Childfree news!
It's time for another round-up of good childfree stories from the recent news around the world:
This BBC article, "Childfree and cross," looks at how the growing numbers of childfree families in Europe will impact work and goverment policy:
And actively deciding to be childfree is not unusual: 28% of degree educated women currently end their reproductive lives childless.
Birth rates are declining across Europe and a 2003 survey found almost 25% of people in their late 30s did not have children.
But those who choose not to have children are becoming more and more exercised about the benefits those with families can accrue
[LINK]
While the BNOB blog reported on the recent study showing parents to be more depressed than their childfree peers, I thought this Washington Post article, titled "Budles of Misery," did a fine job of putting the science into everyday terms of what it means and costs to be a parent in today's society:
But how can the findings stand? Politics, culture and history -- to say nothing of those annoying Baby Gap ads -- all reinforce the message that having children is the greatest pleasure in life.
Michael Lewis, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., says that the idea of parenthood as pure joy "was always a bit of a wonderful myth." He said he's surprised the study findings were not even more negative.
Over the last 150 years, he said, children have moved from being an economic advantage to an economic burden in the United States. We used to be able to send children to work in the fields; older kids tended to the babies. When not pressed into service, they mostly stayed out of the way.
With the advent of Dr. Spock, the parenting industry, obligatory music and soccer lessons and a colossal marketplace that propels kids to desire and parents to guilt, children have become the center of the household.
Well worth reading the rest!
[LINK]
BNOB recognizes that being childfree is for some a temporary state. Here's an article looking at how women are freezing their eggs in order to postpone becoming parents until after their ovaries have stopped producing champions.
[LINK]
And here's one for the eco-friendly unparents out there:
Solving the Earth's environmental problems means addressing the size of its human population, says the head of the UK's Antarctic research agency.
Professor Chris Rapley argues that the current global population of six billion is unsustainably high.
Writing for the BBC News website, he says population is the "Cinderella" issue of the environmental movement.
But unless it is addressed, the welfare and quality of life of future generations will suffer, he adds.
[LINK]
This BBC article, "Childfree and cross," looks at how the growing numbers of childfree families in Europe will impact work and goverment policy:
And actively deciding to be childfree is not unusual: 28% of degree educated women currently end their reproductive lives childless.
Birth rates are declining across Europe and a 2003 survey found almost 25% of people in their late 30s did not have children.
But those who choose not to have children are becoming more and more exercised about the benefits those with families can accrue
[LINK]
While the BNOB blog reported on the recent study showing parents to be more depressed than their childfree peers, I thought this Washington Post article, titled "Budles of Misery," did a fine job of putting the science into everyday terms of what it means and costs to be a parent in today's society:
But how can the findings stand? Politics, culture and history -- to say nothing of those annoying Baby Gap ads -- all reinforce the message that having children is the greatest pleasure in life.
Michael Lewis, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., says that the idea of parenthood as pure joy "was always a bit of a wonderful myth." He said he's surprised the study findings were not even more negative.
Over the last 150 years, he said, children have moved from being an economic advantage to an economic burden in the United States. We used to be able to send children to work in the fields; older kids tended to the babies. When not pressed into service, they mostly stayed out of the way.
With the advent of Dr. Spock, the parenting industry, obligatory music and soccer lessons and a colossal marketplace that propels kids to desire and parents to guilt, children have become the center of the household.
Well worth reading the rest!
[LINK]
BNOB recognizes that being childfree is for some a temporary state. Here's an article looking at how women are freezing their eggs in order to postpone becoming parents until after their ovaries have stopped producing champions.
[LINK]
And here's one for the eco-friendly unparents out there:
Solving the Earth's environmental problems means addressing the size of its human population, says the head of the UK's Antarctic research agency.
Professor Chris Rapley argues that the current global population of six billion is unsustainably high.
Writing for the BBC News website, he says population is the "Cinderella" issue of the environmental movement.
But unless it is addressed, the welfare and quality of life of future generations will suffer, he adds.
[LINK]
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