Summary
This chapter describes the 72% of Americans that have children. It describes them first by their responses to pregnancy and how their relationship changes. In general, either individual in a relationship feels more happy due to the baby, but less happy with their relationship/marriage or less close to their partner/spouse. It then describes the benefits and costs of having a child. These are quite intuitive: in general, the benefits involve happiness while the costs involve a sense of losing resources -- money and time being the biggest two. The chapter then describes the 72% of American parents by how many children they have , how this number compares to an ideal number, and then the historical perspectives of household/family size versus modern perspectives. The typical family has two children, matching the ideal number of two children; historically, the size of the family -- the number of children being born -- was larger than it is today and the chapter lists both micro- and macro- reasons as to why. Additionally, the chapter notes the trend of older couples deciding to have children -- couples of age 30+. Again, there are both micro- and macro- reasons as to why this is happening; these include increasing focus on education and career, a bad economy, and saving for retirement. Of the 72% of relationships with children, not all of the children are born from the couple -- some parents are infertile and so choose to adopt. Fifteen percent of all couples experience infertility difficulties and for many different reasons depending on sex. Those who want to have children but who are infertile can still become parents by either adopting, or by trying to resolve their infertility problems medically through drugs or artificial insemination. For those who chose to adopt, there are many adoption options -- many different categories of adoption -- that people can choose: open adoption, close adoption and semi- open adoption are all different types of adoption, based on to what extent the parents want to be involved in their adoptee family's or biological child's life. Lastly, the chapter discusses abortion -- including reasons for abortion (intuitive), whether it is safe (both physically and emotionally of low-risk to health) , to the extent that it is legal, and what abortion rates have been like (recently decreased).
What I learned
I thought that having a child would benefit a relationship and bring a couple closer together, but the text suggest that it has negative affects on a relationship but positive affects on the individual. Before in this class we have discussed how modern society is more self-centered (some have said "individualistic"). I wonder whether a historical analysis would show that in the past children brought couples closer together and made marriages happier.
Questions/Concerns
I find it difficult to believe that abortion has the same risk on one's emotional health as postpartum blues. Is there any way to make sense of this -- if it is true, why might it be true; if it is false, what are some reasons that it might seem (to some people) true?
There are two key factors to analyze following an abortion. First, and in my opinion the most important of the two, would be the emotional aspect of having an abortion. Though I would assume this would vary to some degree among women who chose this option, nevertheless it would clearly have a lasting impact from the realization that the choice was made (which in general is not something one would take lightly) to the social implications of the choice, etc. That, coupled with the fast change in hormones (which would be a bit more uniform across women), can cause extreme cases of depression, which arguably could be worse than postpartum blues.
ReplyDeleteKarl Wahlen