I'm going to start with a startling confession: I am a cat lady. There, are you shocked? Running around in circles and rearranging your mental image of me, yet? No? Why not? Could it be because I constantly talk about my cats, when I'm not talking about my kids?
What's worse, I come by this naturally, having got it from grandma, who was like the platonic ideal of a cat lady, having somewhere between 17 and 30s some named, cared for, clean cats at any given time (To be fair, they were mostly outdoors, in a rural community.), Dad, who if mom allowed him, would bring home every cat who needed a home, and every dog, rabbit, injured bird and turtle too, and older brother who takes in dumped, abused and injured cats on the regular and has a variable clowder of them.
So, of course, I'm now mad at Vance for saying Cat Ladies were bitter and lonely and I'm going to vote for his opponent, who merely wants to strip Israel of the ability to defend herself, and turn over our cities to feral homeless and criminals, and erase our borders. And, oh, yeah, wants to confiscate guns and--
What? You're not? But you're low key mad about the cat lady comment? Well, listen, that's because -- I know this is shocking -- it was completely taken out of context, and weaponized (by CNN initially) in order to seed dissension on the right. When will you learn? Then for further digging, it was paired with comments he made earlier about people with children deserving more of a say in the future... Sigh. It's like that.
We now have crazy women running around in circles claiming that Kamala Harris is just like George Washington who also only had step children. Thereby increasing the stereotype of "all women are crazy and hysterical" and seeding more dissension.
I must ask, on the serious, were you people not awake and aware when the left weaponized "Women in Binders"? A reference to giving PREFERENCE TO WOMEN WHO'D BEEN OVERLOOKED which was turned into "proof of sexism" by repetition without context? And which never made any sense, btw?
So, I don't have a link to it, or even a link to where Charlie Martin pointed out it was taken out of context on Twitter, but I'm sure one or more commenters will find it. The CNN utterance was cut and further distorted by the "concerned discussion" after, as the left does.
What Vance was referring to was not CHILDLESS people, or even people who tried to have children but couldn't, or people who are childless but have anchors in the future.
What he was referring to was our "elites" who, frankly, are of a sort that infests any nation in trouble -- see decadent Rome, France just before the revolution, England before the Victorian renewal, etc. etc. -- that is the kind that has bent their entire life into working for and seeking power.
This happens when a polity is so centralized and codified that the only way to ascend the hierarchy is to LIVE FOR IT. Which always ends up with profoundly unhappy people in power. Whether they be male or female, yellow, purple or pink. It's just the way it is. And having profoundly unhappy people in power, particularly people bent on denying they're unhappy, always ends up in horror.
Right now our nation is such that we've bent every field of human endeavor to be that kind of greased pole, in which you must bend everything and subordinate everything to attain it. Trad Pub too was that kind of ladder, and amid the many career mistakes I made was not bending everything to success. OTOH I have a family and I love my family.
Anyway-- I feel the need to explain what he meant by childless versus having children. This is a weird thing to explain, and to make things worse, it's not even absolute (for the reason Washington and Kamala aren't the same. And that's just a beginning.) There are people who have children who are in fact childless in every manner that counts, and people who are childless who are in fact people with children in every way that counts. It's just there are lessons that are easier to learn through having children and raising them, so that's the way the personality tends to bend.
It's weird to have to explain it, because of course, most of the time, most of society has children, and knows what it's like. Except that's no longer true. In fact, again, the way our society is organized most of us who have children are encouraged to behave and live as if we don't.
I wasn't even aware of this until a much younger friend mentioned in passing that the beau ideal of our fiction -- movies, tv, novels -- nowadays is sort of an eternal college student. I.e. you have no ties, not even to your parents, and you live life for yourself and your own self-actualization. Even romances are portrayed this way, with often the female's self-actualization being primary, and the male being there to serve it. Unless they get together because "it will help us both be more ourselves" (which isn't wrong, but it goes through becoming sort of a blended person first. It's complicated. Yes, I can do a post on that, too, if anyone needs it.)
This is what people are being told to be. Which in turn distorts everything. Because this is what people view as being "adult" and "responsible." You have a career, you have friends whom you help, but they're sort of fungible, you have a place you live and where you can have parties. Children, in both fiction and the way you're encouraged to live, are viewed as hindrances. And if there is a pet it's usually a cat, because cats are subordinate to the way you live. You don't have to walk them everyday. There's automated feeders and most cats who aren't Indy don't take them apart. Etc.
This is so alien for most of human history that it's distorting the way we live and everything we do. It also doesn't take in account that we still age. Yes, we stay vigorous and hale till very late in life. But we still age. And old age without someone younger to lend a hand, do the tough stuff, make difficult decisions when you're not feeling well, etc, is hell on Earth, as a lot of people are finding out, since a vast majority of the population is now hitting old age. (And yes, that's why MAID and other such programs.)
People who hit it and can no longer live the college student lifestyle are likely to be bitter. Further, every woman I know who hits menopause while childless feels regret, even if childless by choice. If they deny that regret, it too becomes bitterness partly because the culture lied to them and most people aren't introspective enough to distinguish what they wanted and what the culture told them to want.
More importantly, our lifestyle goes against every instinct and deep-set bit of culture laid in over thousands of years, and that too generates some deep-set subconscious alarms, no matter how happy one thinks one is with one's life.
So, the explanation:
First let's get a few things about childlessness out of the way:
1 - Being childless is not a moral failing. There are tons of reasons to be childless. Starting with "never found a mate." Continuing through "Is infertile". Going on with "Is physically or emotionally unsuited to having children in the sense that being on certain psych medications makes you unable to."
2- Being childless has a cost. Even in a perfect welfare state, (which doesn't exist anywhere) once you hit the slope of old age, you're going to need help and company, and no, paid help and paid company are not the same. Even if you can find them. I've now seen this story several times, and being old makes you cranky even if you were sweetness and light before. And it makes you need tasks done for you that should NOT be performed by strangers, even if some strangers are saintly enough to do them. There is a cost. It's part of the human condition that everything has a cost.
3- The cost is not, despite our longings and ideas that our genes won't go on. I actually was watching youtube videos on how genetics work down the line yesterday, because I couldn't function and it was white noise, but really, it's fairly obvious if you have 23andme or anything like that. Other than a couple of very ancient genes, our genetics get sliced and diced in such a way, if I have grandkids, ever, they'll be about as related to me as a second cousin. And further down the line, we all sort of return to an undifferentiated sea of humanity. (This could be a post in itself. Tell me if anyone is interested.)
4- The cost of being childless does NOT include "not passing on my values and ideals" because frankly, you learn through being a parent what you pass on is super weird. Like, you can spend 18 years trying to convince the kid to follow your deeply-felt religious faith, but what actually emerges when they're in their thirties is that they dress nice on Sundays and have a special dinner. (Not even joking, that's about normal. They pick up the incidental, more than what you try to teach. And culture always has a say.)
5- Having children has a cost too. A high cost, which is harped on by society endlessly. But in the end that becomes a reward.
Which segues into the costs and rewards of having children, very nicely. Strap on. It's going to be a weird ride.
I know a lot of people who lament never having had children. This is sort of like lamenting never having gotten married. Or never having gone to college. Or whatever.
It's legitimate, because it was a thing you wanted to do and didn't get to. So, of course, regret is legitimate. Envy, bitterness and revenge AREN'T.
Because there's trade offs. And sometimes it didn't happen because you weren't willing to make that tradeoff. (Like, in a flip, my career sucks partly because I was the primary caretaker for the family. I had to learn not to be bitter over that.) And sometimes it didn't happen because it didn't.
BUT if it had, you'd have been required to make other tradeoffs, which you might now regret. And which would have made you a different person in the end. You would be markedly different than you are. And might feel bitter because your career was blighted. Or because you you never got to go to France, or whatever.
I find, on average, most people get what they really want out of life. What they're willing to sacrifice for. (They just sometimes don't think through the consequences of what they want.)
That said, there are two ways in which the difference that comes with having children makes it better for a nation if those governing it have children. And two ways in which the majority of people NOT having children makes a nation face a crisis as those people age.
The first is obvious. Right now my perception of the future is my potential lifespan plus that of my children. I.e. I am intensely interested in the future of the world for another 60 to 70 years, which given a long-lived line is my expectation of longevity for my children and their spouses.
Because of the times we live in, that's worrisome, but not a very long time span historically. Even with the wheels coming off, with luck, I can expect that with minimal effort that will keep my kids reasonably fed and prosperous and comfortable for the rest of their lives. At least by historical standards of comfortable.
OTOH if one or both of them spawn my interest in history is suddenly a hundred years with the possibility of more. That means I have a major investment in keeping life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness available for those yet unborn generations that I feel responsible for, because those individuals would not have existed but for my choices. (For at least four generations or so, then.... undifferentiated sea of humanity.)
But Sarah, you'll say, that's only if you care about your kids. This is very true. If you don't care about your kids, had nothing to do with their upbringing or actively dislike them as individuals, OR if you don't feel responsibility to those you created? All this is null and void.
The flip side, where we get George Washington, btw. who married his wife while the kids were little, is that if you raise or help raise someone else's kids and care about them INTENSELY then you have the parent mind set, even if you're not biologically one.
I'll only add it's easier to be passionately interested in their fates if they're actually biologically yours. This is not a slight on adoptive parents, or others, it's just an instinctive thing. It's EASIER. Doesn't mean it happens, or that it doesn't happen if you're not biologically related. It's just that a lot of us who otherwise don't particularly like kids can connect to our own. That's all. (I keep giggling as young people in my circles discover this and are shocked.)
The second importance of being a parent, and one not immediately obvious, is that it makes it very obvious both the extent of your ability to influence others, and the sheer, blind inability to save those you love from bad decisions. It makes you less authoritarian because you realize you can't even completely (or much) control those you oversaw from birth and whom you love passionately. Every parent I know has hit this point with a very beloved child. "I love him/her but I can't stop him/her doing this bizarrely stupid thing."
If you're lucky the bizarrely stupid thing is not permanent, and it's just oh, getting in a very bad job situation, or a bad relationship, or moving to a strange place. And sometimes the kids come back from those. The permanent ones give you nightmares. And yes, they can include outright suicide.
AND sometimes you find that the horriblebad mistake you thought the kid was making turns out fine, and that it was perfect for them all along. Sometimes that paragliding course turns into a whole life of soaring to high expectations. Because parents are no more infallible than anyone else.
The important thing here, as a parent, is that it teaches you you're not omnipotent and people aren't widgets. You don't get out what you put in. It's not all situation and gestalt. People are individuals, and sometimes some deep inheritance, genetic or otherwise, can come out and bite you in the pound of flesh closest to the heart. And you still love them. You shake yourself off, and keep on loving them despite that. Because the link is still there.
But Sarah, you don't need kids for that. You can get that with a spouse, a friend or even a cat.
True. It's just that having seen the story from the beginning, and having it happen with a creature that depended on you for feeding, cleaning, LIVING for years just makes the lesson inescapable. (As for the cat, a friend with a very abusive parent says that parent learned from the CAT what the parent wouldn't learn from the kids. That you can't control everything. People are weird.)
It is an important lesson in terms of polity. And one that a vast portion of our population doesn't seem to GET, which is why they keep thinking entire groups are composed of widgets, and if you feed input a, you'll get output b. And never understanding the tradeoffs or unintended consequences.
I'll note, as in my friend's example above, that even though every single parent runs into this, some parents fail to learn it. Those are the ones that were either never connected to the kids, or are broken in such a way they CAN'T learn it. So they either cut off the kid utterly or keep trying to control the kid, lifelong.
BUT normally, in the normal run of things, all of us learn our kids are -- gasp -- individuals, different from us in fun, cute, interesting (sometimes blessed) ways, and also in horrifying "you think what?" ways. No matter how much input we put in, the outputs are more likely than not unfathomable.
These are the primary ways in which being a parent changes you. The third is less obvious and it's that once you have raised kids, it actually is easier to relate to and care to the rest of humanity.
Now, again, because we live in crazy times: this is not a judgement on people who don't have kids. For a long time I thought I'd be one of those. First because I thought I'd never marry, and second because it took us six years and intensive treatment to have first son. (Second was an unexpected miracle.)
I have no idea who I'd be in that leg of the trousers of time. I do know my proclivities, though, which are isolation and being slightly afraid of other people's kids. (VERY afraid back then.)
I might very well be one of those very isolated, bitter cat ladies (cats are a given, look you) who resented the comment, without thinking through it.
And that last would be a mistake.
If you care about the future, even if it's of that undifferentiated humanity from which you came, and to which your genes will return, it is essential that you think about the future, and think of it as a way that people who aren't like you but for whom you care can survive and thrive. And of a future where individuals are LESS controlled by an authority that can no more guarantee good outcomes than a parent can for the children he/she raised.
It's also essential you don't let yourself be manipulated by cheap tricksters into being angry at people over a handful of words and protecting your abstract group over the actual future of civilization.
Pardon if the post is semi-confused. I'm better than yesterday, but still not well. I can and probably should revisit all the components of this very long and perhaps confused post.
But right now, this is what I feel must be said.
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