Lecture 2: Why Children? Transformations: Gender, Reproduction, and Contemporary Society

Why do people have children? Discuss the responses you received to this question

Why do people have children? Is it ‘natural’: the expression of an innate drive? For socio-biologist Richard Dawkins, our genes drive the process in a ‘selfish’ requirement to reproduce themselves. OR Is it an outcome of complex social, political, cultural and economic factors, many of them gendered?

Looking beyond the biological Morgan and King discuss and problematize various biological predispositions: Heterosexual drive leading to children (but humans have long sought to control reproduction, is heterosexuality biological anyway?) Need to make our own families to love (but what about ‘dark side’ of family?) Human drive to seek status through children (but today status sought through commodities) They favour analysis of institutions of family, work and state, as shaping fertility rates, alongside social norms

Institutions and Norms Stigmatization of those without children Educational opportunity and labour market shapes opportunity cost of caring for children Norm to want to leave something of oneself behind Children as sources of economic and/or social capital Children as marker of ‘progress’ and stability in life cycle Reciprocal love

Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering Psychoanalytic account that argues that ‘Women mother daughters who, when they become women, mother’. Object relations theory: women, as mothers, are primary love objects of their children Boys transfer love to other women, but repress emotions Girls learn to transfer erotic love away from mother and women in general, but not required to shun mother or other women emotionally. In adulthood a man can find all he needs in a woman, emotionally and sexually A woman will feel an absence with a man – she’s not in the customary triangle and he may not meet her emotional needs. Having a child completes the relational triangle in adulthood (woman, male partner, child) that echoes the relational triangle she felt as a child (daughter, father, mother).

Critiques of Chodorow Assumes heterosexuality Class, racially biased What about ambivalent/bad mothering What about absent mothers? The theory doesn’t explain female heterosexuality very well; its terms make female-female sexuality more likely Will women want to ‘mother’ more than men want to ‘father’? General assumption that biological parents are social parents; not necessarily so Can’t explain changing fertility rates over time

What about men? There’s little research but men may experience ‘baby hunger’ ‘I’ve got a biological need to do it; I’ve got a religious belief to do it’ [have a child] (P1, Hadley and Hanley, 2011, p. 61) ‘I really do want my own children… I wanted that more than I wanted a marriage’ (P5, Hadley and Hanley, 2011, p. 61) Fatherhood is seen as a repayment, replacement, re-connection or repeat of a man’s own childhood experience (Hadley, 2008) Within a heterosexual partnership if their partner agrees, the couple are fertile and all goes well men can realise their desire to have a child Men may end long-term relationships with partners who don’t want a family As single men (or gay couples) the options are adoption or surrogacy Cristiano Ronaldo with Cristianinho, thought to be born to a surrogate mother

Why do some people not want children Write down as many reasons as you can think of:

A Question of Terminology Childless by choice Childfree Voluntarily childless

Gillespie Reactions 25 women who have chosen not to have children receive when they tell people: Disbelief Disregard Deviance These shore up the myth that real women want to have children

What About Men? Men who don’t have children are rarely asked about it Zooey Deschanel: [asked if she wanted children] ‘I’m not going to answer that questions. I’m not mad at you for asking that question but I’ve said it before: I don’t think people ask men these questions’.Marie Claire, September 2013 Men who don’t want children may be seen as immature, not growing up, but not as failures, unfilled or empty Silence conceals men’s pain at involuntary childlessness Clip from A Century of Fatherhood, Monday 5 Jul 2010 There’s little research but unfulfilled yearning for parenthood in men has been linked to depression, anxiety and social isolation (Hadley, 2009)

Conclusions Ideas circulate that having children is ‘natural’, a matter of heterosex and biology But variation in fertility rates refutes this explanation As sociologists we’re interested in how fertility is shaped by social, cultural, political and economic factors Chodorow provides a psychoanalytic account of girls’ desire to be mothers, rooted in their childhood experience Her work can be critiqued in terms of both method and explanatory potential Men’s desires to have children are less scrutinised but may be intense Not having children may be voluntary or involuntary Women who don’t want children may face stigma and blame Men’s desires not to have children are less scrutinised Silence around men and ‘why/why not children’ reflected in research

Additional References Hadley, R. (2008) ‘Involuntary Childless Men: Issues Surrounding the Desire for Fatherhood’, Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Manchester, summary available online: ng_the_desire_for_fatherhood ng_the_desire_for_fatherhood Hadley, R. (2009) ‘Navigating in an Uncharted World: How does the desire for fatherhood affect men, Unpublished MSc dissertation, University of Manchester, summary available online: es_the_desire_for_fatherhood_affect_men es_the_desire_for_fatherhood_affect_men Hadley, R. and Hanley, T. (2011) ‘Involuntarily Childless Men and the Desire for Fatherhood’, Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp

Next Week… Fertility rates are not just related to individual motivations, they are of national importance and important for particular communities within the nation. We’ll ask who needs children and consider how various stakeholders in reproduction have sought to influence fertility rates