A Breeding Reality Check

To the Childfree, the most irritating aspect of breeding is the denial of reality apparently required of all parents. No parent admits that anything bad might happen to their children or to themselves as a result of breeding. They universally envision a world that is getting safer, plentiful good interesting jobs, and solutions to the unrest and looming environmental disasters caused entirely by too many people on the planet. Any time they are faced with the reality of a warming, drowning, wind-torn planet, of a job market that now includes six and a half billion people, almost all working for cheap, and of the explosion of long-armed and nuclear-armed militant movements in developing countries, they pretend it’s not true, or at least, not true for them. “That might be so,” they will say, “but my child is an exception to the fact that there are too many people on the planet. There are too few like my child, that’s the real problem.” The myopic inanity of it makes you want to scream.

No parent wants to accept that they might not be such a good parent, or that their child will ever cease to validate their choices, even if they accuse their own parents of bad parenting, and even if they themselves don’t make their own parents happy. Every parent’s child is way above average, or if he’s obviously way below, it’s just because his teacher didn’t understand his learning style, or it’s just a phase (after all, don’t all teenagers see demons flying at them from the mirror?) or he’s a good kid who just fell in with a bad crowd, naturally through no active choice of his own. Of course all the members of the bad crowd have parents who equally vigorously deny the possibility that their child is a contributor to the “bad” in the “crowd,” as the rest of us pick another pile of trash out of our front yard, next to where your “good kid” parks his car. We know…it wasn’t him. He would never do anything. We’ve heard all the things he would never do.

Most of all it irritates the Childfree that parents see them as an implicit rebuke to the parents’ posture that having children was never a choice, and that they do not really need to take responsibility for the deficiencies in their own parenting and in the destructive and entitled conception product they loosed on the world. Many people who should not be parents are nonetheless parents. Childfreedom makes it clear that it was a choice, and usually a bad one, and the childed respond to that implied rebuke with rage and thinly veiled demands for conformity with the breeding program.

Too many parents never figured out what the costs were before they had a child. Now they want payment for services rendered, without consideration for their own complicity in creating the need for the services. They whine for more of everything - you should pay more taxes and I should pay less. You should work more hours so I can work less (but not get paid less!). You should babysit, it’s hard being a mother, and I need some time off. I need five baby showers and you need to come to each and every one with an expensive gift. You should tolerate uncivil conduct from me and my child that I would never tolerate in you. It’s hard. You need to be more understanding. The subtext is always: “How dare you suggest that I am responsible for the costs and consequences of this child’s existence. It’s not like I had a choice!”

I think it’s high time the Childfree had a turn at the denial game. Here’s a fantasy for all you unchilded-by-choice people. Imagine a world where parents all had to take the following oath before breeding. It won’t ever happen - but it’s nice to dream unreal and self-serving dreams. Just ask any parent.

The Breeder Reality Oath:

I understand that when I breed I accept the following conditions. I agree that these conditions are not "unfair," that they may, in fact be the result of my own deficiencies as a parent, even if I am not aware of those deficiencies, and that I have no right to complain about them. I further agree that I will not expect the taxpayers to fund the consequences of these events:

1) In the modern developed world, breeding is a choice I make to fulfill my needs. I will not pretend that it "just happened" or that I am a victim of the consequences of my own decision to breed.

2) I understand that a child is a minimum $200,000 commitment. I have done the math and agree that I have an average of $11,000 a year after taxes for each child in excess of what I need for myself. I further understand that colleges are only getting more expensive, and that I probably need an additional $2000 a year after taxes for each child to invest towards my child’s education if I expect them to go to any college at all. Even though I have additional expenses, I will not be entitled to extra pay, or to preference for jobs, time off and promotions and I will not be exempt from rising costs of resources, no matter how much I need those resources. If the price of a barrel of oil goes up, I can expect my driving costs to go up.

3) I understand that a child is a minimum 18 year commitment. I understand that sweet little babies turn into active, independent toddlers, and mouthy, hostile teenagers. I have done the math and I know how old I will be when my last child graduates from college, and what the probabilities are that I will be disabled or unemployable by then.

4) I may have a child who is severely physically, mentally or emotionally disabled, even if I do everything "right." I know that I will probably spend the rest of my life catering to that child's needs at the expense of my marriage, my hopes and my expectations for my own life. I will accept that my child’s physical, mental and behavior problems are entirely my responsibility, and most likely are also my fault, even if I don’t recognize the root of that fault. Even if my child’s problems are caused by a genetic factor, I will still acknowledge that my child suffers because I put my own needs and wants ahead of theirs and so I gambled with their potential suffering and lost.

5) My child will not be special, unique or in any other way deserving of extra consideration and resources above those available to everyone else. It is extremely likely that my child will be quite average and will never do anything remarkable. I understand that in a world of six and a half billion people, another human being is not a gift to everyone else - it is just another burden.

6) I will probably have a child whose values or lifestyle diverge from what I would prefer. If my minor child decides to behave in a way that violate my values or standards I will, nonetheless, have the responsibility to deal with the consequences of that behavior. I understand that my adult children may use drugs, end up in prison, join a cult, abandon their religion, abuse their own children, cut off contact with me, or otherwise disappoint me and anger me.

7) I accept that once I breed, whether and how I have grandchildren is not under my control. If my minor child decides to have a child, I will have no say in that decision, but I will have financial responsibility for my grandchild, perhaps for the rest of its life. I know that my child may decide to abandon or abuse his or her children, and that I get no say in their parenting or in the outcome if the authorities become involved. I know that I may have to choose between raising my grandchildren and never seeing them again if my child proves to be an unfit parent. I am aware that my children have the absolute right to prevent me from seeing my grandchildren.

I further understand that my children have the right to decline to breed at all.