my adult life, used to think "I'll want kids some day", but I'm older than you now and, nope, still don't. I like kids fine. I just don't particularly want any of my own.

I do feel like there's considerably more "be in a romantic relationship" pressure, though.