So, comparing having children to buying vehicles kind of strikes me the wrong way.

This, absolutely. For so many reasons.

Hey, has anyone else read the cover story of this month's Atlantic? So, so good. And made me feel a lot less conspicuous about being never married at 42.

Ooh, link?

A friend of mine went to buy a new car the other day, and ended up buying two. TOTALLY like having children...in that he's a gay man who used to be a Mormon who has five of them? Oops?

Your friend is choosing shitty metaphors for a kind of shitty idea. I'm guessing that for most of the humans in her sphere, having children was a choice, and it's hard to deal with the fact that they're being rewarded in some way for that choice. I want to be rewarded, too!

I can make the case for comparing having a child to a luxury item. But I like kids, and sometimes long to be a parent. But it's a careful comparison to make. You don't own children, you're raising a human being. The metaphor can only sustain itself for a tiny part of an enormous idea. Kids are like luxury items in that while I long for one, I can't afford to support one, but that's kind of where the metaphor ends.

I think there is a problematic trend in some circles to see a child as a consumer item. You see that in the tabloids, which treat (some) celebrity kids as, like, an accessory. (It may be that some celebrities treat them that way.)

Hey, has anyone else read the cover story of this month's Atlantic? So, so good.

Really? It rubbed me the wrong way.

Heh, I xposted with Allyson.

I refuse to consider someone/thing whose ass I have had to wipe for 5 years and counting a luxury item!

In what way, Allyson?

meara, [link]

I liked the article because it helped me dispel some of my (own) myths about coupledom and marriedom. And to me, that was very helpful. I really need to get out of the "why won't anyone ever marry me" mindset. It's not healthy and it's getting in my way. Dating someone seriously for four years, again with it ending the way it did really hurt me. A year ago I was convinced that I was going to Paris at Thanksgiving to finally be proposed to. Everything pointed to it. It took me 6 months of denial and then acceptance to to finally stop being angry about it. Actually, my twinset of surgeries in the Spring in a bizarre way helped me get over the anger and disappointment. Never thought I'd be happy to have surgery, but there you have it. It gave me something else to obsess about right when I needed it.

I refuse to consider someone/thing whose ass I have had to wipe for 5 years and counting a luxury item!

I need this on a t-shirt.

I need this on a t-shirt.

God, me too. Especially since they're not something you can resell, mortgage, or junk.

I think raising kids is a privilege in many ways, not least because it's a whole human being you're responsible for training to be a decent member of society.

Of course, the flip side of that is that it can be really easy to make a kid, wanted or not, and not everybody who's raising them takes the job seriously, or seriously enough.

I think flea's friend's argument is still ridiculous, though. There are huge trade-offs on both sides. She's completely devaluing her own time, her relative freedom, and a million other things that come with not raising children, and a tax break doesn't even come close to that, in my mind.

Edited for grammar.

I keep meaning to read that Atlantic article, and then not having the bandwidth to click past the first page.

I sometimes have that irritated feeling after spending more money on another baby gift or wedding shower that I need to throw a "not getting married or having children shower" and have everyone bring me presents just for being me.

My aunts wanted a shower when they bought their house, for this very reason -- not a housewarming, a SHOWER. So they got a shower. And then a couple of years later, they got married!