Is it selfish to not want to have a baby? Vanessa starts the debate

Recent findings by Satoshi Kanazawa of The London School of Economics, have shown that women with a higher IQ are less likely to want to have children. This research appeared around the time Lucy Worsley said that she had been “educated out of the natural reproductive function”. Kanazawa has made his personal feelings about his discovery rather clear, writing in his book, The Intelligence Paradox, in a chapter entitled ‘Why Intelligent People are the Ultimate Losers in Life’, that “If any value is truly unnatural… it is voluntary childlessness.” It should be noted, as Sadhbh Walshe of The Guardian pointed out, that Kanazawa’s judgment has been discredited in the past because of a study in which he found black women to be less attractive. Nice.

So, some are saying that intelligent women are not having kids because they have careers and some are saying they’re selfish and their high IQ is precisely why they should have kids. Regardless, there’s a new and interesting trend developing, and it piques my curiosity because I’m one of these ‘unnatural’ voluntarily childless women. There’s the potential to start mud-slinging here, but most of the papers have already done that, so let’s try to keep emotional responses out of it and think critically.
Has anyone considered that our biological urges might be adapting to an over-populated and under-resourced world? Perhaps we’re evolving cerebrally, beyond our biology, to preserve humanity, and perhaps that’s natural too.

“I’m one of these ‘unnatural’ voluntarily childless women”

My reasons for not having children are first – selfishness. The word selfish has so many negative connotations, and it’s been used to torment women into being skivvies, but I try to own it. It doesn’t mean that I don’t help others, but it does mean that I take care of myself first so that I am of better service to others. Obsession with reproduction assumes that the continuation of the human race is what is best for evolution. What if the best thing for evolution were to let humanity decline? After all, the human race is only of value to itself. What was that about being selfish?

My second reason for not having children is practical – there are too many children in the world already without loving homes. If I were going to have children, I’d adopt them.

My third reason is economical – the cost of raising a child has risen 53 per cent since 2003 to £222,458. I wouldn’t want to have children, biological or adopted, unless I could offer them a certain standard of living and make them economically valuable.

The final reason is terror – having watched my mother give birth twice (hippies) the thought of pregnancy and childbirth makes my eyes water.

The miracle of childbirth? Miracle my **** – you’re trying to get something the size of a football through something the size of a hairpin? That, my friend, is what we call adesign fault.

So I, with my relatively high IQ and my fully functioning reproductive organs, would rather have fun and money than kids. But as far as Kanazawa is concerned, my ambition of being a stay at home mum with no kids and a cleaner makes me one of life’s losers. But why wouldn’t I have my cake and eat it too if I could? Maybe it’s my giant ego, but I think I can offer more to this world than kids. Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen.

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