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karis, it does sound like people are trying to be helpful, but ... well, how presumptuous, if you're already doig what you want to do, now. 

what i've seen, up-close, of trying to "hunt down" a husband or wife to fulfill the biological imperative:

one woman ended a global career doing charity work that affected perhaps millions of people in desperate straits, because time was running out. she married an old hometown sweetheart, hoping to have children. the courtship was short, also for this reason. she found out within a few years that he was abusive and had bouts of madness. no baby, no husband, bad situation.

another impregnated his new girlfriend because they both wanted children and she was running out of time. they had a fight, she vanished, and he spent $40,000 in attorney fees just trying to *find* her and *see* his own child. 

i'm sure it ends more happily for some last-minute clock-fulfillers, but i haven't happened to see it.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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lefty, i'll refer you to my comments above. i believe in the worth of people's dedication to art, music, social change, politics, and parenting, in equal measure and on equal terms. parenting is more important to *you*, because you have become a parent and created a child.

playing music is more important to my 60+-year-old friend who has devoted his entire life to playing music, from major symphony orchestras to soundtrack composing, from touring musicals to free jazz. i do not consider his devotion to music "narcissistic."

personally? i stopped playing live for a few years because my stepchild formed a band, and i wanted to give her the space to explore that territory without us creepily playing the same clubs or something. that was my choice. now i'm back to playing music. this doesn't render someone else's decision to play music with thorough dedication 'narcissistic.' 

one man's narcissism is another man's dedication. go figure.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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and finally:

that's generally how entitlement and privilege work. the people with the entitlement and privilege start out surprised or incensed that other folks feel mistreated or taken advantage of. just look at the women's movement that has made it possible for you to be a mother, litigator, and faculty all at once. many men *still* think sexism isn't relevant or doesn't really exist in America. despite the 80 cents women make to the man's dollar, some guys don't see how entitled they happen to be. hard to believe, isn't it?

in the 1960s and '70s, women challenged the norm, the majority. they challenged the entitlement and privilege that were so intricately woven into the whole fabric of society that most people---especially the privileged---couldn't or didn't want to even consider it a possibility. now, childfree and childless people are challenging the norm. we get flack for it, but it's a conversation our culture needs to have. 

i believe that this cultural conversation will strengthen all of us, including our children's lives, once we get past the knee-jerk defensive phase. 

PS: as noted above in this discussion, i completely support education and public services. i would rather have the tax break go directly to the school system than to people who chose to have children.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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you are welcome to feel furious about my comments. however, you shoudl recognize that by expecting everyone (co-workers, taxpayers, etc) to prioritize your child and your parental needs, you suggest that YOU and YOUR OFFSPRING and YOUR CHOICES are inherently superior to those of non-parents. 

how do you suppose that makes non-parents feel? like we're being discriminated against and belittled. you think someone's devoted life choice to make music is "ridiculous?" i know people who have sacrificed lucrative conventional careers, the ability to have children (whom they couldn't offer a financially and geographically stable home), and sometimes the opportunity for marriages (because their partners wanted a more stable life) in order to make music. imagine a life without music. someone has to be dedicated enough to devote their lives to composing, touring, and recording. that musician deserves as much respect, admiration, and understanding as a devoted parent does.

if someone wants to devote their life to art, social change, fighting malaria in Africa, or being a parent, *all* these people deserve our support. right now, the situation is unbalanced because parents are in the majority, and non-parents are a minority.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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i'm having trouble posting to some of the comment subthreads above, so i'm going to make a couple posts here:

hello aldslp -- Miss Brown here. you have "no idea" what my life is like, either. as a stepparent, i have stayed home with a sick child and attended parent-teacher conferences. i've gone to school curriculum nights when the bio-parents couldn't attend. i empathize. it doesn't mean i believe that parents are morally superior to non-parents. 

i felt pretty queasy about it when i started hearing and reading about family/parent privilege in the culture; i didn't want to believe it because it sounded radical and mean. however, i was convinced after a while. (keep in mind, as a stepparent i do experience some of the rewards and indulgences our society gives to children and families. that's part of what raised my awareness.)

if you want to research, here's a place to start:

Cain, Madelyn. The Childless Revolution. New York: Da Capo, 2002. -- Written by a devoted mother who believes there is a social stigma and political disadvantage to being childless/childfree.

 Burkitt, Elinor. The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless. New York: Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2000. -- This one is pretty shrill, but packed with facts.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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prof, i've heard this a great deal in my various conversations and research on this subject. even people who did have children, but not grandchildren, have trouble with it. 

just yesterday, i had coffee with a woman (perhaps in her early 60s?) who gets tears in her eyes, everyone shoving their grandchildren's photos in her face when she's grieving for the grandchildren she is unlikely to have, and grieving for her own children who are infertile. 

i'm wondering: when does it become socially acceptable for non-parents and non-grandparents to ask for some sensitivity? or ask that their friends join them in a non-grandchild-related discussion?

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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jim, i think the next generation(s) --- including me, i'm a Gen X'er --- will continue to support social security. 

are you also opposed to paying for education for adults, healthcare and Medicare for adults, and programs for the elderly?

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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efschwartz ~ i was on the program today and i think we discussed the tax credit issue. i didn't get a chance to say: i COMPLETELY agree that we should support our society's children. as my co-guest, Patrick, noted, as a society and body politic, we're generally way more likely to support child-related causes than adult ones. the problem there: disadvantaged adults not only face their own personal misery, but in turn pass on disadvantaged problems to their children --- and like you said, if we're just being self-interested about this, it ain't good for society in any way.

i'm an ardent supporter of education and social services. i vote for every school bond, library funding measure, and the measly amount Oregon devotes to higher education. however, getting a tax break for having children isn't actually *fair* if you think about it. one person chooses to express their innate creativity by making another life. another chooses to make a poem. you gonna give me a tax credit for my poem? didn't think so.  

this implies that i and my contributions to society are inherently less important than those who chose to have children. and that's discrimination.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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> I think the topic should be "Kids: What's the Obsession?"

frank, that is awesome! i hope OPB will air that one.

followed by, "White Males: What's it Really Like to Be the Most Entitled and Richest People in America?"

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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yona, thanks for that perspective. some people who decide to forgo ongoing infertility treatment, adoption, or otherwise not having biological kids despite wanting them...  end up thinking of themselves as childfree and accepting, rather than unhappily childless.

i've seen it a lot, and i think (hope??) i'm joining their ranks. i hope that your situation works out in the happiest way possible for you.

personally, i like to "lump in" people who came to be childfree or childless together, because we share some common problems in society, culture, and politics, and we might be able to change that if we all worked together.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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replying to amy-OR: " Being childless and not reproducing are 2 different things."

this depends on your definition. there are many ideas floating around out there about what childfree and childless should mean. i'm childless, childfree, and a part time step-parent---some kind of semi-parent-- all at once. that's according to my own definitions...

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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and -- how much do NPR and OPB receive from governmental sources, not to mention fundraising drives like the recent one OBT did?

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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the arts are a source of meaning and beauty for our community, as well as their draw for recruiting businesses to the city (and nearby cities). but the fine arts can't compete with the economically sustainable pop culture entertainment people dutifully crave, being beaten over the head by the media all their lives to find this kind of thing interesting, entertaining, and yes, maybe even meaningful.

so we have to find creative ways to support creativity. 

traditional arts and the institutions that uphold them, incidentally, tend to be somewhat exclusionary and elitist. becoming an involved audience member requires education and previous experience with the form, whether it's poetry, ballet, or performance art. a populace that has only been educated to understand and enjoy television, YouTube, and hey, blog comments like these ones, can't just jump into a symphony concert and get much out of it.

by the way -- does anyone have any statistics about how much the government spends on sports, such as building stadiums? 

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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i'm always curious about who gets to be "native." does this reflect a specific immersion in a Native American culture as one is growing up, then applying that clearly to one's art? is it more about having some Native American blood in the bloodline --- with or without reflecting tribal beliefs, traditions, or artwork in one's work?

i also wonder when "native" starts and ends, given the seemingly neverending evils (inevitabilities?) of colonialism. at some point, this continent was not peopled by what we would now call "Native Americans." 

like half of white America, i am part Cherokee. i didn't grow up with many/any traditions, except a few my aunt heard about from her grandmother. we included our own take on some Tsalagi and other native contemporary wedding traditions in our recent wedding. is that OK? do i get to be "native?" my artwork is deeply involved with ancestry and legacy at the moment, and intersects with the Polynesian "natives" of Easter Island (descendants of Polynesian explorer-colonialists of the 5th century A.D.). I AM CONFUSED!

posted 4 years ago
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