Is the need to be a parent innate, or is it a social construct? Do we want to have children because it is in our brains, “pre-programmed” into our genetic code? Or do we want to have children because the desire has been cultivated and encouraged by our society, by our families, by our friends, values, beliefs and customs? While the desire to have children appears innate, we can attribute this to the sociocultural environment of institutional education, and these societal pressures to have children are clear when we study the population of childless families as well as the lack of scientific evidence to support the claim that childbearing is an innate urge.
Dr. Veenhoven begins in his article, Is There an Innate Need for Children, by saying …show more content…
Veenhoven (1975) also asserts that there is no empirical evidence and that if the desire was innate, everyone would want to have children. This is proven incorrect by couples that remain childless by choice. Another article is written by three professors of sociology, a study of social interaction and the responses of individuals. In this publication, the “wellbeing” is assessed of people at older stages in their lives who have children and who are childless. This study takes into account a variety of factors and conditions that affect the likelihood of being a parent, giving it credibility by extension of providing its own limitations. For example, it also accounts for the diversity of families. Marital status, socioeconomic class, education, sexuality are all differing conditions that affect the likelihood of being a parent show that the environment is related directly to the likelihood meaning that social circumstance is responsible for the desire, not innate. The research concludes that adults who are not parents’ wellbeing is actually higher than those who are parents (Pudrovska, Reczek, & Umberson, 2010). This result reveals that adults that do not have children are not Researchers Allen and Wiles (2013) study people between the ages sixty-three to ninety-three, with a total of thirty-eight participants from 1999 to 2009. These studies focus on the aftereffects of having or not having children rather than the desire to have children or not having children. This article defines childlessness and the different types of childlessness an adult can face in the course of their life, as such voluntary and involuntary . The article, as a summation of these studies, discusses the societal pressures to become a parent and the stigma that is seen in being a married couple without children. People who are childless by choice, as discussed in this article, prove that the desire to have children must not be innate. Were the urge innate, these people
Dr. Veenhoven begins in his article, Is There an Innate Need for Children, by saying …show more content…
Veenhoven (1975) also asserts that there is no empirical evidence and that if the desire was innate, everyone would want to have children. This is proven incorrect by couples that remain childless by choice. Another article is written by three professors of sociology, a study of social interaction and the responses of individuals. In this publication, the “wellbeing” is assessed of people at older stages in their lives who have children and who are childless. This study takes into account a variety of factors and conditions that affect the likelihood of being a parent, giving it credibility by extension of providing its own limitations. For example, it also accounts for the diversity of families. Marital status, socioeconomic class, education, sexuality are all differing conditions that affect the likelihood of being a parent show that the environment is related directly to the likelihood meaning that social circumstance is responsible for the desire, not innate. The research concludes that adults who are not parents’ wellbeing is actually higher than those who are parents (Pudrovska, Reczek, & Umberson, 2010). This result reveals that adults that do not have children are not Researchers Allen and Wiles (2013) study people between the ages sixty-three to ninety-three, with a total of thirty-eight participants from 1999 to 2009. These studies focus on the aftereffects of having or not having children rather than the desire to have children or not having children. This article defines childlessness and the different types of childlessness an adult can face in the course of their life, as such voluntary and involuntary . The article, as a summation of these studies, discusses the societal pressures to become a parent and the stigma that is seen in being a married couple without children. People who are childless by choice, as discussed in this article, prove that the desire to have children must not be innate. Were the urge innate, these people