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A review by jennifer
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids by Meghan Daum
4.0
Having written a book, Americashire, myself that is more or less a tale of my mildly angst-ridden decision over whether not to have kids dressed up as a travel memoir, I was naturally interested in Meghan Daum's collection of essays by writers without kids. It delivered the entire childfree spectrum of opinions, including:
1. The woman who is more boldly childfree than I ever was or will be but who I secretly envy for the strength of her conviction. In this case, that woman is Laura Kipnis who served up gems like this one:
"Still, I confess to feeling an unseemly pleasure at having eluded nature's snare, saying "fuck you" to all that, though nature's going to get us all in the end, obviously. It's also my little "fuck you" to a society that sentimentalizes children except when it comes to allocating enough resources to raising them, and that would include elevating the 22 percent of children currently living in poverty to a decent standard of living."
2. The man who says what I'm thinking but I'm too scared to say lest all my parent friends hate me, in this case Paul Lisicky: "If the desire to have children is just a way to build some noisy tribe of distraction around oneself, I'd rather be alone." (Besides, I am very good at building a noisy tribe of distraction around myself without the aid of children.)
3. One that truly surprised me from Lionel Shriver, who concludes her piece with this corker:
"In the Middle East, birthrates are still quite high, whereas many Europeans, Australians, and European Americans cannot be bothered to scrounge up another generation of even the same size--which would presumably mean fewer holidays, more tedium, less leisure time--because children might not always be interesting and fun, because they might not make us happy, because some days they're a pain in the butt. When Islamic fundamentalists accuse the West of being decadent, degenerate, and debauched, you have to wonder if maybe they've got a point." Speaking earlier in her piece about her tribe of London, childfree women friends she makes the hilarious observation: "In a word, they're my friends. Nevertheless, in sufficient aggregate, we are deadly."
4. The one I related to most myself, which was Tim Kreider's view that the real reason people choose not to have kids is as "subconscious and primal" as the reason people do. I could also relate to his observation of pictures of him holding a child: "I look in these photos as if I am holding some South American animal I have never heard of before that I've been assured is not dangerous."
It is, on the whole, an excellent collection. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
1. The woman who is more boldly childfree than I ever was or will be but who I secretly envy for the strength of her conviction. In this case, that woman is Laura Kipnis who served up gems like this one:
"Still, I confess to feeling an unseemly pleasure at having eluded nature's snare, saying "fuck you" to all that, though nature's going to get us all in the end, obviously. It's also my little "fuck you" to a society that sentimentalizes children except when it comes to allocating enough resources to raising them, and that would include elevating the 22 percent of children currently living in poverty to a decent standard of living."
2. The man who says what I'm thinking but I'm too scared to say lest all my parent friends hate me, in this case Paul Lisicky: "If the desire to have children is just a way to build some noisy tribe of distraction around oneself, I'd rather be alone." (Besides, I am very good at building a noisy tribe of distraction around myself without the aid of children.)
3. One that truly surprised me from Lionel Shriver, who concludes her piece with this corker:
"In the Middle East, birthrates are still quite high, whereas many Europeans, Australians, and European Americans cannot be bothered to scrounge up another generation of even the same size--which would presumably mean fewer holidays, more tedium, less leisure time--because children might not always be interesting and fun, because they might not make us happy, because some days they're a pain in the butt. When Islamic fundamentalists accuse the West of being decadent, degenerate, and debauched, you have to wonder if maybe they've got a point." Speaking earlier in her piece about her tribe of London, childfree women friends she makes the hilarious observation: "In a word, they're my friends. Nevertheless, in sufficient aggregate, we are deadly."
4. The one I related to most myself, which was Tim Kreider's view that the real reason people choose not to have kids is as "subconscious and primal" as the reason people do. I could also relate to his observation of pictures of him holding a child: "I look in these photos as if I am holding some South American animal I have never heard of before that I've been assured is not dangerous."
It is, on the whole, an excellent collection. Enjoyed it thoroughly.