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Most of my High School class supported the childfree movement
Posted by AronSora • 7/03/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: Dating, high school
Hey, I just graduated from High School and I wanted to ask your opinion of something. While in high school I noticed a lot of my peer's life plans did not involve marriage or starting a family. I must admit, my High School is strange; dating is look down upon by my peers, but this trend is interesting. Also, it not that my peers are sex crazed, most avoid it at all costs. My peers are focused on their careers and goals; They see sex and dating as road blocks.
I think this is good, but I'm naive. Do you think this is bad?
P.S. My High School is an Ivy League feeder, but more and more High Schools are adapting the "AP class rush" way of teaching
User Comments
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Yay! When I graduated I didn't want kids yet. I wanted them but not when I was that young. I'm happy with that decision I experienced so much more than some of my friends.
I too saw boys, dating, and sex as a hindrance. I knew if I got into a situation (pregnant) I would never get out of domestic violence.
I do think it's a positive step though and maybe peer pressure will not be so bad for your generation.-
Yea, peer pressure was non-existent in my school. There wasn't even pressure to go to the prom. Many people didn't.
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You (and your classmates) are still young.
You'll get over it.
By the time you are my age, most of you will be grandparents.-
I disagree, me and my friends are workaholics. They only want to have a successful career.
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I find that a bit of an offensive assumption. Children is not the only goal in life. How many women have been completely pissed off and angered when they announce they don't want kids, and everyone says 'you'll change your mind'. Or they're 30 and don't have kids and the entire society starts nagging them? Or "Why aren't you married yet, come on, I want grandchildren!!"
Sure, these girls may change their minds, but they won't definitely, and it's their own choice. Whatever makes them happy. -
Please..... spare the kids of your negativity!
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I think there are very few highschool students who want to marry and start a family the day after graduation. Most kids (regardless of school) plan on either attending college, and having a lot of fun - or plan on going straight into a skilled labor field, and partying there as well.
Sometime in the mid twenties, a lot of my classmates began serious relationships, which turned into marriage, which turned into families - myself included.-
Yes, but, in my limited observations, many of those serious relationships become marriages out of social pressure. Social pressure is non-existent in my class, so I think that trend will end. Again, I'm naive.
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Really? My marriage did not come about due to social pressure. And although I can't read the minds of my friends and peers, I'm pretty sure that they were not pressured into marrying either.
In the majority of adult relationships, marriage comes about as co-decision between the two people in the relationship. -
Anok, see my reply to legbamel.
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The Google ads on this thread are hysterical, in context. I don't really understand the mentality about which you're writing, not because I think teens should be having sex and considering marriage and children but because sex is such a basic drive and dating seems to me to be a part of the process of maturing. I find the idea that your peer group views marriage as primarily a result of social pressure to be relatively disturbing. I presume that many of you will discover that you've made some mistaken assumptions along the way, but there's no harm in waiting another ten years to decide that. You've got plenty of time to make up your mind about having children, and being a young parent does make career success more difficult.-
Sex is seen as a human trait that must be fought against, at least in my observations. It's seen as a flaw.
There is social pressure to marry because singles are stigmatized, at least in America. How many parents ask their kids "When will you marry and have kids"? I've gone to my friends and my friends have come to me upset because their parents expected them to date or look up from the books once in a while. -
Dating - as well as other forms of socialization are normal human characteristics. I'm not sure why these things must be avoided at all costs? It's as natural as breathing. In fact, without it, humans would not be here. (note in the animal world - a world without laws and constraints or pressures they still court, mate, and procreate - some species are monogamous).
The parents are probably wondering why their children are becoming so anti-social, or are worried that there may be some developmental problems or depression/drug abuse creeping up. When your hormones kick in - attraction happens. Biologically it's natural.
That doesn't mean one needs to sleep around, or get stupid about it. But fight it all out? Why?
We aren't Vulcans. -
Isn't it worth it? My school is one of the top schools in my state, I think that is due to the culture of my school; a culture that looks down upon those things. The vast majority of my class got into top 100 colleges. Isn't it worth it?
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You can date, or get married, or get married, date, and have sex, even have children - and be wildly successful
No, I'm not thinking that the intentional suppression of normal biological behaviors is the key to your school's success. After all, those top 100 schools that you're keen to get into are filled with people who date and get married. They are also taught by people who date and get married (As is your school).
Educational excellence starts at home, with supportive parents. It then moves into the school systems from your first year of school onward - where the foundations for learning are built each year. If you have the opportunity to attend good schools from day one, you already have an advantage over others - long before your hormones kick in. Having access to up-to-date materials and classes, having access to top notch teachers, and having the opportunity to engage in enriching extra-curricular activities helps you become a better student.
Dating only has a negative effect if you forsake everything else for the nookie. And if you have good parents - you will have the proper balance so that you do not go crazy.
It sounds to me as if the pressure to not have any romantic or intimate relationships is just as bad if not worse than the pressure you seem to think society places on people to marry. Extremes are usually not the best way to go.
By the way, CHildfree by choice does not in anyway shape or form exclude romantic relationships or marriage. It only excludes giving birth or raising children in the household. It sounds as if your peers are supporting an emotion free movement, not the child free movement. -
I agree with you. It's just an interesting trend that should be looked into. There is something that is causing us to not only date less, but to avoid dating. Maybe there is just too much pressure on us and we are cutting everything possible out of our lives to achieve success.
“Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.”
I'm sure we would all like to date, but, in a way, we can't. -
Aron, your reply here is telling. The "maybe we would like to date but we just can't" sentiment is one of the things that I see wrong with our current educational/parenting system today. Not about dating specifically, per se, but about allowing youth to experience the full range of activities that life has to offer in lieu of "making the grade" or "making the cut".
One of the things that I actually disagree with with our current trends in schools and in parenting is the over scheduling of kids to the point of stressing them out so that they withdraw and no longer want to participate in rather normal life-things. It's not healthy if you ask me.
Take a look at some of (possibly) your educational idols and icons. People who have gone way above and beyond - inventors, teachers, philosophers, discoverers, scientists, doctors, musicians, artists, those who are genius. Those who broke the mold.
How many of them do you think had stage moms and schedules that dictated their every waking moment? How many of them do you think felt like they would maybe like to participate in normal human activities, but were so stressed out by school and parents that they simply couldn't? (as kids, adulthood is another matter).
Probably not too many.
How can a person truly ever create something ground breaking, new or wonderful if they have never had a moment to reflect or connect to life and other humans in any meaningful way?
I'm sorry that you or your classmates are so stressed out that even normal biological functions are being shunned or avoided just to get ahead, just to excel. In all truth? It's not that worth it, actually. Human contact and the small things in life are worth far more than some degree or pedigree hanging on a wall. So too, is pure life experience. Nothing beats it. -
Your insights gave me a lot to reconsider. Thank you.
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I say, go for it, whatever it is! -
hmmm I went to a prep school or two and we were also workaholics but sex, drugs and parties were rampant. It is actually more common in those environmnts.. so I have to ask is your school religion based or something? I am genuinely curious considering the major differences. Even the schools we associated with were like that.
To answer your question, I suppose it's not weird. I would hope though that there were back up plans since no matter how hard you work for something, little unexpected obstacles can arise. I would not want it to be "the norm" though, otherwise there is the potential for a lot of youth crashing and burning due to being all work.-
I agree with you , Endless. The couple of people I knew who came from prep schools were often the most poorly behaved out of all of us. Those kids drank and did way more drugs than my any of my public school friends. My public school friends were goodie goodies, including me.
Also, I really don't know any kids who really truly look down on dating. In my high school, the ones who claimed to look down on dating were the ones who were so painfully awkward they couldn't date. -
" In my high school, the ones who claimed to look down on dating were the ones who were so painfully awkward they couldn't date."
took the word right out of my mouth, I was going to mention that but figured I'd wait and see if anyone else got around to it first -
It's a public high school. There is a mix of a lot of religions and atheism. I hear of parties, but no that often and I only over hear anything about drugs from the same, small group of people.
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@Stillthinking
maybe looking down on it is the wrong words, dating isn't celebrated. You are not a social outcast if you don't date and some of the most popular people in my school don't date. -
This sounds less like an American high school and more like an Asian high school. This is exactly the experience my cousins had going to school in Korea.
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I went to Princeton High School.
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- Copyright © 2007 All Rights Reserved
Childfree: We celebrate it!
"My husband and I decided years ago that we would remain child-free and we have never regretted that choice. As two older children from large families we both had plenty of experience when it came to raising our younger siblings.
However, there have been many who have not respected our choice. They were in a state of denial. They were just to closed minded to foresee how happy together and how devoted to one another childfree couples can be.
A few (impaired by their religious brainwashing) told us our choice was “un-Godly”. Some told us we would be missing something “special” in our lives. Others told us not wanting children is “unnatural”. Still others told us not having children means we are “selfish”.
It was and still is hard not to laugh out loud at these types because they all have the same thing in common — closed minds. The two biological imperatives that all lifeforms from bacteria to humans have in common is to survive and reproduce. Giving credence to that fact that those imperatives exist wasn't possible for them without swathing it in religiosity. They needed to cling to their belief systems wherein they were taught that producing little images of themselves is a selfless, natural act blessed by God — a service to humanity. RLFLMAO
Well, as the Dalai Lama said: "The mind, like a parachute, works best when it is opened."
We live in an overpopulated world. The children born today are among those who will devour 80% of the planet’s resources. Moreover, given the state of the environment, we ought to think it’s perverse that children today are being falsely taught that the hormonal drive to reproduce evident in all animal species is “special”; and that, those who do not choose to breed are “selfish”.
It’s clear how this state of affairs came to be. Between 1960 when “the pill” was introduced and 2007 a stigma against childfree couples, based on the same old religious saws deeply entrenched in our society was revived and minding the reproductive business of others became the agenda of religious zealots.
There are many reasons to choose not to have children and when couples make the childfree choice that choice should be respected. For interest sake I searched the web and came up with a survey that contains all the reasons we made the choice to remain childfree. And, I’m now going to share them with you.
Between November 2004-July 2006 Laura S. Scott conducted a Childless by Choice Survey. 171 self-selected, voluntarily childless/childfree individuals (single, partnered and married) living in the U.S. and Canada participated in the survey 121 (71%) of the respondents were women and 50 (29%) of the respondents were men.
Participants were asked to rate eighteen statements reflecting frequently cited motivations for remaining childless on a Likert scale from 0-5, to the degree to which they identified with that statement or the degree to which it applied to them in the course of their decision making. A zero rating would indicate that the motive statement was not applicable or that the respondent did not identify at all with that statement. A higher number would indicate the relative degree to which the respondent identified with the statement, a rating of five indicating a very strong identification with the statement or an acknowledgment that it is, or was, a primary motivator in the decision to be childless/childfree.
The Childless by Choice Survey respondents rated the 18 motivation statements and were invited to add their own: www.childlessbychoiceproject.com/Childless_by_Choice_Survey.html
My advice: Friends and family members aren't entitled to harass you, and that can only happen if you allow it to. Your reproductive business is your own private business and not anyone else's business. If and when any person starts to harangue you about your private business tell them clearly and unequivocally to mind their own business, and if they don't then turn your back towards their flapping jaws and walk away.
Copyright © 2007 All Rights Reserved
Childfree: We celebrate it!
thistimethisspace.com/2007/06/20/childfree-we-celebrate-it/
Childfree and loving it
thistimethisspace.com/2007/06/19/childfree-and-loving-it/
Consider Making the Childfree Choice
thistimethisspace.com/2008/08/14/consider-making-the-childfree-choice/ -
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Some of this reminds me of the early 60s. Most of us thought marriage and family were a joke, and not something we foresaw in our future. However, we felt the same way about school and work and basically considered them forms of slavery.
Sex was another matter. We loved sex and were eager to cast off all the chains of Puritanism, and enjoy and experience every variety possible. Dating, however, was definitely passe. Free love, hot tubs, nude swimming and orgies were more the order of the day. God knows where all this got us, but it sure was fun.-
We are slightly different. Me and my classmate are very Emotional intimate. We are able to share feelings at a very deep level.
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Aronsora: I think it's beautiful that you and your friends can communicate at such a deep emotional level. That was also a great ideal of the 60s. Shedding the social mask and getting down to the deep inner core of feeling. There was a lot of sharing and soul-searching going on.
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So we are like the 60's without the sex and drugs.
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It's okay to not have plans to marry in the future, or to only have plans to consider marriage if you find the right person, or not even marry at all- or live with a partner without marriage, or sleep around safely if you want to, or only study and work and never have a relationship. That's all fine in my opinion. Are people expecting you to have a husband and kids by the age of 24?
I totally wasn't thinking about anything serious like marriage or kids when I graduated high school. At 24, I only just got my first boyfriend.
It's probably good to plan for possibilities of relationships and children, but it shouldn't be your only plan for the future by a long shot. -
I say do whatever makes you happy. -
today's happiness not at tomorrow's expense!
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Whateverrrr tomorrow isn't guaranteed...
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Thats a very thoughtful saying: tomorrow is not guaranteed. So go ahead, consume
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Not consume, enjoy
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U know don't worry be happy
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today's happiness not at tomorrow's expense!
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Like I said whateverrrrrrrr!!!
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They day Americans realize the true values, will be the one
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Whateverrrrr, the day you realize that u don't know if you're gonna be here tomorrow,and live for the hear and now u will probably end up dying an old crow.life's a gift don't waste it on planning and worrying because there will always be something. Live for today,because you might not be here tomorrow.
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I may not be here but tomorrow will be here!
If I disappear it doesn't mean everything will disappear. At the very least I should pay for my own funeral
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