Wanna know what the "cool kidz"--the self-declared "elites"--think about having kids? The NY times ran an "opinion piece" titled
"The success narratives of liberal life leave little room for having children."
The authors of the piece--Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman--have also written an entire book called “What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice.” Here's the opening line:
For young, secular, politically progressive men and women, having children has become something of an afterthought.
Wow, who coulda predicted that, eh?
Liberal wisdom encourages people to spend their 20s on journeys of personal and professional self-discovery and self-fulfillment. Children are treated as something to get to only after getting a degree, establishing a satisfying career, buying a house, cultivating the ideal romantic partnership.
[For liberals,] the standards of readiness for family are so high that it’s hardly a surprise when people fail to reach them, and the data suggest that people are having fewer children, and later than they used to.
No, the data don't just "suggest," they're absolutely unequivocal--among white women ONLY. Question is, why? Just kidding; you already know.
For progressives, waiting to have children has become a kind of ethical imperative. Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood.
Securing female autonomy means that under no circumstances should a woman be rushed into a reproductive decision — whether by an eager partner or tone-deaf chatter about ticking biological clocks.
See, dat "tone-deaf chatter about ticking biological clocks" haz NO basis in Science, comrade! It beez a "right-wing conspiracy story," so yew will ignore it! Dere iz NO scientific basis for dat "tone-deaf chatter"!
Unreserved enthusiasm for having children can come across as essentially reactionary.
You hardly ever see the word "reactionary" in western writing. Surely you know what it means, but your college-age kids almost certainly don't. It's a term frequently used by communists, as an epithet, applied to anyone suspected of not totally supporting the Revolution. Hmmm...surely they don't mean...yes, they do.
We’ve interviewed hundreds of young Americans about their attitudes toward having children. These conversations revealed that the success narratives of modern liberal life leave little room for having a family. Women who want kids often come to that realization belatedly...
Hmmm, didn't y'all just get thru calling talk about a "ticking biological clock" "tone-deaf chatter"? Why yes, you did. But just three 'grafs later it's NOT? Hmm...contradictions?
If they're lucky their partner (if they have one) will fall in line. If they are not, they face a choice of returning to the dating pool, freezing their eggs (if they haven’t done so already), single parenting or giving up their hope of having kids of their own.
The logic of postponement promoted by liberals and progressives robs young people of their agency. How many children they have, and even whether they have them at all, is increasingly a decision made for them by circumstance and cultural convention.
That's certainly true for indoctrinated liberals. And the indoctrination continues full-throttle today: Libs bleat that having kids is killing duh Erf. Oh, and is "a tool of duh Patriarchy." And "oppression." "Female subjugation." And I've probably missed a couple of other pejoratives.
There is nothing inherently unprogressive about embracing the prospect of children. While certain conservative visions of family life —such as “trad wives” and Silicon Valley pronatalism—have little to offer those on the left, our fellow progressives need to stop thinking of having children as a conservative [ideal].
The family — recognized as the seat of customs and traditional values — has long been central to the appeal of conservatism. Yet it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans and Democrats fought over who could rightfully claim to be the party of “family values.” Bill Clinton, while campaigning for president against George H.W. Bush in 1992, assailed the Republican Party’s commitment to families as little more than hypocrisy.
Ah, dat's duh ticket! See, duh Rethuglicans don't reeeeally like families, dey just claims to! Really, NYT? As long as I've been on the planet conservatives have urged black males to be in-the-home dads. That didn't work because Democrats arranged for taxpayer dollars--and "Democrat guidance"--to replace black fathers. But hey, whatever makes you feel guud about yourselves, eh?
Bill Clinton--"Mister Family Values, eh?--went on to announce a 14-point “American Family Values Agenda.”
Say, any of you Democrats recall what those 14 points were? Did your party work to implement any of those? Oh wait...like the southern border, you'll blame "Republican obstructionism." Yep yep yep.
But in time, liberals and progressives came to shy away from publicly embracing the American family as a symbol and an ideal.
You don't say! You do NOT say! How could we have missed that?
After Mr. Clinton was impeached in the wake of his own family-values hypocrisy and George W. Bush was elected with the help of evangelical voters, family-friendly rhetoric became anathema to liberals—perceived as phony, intrusive and toxic. (The notable exception was gay marriage, whose legalization was won with the help of arguments that promoted the virtues of families.)
"See? SEE? We Democrats actually love "family values"! Well, at least when the family consists of two gay moms or dads. We are SO into those kinds of family values!"
Today the left proudly defends the sacrosanct right to abortion and "reproductive justice"...
If you have kids, ask 'em what they think "sacrosanct" means. Yep, "extremely sacred or inviolable." For those who aren't religious there's "above or beyond criticism, change, or interference." And after Roe was reversed the Dems lied that conservatives had "taken away a woman's right to choose." That, of course, was a lie, but it produced lots of votes for the party.
The polarization of discourse has [increased] the left’s wariness of children, both privately and politically. Members of the ecological activist group BirthStrike, founded in 2018, declared that they were protesting climate inaction by refusing to have kids. The following year, shortly after proposing legislation for a Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broadcast progressives’ hesitancy to reproduce in the face of climate change to her 2.5 million Instagram followers when she said, “It does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”
If you're a "progressive" the answer is "definitely not." It's un-cool. It'll kill duh Erf. See, having kids is for people who don't burn carbon fuels or use resources, like the Chinese or Africans. It's fine for them cuz dey don' make CO2 or cut down trees. Yep yep yep.
The Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion in 2022 has also made liberals and progressives more uneasy with the idea of starting a family.
Oh, I can't wait to hear this "logic," eh? The authors have now spent 2,000 words explaining the faaabulous reasons Dems, liberals and "progressives" didn't want children before the court overturned Roe, but now they're saying overturning Roe made 'em "more uneasy with the idea of starting a family." Wow.
A "reproductive-rights journalist" wrote that she had been contemplating having children before the Court’s decision. ["Contemplating," eh?] “I have never been sure that I desire to be a mom, let alone that I desire it enough to assume the risks. These days, however, that door is shut. I choose myself.”
Excellent decision, "reproductive rights" pyrsyn. Seriously, you would have been a terrible mom. You made the right choice.
That choice is not uncommon. In a recent study, 34 percent of women ages 18 to 39 reported that they or someone they know had “decided not to get pregnant due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.”
Ah yes, the fear of being unable to get an abortion in the event of a life-threatening medical emergency. That's what the proggies have told girls and young women that the court did. Okay, brilliant feminist authors, name a state that bans abortion to save the life of the mother. Take your time. Just one will do.
Y'say you can't find even one? Seriously? So how do you suppose all these millions of young women got the idea that states wouldn't allow abortion in case of a medical emergency?
Indeed, of the women who said they were forgoing having children because of the Dobbs ruling, about half lived in states where abortions [were unconstrained by Dobbs]. One can’t help noting the irony: In permitting the conservative movement to alienate them from the question of whether they want to have and raise children...
Ah, here it is even more blatantly: "I din' wanna have kids before, and now that decision is your fault, deplorables!"
But the partisan framing of the issue is flawed at a more fundamental level. In deciding whether to have children, we confront a philosophical challenge: Is life, however imperfect and challenging, worth living?
I think the decisions of Democrat/"proggie" women directly answer that question: For them, it's not. They've taken the joyless burden of existentialism to the next level: they've convinced themselves it's not worth reproducing. And I think for them that's the right choice.
Certainly having children isn't the only way to address this question. But...the perpetuation of human life is the condition of possibility for every other thing we care about.
Hey, let's not get carried away by emotions here, pyrsyns. We might think you might be verging on becoming..."reactionary."
But after 2,000 words of "We shouldn't have children," in the last two 'grafs of the piece the authors go way out on a limb (for proggies) and very indirectly admit that maybe having children isn't an entirely bad thing. But you get the sense that they're not eager about that thought, since accepting that would discard the last 30 years of feminist indoctrination.
Update: If you want a good look at the sick, twisted insanity infecting Times readers (and virtually all liberals), click on the link below and READ THE DAMN COMMENTS. They're all horrified that any white American would want to have kids, cuz killin' duh Erf. But they're all absolutely delighted for other races and other nations to have kids, cuz...reasons. Really, take ten minutes and read some of the comments. You'll be shocked at the lunacy.
Source: NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/opinion/natalism-liberalism-parenthood.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yk0.15QJ.AzFxOL6tWgZV
