There are two things I would argue (and have, IRL) against that notion:
Full-time work now lasts AT LEAST 50 years of one’s life, so having a few months off a couple of times during that half-a-century really isn’t that big of a deal; and
Employers have found overwhelmingly that if they grant some leeway to women with children what they get is very loyal employees who will stay long term with the company, which means the cost of time off is more than offset by the lack of expense in finding and training new personnel.
Unless you look at the behaviour of ants or rats, in which case you might expect that maternal instincts would become deranged, and some portion of the population would become cannibals and serial killers.
I should have been clearer - I meant the kind of books that peddle the sort of hyper-disciplined, constant-activity, class-obsessed approach to parenting that she tried to adopt, which is why I wrote “authors” and “Tiger Mom stuff”.
And, given our resources and how much of that work is pure “make-work” like adding transition effects to PowerPoints and attending chest-thumping meetings for managers, that is a major part of the problem of the middle classes, right there.
It’s important to remember that evolution is blind and gets its results by random selection - which means that some species may achieve stability by evolving what we perceive as “benign” mechanisms and others get the same result though what we perceive as unpleasant ones. So long as the result is increased “fitness” of the species, it will be successful.
We have sufficient intelligence to be able, to a degree, to steer our societies. Rats and ants don’t.
I can’t bring myself to believe that, given the state of our societies today. I think the most any of us can do is affect what is within our immediate reach, and the extent of each person’s immediate reach is governed by luck more than by aptitude or capability. As a group, we stagger from one crisis to the next, continually punching ourselves in the collective face, always one step nearer to a cliff. We’ve built a global culture that idolizes the worst of us, and elevates them economically until their reach is so magnified that they can harm us all. Why, hello there, Donald Trump.
Gee whiz, I sure am a little ray of sunshine today. Sorry. I’ll go have some chicken soup.
I think there is some merit to this, but I also think that this is a projection of mass, corporate media, which wants us to consume the worst of us. I do think that there are some good out of the globally connected world. I’d say that the attempts by various states to crack down on the internet and the sharing of information is an indication of a struggle, not their already accomplished victory. I’d like to think that we (as global citizens) have made real inroads on colonizing the corporate mass media that feeds us all sorts of lies.
Enjoy your soup and try to cheer up! I think there is hope to be had!
Events may prove me wrong, but our successive crises do seem to get resolved a bit more rationally.
WW1 was a complete fustercluck of apparently sensible politicians creating an extremely destructive, utterly unnecessary war. WW2 was understandable as two resource limited powers - Germany and Japan - trying to expand in China and in Russia - and being resisted by both of them with the help of the UK and the US (this isn’t perhaps the usual way of looking at it because most Americans don’t really know about the wars in China or Russia.) Since WW2 we have managed to increase the standard of living of a lot of the world without another enormous war. The 70 years before WW1 included the US Civil War, the German/French war of 1870, and the Russo-Japanese war. The 70 years since WW2 have had, as major conflicts, the Iran/Iraq war and the Rwanda massacre. Overall, and in relation to population, things have got better not worse. The Iraq war was relatively small in absolute historical terms.
Resource constraints may do for us before too long, but I think the case that we can steer our societies out of a cycle of violence is at least credible.
I don’t know… the decolonization process in the global south was not pretty or free from violence, all of which was made worse by the fact that many European powers often did not want to decolonize (France first in Vietnam, later in Algeria) and that the Americans and Russians were seeking new kinds of hegemony around the world (Vietnam and Afghanistan). There weren’t major conflicts like the world wars, just tons of hot spots around the world that did a fair amount of destruction - it just didn’t happen in Europe until the Balkans, so its often glossed over or ignored as not being important.
You’re a bit more polite than I was. When my son got to be about 3, that question was asked of me frequently, and depending on the audience, my answer ranged from “certainly not” to “fuck no”. The first one nearly killed me with the no sleep thing, a second would most certainly end me. And now I’m “too old.” So, hooray for getting old?
One of the best things of being over 40 is I am now “too old” - so when people ask me if I’m ever having kids I just answer with “I’m over 40…” and then they look at me with their feet in their mouths as I enjoy their discomfort.
I get the “oh look, Grandpa is so good with the kids” thing all the time. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but for some reason it annoys RatWoman no end, often with an amusing outcome.
Yeah, I get this all the time from my mom and I’m just so sick of it. No I will not change my mind. No I do NOT want kids. Ever. And people who use these lines never even try to understand where the person they are badgering is coming from, they just take their narrow world view and try to shove everyone in that mold.
It’s exhausting to have to keep saying things like “no, I don’t want kids and won’t want kids.” Sometimes I explain my reasoning, sometimes I don’t; but that never matters. It’s just that the people who can’t think of anyone outside of their world view are always the loud ones who badger others.
It happens, but those of us who won’t change their mind get tired of this quickly, and don’t appreciate the badgering. Even if the person is going to change their mind, being badgered about it won’t be good for them anyway. It’s exceedingly inconsiderate even to those who will change their minds to question their current choices based on what the questioner likes when the person being question obviously doesn’t feel the same way.
Now that I am in my mid-50’s, no one pesters me about having children anymore. But I do remember the comments I got in my 20’s and 30’s!
“You’ll find out that you want children when you have one!” Oh? What if I have a baby and find out my instincts were correct and that I didn’t want one? Will you take that baby for me, raise it and put it through college?
“Mrs. So-and-so has n grandchildren and I only have i. When will you give me grandchildren?” This from my mother, of course. I had to gently remind her that she didn’t like the husband I had in my 20’s and was relieved that we never had children and that I wasn’t then - and still am not - remarried. Did she want me to do the Murphy Brown thing?
“Don’t lift that! It’s too heavy and will ruin your ability to carry babies!” This from a stranger on the train platform as I carried a newly purchased TV (back when they were really heavy!) to the street level. Hey! I was weight training and what business was it of hers, anyway? Besides, did she see anyone around who would carry it for me?
I find it interesting that a man never bugged me about these things.
Back when fertility was an issue, I belonged to a support group called “No Kidding.” I think they still have chapters all over the US and Canada.
I wish you well, my younger sisters who have made the choice to remain childless. My experience has been that the fertility curiosity fades with menses but, perhaps if you’re famous, that does not apply.