Should we care that smart women aren't having kids?
Posted on: August 15, 2013 - 10:31am
Offline
Should we care that smart women aren't having kids?
I just thought this was interesting and strange, especially in light of upper education's appreciation of feminism and how feminism has gone along with untraditional family structures as well as tolerance of abortion. There's a couple things about feminism to be considered from this:
- Will feminism decay over time because smart women aren't having kids?
- Has this trend always existed, and does it explain how feminism changed from it's first to second and third waves since smart women themselves didn't have kids, but others' kids had to interpret feminism for themselves?
- Login to post comments
1. Aren't there enough people in the world already? Intelligence is not inherited through a single gene. Very intelligent children can have very normal parents and very intelligent parents can have very normal children. I don't think that smart women having 10-20 children will do anything more than add to an overgrowth of humans on this planet.
2. And what about the smart men? I have three grown sons and one grandson. Why aren't smart men having larger families? Are they "losers" as well?
3. Let's review what having children does to your body. Permanently. Never mind, I don't want to gross everyone out.
4. Let's review how much it costs to raise a child: $241,000+ from birth to age 18. (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-cost-raise-kid-241-183700681.html) "The USDA's latest estimates include expenses for housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, education and child care, as well as miscellaneous expenses, such as toys and computers." Private school and/or college are not included in this estimate. That is of course, an average. It is twice as much in the Northeast and half as much for less well to do families in rural areas.
5. Let's review who does most of the work. It still is usually the mother who takes primary responsibility and does most of the housework and chores associated with raising a family. Yes, there are exceptions and that is a good thing. However, even if you earn more than your husband, you still are most likely the one who is picking them up from school when they throw up and cleaning the bathroom as they continue to throw up once they get home. It is wonderful that more men are assisting and actively cleaning up vomit. But it still isn't common.
What the hell does any of this have to do with feminism?
People forget history. Everyone forgets history. If it happened before your grandparents' time, it never happened. It has nothing to do with being smart or being a feminist.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Evolution doesn't give one shit who wins. More numbers equals more opportunity to gain resources. Yea, so? I don't think smart women need pop out more babies, because those babies are not clones of them. Just because you pass your jeans on does not mean you ween the entire world off off their superstitions.
I think smart women don't need to fuck more, I think our entire species needs better education.
If our species level of poverty and crime and war is to be blamed on anything, it should be blamed on men and superstition and credulity, not women.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'm not sure what feminism's tolerance of abortion has anything to do with actual abortions that happen. From my understanding, it's poor and/or uneducated people that get abortions at higher rates.
Also, regarding the content of the article itself:
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
lot of highly educated and successful gen X women who have not had children and would have liked to. I think we need more flexibility in work/life so women can have children while still earning/contributing their expertise.
Shared child care either at work or in local areas, employers freeing up men to take on a child care role more of the time. Kids at the office - yes - I know how that sounds but we have a 5-week-old at our office and it works ok most the time. Men taking on and being encouraged to take on rearing of children to partners they're not married to. A lot of men would put more time into this if the right were not denied them post-divorce.
Maybe the culture has to change. In Australia even breast feeding in public can lead to problems. Though I was delighted to see an Australian women's cricketer who took her bub on a tour of England and breast-fed between scoring a century. Lovely timing, I thought.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck