How to get people to have more children

Recently in the news: a proposal to tax the childless in order to incentivize people to have children. 

 

That will never work.

 

Here are some things that will work:

1. Fix the formula shortage, and prevent it from ever happening again. Less than 100% of parents can produce enough breast milk to meet 100% of their baby's needs, and you can't be certain that you'll produce enough milk until you're actually doing it. People would be much more willing to bring a child into the world if they could be confident that the child won't end up spending their whole short life starving to death.

2.  Stop COVID, and/or cure Long COVID. We're in a pandemic with a novel airborne virus that causes a post-viral syndrome that turns out to be worse than we thought with every study that's released, and public health protections are constantly being removed despite surging case numbers. People would be much more willing to bring a child into the world if they could be confident the child will live a healthy and comfortable life, rather than spending their whole life stymied by fatigue and vascular damage.

3. Stop climate change. People would be much more willing to bring a child into the world if they could be confident that the world will remain habitable for the child's entire life.

4. Fix the ratio of salaries to housing costs to education costs. People would be much more willing to bring a child into the world if they could be confident that they will always be able to provide the child with a suitable home and suitable education - and that the child will be able to afford those themselves when they grow up.

5. Make family life affordable on a single paycheque. If you aren't able to provide a good life for a child on your paycheque alone, then you have to wait to have a child until you find someone who a) would make a compatible lifelong partner for you, b) who is compatible not just as a partner but as a housemate and c) makes enough money to make up for your paycheque shortfall. Each of these alone is a major challenge - it's a wonder anyone in the world can find anyone who meets all three requirements! However, if it's feasible to provide a good life for your child singlehandedly, you can have a child without having to worry about your partner's earning potential, or with a partner who wouldn't make a compatible housemate, or even with someone who wouldn't make a compatible lifelong partner. That would open up a lot more options for people who wouldn't otherwise be willing to bring a child into the world!

6. End hatred. Things like racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. are on the rise, with the haters becoming bolder and more influential. People would be much more willing to bring a child into the world if they could be confident that the child isn't going to be subjected to hate crimes!

7. Make sure the terms and conditions of existence never get worse. After Roe vs. Wade was overturned in the US, a lot of people were talking about how shocking it is to suddenly live in a world where your children have fewer rights than you did at their age. Many people who chose early in the pandemic to carry a pregnancy to term likely did so on the assumption that those in power would continue doing what was necessary to protect us from COVID. When my parents made the decision to have kids, they had no idea that their children would not be growing up in the same economy they'd lived in their entire life.

   Like many people, I grew up constantly being told that everyone wants a better life for their children, so the idea that the terms and conditions of existence can change for the worse like this is terrifying. If those in power could prioritize preventing the terms and conditions of existence from changing for the worse, a lot more people would be willing to bring children into the world.
   

Parenting advice from the childfree

I recently fell down an internet rabbit hole and ended up reading a parenting advice column. And it seems I have Opinions, even though I don't have children.

Many years ago, before I got married, I had an abortion. I do not regret it, and it was the correct choice for me at the time. (I was a freshman in college and had no familial support.) Now I have two kind and lovely daughters in their early teens, and I am wondering if this is something I should talk to them about.

My husband is unsure, leaning toward no, and I can’t say I exactly relish the idea of having this conversation with my daughters, but especially considering the current political climate in the United States, I feel like I … should? Just tell me if I should, and if the answer is yes, how to do it.

One benefit of telling your daughters that you had an abortion is that they'll be more likely to feel that they're safe going to you if they ever need an abortion or otherwise have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.

Many parents would say at this point "Of course my kids know that they can come to me with anything!", but less than 100% of their kids would agree with that assessment.

My own parents would probably think their kids can come to them with anything, but I wouldn't have felt safe coming to them with an unwanted pregnancy. (And, given that I didn't know abortion as a safe, controlled medical procedure existed until nearly a decade after menarche, the results could have been disastrous!)

But, because my mother once mentioned in passing that my parents had used birth control and plan their family, I never felt the need to conceal my birth control from them.

For my preschool-aged son’s birthday party, we bought (zany, colorful) squirt guns as a party favor. Our kids love to run around in the backyard squirting each other on hot summer days, and I’m fine with that—over time, it has given us good opportunities to talk about challenging subjects in bite-size, age-appropriate ways (i.e., guns: never touch a real gun; if you ever see a real gun or someone tries to show you one, leave immediately and tell a grown-up; it is only a game if everyone is having fun, etc.). However, I’m unsure whether giving squirt guns to others’ children is appropriate. If it matters, we aren’t gun owners; my partner did not grow up around them, but I did, and neither of us would ever want a real gun in our home.

I’m debating creating separate gift bags without the squirt guns, making a partywide PSA such as “never touch a real gun—and remember, squirting someone with a squirt gun is only a game if both people are having fun,” or something to that effect. My partner feels my concerns are overblown and says mentioning it would make things weird, but wouldn’t stop me if I insist on it. I feel the conversation is important but don’t know if this is the right place for it or what exactly to say. Any advice?

I am exactly the kind of kid you're worried about - I always interpreted adults words and actions in ways the didn't intend! - and I can assure you it never once occurred to me that squirt guns and real guns are in any way synonymous or interchangeable, any more than I thought they were interchangeable with glue guns or staple guns.

How long do kids get to be dictators? How long should we just do whatever they want to avoid massive tantrums? I know the whole “is this the hill you want to die on” argument, but there are times when I just get tired of the fact that my toddler’s whims and desires completely outweigh mine! And I know that I’m supposed to be the adult and be the bigger person here, but sometimes the frustration gets to me.

My daughter is 3½ and very stubborn. She comes by it honestly: I’m pretty stubborn too. She’s also very dramatic and there have always been a few things that she just has to have a certain way or else she’ll lose her mind. For example, if we’re in the car listening to Disney music, she doesn’t like it if I sing along. She has gotten much better about asking me to please not sing, and as long as she asks and doesn’t scream at me, I’ll do what she wants. If I’m sitting on the couch, I can’t have a blanket on me. (I’m usually cold and like to snuggle under a blanket to keep warm.) If I don’t take it off, she loses her mind. She hates it when her dad and I try to have a conversation because she wants to talk to Dad. The other day she wanted me to put the windows up in the car. So I put hers up and put mine up almost all the way, but left it open some because it was a nice day. She lost her mind because she wanted them all up. I don’t want to have to dance on eggshells and do anything to avoid upsetting her. Sometimes (a lot of times) things don’t go the way you want and everyone just needs to learn to process that as best as they can!

I know she’s a toddler and can’t process things the same way an adult does. And I know that I’m probably fucking up royally by taking actions that I know will result in her losing her mind. But in the moment, sometimes I just can’t handle being bossed around by a 3-year-old. Am I really supposed to just let her have her way all the time? Does that not lead to her becoming an entitled asshole who thinks the world revolves around her? Since most of the time it basically does, I’d like to try to introduce the concept that she isn’t the center of the universe. Or am I just being a complete asshole?

The columnist advises focusing on situations where she's trying to control other people's lives or bodies (such as the situation where the kid doesn't like that LW is under a blanket) but another thing to keep in mind is situations where your daughter has no control over her own life or her own body.

For example, in the case where they're in a car and the daughter wants the windows up, she has no control whatsoever. She can't roll up the windows herself. She can't move since she's strapped into a carseat. She can't add or remove a layer of clothing since she's strapped into a carseat. She probably didn't even get a choice about whether she's going on a car ride at that moment and to that destination in the first place! At this moment, she has no control over her life or her body and is entirely at the mercy of your whims, including your (in her eyes) nonsensical whim to have the window open when it's clearly more comfortable to have it closed.

Giving more consideration to your daughter's needs and wants, however petty, in situations where the logistical requirements of childhood put you in full control over her life and her body would, in her eyes, put you in a better moral position to argue that she can't control other people's lives or bodies.

I’m divorced with an 11-year-old. She’s not the easiest child to parent as she is very independent, strong-willed, and opinionated. I love her though and honestly have no issues parenting her. I share 50 percent custody with her dad. Every week I hear from one of them about a fight they’ve had. He tells me she’s difficult, moody, angry, challenges him. She tells me he’s inflexible, always yelling, and unreasonable.

I sympathize with her and try to give him advice. But what is my role here? I don’t share with her that I think the problem is her dad. He seems out of his depth in parenting and has twice offered to pay me money to take her off his hands. My biggest problem with being married to him has been that he had no empathy and I believe it’s showing up in his relationship with our daughter. But do I keep giving advice (which I don’t know if he even takes or not)? And since I am not there and don’t see the whole picture, I’m afraid I might be giving the wrong advice. Should I take my daughter to therapy to deal with her dad? The angry, moody child he cites is sometimes there when she is with me, but she is also funny, pleasant, and engaging, and has no problems following house rules. Do I just let them figure it out? I’m just worried.

The columnist suggests at the end of her advice that if none of her other suggestions work you might consider re-opening the 50/50 custody agreement, but I think they should look at adjusting the custody agreement on principle, even if they're able to resolve this specific issue without changing custody.

Fifty-fifty custody is something chosen for a theoretical notion of fairness that doesn't necessarily reflect the actual needs of the actual people in the situation. That might make sense when a kid is younger and doesn't have and/or can't express specific custody-related needs and preferences, but it makes less sense the older the kid gets.

If you imagine a household where a kid lives with two parents, they almost certainly don't spend 50% of their time with each parent.  They spend the amount of time that makes sense given the personal factors involved. And, the older the kid gets, the more time the kid spends with neither parent - at school or work or involved in their own activities or at home alone.

Perhaps it would be better if your custody arrangement reflected this, and allowed your daughter to choose how much time she spends with which parent.

In a few short years, she'll be able to stay home alone and to travel to and from each parent's house independently, so the logistical issues of childcare and transportation will be gone.

Surely you can do better than an arrangement where the courts require your daughter to spend half your time with (and dependent upon, and at the mercy of) someone who has offered to pay to get rid of her.

How the Big Bang Theory writing team is like a deadbeat dad

This post contains full spoilers for The Big Bang Theory, up to and including the end of the finale.

Bringing a new baby into the universe means work. You have to care for the baby and the subsequent child and the subsequent teen and the subsequent adult, providing for their physical and emotional and material and logistical needs and launching them into an adult who can function and thrive in the society into which they were born and whatever that society evolves into.

Bringing a new baby into a fictional universe also entails a certain amount of work. You have to figure out and reflect in the story you're telling how this new baby affects their parents and the characters around them, and how they are affected by the particularities of the universe you're bringing them into.  When you're starting with pregnancy, you have to address how the pregnant parent feels about the pregnancy, how this affects their relationship if they're coupled, the implications pregnancy and childbirth and childrearing have for their life (and for the plot).


But the writers of Big Bang Theory didn't do any of this work when they decided to make Penny pregnant in the season finale.

Penny is the one character who has expressed the wish to never have children.  The show has spent some time on this, and on what it means for her marriage to Leonard (who is amenable to having children).

But when they presented her as pregnant in the series finale, they didn't show us how she got from her previously-established point of never wanting children to her new point of having no apparent objections.


As everyone who has ever either made a choice to have children or made a choice not to have children knows, this is not a decision made lightly or on a whim.

And as those of us who have changed our minds know, changing your mind requires even more soul-searching than making the original decision. I myself spent night after night working my way from "Aww, babies are cute and make my ovaries ache!" to "Given what I suffer in day-to-day life, could I really look my child in the eye and justify bringing them into the world" to "You know, what I want isn't actually a human being that I have to keep forever - I just want a small adorable creature to look at me with love in its eyes."

Changing one's mind about whether to have children is an excruciating process of working through hard truths, and that needs to be honoured.

What hard truths did Penny have to work through? What did she think and feel?  What is it like to find yourself with an unwanted pregnancy while married to someone who wants children?  Did she consider terminating the pregnancy?  Did she talk to anyone?  Did she tell Leonard? Before or after she made the decision to keep it?

There's a lot going on here, in a character that the show worked hard to make us care about from the beginning and in a relationship the show worked hard to make us care about from the beginning, and they didn't do the work of showing us any of it.

And it doesn't just stop with the decision to keep and welcome the baby - there's also the future to think about.  How does a baby affect their lives and careers and housing situation?  Penny is the primary breadwinner - how does her pregnancy affect her career?  How does that end up affecting their finances?  How does that end up affecting their relationship? How does a pregnancy affect Penny's health, both during and after the pregnancy?  How does the whole situation affect the baby?  What's it like to be a child who was originally unwanted? How does the fact that Penny originally didn't want the child affect her relationship with the child?  How does Leonard's fraught relationship with his mother affect his relationship with the child?  What happens if the kid gets Leonard's looks and Penny's brains?  And then has another sibling who gets Penny's looks and Leonard's brains?

The writers spent 12 years carefully crafting a scenario that gives rise to all these interesting questions, then abdicated responsibility for answering any of them.


If they didn't want to raise all these questions, they could have not brought up the idea that Penny doesn't want to have children - they could have simply not mentioned it at all and instead focused on the geeky science antics that we're all here for in the first place! But since they did introduce the idea that Penny doesn't want children in the first place, their duty as writers is to work through the consequences of this decision and their subsequent reversal of the decision.


And on top of all this, we live in a reality where the "but what if you change your mind" excuse is all too often used to deny people the reproductive health care that's best for them.  The Big Bang Theory is both set and produced in the US, and this episode aired at a moment when laws are being changed in the US to deny people the reproductive health care that's best for them.  And the Big Bang Theory people who are on Twitter do seem to object to this development.  And yet they made a much-watched season finale that reinforced the excuses used to deny people the reproductive health care that's best for them.


So basically, after 12 years of working on making us care and proactively reassuring us that they wanted a childfree marriage, the Big Bang Theory writers up and impregnated the one person who had expressed the desire never to have children, then ended things and ran off without doing any of the work that resulted from the pregnancy.

They never gave a moment's thought to our feelings and the expectations that they had spent 12 years building up. They never gave a moment's thought to what this means for the baby. They never gave a moment's thought to what this means for the mother. They never gave a moment's thought to what this means for the marriage. They never gave a moment's thought to the example they're setting for the many other people over whom they have influence that they've carefully cultivated over years.

Where I come from, we call that a deadbeat dad.

Analogy for why preserving unwanted fertility isn't caring for the patient's health

This post is a restatement of a previous analogy that needed further refinement.  I just realized that it wasn't the analogy itself that needed refinement, but rather the title. So I'm restating the analogy under a more accurate title.

Imagine you have a big, ugly mole.  You hate it and wish it wasn't there.

However, you live in a society that thinks beauty marks are attractive.

You've made inquiries about the possibility of getting your big ugly mole removed, but you get a lot of push-back (and some doctors outright refuse to do it) because there are a lot of people in your society who put a lot of time and effort and resources and emotional drama into getting plastic surgeons to give them beauty marks.

On top of all this, your mole has all the characteristics of a cancerous mole.  Unfortunately, your society doesn't have the ability to detect cancer before it starts metastasizing so you have no way of proving or disproving that your big ugly mole is cancerous, but it does have all the characteristics.


Now, within this context, suppose you have to get surgery in the general vicinity of you big ugly mole.  You ask the doctors if they can remove the mole while they're doing surgery in that area, but they refuse.  You try to emphasize to them that you don't like the mole and don't want the mole, but they are not swayed.  You beg them to, at the very least, not prioritize saving the mole - to give you the most effective surgery without regard for whether the mole is lost, but they still take specific measures to save it despite your protests. And, perhaps, their efforts to save the mole result in a suboptimal approach to the surgery as a whole.

And when you complain about this, people tell you "He's just looking out for your health!"

Refining the analogy for why unwanted fertility isn't part of health

I was previously trying to write an analogy about why unwanted fertility isn't part of health.  My shower gave me an idea, which still isn't as perfect as I'd like but I'm blogging for the record.

Imagine you have a big, ugly mole.  You hate it and wish it wasn't there.

However, you live in a society that thinks beauty marks are attractive.

You've made inquiries about the possibility of getting your big ugly mole removed, but you get a lot of push-back (and some doctors outright refuse to do it) because there are a lot of people in your society who put a lot of time and effort and resources and emotional drama into getting plastic surgeons to give them beauty marks.

On top of all this, your mole has all the characteristics of a cancerous mole.  Unfortunately, your society doesn't have the ability to detect cancer before it starts metastasizing so you have no way of proving or disproving that your big ugly mole is cancerous, but it does have all the characteristics.


Now, within this context, suppose you have to get surgery in the general vicinity of you big ugly mole.  You ask the doctors if they can remove the mole while they're doing surgery in that area, but they refuse.  You try to emphasize to them that you don't like the mole and don't want the mole, but they are not swayed.  You beg them to, at the very least, not prioritize saving the mole - to give you the most effective surgery without regard for whether the mole is lost, but they still take specific measures to save it despite your protests. And, perhaps, their efforts to save the mole result in a suboptimal approach to the surgery as a whole.

And when you complain about this, people tell you "He's just looking out for your health!"

Childfree for Dummies: Part VI (plus: help write the analogy!)

Sometimes medical professionals insist on taking measure to protect the patient's fertility even when the patient is childfree and doesn't want to be fertile.  And sometimes, if you complain about this, people will counter with "But he's just looking out for your health."

But unwanted fertility is not part of health.

Fertility is a thing my body does that I don't want it to do, much like acid reflux or gaining weight or sweating profusely.  It has no benefit for me and adds nothing to my quality of life. On top of that, unlike acid reflux or gaining weight or sweating profusely, fertility could have the most severe negative consequences possible - both for myself and for innocent others.

Therefore, fertility is not an aspect of my health, but rather a chronic condition to be managed.  And managing it is the top priority of my life. The vast majority of the medical care I receive is in service of managing this chronic condition. If it were not possible to receive the medical care that permits me to manage this condition, I would take drastic measures - up to and including breaking the law, risking my personal health and safety, and relocating to another part of the world - to keep it under control.

So when medical professionals disregard the fact that a patient is childfree and give them treatment that preserves their fertility in cases there are also options that may reduce or even eliminate fertility, they're basically refusing to cure the chronic condition that overshadows every aspect of the patient's life.

***

I'm trying to think of an analogy for this concept, but it's not working out as well as I'd like. Here's what I've got so far.

Analogy: imagine you're a pre-op transman, and you're diagnosed with breast cancer. One possible treatment is mastectomy. This would not only eliminate the cancer and either vastly reduce (or even completely eliminate) the likelihood of its returning, and vastly reduce (or even completely eliminate) the amount of follow-up care you'd need, it would also remove the breasts that you don't even want (and, depending on their size, may cause you day-to-day discomfort).

But the doctor refuses to give you a mastectomy, and in fact says they will make every effort to save your breasts.  Because most women want to keep their breasts. When you point out the unfairness and very near cruelty of the doctor making you keep your unwanted breasts when removing them would be an effective treatment to everything that ails you, people counter with "But he's only looking out for your health!"


Of course, the problem with this analogy is it's likely ineffective to the people who need it. People who aren't able to imagine what it would be like to not want to have children ever are also likely to have difficulty imagining what it would be like to be transgender. (Unless there are transfolk who can't imagine being childfree, which would be an interesting combination of characteristics.)

Can you think of another comparable analogy that would explain the concept more effectively for the target audience?

Things They Should Study: proportion of childfree vs. non-childfree people who change their minds

I've blogged before about how I used to want to have children, but then grew up to realize that I am in fact childfree.

Conventional wisdom is that people who are childfree may well change their minds (which is why it's so hard for those of us who have never had kids to get sterilized), but I find myself wondering if it might be the opposite.

Your worldview is first formed by your surroundings when you're a kid.  You first think that your surroundings and experiences are baseline human reality, and then gradually your worldview broadens as you grow up and learn more.

And, when you're a kid, the primary adults in your life are, necessarily, adults who are raising children.  So your very first impression of what you consider to be baseline human reality is that adults raise kids.

To arrive at the idea that you never want to have or raise kids, you have to put thought into the matter and question the basic assumptions you grew up with and conceptualize a reality that you may never have actually witnessed.  Critical thought goes into it - it's not a decision made mindlessly.

Because of this, I wonder how many people who are childfree actually change their minds compared with those who previously wanted children and then changed their minds.  This would be interesting to research.

Why childfree people are useful to your children

Some people who are parents like to try to convince others (including the childfree) to have children. 

I think this is a strategic error on their part.

First, if I don't have children, I'm not creating competition for your child. My child would be after the same daycare spaces and university spaces and scholarships and jobs as your child. Why would you want that?

Second, if I don't have children, the resources that would be dedicated to my children have the potential of going to your children. 

Example: several months ago, the manufacturer of My Favourite Little Person's favourite cereal changed the recipe so it contained something she was allergic to.  Her parents (who, by the way, are not the kind of parents who try to convince CF people to have kids) were trying to hoard as much of the old version as possible, so I promptly went to the supermarket, bought up every box, and brought it all to them.  But if I had a baby of my own, especially if my baby had the same allergy, I would have responded to this news by buying up every box for my own baby, and MFLP would be out a few months' worth of cereal.

Another example: I was recently at a professional gathering where some of the people in attendance were new parents.  One person, who was on maternity leave, brought her baby with her.  She wanted to have an uninterrupted cup of coffee, so several people, including me, held the baby for a period of time.  I was holding him when he started fussing, and even managed to get him to stop fussing so his mother didn't have to drop everything.  But if I had a baby of my own, I wouldn't have found holding a baby to be an interesting and amusing diversion and would have instead been more interested in having my own uninterrupted cup of coffee, and that baby would have had a more stressed mommy that day.

Obviously, a few boxes of cereal and a round of fussy baby bouncing aren't life-changing.  Most of the time, my life has no impact on the children around me - positive or negative.  But when I do come in contact with the children around me, the fact that I have no children of my own allows me to be a slight positive influence in a way that wouldn't be as possible if I had kids.

Thoughts from advice columns: sperm donation

Q. Letting Wife Know About Sperm Donation: My wife and I are very good friends with a lesbian couple who is trying to have a baby. They asked me to donate sperm to conceive the child. After discussing it with my wife, I declined. They were very understanding and we remain good friends. However, in the course of our decision-making, my wife commented how odd it would be for me to have a child "out there." I agreed with her out loud, but the truth is, I have donated sperm. (I stopped before I met my wife, however.) For all I know, I could have several children "out there." I never told her about it because I never imagined it coming up and when I donated it seemed like I would always remain anonymous. After doing some research, however, it seems possible that a child that resulted from my donation COULD find and contact me. Should I tell my wife about my donations, and if so, how?

(This question is originally from a Dear Prudence chat, but I linked to the CF Abby entry because my thoughts are stemming more from the discussion.)

1. LW doesn't mention whether or not he and his wife have children or plan to have children, but if there is the potential for children in his relationship, I think he should tell his wife, just in case he one day decides to tell his children. There are reasons why you might tell your children that you've been a sperm donor (for example, so they know that they might have biological half-siblings out there and keep this in mind when making decisions about their own sex life), and different people have different ideas about whether this is a sufficient reason to disclose what some perceive as a private part of one's personal history. But, if it's a secret from your wife, that makes telling your kids harder. If your kids know, your wife should know first. And if you ever do have to tell your kids, it will be much easier to do so if your wife has already processed the information.

2. Some of the CF Abby commenters seem to think that it's not right for Wife to get a say in what Husband does with his sperm, citing his sovereignty over his own body. I question whether this really is a question of sovereignty over his own body (it makes no difference to his body if his sperm are donated or not), but, regardless, I think it's fair for Wife to at least express her opinion, and not unreasonable for Husband to take it into consideration.

What marriage has always meant to me is a deliberate choice to be each other's #1 person. If you didn't want to be each other's #1 person, you wouldn't get married. And, I think, part of being each other's #1 person is that you get first dibs on using their DNA to make children. There are arguments for or against whether the wife should be able to veto the husband's sperm donations, but I think it's completely reasonable and entirely within the spirit of marriage for her to have first dibs on bearing his children, because she's his #1 person. If Wife and Lesbian Couple all needed a kidney donation, Husband should offer to Wife first. If Husband, Wife and Lesbian Couple were all walking down the street one summer evening and it was a bit chilly, Husband should offer his jacket to Wife before he offers it to either half of Lesbian Couple. If Husband has two tickets to a concert, he should offer the other ticket to Wife before he offers it to one of Lesbian Couple. If he were to offer these things to Lesbian Couple without giving his wife right of first refusal, that would be completely inappropriate. Procreation is far more personal and intimate, so it would be even more inappropriate to let someone else bear his children first.

Another part of being each other's #1 person is respecting each other's emotional needs. This means that even if Wife's desire for Husband not to donate sperm isn't 100% rational, he might opt to respect her feelings rather than pushing them aside in favour of Lesbian Couple's desire to have a child (which is also not 100% rational). It's fair to express your emotional reactions to your partner without having to censor them for complete rationality, and it's anywhere from a valid choice to a loving choice to respect your partner's emotions without nitpicking them for rationality.

3. Personally, if I were to discover long after we got married that my husband had donated sperm in the past, I would feel that he had withheld important information. It would be kind of like discovering that your spouse had been a prostitute, or votes for The Worst Party. This is the kind of thing I'd want to know early on, because I find the egotism inherent in thinking it's a good idea to make new people out of one's DNA rather distasteful, and I'd have to work through it before I could potentially get involved with a person who has that specific shade of egotism. I'm sure some people reading this object to my distaste for sperm donation. And, if sperm donation is so important to you, wouldn't you want to know if I have such objectionable opinions before getting entangled in a relationship with me?

Sterilization technology update

I just found out today that there's another sterilization procedure that's like Essure, except the fallopian tube inserts are silicone rather than metal. It's called Adiana. It seems it hasn't been approved in Canada yet, but is going through the process.

I am not a medical professional and I am not in a position to vouch for or endorse this or any other medical procedure. I (unfortunately) have no firsthand experience with any sterilization procedures. I'm just posting this because it seems like it might be promising for people who are in the market for Essure but can't tolerate the metal inserts.

Women's trust is irrelevant to men's contraception

Tangental to this:

One thing I've frequently seen mentioned in discussions about the possibility of a male birth control pill is that it wouldn't fly because women wouldn't trust their partners to take the pill.

The more I think about it, the less I can see how this is at all relevant.

If my partner doesn't want children, he takes his pill. If I don't trust him to take his pill, I take my pill. Then we're doubly protected. Nothing wrong with that.

I've recently come to the realization that I still want to be sterilized even if my partner has been sterilized. But that doesn't mean my partner shouldn't get sterilized too if that's what he wants.

I know many people make these decisions as a couple and operate under the assumption that if between the two of them they can't make a baby, they're fine. And it is entirely their right to do so. But that doesn't mean that people who happen to be coupled shouldn't also be allowed to take measures to make sure that they, personally, don't sprog.

Some people will say that making these decisions as an individual implies that you're going to cheat. (Personally, I was thinking more along the lines that I could get raped.) But even if you are going to cheat, isn't it better to avoid making unwanted children while doing so? Best-case scenario: there's an affair, you reconcile and decide to move forward, if there are no children you can leave it completely behind you. Worst-case scenario: you DTMFA, there aren't any sprog requiring child support payments to take away from your alimony.

Why your childless friends stopped calling

I often see in advice columns new parents complaining that their childless friends aren't calling them as much or aren't as involved in their lives.

Here's why:

We don't want to wake up the baby.

We know that you're not getting much sleep, and that the baby requires a lot of time and attention. We know that whatever idle chitchat we might have isn't nearly as important as letting the baby sleep if it's asleep, or as letting you parent the baby if it's awake. So we aren't going to go barging in on your important stuff for our less important stuff. Frankly, we don't know how you do it, but we do know well enough not to go imposing additional burdens on you.

So if you want to chat, call us when it's a good time for you. If you want something specific from us, let us know. Remember: you have been childless, but we have never been parents. Your needs have changed immensely, but ours are still pretty much the same. You know where we're coming from as well as you ever did, but we can only guess where you're coming from. You're the only one with the ability to bridge the gap, because you're the only one in this relationship who's been on both sides.

Search String of the Day

Tubals make you horny

Do they? Forever, or just temporarily? Could it possibly be because you stopped the Pill after your tubal and it was suppressing your sex drive?

(Search String of the Day concept shamelessly yoinked from L-girl)

Brilliant Ideas That Will Never Work: childfree ring

This idea started here and was enhanced by this.

Childfree people don't want to be in a relationship with non-childfree people, and vice versa. There's just no point. However, reproductive goals don't always naturally come up in conversation, and it's really presumptuous and kind of creepy to bring them up early on in a potential relationship. ("Want to go for coffee sometime?" "Sure, but I won't bear your children.") This could have the unfortunate result of people ending up emotionally attached to people who would make unsuitable partners. You might be well on your way to falling in love before you discover that one of you wants kids and the other doesn't, so the relationship will necessarily have to end.

Solution: a universally agreed-upon visual signal denoting one's childfree status. It would work the same as a wedding ring. You wear it and anyone who cares can look for it, see that you're childfree, and proceed accordingly. It doesn't necessarily have to be a ring, but it should be subtle, visible, and unisex.

The flaw in this plan is that since a childfree ring is worn only for the benefit of potential mates, wearing one implies that you're on the prowl. After all, if you're in a relationship, the general public doesn't need to know that you're childfree - whether you're CF or not, you still won't bear their children. Not everyone might want to walk around at all times wearing a symbol indicating that they're on the market. (I certainly wouldn't!) But then if you don't wear it all the time, you'll have a romantic comedy meet-cute with the guy in front of you in line at the grocery store and fall in love before you both discover that you're CF and he wants 12 kids. So I wouldn't wear it (although I'd have supermarket guy reading my blog before we got too serious anyway), and if not everyone wears it then it won't work.

Actually, now that I think about it, people who are in the market for a relationship should all blog. Not about looking for a relationship, but about everyday stuff. If I were looking for a relationship and a potential partner read my blog, they'd discover that I'm CF and urbanist and recovering catholic, they'd get a sense of my politics and tastes and neuroses and sense of humour, so any core incompatibilities would be identified immediately and incompatible partners could reject me before I even noticed they were looking. It would be much more efficient.

The argument for sterilization before marriage

One of the barriers people face in getting sterilized is "But what if you get into a relationship with someone who wants kids?" As we CFers know, that's a deal-breaker. We don't want to be in a relationship with someone who wants kids, period.

But, as we also know, some breeder types think we can be talked out of or are going to grow out of being childfree (we're not) so might enter into a relationship with a CFer anyway, only to write angsty letters to Dear Abby years later when they find we were telling the truth.

Therefore being sterilized before you've found your life partner is a good idea, because it serves as an automatic breeder filter. Even if your future reproductive plans don't come up in conversation early on (You can't exactly do "Hey, do you, um, want to go get a cup of coffee or something?" "Sure, but I'm not going to bear your children."), it will come up in the birth control conversation. ("I've had Essure, but we'll need condoms at least until we both get tested.") No one will ever be under the impression that you could be convinced to breed, and it will therefore save everyone a lot of angst.

Analogy for why you might want a tubal even if your husband has a vasectomy

When reading about the couple who was denied a tubal even though they had two children and their family was complete, one of the most frequent comments I noticed was people saying the husband should get a vasectomy instead.

I know a vasectomy is far less invasive than a tubal, and I know it is a solution that works for a huge number of couples. But some people might still want a tubal even if their husband has a vasectomy.

Here's why:

Suppose some evil bad guy has given you a bomb. For plot purposes, you can't just put down the bomb and walk away - it is somehow attached to you in a way that you, personally, are unable to remove. So you call the bomb squad for help.

The bomb squad arrives and tells you you're in luck - this bomb isn't going to go off by itself, it will only go off if exposed to open flame. So the bomb squad goes through your home and removes ever source of open flame. They remove your barbecue and your fireplace and your lighters and your matches and your candles and everything else in the house that might produce or require open flame. Then they say "Okay, no more sources of open flame, you're safe."

Now, by strict statistics, the vast majority of people aren't going to be inadvertently exposed to open flame. There are no sources of open flame in your home, and if you ever see any open flame anywhere else, you're going to run in the opposite direction.

But you still want them to get rid of the bomb, don't you?

Blah

Two of the things I need to blog are important. I'd would be derelict in my duties as a citizen if I did not blog them. Plus there's other stuff floating around in my head and sitting half-written in my drafts.

But I've been spending all day wrestling disorganized thoughts into a sensible and cohesive form, and I just don't have it in me to do this with my own thoughts. Plus my apartment's a mess. And I'm really overdue for one or two fussy girly things that involve spending long periods of time in the bathroom. Posh problems, I know, but there we go.

Here's a picture of a baby armadillo drinking from a bottle. Which caused the google ads that seem to have suddenly appeared on blogger to try to sell me baby formula. So I'm going to loudly insert the world childfree here. CHILDFREE!

Childfree for Dummies: Part V

Some people dismiss our self-identification as childfree because they themselves used to not want children, but grew to want children when they got older.

As it happens, I used to want children. When I was 10, 11, 12 years old, I had what I can best describe as a strong biological yearning for to have a baby, and even as old as 14 the idea held appeal for me. Nothing ever came of it because mentally and socially I hadn't reached the point where even kissing a boy seemed like a pleasant way to pass the time. But as I grew up and matured, I came to realize that it wasn't actually children I wanted. I wanted a living breathing visible sign to show the world that someone loved me, and when that desire met my newfound flood of hormones it manifested itself as a yearning for a baby.

Does that invalidate your desire to have children, making it merely a childish phase that you will grow out of?

Childfree for Dummies: Part IV

Apparently not wanting children is "bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural, evil."

Not all my childfree brethern will agree with me or publicly admit this, but I will tell you right here, upfront, that it's true - I am in fact bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural and evil.

In other words, not at all the kind of person you'd want raising children.

So don't you think I should be sterilized before some poor innocent child is subject to my bitterness, selfishness, un-sisterliness, unnaturalness and evilness?

(Also: Why do doctors who refuse to sterilize patients on the basis that those patients are too young and don't know what they're doing permit those very same patients to have kids?)

Anyone know the nitty gritty details of sterilization?

With both Essure and tubal ligation, the Fallopian tubes are made impassable, so the ova can't get from the ovaries to the uterus.

But these procedures do nothing to prevent the ovaries from releasing ova. So where do the ova go?