Why Have Kids? Quotes

“And really, how insulting is it that to suggest that the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things? I'm betting some of those women would like to do great things of their own.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“The cultural insistence that parenting is the 'most important' job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Given the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“I simply don't think that putting every bit of energy I have into parenting-at the expense of my career, marriage and social life-will be the difference between Layla becoming homeless or the president. But too many women are made to believe that every tiny decision they make-from pacifiers to flash cards-will have a lasting impact on their child. It's a recipe for madness. It also reveals an overblown sense of self-importance.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Whether you call it Attachment Parenting, natural parenting, or simple maternal instincts, this false "return" to traditional parenting is just a more explicit and deliberate version of the often unnamed parenting gender divide. Whether you're wearing you baby or not, whether you're using cloth diapers or teaching your four-week-old to use the toilet; it's still women who are doing the bulk of child care, no matter what the parenting philosophy. Putting a fancy name to the fact that we're still doing all the goddamn work doesn't make it any less sexist or unfair”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“If you want what’s best for your kids, one surefire way to provide them with a healthy, happy home is to make sure they have lesbian parents. In the longest-running study of lesbian families to date,2 zero percent of children reported physical or sexual abuse—not a one. In the general population, 26 percent of children report physical abuse and 8.3 percent report sexual abuse.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“The less obvious hurdle is that of preparing parents emotionally and putting forward realistic images of parenthood and motherhood. There also needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that not everyone should parent - when parenting is a given, it's not fully considered or thought out, and it gives way too easily to parental ambivalence and unhappiness.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“I’m talking about the soul-crushing drudgery of day-to-day parenthood that we’re too embarrassed to talk about. The boredom, the stress, the nagging dissatisfaction, and the sense of personal failure that parents feel when raising a kid isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps worst of all is the guilt that so many women buy into because they’re too ashamed to admit that despite the love they have for their kids, child rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Social expectations about what constitutes a good or a bad mother haunt every decision, and the rise of the parental advice industry ensures that moms and dads feel inadequate at every turn.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Americans believe it’s best for kids to be with their parents as much as possible; the truth is, however, that our kids do better when they have a lot of people invested in their growth and development—not just their parents, and not just their mothers.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“And there’s an argument to be made that if intentional and thoughtful parenthood is an indicator of parental and family happiness, then having gay parents—parents who weren’t able to “accidentally” have a child—may be, in fact, among the better circumstances there are for a child.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Robin Simon, a sociology professor at Florida State University and researcher on parenting and happiness, told The Daily Beast in 20083 that parents “experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Não importa se carregam o bebê no sling, se usam fraldas de pano ou se ensinam seu filho de quatro semanas a usar o banheiro: ainda assim, as mulheres é que estão fazendo a maior parte dos cuidados à criança, não importa sob qual filosofia parental. Dar um nome bonito ao fato de que ainda estamos fazendo todo o maldito trabalho não o torna menos sexista ou injusto. Uma das principais razões pelas quais as mulheres — especialmente as que foram mães recentemente — relatam serem infelizes no casamento é a divisão desigual do trabalho em casa, incluindo os cuidados aos filhos.”
― Jessica Valenti, Por que ter filhos?: Uma mãe explora a verdade sobre a criação de filhos e a felicidade

“Whether you’re wearing your baby or not, whether you’re using cloth diapers or teaching your four-week-old to use the toilet: it’s still women who are doing the bulk of child care, no matter what the parenting philosophy”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step, or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children,” she said. “It’s such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness

“Parents expect their children to be their soul mates in the same way they expect of their spouse—they want children to make their lives and families complete.”
― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness