Rick Santorum On FOX News Sunday: We Need To Increase Birth Rates

HuffPo

Santorum defended himself against charges of social engineering and called criticism of his tax plan "outrageous." "This is not social engineering," he said. "What's social engineering is the policies of the last 30 years that have robbed the family of the support that they used to have in the tax code." On Saturday at a campaign stop in Charleston, Santorum also talked about his own children and how they have shaped his anti-abortion views. He told the crowd that his disabled daughter Bella, 3, made him realize that God looks upon him as "disabled." "The gift that Bella gave me was the gift of looking at this disabled child who in the world's view will never be able to do anything for me other than love me," he said, according to MSNBC. "She is just a font of love as far as I' m concerned. And she made me understand that that's how the Father looks at me, disabled. Unable to do anything for him except love him. And he loves me unconditionally."

Technorati Tag: childfree

Addressing Climate Change: Happily Child-Free

HuffPo

Researchers have calculated that one additional U.S. child increases the lifetime carbon emissions legacy of either parent by nearly six times. Thus, not having children is by far the single greenest action any one of us can take, although the child-free choice is not usually green-motivated.

If we are to hope for a humane human future, we must bring our populations down to a sustainable level, as we point out in our free online book, and this involves imagining just how joyful families of one or no children can be. The good news is that the process has already begun.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Baby Surcharges? Child-Free Restaurants?

Dining with kids can be a pleasure when they are well behaved and a hassle when they are not. Especially if you’re one table over.

This summer a restaurant in Pennsylvania announced that it was banning children under the age of six. I’m totally against that – my 3 year old is just as well behaved in restaurants as my 6-year-old. But if I want a meal without the whining and seat kicking and even worse that goes on with some children, I expect a ban under the age of 12!

In fact, I’m all for it. I see no reason at all that some restaurants shouldn’t be able to declare themselves child-free zones. As a parent, there are times that I want to go out with my entire family – children included. As an adult there are times I want to be in restaurants without my own kids and not have to listen to other children. A restaurant should be free to clearly state its policy and diners should be free to patronize (or not) a particular establishment.

Technorati Tag: childfree

The craving for a baby that drives women to the ultimate deception

Mail Online

Of course, not every woman in my position would resort to extreme measures. But I do believe that any man who moves in with a woman in her late 30s or early 40s should take it as read that she will want to use them to procreate, by fair means or foul, no matter how much she protests otherwise.

A 2001 survey revealed that 42 per cent of women would lie about using contraception in order to get pregnant in spite of their partners’ wishes.

I'd comment, but I am dumbstruck by horror.

Technorati Tag: childfree

7 Billion Means You Can Stop Asking When I'm Having A Baby

HuffPo

The bottom line is that when we pressure women to have children, even if we are just innocently asking "when" it will happen, what we are really saying is that women aren't worth much without them. Men aren't asked this question incessantly.
. . .
The truth is, no one ever tells us that we might, actually, not regret living child-free. We might not regret being the best aunts ever while having most of our personal time to devote to a great marriage or several great relationships. We might not regret having the time and resources to travel frequently. We can save for retirement in such a way that we won't need adult children to support or take care of us. And with almost one in five women in the U.S. remaining childless, according to the June 2010 Pew Research Center study, we won't be alone.
. . .
However, with the world's population hitting seven billion people this week, I'd venture to say that the pressure is off. Humankind will not end because you did not give birth. There are, officially, plenty of humans to go around, and it's safe to say that a significant number of them will produce more humans.

In other words, we are off the hook. If you want children, go for it, but do it because you want those children and because you want to be a mother, not because you're afraid of the alternative. Those of us who've taken the other route are doing just fine.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Childless women 'vilified by bosses'

Why NOT having a family could ruin your career.

According to her findings, bosses often regard those who opt not to have a family as cold and odd.

They can be vilified, refused jobs and denied promotions, because some employers feel female staff who don't want children lack an 'essential humanity'.

Researcher Dr Caroline Gatrell, who spent six years researching women in the workplace, explained: 'Women who explicitly choose career over kids are often vilified at work and face enormously unjust treatment.'

Technorati Tag: childfree

Jennifer Aniston Happy Being Childless?

JENNIFER Aniston might be in her forties, single and childless — but she’s happy!

ays she’s fine not being a mom because she’s surrounded by the kids of her Just Go With It costars Nicole Kidman, Adam Sandler and Dave Matthews.

“I’m constantly getting a kid fix!” she told Entertainment Tonight.

In December 2008, Aniston mused to Entertainment Weekly about having kids of her own : “I feel like that’s in my future and I’m on the verge of it in some way,” she said.

*facepalm*

Please don't click through. You risk losing IQ points reading this thing.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Why child-free still trumps child-friendly

Cape Argus

According to a study by Northwestern University in Chicago, men experience a drop in testosterone when their child is born. Thankfully, the reduction isn’t enough to bring about man boobs or a predilection for Meg Ryan movies, but it’s enough to turn hard-assed blokes into soft, blubbering egg yolks. Which is nice.

. . .
But there is that final finding that negates all the positive effects: baby blues. The East Virginia Medical School found that one in 10 fathers – the same ratio as women – experience post-natal depression. Couple that with the man’s new sensitive state, and all hell could break loose.
. . .
Indeed. That’s why I “almost” reconsidered. Having children is a personal choice and I admire those who do it, but I’m not nearly grown up enough to undertake it myself. And even though I do the grocery shopping, walk the dogs, have un-massaged feet and know where the doodat is, I like my husband just as he is – even if he thinks Virginia Woolf is a character from True Blood. More than that, I like us just the way we are.

Technorati Tag: childfree

The Real Deal on Childfree Guys

Technorati

We still don’t hear as much from childfree guys and why they have chosen the childfree life. And when it is out there, it often misses the mark, because it is really an article about his “resistance” than lack of desire.

Read more: http://technorati.com/women/article/the-real-deal-on-childfree-guys/#ixzz1acYAmV4l

Technorati Tag: childfree

No Kids Allowed: New Options For People Who Prefer “Child Free” Holidays

Worldcrunch

Weiss has gathered the addresses of 283 hotels, pensions and resorts on his Internet site urlaub-ohne-kinder.info. In the Caribbean and Central America, child-free resorts have existed for a long time. Europe lags behind, he says, although he notes a trend in both Spain and the Canary Islands for child-free hotels. And market demand has been recognized by the Austrians for years, he adds, pointing to the Hotel Cortisen on Lake Wolfgang (Salzburg) that in 2005 decided not to admit children younger than 12 saying that they’d taken the decision in answer to “the wishes and needs of a modern, enlightened society.”

Technorati Tag: childfree

Why I'm Perfectly Happy Being The Child-Free 'Cool Aunt'

Some women would call me selfish for not wanting kids...and I would whole-heartedly agree with them.

do not regard myself as "childless," nor will you see me running around telling people that I'm "childfull." My motherhood status shouldn't matter just because we live in a society that has told us that yes, having children is something that comes next once you're married; it's just what people do; it's imparting survival on the species; it's some sort of duty and if you don't fulfill it you're selfish and self-absorbed. Well then, so be it.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Childfree By Choice: I Don’t Want Kids, And I’m In Good Company

Blistree

Technorati Tag: childfree

DINKs: Childfree By Choice

WSJ

In a posting on the site DINKlife.com, a woman in Birmingham, Ala., shared her surprise and dismay that friends were unsupportive when she and her husband told them they planned not to have children. “Too many conversations, painful moments and emotional emails to recount,” she wrote, “but the statement we feel best sums it all up was when a very close couple told us that they did not see us in their lives anymore as we were making the ‘unnatural choice.’ ” She said she and her husband have since found solace in charity work and activities like a barbecue competition team.

Technorati Tag: childfree

The 5 Most Horrible Things Nobody Tells You About Babies Read more: The 5 Most Horrible Things Nobody Tells You About Babies

Cracked

Hollywood comedies about parenthood depend entirely on making raising a kid look a ridiculous, hectic mess. Then, eventually the leading man finds out that in the end, the rewards make it all worth it. That's mostly because for whatever reason, baby murder is still taboo in modern Hollywood comedies.

When you have a real kid, you realize there's plenty of stuff those movies don't show you. If they did, their zany comedy about a single father finding a baby on his doorstep would quickly become a nightmare inducing horror that would shut down the genitals of any aspiring parent. Maybe that's why you don't see...

Or dear. Some of that is a bit traumatizing, but for the squeamish like me, I will warn you that it is (tolerably) gross.

Technorati Tag: childfree

What Made You Decide To Have Kids?

StrollerderbyThe journalist solicits answers from her readers, which are posted as comments. One response:

This is one of those moments when I wonder about our kids reading the blogosphere. A friend of mine decided to have kids “to save the marriage”. When it didn’t work, but left her single-parenting instead, would you want her to tell her kid that?

Another friend grew up in the era when our parents said “when you grow up and have kids” rather than “if … you have kids” … and she decided to have kids because “that’s what you do when you’ve got married, saved a chunk of both salaries, bought the house, decorated the house, and your friends start having kids.” She quit a job she loved to “do the right thing” and stay home to parent. Hated it. Out of her four kids, today two are in jail. Should she be posting to Babble that she wishes she never had them?

From my own personal experience I will tell you that the joys and challenges of motherhood were the area of the biggest lying in my family. Mothers, grandmothers and aunts pushed the notion that motherhood would be my biggest joy and that they never regretted their choices for a moment. So when I found parenting challenging, I thought I was defective in some vital way. But by the time I was in high school, these same women were willing to ‘let me into the club’, sharing their frustrations and regrets just as if they’d never led me down the garden path.

I could say more about this, but maybe my kids are reading it?

However, other commenters simply say they "always wanted them" without giving a reason, and don't seem to be aware that they are not answering the question. I wonder what this says about their decision?

Technorati Tag: childfree

If I’m not sure I want kids, is having one the best way to find out?

The Globe and Mail

I’ve been bombarded with such seemingly helpful comments as, “It’s different when it’s your own” and “You’d make a great mother.” However, if I am not sure that I want them, is it not a risky experiment to find out the hard way that I don’t? Regardless of whether or not I’d be a great mother or that it might be different, I am not certain that having a child is the best way to arrive at that realization.

There are innumerable pleasures to be had in this world and having a child is not necessarily the trump card when it comes to a happy and complete life. Some may argue that I will never know love, as the love one has for their child is the deepest and purest form of all. This may be true. I am unable to fully imagine the love one would have for a child just as I am unable to imagine the exhilaration of winning an Academy Award, but I am not less of a person for lacking in those experiences. Perhaps I will miss out on understanding a certain form of love, but that in no way discredits the love that I do feel in my life as any less than deep and pure.

Technorati Tag: childfree

We say no to babies and yes to NYC Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/we_say_no_to_babies_and_yes_to_nyc_2i0q9vs7bKt4pcQfhbYNVO#ixzz1Uk

NY PostI feel a little dirty just having gone to the Post's website, but, well, the article was relevant.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Childless couples still divorce at a much higher rate than those with children

Deseret News

Childless couples still divorce at a much higher rate than those with children
Published: Monday, Aug. 8, 2011 10:25 a.m. MDT
About 66 percent of American divorced couples are childless, according to a Huffington Post article that looks at multiple studies, while 40 percent of couples with children have divorced.

"The absence of children leads to loneliness," author and journalist Anneli Rufus wrote as part of a Divorce Magazine list of 21 factors that increase the risk of divorce.

Couples without children are prone to divorce issues, according to NewYorkDivorceLawyer.net, and studies are showing it could stem from sexual incompatibility. Childless couples also show symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Yet Laura Carroll, author of "Families of Two: Interviews With Happily Married Couples Without Children by Choice," told the Huffington Post many childless couples are happy, because they "have more time, energy and money to spend on their careers, friends, each other and themselves."

Huffington Post writer Vicki Larson shows that divorce rates among the childless have been significantly higher for more than a half century. She suggests that while children may not always be the glue that holds a marriage together, "the childfree don't have that motive, so there's no reason to stay together if it's not working."

This article is so poorly written that it barely warrants commenting. Suffice it to say that some Journalist's opinion on loneliness in no way negates the possibility that the difference is entirely due to unhappy couples staying together for the sake of their children.

Technorati Tag: childfree