Pronatalism Parental Regret & Being Childfree Part 2: A Deep-Dive into the Pressures to Have Kids

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Pronatalism is a cultural value that promotes having children, and it's everywhere. This is the second and final part of a 2-part series that looks at how pronatalism actually shows up in our society, and the pressure that it puts on women to have kids. From Christian nationalists to Elon Musk to pop culture, the toxic positivity around motherhood and children stigmatizes childfree women and marginalizes mothers who regret having kids.
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📚Books for further reading):
Carroll, Laura. The Baby Matrix. LiveTrue Books, 17 May 2012.
Daum, Meghan. Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed : Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. New York, New York, Picador, 2015.
Orna Donath. Regretting Motherhood : A Study. Berkeley, California, North Atlantic Books, 2017.
Rosa, Sophie K. Radical Intimacy. Pluto Press, 20 Mar. 2023.
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‪@RachelOates‬ "Classically Abby's Pronatalist Agenda": • Classically Abby's Pro...
‪@whatadaypodcast‬ "How We Got Here: How Christian Nationalists Took Over the GOP": • How We Got Here: How C...
The Overpopulation Project: overpopulation-project.com/
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Sources:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...
www.wired.com/story/elon-musk...
geneticliteracyproject.org/20...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full...
archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/c...
overpopulation-project.com/pr...
www.quora.com/My-childless-fr...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a...
www.refinery29.com/en-gb/what...
www.thenation.com/article/soc...
www.wfla.com/news/national/pr...
www.jstor.org/stable/3177490
politicaltheology.com/make-am...
academic.oup.com/book/11643/c...
www.womenshealthmag.com/life/...
ourworldindata.org/child-mort...
ourworldindata.org/maternal-m...
slate.com/technology/2013/09/...
www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/1...
• 'Heartbreaking': Patie...
www.vice.com/en/article/a3wvg...
jezebel.com/elon-musk-suggest...
www.latimes.com/world-nation/...
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...
www.hertelier.com/post/childf...
www.psychologytoday.com/ca/bl...
editions.covecollective.org/c...
www.nbc.ca/personal/advice/bu...
www.sagepub.com/sites/default...
file:///Users/meghansandor/Downloads/Womens_Leisure_as_Resistance_to_Pronatalist_Ideol.pdf
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...
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/ meghansandor
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Опубликовано:

7 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 42

@TheYazmanian 5 месяцев назад

I love how you made the point of states like Missouri not letting women get a divorce if they're pregnant. It's so typical of certain people to want to force women to have children but once those kids are here, there is no attempt to protect them, keep them safe or provide resources for women in poverty to better serve those children.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Oh yeah totally! It’s not about kids and it never was, it’s about controlling women and women’s bodies

@thoughtsofelizabeth 5 месяцев назад

A second comment, unrelated to the other: I would rather regret not having children than regret having them. As a disabled late gen-xer, i'm actually *relieved* i don't have children.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

I feel the same way! You can’t take your kids back, but if you never have them in the first place and then regret it later, you can always find ways to be involved in kids’ lives

@AdmiralBison 16 дней назад

Also.... It doesn't stop allowing people from adopting kids later on in life if they change their minds or in better positions. Lets be honest, on a more practical level, being child free allows more options.

@TheYazmanian 5 месяцев назад

49:19 Another wonderfully astute observation. And I LOVE how tattoos being permanent is such an issue but that argument never applies to parenthood lol the irony

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Yyyyup! Every time someone makes a comment like that about my ink, I have to bite back the snarky comment about whether they’d ask me the same thing if I was pregnant lol

@ahatx8651 4 месяца назад

Damn that was thorough!! THANK YOU for your research, and for listing all your sources -- this was immensely helpful in articulating a lot of what I've felt, but couldn't put into words. Especially about being caught between boredom and hypervigilance- OMG!!!! Never thought about it this way but that is exactly it. I can't think of anything LESS fulfilling than expending all that energy for so many years and essentially having nothing to show for it. And by the time they have some interesting opinions, they're disowning you and embarrassed to be seen with you. Ugh no thank you. Cheers to CF life!!!

@meghansandor 4 месяца назад

Thank YOU! I hope the sources are helpful as well :)

@RoseAmina-ol1kd 4 месяца назад

Such a great video!! It is 3 am in the morning and I had to keep watching your video until the end because it really caught my attention all the way. I am also CF by choice and when I look around, all I see are people having biological kids. What I really don't understand is the narcissism in wanting to have biological kids... I don't understand why people need this narcissistic supply via their kids: to see themselves in their kids, the urge to replicate their facial or character features and having more similar copies of themselves. Majority of parents talk about this: "I have never liked kids, but I love my own kids. Why? Look at them! They are just like me." "(Proudly) I see myself in my kid." "My kid looks just like me." "I want a mini me." "My DNA is so special, I need to spread it into the future." "I don't want an adopted child. I want my own child, with my DNA, who will look like me." "It is different when it is yours." I don't understand how people can be so narcissistic when it comes to these urges to have the genetical copies of themselves, aka kids.... If you could make a video about all this narcissism in people's behaviour (when it comes to reproduction), I would be very grateful. Thank you again for talking about this topic!!

@meghansandor 4 месяца назад

I never really understood that aspect of having biological children either, to be honest. I definitely get wanting to raise a child (even though I've never had the urge to do that myself, I get why someone else might want to) but in that case, why not adopt, or foster? There are millions of children in the world without homes or families, who could benefit so much from the love of someone who genuinely wants kids. Why make more? I don't get it.

@elizabethcassidy8082 5 месяцев назад

Low key delighted that you shouted out the algorithm because that's how I found you! I'm very early into the video so apologies if I mention anything that is brought up later. Samantha was my Girl! She and Nellie were my set and the books were amazing. I'm totally down for a video dissecting the negative impact of Enlightenment philosophy, mostly because we know all of its good effects, like the idea that kids are not demons who need to be swaddled tightly, and less about the bad ones.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Yay! I'm so glad you found my channel! Samantha and Nellie for the win :)

@jessmelodi 5 месяцев назад

Loving your videos Meghan, watched a few of them several times and shared them around. I feel you're really speaking to me and helping me feel more content in the choices I am leaning into in my life. Thanks for all the thorough research you're sharing and articulating so well ❤

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Thank you for that lovely comment, and for sharing! I’m so glad it resonated with you and helped you feel more comfortable in your choices. One thing that always surprises me about “swimming against the current” is that so often, the current is actually inside you😅

@elizabethcassidy8082 5 месяцев назад

Commenting again so each one isn't a wall of text. I've personally done light research in marriage and parenting in and around Norse/Anglo-Saxon culture and it's fascinating to see that escaltor/ladder you mentioned in the last video at work. You legally couldn't get married if you couldn't prove you could afford to feed a child alongside yourself and your wife, for example. Men who could afford it often had concubines (usually slaves), and women would share the burden of childcare that way. Women weren't allowed to have affairs, (just as 25:42 describes) but they could divorce and bully their husbands into forgiving them. They also had to tolerate affairs, etc. And most were limited in the public sphere, only gaining influence first via their family or husband. But if the man of the house wasn't keen on his wife or slaves having a child, he could command them to be put outside for exposure. It rarely mattered if this was a wanted pregnancy by the mother, or that women ran the household. If the man said no, that was that. Lack of acceptance into the household is usually a death sentence. In turn it was very easy to adopt and until Christianity had enough of a hold, illegitimacy really wasn't a problem, you could still inherit quite a bit, be accepted into society. And regarding pronatalism, there was a line I believe in the Viking Answer Lady's page on homosexuality that basically said - if it did not get in the way of being normal (ie Having Children), people will overlook your predilections.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

That's so interesting, thank you for this! I had no idea, but family life in other cultures is SO interesting to me :)

@HolyTeacup-bc9uc 21 день назад

So glad you touched on overpopulation. There's been so much "overpopulation is a myth" stuff going around in the current state of the world. If you look at the animal kingdom, the bigger the animal, the smaller the population--this is important for balance. There are no animals of our size that are at such insane levels as we are. Even a lot of smaller animals don't have an estimated population level close to ours, like cats, and dogs. Something's off.

@meghansandor 21 день назад

Absolutely, the hysteria about dwindling populations and declining birth rates is complete nonsense, we haven't even reached peak population yet, Birth rates are declining in certain places, but overall they're still on the rise.

@honoreejennings1998 5 месяцев назад

Wow another great video with tons of research!!🙌

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Thanks!

@livics610 2 месяца назад

Ok I just love this! ❤

@TheYazmanian 5 месяцев назад

33:50 I would LOVE a deep dive on the manosphere.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Haha I will definitely do that at some point. Maybe when I’m earning enough revenue from this channel to pay for the therapy I’m going to need after 😅🤣

@TheYazmanian 5 месяцев назад

@@meghansandor😂😂😂😂 I feel that in my soul tbh

@elizabethcassidy8082 5 месяцев назад

@@meghansandor FD Signifier just made a video remarking at how PROFITABLE it is to discuss this subject. Mind you, you will be wading in poison, but the video could pay for the therapy it will make you need

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

@@elizabethcassidy8082 haha this is true! I would probably just end up breaking even😆

@thoughtsofelizabeth 5 месяцев назад

Third comment and feeding the algorithm. Several years ago, a few years after i was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, i tried to get sterilized. I've got a degenerative neuroligical condition and didn't want to curse a child with me for a mother. I tried a few different places and no one would do it; not even a TL. All of them told me that it was because i didn't have children and one person even told me it would be nearly impossible to reverse when i changed my mind. When. Not if. When. I was in my late 30s at the time. (Edited for spelling. Hope i didn't miss anything else)

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

I’m so sorry that happened to you! And that goes for all of the above. Firstly for the chronic illnesses, that’s really tough to deal with and unfair that you have to. I hope you were able to find some comfort/relief, and a way forward with managing your conditions. It can feel really overwhelming sometimes to deal with. AND it’s ridiculous and unfair that as women, it’s made clear to us from the cradle that our bodies do not belong to us. I can only relate to your frustrations with that one-I’ve been trying to get sterilized since I was 16 and finally just gave up.

@thoughtsofelizabeth 5 месяцев назад

@meghansandor thankyou for your empathy. Chronic illnesses, of which I have many, suck. It's a full-time job managing my conditions, physical and psychiatric. Another frustrating thing is that they were willing to refer my ex husband to a place that would do a vasectomy. I mean, what the fuck? They'd do a nearly permanent procedure on him but not on me? He had and has no children. Our situation was more complicated due to consensual non-manogomy than just him getting snipped but still!

@thoughtsofelizabeth 5 месяцев назад

I love your content. I've subscribed. Just a note about Classically Abby. Her maiden name is Shapiro. Her married name is Roth and that's how she prefers to be called. I disagree with almost everything she says and i also think it is important to highlight that she is Ben Shapiro's brother. I just think it's also important to call her by her name. (Yes, i use that phrase as a dig at her). It's not quite the same but i think the only thing we need to refuse to use its current name...to dead name it, if you will, is Twitter.

@meghansandor 5 месяцев назад

Good point! That was totally an oversight on my part (and admittedly some laziness) because I knew that she got married but I only knew her maiden name so I went with that. I did wonder if I should look it up but then ultimately decided to use her maiden name to call attention to her relatives and the position she comes from. But absolutely good point, it is a little disrespectful😅 and thank you for the subscribe!

@kinnish5267 Месяц назад

The greatest thing you can do in life is to gift life to a child. My wife 50 years ago was a loving mother and today our three children and eight grand children fulfill our lives. To see my daughters doting on my wife gives a sense of well-lived life.

@meghansandor Месяц назад

I'm glad that's your experience, but I would also love to hear your wife's perspective and experience! Perhaps she can comment as well? :)

@HolyTeacup-bc9uc 21 день назад

I won't be doing the "greatest thing in life" then, and I'm happy with that.

@user-tc6cj7sh9t 4 месяца назад

Elon Musk's parents had one too many. I wonder if he was this much of a flake when they were trying to fashion a decent adult. Clearly they don't get a passing grade.

@user-tc6cj7sh9t 4 месяца назад

Plus he's the one with a Mars obsession. I vote for him to be the sole passenger on the first attempt.