40 reasons not to spawn: ‘I really regret having children’

Here is a clip of an article by Doug Saunders of the Globe & Mail from a 2007 article. I will look for the book today.
“Everywhere you look in France these days, you seem to see its cover: The words NO KID in English, followed by “40 Reasons for Not Having Children” in French. It is a huge bestseller. Her 40 reasons are often funny and personal (“Don’t become a travelling feeding bottle,” “don’t adopt the idiot-language of children”) sometimes bitter (“you will inevitably be disappointed with your child”) and often designed to puncture the idealized notion of motherhood that poisons Western societies.
“… But her book isn’t addressed to mothers; it is addressed to those childless women living in the nightmare of French maternalism, a plea for them to avoid her mistakes, to keep using contraceptives. “I just say that when you are a woman, the fact of having children doesn’t provide the meaning of your existence,” she says. “So you can have a meaningful existence not having children. And of course you can have a meaningful existence having children.”
“It is, she says, a means of shattering a national delusion, one that is damaging the lives of women, preventing them from progressing in their careers, keeping them from being creative and intelligent.
“These are the arguments author Corinne Maier uses in her book to persuade readers to just say no to having children. Each reason gets a chapter.
1. The desire for children: A false aspiration.
2. Childbirth is torture.
3. Don’t become a travelling feeding bottle.
4. Continue to amuse yourself.
5. Subway-job-kids: No thank you!
6. Hold onto your friends.
7. Do not adopt the idiot language we use to address children.
8. To open the nursery is to close the bedroom.
9. Child, the killer of desire.
10. They are the death knell of the couple.
11. To be or to make: You shouldn’t have to choose.
12. The child is a kind of vicious dwarf, of an innate cruelty.
13. It is conformist.
14. Children are too expensive.
15. You become an ally of capitalism.
16. They will destroy your time and your freedom.
17. The worst drudgery for the parents.
18. Do not be deceived by the notion of the ideal child.
19. You will inevitably be disappointed by your child.
20. To become a merdeuf (soccer mom) – what horror!
21. Parenting above all else – no thanks.
22. Block your professional path with children.
23. Families: They are horror and cruelty.
24. Don’t fall into an overgrown childhood.
25. To persist in saying “me first” is a badge of courage.
26. A child will kill the fond memories of your childhood.
27. You will not be able to prevent yourself from wanting your child to be happy.
28. Child care is a set of impossible dilemmas.
29. School: a prison camp with which you’ll have to make a pact.
30. To raise a child, but toward what kind of future?
31. Flee from the benevolent blandness.
32. Parenting will make you soft.
33. Motherhood is a trap for women.
34. To be a mother, or to succeed: You must choose.
35. When the child appears, the father disappears.
36. The child of today must be a perfect child: a brave new world.
37. Your child will be in constant danger from pedophiles and pornographers.
38. Why contribute to a future of unemployment and social exclusion?
39. There are too many children in the world.
40. Turn your back on the ridiculous rules of the “good” parent
Original source: Globe and Mail archives (originally published Sept. 2007) Published Saturday, Sep. 29, 2007 11:05AM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2009 11:24AM EDT

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