When I imagine a selfish person, I picture someone who cheats, or steals, or behaves in some other way that benefits herself at the expense of others. So why, I wonder, is “selfish” so frequently used as a weapon against child-free women? Not procreating doesn’t hurt anyone, especially not the non-existent child(ren). Who is losing out in this equation? The “community?” The partner who must want an heir? The sad and lonely non-grandparents? “Selfish” does not merely mean, “cares about ones self” or “acts according to ones own desires.” The “…with disregard for others” is part of the denotation.
But perhaps, when applied to women’s reproductive decisions, “selfish” has a separate connotation. Perhaps doing what you want, period, is bad, destructive to the community, and deserving of scorn. Although that does not seem to apply to straight, able-bodied white women who want to have children – most all of whom do so to fulfill some personal desire that could qualify as “selfish” (in either sense of the word).
My guess is that the busybodies who accuse child-free women of “selfishness,” having not thought about it too deeply, are simply going with an attack that (they believe) will hit women where it hurts. Women are supposed to be selfless and obedient, not following their own paths. Accusing a deviant of “selfishness” might snap her out of it and convince her to make babies, or it might inspire her to ask, “wtf?” and write about it.
No one with any sense at all would accuse someone who feels they don’t want children of selfishness. In fact men or women who have children out of a sense of obligation, or ANY other reason other than a burning desire to have and raise children, are the very definition of selfish.
Wow. I love this. I’ve been accused of this and just recently wrote a FB status about a dr who asked me if I wanted children (totally irrelevant to the appt.). When I said no, he asked me how I knew. I said I know. He kept asking me how I knew. I kept saying I KNOW! I was so angry. How dare he ask me how I know. I’m 34 yrs old! I KNOW.
I love that you wrote about this, and I especially love your analysis of “Women are supposed to be selfless and obedient, not following their own paths.”
So. True.
This is a subject that’s near and dear to my heart, as a person who does not want kids, who doesn’t like kids, and who has never liked kids ever.
A lady I work with just got knocked up at age 41 by this complete asshole whom she used to date. She was agonizing over whether or not to keep it. She’s always wanted a kid, she’ll never get another chance, her age, etc versus she’ll be raising it alone as the guy predictably wants nothing to do with her or “it”, plus financial and job security worries (she’s a contractor). She talked to her rabbi and he said, “Having a child is the most selfless act a woman can do.” O REALLY!!!
I guess surrendering your body and the rest of your life to a parasite is kind of selfless, now that I think about it.
I haven’t been able to get that out of my head once she told me, and I think it’s great that you wrote about it here today. Thanks!
Anytime I’m accused of selfishness for being single and childless, I think of my patiently miserable, self-sacrificing female relatives who gave up their careers and identities in the name of family. They invariably wound up depressed, hostile, and in a couple of cases, addicted to alcohol.
There’s no big reward for martyrdom, ladies. No one shows up to give you a cookie–or to return your self-esteem and joie de vivre.
@orchidthief: You’re getting a new doctor, right?
Please note this is not an anti-child or anti-mother rant. It is against folks who misapply a loaded word to people who do not warrant it.
Clearly a woman’s childlessness comes at the expense of the unborn children. Any time a woman decides not to have a child, whether before or after conception, is selfish because infant…um…souls have a right to use a woman’s body as their only conduit from Heaven/Valinor/beyond the veil to life on earth. Millions of infant souls are sobbing right now, desperate for their opportunity to use a woman’s body, any woman’s body, as a tunnel to person-land.
However, once the child has already been born, the selfish/selfless relationship reverses: clearly, women — especially poor women, women of color, and women from developing nations — who keep their children rather than give them up for adoption are incredibly selfish. Those children could have a better life! They didn’t make the arduous journey through your womb to end up like *you*, after all!
Amen. On a related note, I went to my ob-gyn yesterday and was really perturbed by the lack of any reading material not aimed at mothers. No tabloids or women’s rags or even a 6-months old Time magazine to stare at. Nada. Just Parenting, Cookie, and Family Fun. And, half of the waiting area is taken up by a giant children’s play area. Which I have never seen being used by childrene (in fact I’ve never seen a child in my two years of coming here).
It just makes me feel that they view all of their patients as either pre- or post-pregnant. Not as, you know, women. Who may or may not decide that they want to get pregnant at some point. I am there in the name of NOT GETTING PREGNANT. I want my pill, I want to know that all is healthy, and I want to go back to my happy selfish single baby-free life.
Just thinking out-load: Did this use of the term “selfish” come from the view of women focusing on THEIR careers instead of devoting themselves to another person? And of course I needn’t even mention the fact that this is a gross double standard between career oriented men and women.
I like this post a lot, it pointed out something that I never considered, but is totally obvious once you think about it. I have waffled back and forth on having kids due to many factors, but I agree, it is in no way selfish to not have kids for any reason.
@BeckySharper, hell yes!
It always seems to me that a person who ignores the intense biological imperative to reproduce their DNA is the selfless one.
I’ve heard this a lot, but never had it directed at me. Were that to happen, however, I think I would just say “Yep! Selfish. I think I deserve not to have a child I would surely resent.”
“baraqiel
October 7, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Clearly a woman’s childlessness comes at the expense of the unborn children. Any time a woman decides not to have a child, whether before or after conception, is selfish because infant…um…souls have a right to use a woman’s body as their only conduit from Heaven/Valinor/beyond the veil to life on earth. Millions of infant souls are sobbing right now, desperate for their opportunity to use a woman’s body, any woman’s body, as a tunnel to person-land.”
Baraquiel, this is awesome. It’s like…it’s like abortion, only before you’ve conceived a child. It’s MURDER! I guess this abstinence thing is not really appropriate, after all…Well, appropriate for teenagers, but after a certain extent, God starts crossing his arms and tapping his toe when you don’t just settle down with a nice man and make little vehicles for the baby souls. Why doesn’t this surprise me…?
I have a slightly different experience with this because I’m disabled. This completely lets me off the hook motherhood-wise – of course I won’t have babies! The crap assumption I have to put up with is that I would like to have babies but either can’t (I perhaps can’t, but you can’t tell this by looking at me), or I feel it would be somehow wrong to subject a child to a mother like me.
Thing is, all conscientious reproductive decisions are selfish. These are our organs, if we’re not doing what we personally prefer to do with them (hopefully after some consideration), then there’s a problem. However, when people choose not to have babies for the wrong reasons, they can only hurt themselves with a little regret – when people choose to have babies for the wrong reasons, they can cause no end of harm to brand new innocent people.
I think this phrasing taps into the “fact” that all women owe children to society in general. Hence your body becomes public property while you’re pregnant, and politely asking complete strangers to not fondle your belly at the coffee shop or grocery store leads to astonishingly hostile responses.
…and the flip side of this is that women who are poor, or single WOC, or the disabled (as Goldfish mentions), or imigrants, are being selfish by having children.
There is also no recognition that deciding to be a mother is not a “free” decision. It has a physical cost, an emotional cost, a financial cost, a social cost, and on and on and on. If our society is so insistent that we ladies get to reproducing then maybe they should begin to look for ways to mitigate some of these expenses; if this cost is placed disproportionately on mothers and there is no support network in place then we can expect more and more women to look at the price of motherhood and decide that it is not worth the trouble and sacrifice. It seems we are still expected to be emotional “angels in the house” who lack the ability to make logical decisions, what incredibly bullshit.
I can’t imagine ANYONE who actually HAS children suggesting to anyone else that they should / shouldn’t have them. Kids take over your life in so many ways, I can’t imagine how people think they have a right to chime in on having or not having children. It is such a personal decision, and thanks to birth control, and legal abortion, women CAN make that choice vs. having it thrust upon them whether they like it or not.
The Goldfish, no one who knows me personally has ever said something like this to my face, because I have an “out” as well. I would not call myself “child-free” because I have not definitively decided that I will never have children. But it’s a moot point, because I live with chronic pain so I am not having children until that is not an issue (and I don’t know that it will ever cease being an issue).
I am, for all intents and purposes, ambivalent about children. But nobody in my life demands it of me because, hey, I’ve got this tumor.
“There’s no big reward for martyrdom, ladies. No one shows up to give you a cookie–or to return your self-esteem and joie de vivre.”
I feel like printing this out, distributing it to several family members who are constantly telling me that I should base my life decisions on what other people want, and then putting it up on my wall as a reminder of why I shouldn’t buy into it.
@JessMess: ARGH! I hate people who spout the “having a child is the most selfless act a woman can do” bullshit it just reinforces the idea that we exist as a vessel to bring new life into this world thus perpetuating the species.
@Carly: do we go to the same ob/gyn? That describes the waiting room there to a tee. Like I just want to get my yearly pap smear and go not be bombarded with motherhood crap. There is more to gynecology then obstetrics!
@endora: I will make you a needlework sampler.
@rodriguez I totally agree. Having children isn’t exactly selfless and really its such a personal decision.
I don’t usually post, but I thought I’d chime in with a story. One time in the lunch room my co-workers were discussing the impending birth of one of the men’s first child. I was at another table, minding my own business, when one of the guys turns around and asks me when I was going to have kids. I have the horrible habit of telling the truth when I’m asked something unexpectedly, so I answered his rude question with the truth; I wasn’t going to have any. The soon to be father, apparently without realizing the irony of doing so right after he said that he was having a kid so there would be someone to take care of him in his old age, says “Isn’t that kind of selfish?”
I always assumed I’d have kids, because that was what you did, right? Then one day, when I was 27, I realized I was older than my mom had been by the time she’d had both my sister and I. And it was like a light came down from Heaven, and the angels sang, “YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE KIDS!!!!!”
Ok, I totally stole that from one of Gary Larson’s (Far Side) stories, but same thing. It was one of the best epiphanies I’ve ever had.
And yes, I’ve fielded my share of “That’s so selfish” and “What about your husband?” (totally relieved, he doesn’t want them either and is in fact pregnancy-phobic. Not even kidding) since making that decision. It’s actually one of the reasons no one at work knows I got sterilized a couple years ago, because I just didn’t feel like dealing with the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
As I told someone the a while ago, I’d rather regret not having a kid, than regret having one and fucking that kid up for all eternity.
@ Carly and bluebears — Maybe your OB’s know that women with kids often neglect their own needs, including health needs, and maybe they think making the office child-friendly will make it a little easier for some women to get in for an appointment.
@jessmess: Screw him. Time to get a new rabbi. They’re not divine, you can fire them any time you want.
@Carly: If it helps at all, Cookie is going out of business. Maybe then they’ll have room for Newsweek or something for grownups.
@baraqiel: You are going straight to hell. Have you no compassion for those perfect little preborn souls? You’d better have it now, because once they’re born they’re miserable sinners, so your window of opportunity may be limited!
As a breeder myself, I consider having biological kids to be a pretty selfish act. The reality is that, although we love our kids beyond anything else (well, except each other) and think they’re an asset to the world, the reality is that the world didn’t need our DNA. And each person in the world represents a drain on its resources. So who’s being selfish again?
To me, the “selfish” comes along with an assumption that all women will want kids at some point. So it’s “selfish” to not have them when you’re young because women over 40 have no energy (don’t you know!) to keep up with children. “You’ve got to have kids while you’re still young,” I’ve been told. “Every kid deserves an active mom.”
I wish I could get “FUCK OFF” tattooed on my forehead. This “selfish” business is one reason why.
Ms. M– This. Having been through pregnancy, and currently raising a kid, all I can say is NO ONE should do this who doesn’t want to. I WANTED my kid and I LOVE my kid– but it’s still incredibly hard work. And it’s only tolerable b/c it was my choice. I could never imagine my life without raising kids– but that doesn’t make it easy day to day!
As for waiting rooms– given how some OBs offices actively discourage women from bringing kids with them, I always figure it’s a sign of a doc who is open to helping their clients– many of whom do have kids– get to the office even w/ kids in tow.
I spent over a decade going in for annual exams to get bcp prescriptions, and as long as my doc happily did that & didn’t lecture, I figured we were all ok. A doc calling you selfish though would be time for a new one, in my book!
“As I told someone the a while ago, I’d rather regret not having a kid, than regret having one and fucking that kid up for all eternity.”
@GeekGirlsRule – yes!
I find it funny and sad that a person who weighs her options and decides that no, having a child isn’t in her or the hypothetical child’s best interest should be accused of being selfish, emotional, irrational, and what have you. From where I sit, it’s the people who want you to breed indiscriminately who are being all of the above.
mischiefmanager makes a good point too. We really don’t need to add our DNA to the pool – our replacements are already here. They may be the ‘wrong’ color and nationality as far as some people are concerned, but they’re here all the same. Why not take care of them instead if you weally weally wove the kiddies?
@pedimd, while I can see your point, that doesn’t really excuse the fact that my, and probably many other ob-gyn offices, tend to view women as either pre- or post-child, at least if you judge by waiting room offerings.
And, to further that, I would say that a lot of women tend to sacrifice their own health needs for the needs of others whether or not they have children. I am horrible about this. I cancel appointments all the time so as to not inconvenience my boss, or my family, or my boyfriend, yada, yada, yada.
And, if they were going for offering a comfortable place for their patients, they should also understand that many of their patients are likely youngish career women who do not want to touch anything baby with a ten-foot pole at this point in their lives. While I have no idea if I’ll want kids in the future, I sure as hell don’t want them now, and I don’t want to be made to feel like less of a women for that desire. And I do not want to read about breast feeding and toilet training in the waiting room. Isn’t a pap smear punishment enough?
@Carly: Think about the patient population that comes to an OB’s office in any given year. I will assume that you go to an OB that does “regular” care (does not specialize in infertility, high risk pregnancies, oncology, terminations, etc, etc). I will also assume that you have a healthy reproductive system and are happy and doing well with your birth control of choice. So you and other women like you are there once a year. Women who are pregnant have to come in much more, and they are likely to be interested in child-related things, since they’re trying to have one.
Just because they’re trying to make the environment welcoming for mothers and mothers-to-be does not mean they are judging you for not being a mother. If you don’t like the magazine selection, you can tell the office and make some suggestions or you could even donate a subscription or two.
I agree with the post — I have never understood the “selfish” argument, and I think there’s a weird cult of motherhood going on. I just think the argument gets a little weak when you are criticizing the OBSTETRICIAN for caring too much about mothers.
@pedimd: Sorry, not attempting to thread-jack, but my point was just that they can definitely still be a welcoming place to both the mothers, and the non-mothers… this shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. And, I was clear to say that my assumption was based only on the waiting room decor, but I would say that’s a fair judge of their ideas about their patients’ wants and needs.
Its also not a fair assumption that non-pregnant women only go once a year. There are other health concerns that ob-gyns treat that do not have to do with pregnancy, and which can be super stressful and terrifying to deal with. IE, cervical dysplasia. Which requires “watchful waiting” in the form of paps every 6 mos, usually followed by colposcopies if the pap is still abnormal… and this can go on for years. I know first-hand. And thats just one of many conditions non-pregnant women could conceivably need care for (there’s also endemetriosis, cysts, STDs, birth control counseling, etcetera, etcetera).
And, I am planning on discussing the magazine choices with the receptionist next time I am in.
What I neglected to mention is that the nurse practitioner I see at said ob-gyn clinic is awesome, totally non-judgmental, and is way better than any other ob-gyn I’ve seen in the past.
VaS, I want to punch your coworker in the face. Having a kid because you can’t sock away enough in a retirement plan, well, that is just the HEIGHT of selflessness. Where’s his Nobel Peace Prize??
Also, you’ll get called selfish if you use assisted reproductive technology to conceive. “That’s so selfish! There are so many babies who need homes!” But don’t adopt internationally, because – “that’s so selfish! There are so many deserving children in the U.S.! You’re just doing it because it’s trendy.” And don’t adopt a toddler or a baby because – “That’s so selfish! There are so many older kids who need homes!”
I did specify that I was assuming you were healthy and happy with your birth control. Therefore, not in need of multiple visits about health problems or contraception.
I am glad you are happy with your nurse-practitioner. I think that the fact that you are demonstrates that waiting room decor is not a fair way to judge the health care providers’ ideas about their patients’ wants and needs. I practice in a hospital clinic, and when I am with the patients, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out everyone’s wants and needs, but I have very little idea about what’s going on with the waiting area decor and whether the magazines are up to snuff.
Having bio kids is both a selfish and a selfless act, depending on how you look at it. Maybe having the kids is selfish, and raising them requires selflessness.
I don’t begrudge the child-related stuff (or crying children) in my gyn’s office. Mothers with young children probably feel unwelcome in all kinds of public spaces. Why should they feel that way in their own doctors’ offices?
@Rachel_in_WY: You’re completely right.
And SarahMC, I totally agree with your assessment of the word selfish. It’s ridiculous! I agree people use it against women because that’s seen as one of the biggest insults because that’s the opposite of how we’re “supposed” to be. How many times have you heard the word selfish used to describe a man that doesn’t want kids?
And then, if you do say you want children, you are beseiged with all sorts of other judgments as well. It’s just exhausting.
My mother-in-law really wants grandchildren but my husband and I have pretty much decided against it. The hints she drops can get really irritating and I imagine they will only increase in intensity over time. If she ever goes so far as to call me selfish I’m not sure what my reaction will be.
Kristine, my mother-in-law started asking me when we were going to have kids at my wedding. One kid and a new pregnancy later, I still haven’t really forgiven her.
That said, I do think that your own parents are the only people who have a right to complain about you not producing grandkids for them. It’s not nice, or even very rational, but they’re really the only people affected.
I’d say, “You should have had more kids of your own to increase the odds of having grandchildren. But you were too selfish.”
@SarahMC: ZING!!!!
Fuck that noise. I’m fucking selfish.
Whenever you set boundaries, people call you selfish. Hey, can you drop whatever you are doing and babysit my kids? No. Why not, you’re single/childless, you can’t help me out? No. You’re selfish. No, bitch, I have boundaries. I don’t feel obligated to help you because you think I should, or that what I want to do (even if it’s scratching my ass) isn’t half as important as what you want to do.
All these people calling us selfish are the TRULY selfish ones.
I think the use of “selfishness” as a criticism implies that there are babies out there that could be born – and there are, trillions upon trillions – and to deny one or 5 of these babies the chance to be born is a “selfish waste of a perfectly good uterus.” In other words, you care more about yourself than about someone who hasn’t even been conceived yet’s chance to exist. The horror, caring more about yourself than about someone who DOESN’T EXIST.
Not only have I had the single/childless babysitter expectation foisted upon me by unthinking mummies, I have had the childless-spinster-daughter one as well. My mother and her husband even offered to buy me a house close to them and a brand new car so that I could take care of them in their dotage. WTF? Being single and childfree does not mean that I have nothing to do in my own life.
I never intend to change nappies, on infants, nor on the elderly.