Discussion for article #226776
Excellent points! As a person who married at 19 and is still married to the same person 44 years later, I can agree that being able to choose when to become parents was a huge factor in our young marriage. We had the luxury of being able to wait until we both finished school. We had the choice of pursuing a grad degree or not. After choosing to have 3 kids in our 20s, we had the option to decide that 3 was the perfect number and it was time to stop producing babies. Choice is a wonderful thing and no political or religious busybody should have anything to say about when or if we make this choice.
Our daughter has been pursuing the family genealogy. It’s amazing how many of our female ancestors had 8-12 babies and how many of them died by the time they were 40. These were the families whose only choice was sex or no sex. Sex won out every time, frequently followed by death. The busybodies would have us go back to this?
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Well said. After my wife and I thought about it for a couple of years, we both realized that we didn’t want children, and I was able to go and get snipped. There are religious fundamentalists who would deny me that choice.
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Amen!
Sometimes it’s a choice.
49% of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintentional…49%!
There are people in the world who are pro-life. In fact, most people are. Some who claim to be are not, in that they have no qualms about the taking of innocent life by any means other than elective abortion. They are more properly labeled “slut-haters,” since all of their policy advocacy is for the express purpose of making sure that women who have sex are likely to get pregnant and if the do so are unable to terminate that pregnancy. They studiously ignore the issue that pregnancy itself is a threat to the life of the mother, while professing deep love for a pair of zygotes coming together and the next nine months of that pair’s existence. Beyond, that, meh.
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Pregnancy ≠ becoming a parent.
Splitting hairs can be fun, no?
The difference between becoming pregnant and becoming a parent is vastly wider than a hair’s breadth, doncha think?
Hair splitting. Now, if you were to say there was difference between being a parent and parenting, I might be inclined to agree. The meaning you place on any given word may not be the universal perceived meaning, no?
There are nine months between the actual conception and having a child to parent. Those nine months are filled with health threats, expenses, and trepidation. It the time people often choose to not become parents. To equate conception with becoming a parent is pretty far from hair splitting, I’d say. Your mileage, apparently, differs.