Vintage and Childfree

[AtomicEraTom]

My dad fell on the jobsite when I was 5 and my siblings were 2 1/2. He couldn't go back to work, and my mom went back to work at the factory. He raised us from that point on. He ran a business from an additional building on our property, but had us close by all day. A girl I'm seeing and I were talking about having kids (I want 4 and she wants 6) and she's in college to go into the teaching profession and will likely make more than I make at the plant (I do plan on going to college if her and I were to wed) and said I would be happy to stay at home and raise the kids. Non-traditional? Sure, but it worked for my family and I have a lot of patience, where she does not, so it may be a benefit.

I do believe I'd be a very dedicated father and do not wish to be a father but wish to be a dad. Someone who is willing and happy to be involved in my childrens' lives and happy taking care of them equally if not more than the Mrs would. Obviously, childbirth is going to take its toll on a woman and not on myself, but I don't wanna be a father who just has kids, never pays any mind to them, and goes and sits in the den by himself when he gets home. I wanna be like my dad, someone who was a huge influence on my upbringing. Sorry to rant. I just think the good dads get a bad name from all the lousy ones.

I think either choice is easier for men, because even if they want to have children the majority of child raising is still done by women. If Ihad a job that earned more or as much as my husband's, I wouldn't mind being the breadwinner while he stayed home and dealt with housework, lack of sleep and dirty diapers
Most of my husband's colleagues freely admit to staying at work late so they get home just in time to tuck their clean, fed children into bed and having a quiet evening. Some even volunteer to go to Afghanistan to get away from nagging wives and children. What sort of society is that for young girls trying to make a lifeplan? If it was easier for women, I am sure more would be convinced of that choice.

 

[jessesgirl08]

I'm sure you will be a great DAD because you want to be a DAD. I will share your story about your dad with my hubby who is a stay at home dad, sometimes he feels like he's the only one, even though he loves it its nice to be reminded that there are other dad's out there staying home.

My dad fell on the jobsite when I was 5 and my siblings were 2 1/2. He couldn't go back to work, and my mom went back to work at the factory. He raised us from that point on. He ran a business from an additional building on our property, but had us close by all day. A girl I'm seeing and I were talking about having kids (I want 4 and she wants 6) and she's in college to go into the teaching profession and will likely make more than I make at the plant (I do plan on going to college if her and I were to wed) and said I would be happy to stay at home and raise the kids. Non-traditional? Sure, but it worked for my family and I have a lot of patience, where she does not, so it may be a benefit.

I do believe I'd be a very dedicated father and do not wish to be a father but wish to be a dad. Someone who is willing and happy to be involved in my childrens' lives and happy taking care of them equally if not more than the Mrs would. Obviously, childbirth is going to take its toll on a woman and not on myself, but I don't wanna be a father who just has kids, never pays any mind to them, and goes and sits in the den by himself when he gets home. I wanna be like my dad, someone who was a huge influence on my upbringing. Sorry to rant. I just think the good dads get a bad name from all the lousy ones.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Well, I hope it helps him out! One of my best friends plans on doing it too. He works at the plant with me and his girlfriend is going to school to be in the nursing field and will make more than him, so he's going to raise the kids. He can be sure he's not the only stay at home dad and while they're not as common as the stay at home mom, he should be proud that he, unlike many men I know, loves his kids enough to walk away from a career to stay home and give them the love and care that they need. Very honorable.

I'm sure you will be a great DAD because you want to be a DAD. I will share your story about your dad with my hubby who is a stay at home dad, sometimes he feels like he's the only one, even though he loves it its nice to be reminded that there are other dad's out there staying home.

 

[AmateisGal]

My dad fell on the jobsite when I was 5 and my siblings were 2 1/2. He couldn't go back to work, and my mom went back to work at the factory. He raised us from that point on. He ran a business from an additional building on our property, but had us close by all day. A girl I'm seeing and I were talking about having kids (I want 4 and she wants 6) and she's in college to go into the teaching profession and will likely make more than I make at the plant (I do plan on going to college if her and I were to wed) and said I would be happy to stay at home and raise the kids. Non-traditional? Sure, but it worked for my family and I have a lot of patience, where she does not, so it may be a benefit.

I do believe I'd be a very dedicated father and do not wish to be a father but wish to be a dad. Someone who is willing and happy to be involved in my childrens' lives and happy taking care of them equally if not more than the Mrs would. Obviously, childbirth is going to take its toll on a woman and not on myself, but I don't wanna be a father who just has kids, never pays any mind to them, and goes and sits in the den by himself when he gets home. I wanna be like my dad, someone who was a huge influence on my upbringing. Sorry to rant. I just think the good dads get a bad name from all the lousy ones.

Tom, I can already tell you are going to be a wonderful dad. You are far more mature at your age than most men my age!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Thank you You made my day! Between how I was raised by my parents and watching people, like a good friend of mine who has 4 kids on the way from 4 different women and only has the time of day for one (for now) I just wouldn't wanna be that guy.

Tom, I can already tell you are going to be a wonderful dad. You are far more mature at your age than most men my age!

 

[Drappa]

Tom, I think you will be a great dad because you think about it carefully! I applaud anyone who is willing and able to be a stay-at-home dad. I was looked after by my grandparents while my parents were at work, and wouldn't have missed it for the world. My grandfather took me everywhere, and they always had time for me.
I think the problem with many dad's not being more involved is not only socialisation into thinking that cleaning up the kids or nursing if you will is mainly a female task, but also that many men still make more money than their partners, so the choice is often made before the couple can decide for themselves. So I don't think that the ones who aren't involved much are necessarily all jerks, or bad apples, but victims of socialisation and circumstance. Being the only dad on a school run or being looked down on for being a stay-at-home dad can't be easy.

 

[jessesgirl08]

Tom, your future kids will be..as my little ones say......lucky lucksters!

 

[Kate O Potato]

My dad fell on the jobsite when I was 5 and my siblings were 2 1/2. He couldn't go back to work, and my mom went back to work at the factory. He raised us from that point on. He ran a business from an additional building on our property, but had us close by all day. A girl I'm seeing and I were talking about having kids (I want 4 and she wants 6) and she's in college to go into the teaching profession and will likely make more than I make at the plant (I do plan on going to college if her and I were to wed) and said I would be happy to stay at home and raise the kids. Non-traditional? Sure, but it worked for my family and I have a lot of patience, where she does not, so it may be a benefit.

I do believe I'd be a very dedicated father and do not wish to be a father but wish to be a dad. Someone who is willing and happy to be involved in my childrens' lives and happy taking care of them equally if not more than the Mrs would. Obviously, childbirth is going to take its toll on a woman and not on myself, but I don't wanna be a father who just has kids, never pays any mind to them, and goes and sits in the den by himself when he gets home. I wanna be like my dad, someone who was a huge influence on my upbringing. Sorry to rant. I just think the good dads get a bad name from all the lousy ones.

Hurrah for that! As my other half is never going to earn as much as I do/will, and as I love my job and he has never found a job he is passionate about, it seems logical that he should be the one to take the lead for childcare, when we finally take that step. I love children, form relationships quickly and can entertain them quite easily, but my young chap has ASD and think that the extra bonding time would be vital for him.

The one thing I really regret is not getting to know my dad properly until I was about 16. The way I was raised meant that mum was the first port of call, and dad was the chap who worked longer hours and left it up to my (overly dominant) mum to hand out most of the discipline. My other half reminds me of him, which is one of the reasons why I would like to take a different route to my parents.

 

[zombi]

Before you criticise the "Medical Community" please make sure you have all of the facts and weigh them carefully. You do not carry the very real liability should anything go wrong. Your doctor does. Physicians have been successfully sued for carrying out a sterilization in accordance with a patient's wishes and concent years after the fact claiming they did not know it was permanant.

I am a member of the medical community I speak about, and having done research and having to carry my own liability insurance, I am fully aware of how that works. I am also aware of lawsuits involving sterilization, as I am aware of the various types of sterilization available to both men and women. I stand by what I have said.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Let's keep in mind that this thread is "Vintage and Childfree," not "Vintage and Glad Not To Be Childfree," and discussion of medical liability issues is a bit too far off the stated topic, as are attempts to convince people who've made the decision to remain child-free to reconsider their views. LD and I are watching this thread closely, and we expect it to remain on topic if it's to remain open.

We are also considering moving it to the OB, since there seem to be a lot of men involved in the discussion -- unless the women participating would prefer for it to be gals-only?

Thanx for your cooperation.

 

[member 19219]

I wrote a bit of a lenghty opinion about this on my blog, I'm unsure about whether I should copy it here. For me being childfree is not linked in any way to my lifestyle, it's a choice I made even before I began to love the vintage community. I would love to get married to my boyfriend of three years some day but we both don't want children.

I really like how this discussion is going by the way. Respect to all of you lovely ladies and gents who can talk about this rather touchy subject so eloquent.

 

[Derek WC]

I was surprised when I discovered so many Loungers don't want kids! I personally want a boy and a girl, and can't wait, eh, of course after I get married.

 

[sheeplady]

I was thinking about this last night- there were always childfree couples, even in vintage times. I think they were more likely to have been labeled as childless and seen as less complete, but I know there were childfree couples.

My grandparents had a baby early in their marriage (during the early 1930s), who died three days after birth. They made an active decision to not have any more children, even though they would like to have had them, because they didn't know enough about how their first died. There was just too much risk for them. They did have twins later in life (my grandfather was 48 and grandmother was 40), but they were not planned. But my grandparents (who loved their two kids) raised them with the knowledge that they hadn't planned to have kids. Considering the birth control methods available in the 1930s and 1940s, I've always tended to believe that this must have been a very active choice.

Now of course, today, my grandparents probably wouldn't have been labeled as childfree for that period of their lives, given the fact that they had a child who died before they made the decision to not have any children.

The people my parents associated with when I was a child didn't always have children. So I have always thought childfree couples were normal and not having children was a valid choice. I guess I am somewhat amazed that people find it odd that some people who live a vintage lifestyle would like to be childfree.

 

[LizzieMaine]

An interesting phenomenon of the Era is that celebrity couples were very often childless. There are several reasons for this, but in most cases the woman was determined to keep her career going, and there wasn't the modern tabloid fixation on "baby bumps." You might from time to time read in Winchell's column that so-and-so was "infanticipating," but there wasn't this constant culture of watching celebrities to see who was going to get pregnant next.

I think the modern middle-class parenting cult didn't really accelerate until the baby-boom era itself. In the pre-war era babies were treated as a fact of life, but not the only reason for existance, and during the Depression they were very much considered an encumbrance -- the birthrate plummeted during the early thirties, and never really recovered until the GIs came home after the war. In fact, by 1935, the birthrate had dropped below the replacement rate for the first time in American history -- more Americans were dying than being born. Childlessness during this period was more mainstream that it would be again until the "baby bust" of the '70s. The "barefoot-and-pregnant" stereotype of the Golden Era has very little substance in reality.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

My paternal grandparents wanted to be childfree, but my my paternal grandmother "accidentally" got pregnant with my dad when she was 39! We have a home movie of her when she was pregnant (1941) and she gets up and smacks the camera lol

As for me, I vowed never to have children when I got my period at age 9. And I don't have any now at 35. I also said I never wanted to marry, but I'm happily married now for 6 years on July 1. The idea of having a child in the next few years doesn't bother me as much anymore, but it's no on else's business and I highly respect the childfree lifestyle!

 

[Puzzicato]

Before you criticise the "Medical Community" please make sure you have all of the facts and weigh them carefully. You do not carry the very real liability should anything go wrong. Your doctor does. Physicians have been successfully sued for carrying out a sterilization in accordance with a patient's wishes and concent years after the fact claiming they did not know it was permanant.

I love my Mirena IUD, but the reason one GP gave me for not referring me for tubal ligation was "But what if your marriage breaks up and you meet someone else and he wants children?". I was 35 at the time. That member of the "Medical Community" was rude and condescending. By the time my current IUD needs to be removed I will be over 40 and hopefully then I will be able to get the procedure I want without a doctor bringing their value judgements into my body.