theory on moms who leave kids and chosen childlessness: it's hard-wired like sexual orientation

[yurbud]

There's been a spate of stories about this lately, most prominently, the woman who gave up custody of her kids to her husband so she could pursue her own career, and studies purporting to show that having kids don't make you happier.

I suggest that rather than being a rational or even selfish choice, it is not a choice at all, but rather a hard-wired preference like sexual orientation: if our genetic make up can make us choose a gender partner who we can't reproduce with, wouldn't it be an even smaller variation from the norm for someone to be heterosexual but lack the reproductive (but not necessarily sexual) urge?

I don't know if any research has been done on it, but I could see the value in doing it.

Just as in the past (and probably still) a lot of gays would marry opposite sex partners and try to be straight unsuccessfully, so also there may be naturally childless people who feel pressured to reproduce without feeling the urge themselves, but like that mother who gave up custody, faking it doesn't make it.

If we knew the origin of this, there might be fewer ''mixed'' marriages of hard-wired childless and hard-wired child-bearers, and less of the resulting heartache of one trying to convert the other.

Maybe an easier angle to examine first is whether anyone who definitely didn't want children and had them still thought their original preference was right, or whether a child-wanting spouse was convinced by their partner to not reproduce and were ultimately happy with the outcome.

The stories about mother's giving up custody and studies on children distorting parents reality seem like an attempt on the part of childless to convince the rest of us that their innate preference is natural.

And maybe it is--for them.

[enough]

1. I don't think that "moms who leave kids" and people (wormen or men) who choose not to have children

are comparable.

[yurbud]

13. if the motive is the same, it is. Society might convince someone who wants to be childless

to have kids anyway, and they later undo their decision by leaving.

[hlthe2b]

2. So you equate those who chose to be childless...

with those who willingly give up their children? Where, pray tell is there any proof of any correlation between the two.

Further, why do you believe those who chose to be childless always did so out of determined "choice" and not simply circumstance. Given the decades long trend of women (and men) requiring those early adult years to become educated and to develop career, that delays the time when they would seek a mate and consider child-bearing. That delay for some may also diminish the options, so that that the decision to remain childless may no longer be a conscious choice.

:shrug:

[yurbud]

12. delaying or being forced to be childless are not the same as WANTING to be childless

It might be hard to imagine but there really are such people (and I'm NOT one of them either).

[gkhouston]

22. Why would it be hard to imagine? It's not a freakishly odd thing, it's just not as

common as people who do have children.

[yurbud]

26. it was hard to imagine for the person I was responding to

[hlthe2b]

33. No... you have totally misinterpreted what I said...

I never said there were not people who chose to be childless. But that does not equate to them abandoning a child if circumstances presented such to occur.

[hlthe2b]

32. Your assumptions are insane.

Of course there are people who WANT to be childless. That does NOT mean, that if presented with a child, for whatever reason, they would WALK OUT on them. This is not only ridiculous, but frankly really repulsive to assume.

[yurbud]

53. I didn't say ALL or even most would

but it is the symptom that brought the issue to public attention.

[seabeyond]

3. if we can get beyond the conditioned roles.... all women want kids, are nurturers

then it would be much easier anyway.

as a culture adn society we spend so much time inforcing and reinforcing these hogposh gender roles that when reality presents itself, clearly shows they are false. yet still, we buy into it

[PassingFair]

4. +1

All human.

[Demit]

5. Are you saying that you need to be convinced that the preference of childless people

to remain childless is natural? That's what you seem to be saying in your next-to-last paragraph.

I also love how you differentiate the "childless" from "the rest of us." And how you characterize people without children as a variation from the norm. Nice!


(Edited for clarity, to remove 'not' before the word natural)

[Morning Dew]

6. Childless is the norm.

I was born childless and remain that way.

Having children is just a "lifestyle choice".

wish I could rec your poat.

[gkhouston]

7. Humans would have died out long ago if "childless" were the norm.

That doesn't mean, however, that "childless" is abnormal.

[LanternWaste]

10. I was born prepubescent...

I was born prepubescent. I don't believe our state of birth should be the standard on how a norm is judged or perceived.

[yurbud]

16. if it's a choice, could someone convince you to make a different choice?

[readmoreoften]

34. Sure. What about people who want to adopt? Lesbians who don't want to have sex with men?

This is (as are most "hard-wired" arguments) nothing but gross simplification.

[Ghost in the Machine]

37. By those standards, shouldn't we be a world of naked atheists??

We're all born naked... and atheists... :-)

Wearing clothes and praising jeebus is just a lifestyle choice...

:hi:

[Morning Dew]

40. Exactly.

naked, atheist breastfeeders... though I probably wasn't feeding exactly when I was born so... dead pretty quick.

Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

So many lifestyle choices. What to do, what to do?

:hi:

[RayOfHope]

46. So why the reproductive organs? (And I respect your choice, btw). n/t

[Morning Dew]

48. They must be vestigial.

:rofl:


Actually, I wasn't all that serious except to endorse the idea that it's not only the childless with a "lifestyle choice" but also those with children who've made one.

[yurbud]

14. the majority of people seem to desire to have children. If you could find some stats to refute that

I'd like to see it.

[Demit]

36. You're the one who wants to make some sort of science out of it. What stats are you citing as proof?

And why is it so important to you? Why the need to make childless people different? Not normal? Why use loaded terms like "mixed" marriages?

I suspect this is a subject that's very personal for you. But there are women who knew they never wanted children. There are women who would have had them but thought it was more important to have them in the context of a happy marriage, and that didn't happen. (You imply that not having children is selfish. Ha! I'd posit it's the single woman who decides to bear a child alone because "she has enough love for two people" who is being the selfish one.) Finally, there are happily-married couples who agreed that neither wanted to have children. We are not abnormal.

I don't know why you think childless people should be 'studied', but the fact that you do makes me very queasy. It leads me to think it's your own situation, whatever it is, that is making you anxious enough to project some very dubious ideas onto others, and to show a very odd desire for them be validated by science.

[hlthe2b]

35. +10000

Will he paint a "B" on women who are barren (they are cursed by God, ya know....:sarcasm:)

Perhaps paint an "S" for selfish women who CHOSE not to have children (or slut, depending on your POV)

Of course, the old "A" which surves multiple purposes, included A for abortion, A for someone who gives their child away for ADOPTION (thus ABANDONING it)


Good gawd.

[gratuitous]

8. It's an interesting conjecture

And, if there was a correlation, it would reinforce my own personal observation that societal forces are very strong. So strong, in fact, that they can at least temporarily overcome a person's own innate sensibilities. The societal pressure on women (and to a lesser extent, men) to have children is pronounced and pervasive. Women who say they don't want to have children are often treated with suspicion if not open disdain. It takes a strong personality to overcome or stave off the constant message from the larger society, and not everyone is going to be successful. Against their own better judgment and in opposition to their own sense of self, women will have children, even when they aren't inclined to do so.

If that is the case, how much more effect do societal norms have on persons for any number of other things? It's an interesting question to ponder, and one that certain forces in our society are dead set against exploring, for what I think are obvious reasons.

[Missy Vixen]

15. A little example

>Women who say they don't want to have children are often treated with suspicion if not open disdain.<

We lived in a townhouse development for the first five years of our marriage. A woman who lived down the street from us had three children. She was a flight attendant. Her husband was a sales executive. Barbara would not allow her children near us because we had no children. She even went so far as to tell some of the neighbors that she did not want her kids alone with either of us. Barbara had NO evidence to base her opinion on, since the rest of the neighborhood was just fine with their kids visiting us at any time we'd invite them and their parents to play a game, watch a movie with us, whatever.

One evening shortly before we sold our place and moved elsewhere, Barbara was working a flight, and her husband was also out of town, leaving her 14-year-old alone in the condo with two sisters under ten. Due to a rapidly melting snowpack, our development was flooding, and due to be evacuated because of a water tower on a hill above that the city believed would break free and slide down any minute. Luckily, the worst did not happen. Her son was one panicked kid, though.

My husband was outside the next day cleaning up some of the mess around our place when Barbara approached him on the street and said, "Oh, Gary and I weren't worried at all. We knew you and MV would tell the authorities the kids were with you."

I have never been so close to slapping another adult.

[yurbud]

20. that is pretty extreme. here is LA, people wouldn't notice as much

since so many put career first that if someone is childless into their 40s, most will just assume they are delaying it to advance their career or they wouldn't notice at all.

[Missy Vixen]

49. I think it's the difference between city living and suburbia

San Francisco has the highest concentration of childfree adults in the country. Seattle ranks high on the list as well.

If we lived in an urban area, there may not have been so much pressure. We have lived on Seattle's Eastside since we got married, for no special reason other than moving into the city would be much more expensive. We also like the quiet of our rural hometown.

When we first moved into this neighborhood, we ran into some of the same stuff ("No kids? They're not having kids? What's wrong with them?") but after ten years, not so much. We're friendly with the neighbor's kids across the street. We don't go out of our way to befriend the others, just because we don't typically do kid-oriented stuff like soccer games and birthday parties on the weekend.

The people I feel the worst for are the women I know who are infertile. It never ends for them. I remain astonished at the stuff others will say to them, thinking they're helpful. Imagine one nosy woman's surprise when she got a faceful of angry childfree woman, asking her why she would continue tormenting another person over something she can't change, no matter how much she wants to.

[yurbud]

56. the infertile people angle is one reason this interests me

I've had both women and men tell me they can't have kids and my immediate visceral reaction is to feel the same as I would if they said they had terminal cancer and were going to die in a week.

Likewise, my grandfather married a woman who had no biological kids because she couldn't and deeply wishes she could have had them.

I had a serious illness a couple years ago and when I thought I was going to die, my one regret was that I hadn't had kids yet.

So for those of us of the breeder orientation, that drive is pretty strong.

[jp11]

9. I doubt 'knowing' there was or was not a tie, ie hard wiring would help

unless there were a test for it and even then only slightly. People can and do lie about what they want and sometimes they actually change their minds, no test is going to decide for a person whether they can override that 'wiring', ie if you tested positive for 'cut and run' on kids but always wanted kids would you take the word of some chemical/biological 'wiring' over your own mind's ability to make a choice, ie free will?

A person can decide they don't want kids then a fear is quashed, a barrier is brought down, a light is shone on what they are missing and then they want them. Just like there are people who want kids but on having them realize they didn't know what they were getting into, they can't handle it, they want more 'me' time etc.

People deceive themselves as much or more than they might be deceiving a partner about wanting kids or not, whether they even realize it or not. I think too many people don't 'soul search' or are just dishonest with themselves about what they even want. I attribute the lack of knowing yourself to the divorces along with other factors, certainly there are probably people not 'built' for long term commitment so why do it? Is it purely on pressure from society, fear of losing the person you love, if you can't be honest with them about what you want/need and make it work you run a greater risk of losing them and hurting them later on. I think if people were honest with themselves they could see if marriage, monogamy wasn't for them or not same with kids.

Then you have the aspect of our society being more acceptable of people divorcing, leaving kids so it is more acceptable to 'move on' for another mate or away from your family if you so choose. I'd attribute that to simply 'more choices' and/or lack of honesty about what you wanted and whom over being a 'natural' tendency. Once someone has kids and leaves them with several partners then it is 'natural' for them, just as having several partners w/o kids and leaving them is only 'natural' for them after they've done it.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting kids and there is nothing wrong with not wanting to be married or in a monogamous relationship people should just figure that out before they get someone else involved in their life.

[yurbud]

17. thanks for the thoughtful response. I didn't say there's anything wrong with it, but knowing

might stop fruitless proselytizing, especially through marriage and unwanted child-bearing.

[Missy Vixen]

11. There's nothing wrong with the 13 million in the US

that prefer to remain childfree. Why are you implying there is?

I should also add that it takes a hell of a lot more thought and logic to remain childfree than cave to massive family and social pressure and have children. If you don't think there is social pressure to reproduce, I saw it daily till my mid-40's, when my polite responses to those who continued to press the issue and/or throw out such charming talking points as "you'll never know real love", "you can always adopt," and "who will take care of you when you're old?" failed to shut the persistent up. Now, I smile and ask, "Why is it any of your business?"

Those who do not have any interest in reproducing have had that discussion with their partner long before that walk up the aisle. It's unfortunate that those who don't walk around in my shoes believe we just woke up one morning and told ourselves we weren't having kids, or that we are so irresponsible that we would marry someone with the knowledge we didn't know or care how they felt about the matter.

There is no danger of under-population. Those who've made the decision to forgo reproduction should be congratulated instead of maligned. It is not a whim decision. I have never met anyone who chose to remain childfree and regretted it. I've met a lot of parents who aren't so happy with their choice, however.

[yurbud]

18. My point is to show that pressuring people to have kids may be pointless or even harmful

your last paragraph pretty much confirms my thesis, and those who have kids and regret it probably weren't meant to have kids in the first place.

[gkhouston]

19. You know, I've never thought it was odd for people to not have kids, but I do

wonder about the ones who are desperate to have them. Not people who prefer to have kids, or who would really like to have kids, but who abso-fucking-lutely must have children. I often wonder what their children's lives are like.

[stuntcat]

42. It is not a whim decision."

indeed it is not.

The pressure I've gotten from some aged, comfortable, well-fed baby-boomers has sent me right over the edge. They think I'm the selfish one. For not wanting to give MY innocent child the year 2090.

It was certainly not a snap decision for me, far from it.

[mikeytherat]

21. My wife and I aren't childless - we're childfree

We are perfectly capable of producing children, but have chosen not to have any.

mikey_the_rat

[yurbud]

30. you are the people I was thinking about. Was there ever a time when you had a burning desire to

have kids but you later changed your mind by weighing pros and cons, or was it a pretty consistent preference for either or both of you?

[REP]

51. Another CF couple - never wanted any

[mikeytherat]

57. Consistent in over 20 years of marriage - we've never been hit with the urge to have kids.

Not even with all of the tasteful "you'll be sorry" and "your clock is ticking" and "you're selfish assholes" comments we've gotten ever the years.

mikey_the_rat

[leftstreet]

23. What's your theory on dads who leave kids?

:popcorn:

[gkhouston]

24. I hope you made enough popcorn for the class to share. n/t

[RainDog]

27. exactly

what a pile of piles.

[yurbud]

31. why would someone assume the OP is an attack on the childless or women in particular?

I don't mean it as an attack or defense, but the biological argument has been used far more often as a defense for gays than to attack them.

[RainDog]

39. because so much socio-biology is bullshit

and you are making claims with nothing to back it up other than the gender of the parent. what about dads who leave? what about dads who stay? are they hardwired one way or another? is one more "masculine" because of his actions?

what about parents who stay together but, because of job issues, one has to live somewhere else for a time? what about parents who go into the military?

what if we lived in a society in which economics didn't constantly determine how families operate?

there is such a long, long history of people assuming women are this or that - simply b/c they're women, that is so wrong and so based upon gender stereotypes that this sort of op just makes me roll my eyes.

but, here ya go - in nature, there are all sorts of species that engage in homosexual behavior - it's not simply humans. so homosexuality is part of nature. some species engage in bisexual behavior as a way to deal with community tensions. these animals include and are mammals and male and female.

some animals have babies and walk away. but those animals aren't mammals, so you really can't extend the hypothesis b/c the way in which reproduction occurs is too dissimilar. humans don't lay eggs in the sand, etc. humans don't have pouches like seahorses that predetermine who provides the intial protein for an offspring. seahorses undo that assumption of greater aggression on the part of the parent that does not do the nurturing, too. they are more aggressive than the females and fight for access to them.

before you start talking about a thesis for something being "hardwired" it would be useful if you could explain just what that "hard wiring" might be and how it differs from males in similar circumstances.

how do you explain women who give up children for adoption? are they also "hard wired" to do so?

humans are variable - our culture is complicated and exacts many demands that influence our behaviors. as a species, we are moderately polygamous - but this doesn't mean we all are. there are wide variations with some people mating for life while others have orgies. it's not simply biology that determines this.

[yurbud]

44. the media picked that woman to fix on and I just used that as an example

as I said in another reply, people FORCED by circumstance or who choose to be childless reluctantly is different from someone who PREFERS it.

I didn't make the distinction between women and men, but society may notice it more in women because of the nurturing stereotype gender role.

Whether someone has children, has them and gives them up for adoption, or chooses not to ever have any in the first place is entirely different from the issue of whether their PREFERENCE is to ideally remain childless.

The cases you bring up are like comparing guys who have sex with other guys in prison to guys who prefer same sex partners when both genders are available.

[RainDog]

47. lol. nevermind

facepalm.

[yurbud]

28. why wouldn't it be roughly the same? Especially if dad left wife & kids for new partner who remains

childless?

If dad leaves for a younger woman, it could be the exact opposite reason--to have even MORE kids.

[Spike89]

25. Really confused lines about custody...

Joint custody, legal custody (vs. practical) and a huge bevy of other issues affect parental rights and obligations and have virtually nothing to do with reproduction at all. In fact, desire has little to do with custody in plenty of cases--and when it gets contested, the judge doesn't choose which parent wants the kids more. Custody has darned little to do with nurturing instincts, or lack of them.
Even if custody did reflect the level of nurturing instinct--it would have virtually nothing to do with procreation. Believe it or not, I know lots of people that like to have sex, but do not want babies. In evolutionary terms, the urge to procreate = sex drive. There is no study to my knowledge that ties high sex drives to high levels of infant nurturing (actually, it seems to be the opposite, but as I said, I've seen no studies).
In short, custody has very little to do with nurturing in itself and nurturing has even less to do with procreation.

[yurbud]

29. the woman I mentioned STATED that she did not want custody, and I was referring solely

to cases like that.

I made the distinction in my OP between sex drive and chosen childlessness although I wonder if people who prefer to be asexual also don't want to have kids or are purely just not interested in sex.

[Teaser]

38. we really have no clue what is hard wired and what isn't

the brain is complex and we barely understand basic motor function.

Things like choice, parental feeling, desire to have children are really beyond our ken right now.

It may be hard wired, or it may not be. Maybe the metaphor of "wiring" just doesn't apply to our brains to begin with.

[RainDog]

41. I agree. the machine metaphor for the brain is outdated

and based upon the erroneous belief that the brain does not have enormous plasticity - which it does and which has been demonstrated in amazing ways...

people whose brains have been damaged have been able to use other portions of the brain to perform functions for which we did not previously "allow" because of our beliefs, not because of ability.

our brains can be trained to undo and do all sorts of things and to try to pretend that there is not a huge, huge amount of variability, based upon the brain's own composition and the culture in which it operates is bullshit.

[yurbud]

54. we can detect things like impulse control, lying, and what part of the brain light up

during certain thought processes.

[Teaser]

55. but that

gives us no information about the detailed structure and function of the responsible circuits or whether their origin is predetermined by genetics (which it almost certainly is not). Visualization tools such as MRI are very large hammers, and resolve areas of cortical activator larger than the cortical columns that represent, in general, coherent and cooperative local circuits. So we get a very gross representation of information flow from this and that's about it.

[KT2000]

43. Recall an interesting study

Mice exposed to certain chemicals as fetuses showed no interest in their offspring when born.
Sorry I don't have a link as it was in a documentary I saw years ago.

It makes sense though - when the brain is forming in the fetus, certain exogenous chemicals that mimic hormones can block the receptors for the development of a particular part of the brain. Timing of exposure determines what is blocked from development.

I never had a desire to have children and that is what normal is for me.

[yurbud]

45. yeah, I remember a similar study when they figured out how to make monogamous animals

promiscuous and then un-Paris Hilton them later.

[REP]

50. I was 'born that way' - never wanted children; never had any; never regretted it

I don't think human babies are are cute or appealing; while the language acquirement of infants is interesting, it's only interesting to me on a theoretical level. while I don't like noisy, unruly children, in general I am indifferent to them (though every so often I do encounter smart, charming kids). I've known since I was a child myself that I did not want children; over 35 years and two sterilizations later I have never had a moment of doubt.

[yurbud]

52. why did you have two sterilizations?

[jannyk]

58. Nearing 60, never ever felt a maternal urge. Lots of nieces/nephews

though. I have never regretted it for a moment and not once wondered 'what if...'

[CommonSensePLZ]

59. The gay gene theory is bullshit

Just a loose, simple idea to make sense of the complex issues of individuality, sexuality and personal preference, and almost entirely under the assumption that everyone is supposed to be a certain way, that their gender defines who they are and who they are as a member of the gender is insistently supposed to be meant to reproduce with the other gender, not have the ability to perceive beauty and love from the same one; That reproducing=love, not a series of emotions and intellectual harmony.

You become what you will become, and gene theory as far as personality aspects certainly doesn't explain people who change later in life.

[WolverineDG]

60. Thanks for thinking that I am "unnatural"

as I don't have kids. Not that I already feel like a lesser human being for not having them in a society that has made children gods & worships them accordingly.

dg

[NashVegas]

61. I Very Much Doubt It's Genetic

We are hardwired with sex drive, as a species: fuck and make babies. Even a good proportion of the gay men I know have a fancy to throw a girl a bone, every now and then.

Some form of child abuse/neglect or other environmental factors are more likely, IMO. Often you may notice that the youngest children in very large families tend to have less and later children. They're sometimes raised by *other* children, basically, when their older siblings get stuck taking care of them. Bad recipe.