Feminist Says That Women Regret Having Kids

Do you really think you’re going to be happier without kids?

Thanks to the inimitable Matt Walsh, feminist psychologist Dr. Jessica Taylor got a lot of attention for this tweet. Maybe more than she wanted, although she does seem to be one of those types of people who loves nothing more than to claim that she’s a “victim,” so she’s probably loving the negative attention more than she’ll admit.

Dr. Jessica Taylor @DrJessTaylor

I wish there was more honesty in the world about how many women feel trapped by motherhood, marriage, and being an 24/7 slave to men and children, whilst the TV and magazines frame it as some sort of feminine ideal bliss. So many women regret it, but they can’t say a word.

Dr. Jessica Taylor @DrJessTaylor

It really is one of the biggest taboos in the world - women who regret having children or regret getting married (or both). The women who had big plans, big personalities and big ambitions, to find themselves trapped for decades, making themselves smaller and smaller

Since we live in a narcissistic age, undoubtedly there are some women (and yes, men) who are bemoaning the horror of some small bundle of need spoiling their good times. Ms. Taylor would probably disagree with phrasing it that way because judging by her Twitter feed, her mentality revolves around claiming that women are victims. So, in her mind, the child would be victimizing the woman by keeping her from having a successful career. Of course, that is refuted, at least to an extent by the number of wildly successful women with children. J. K. Rowling has sold more than 500 million books worldwide. She has 3 kids. Hillary Clinton, who has thus far been the only woman on the top of a presidential ticket in US history, has a child. Mary Barra has been the CEO of General Motors since 2014 and she has 2 kids.

That being said, if we’re being fair, we would have to acknowledge that having children makes it more difficult for a woman to have a successful career, but to be perfectly honest, the feminist overemphasis on careers has always been a little hard to understand. After all, there are few men (I feel like I am one of the exceptions) who genuinely enjoy what they do for a living. In my experience, most guys work to make enough to afford rent, beer, and video games, pay their family’s way, or impress women. The average male clerk or middle manager isn’t all jazzed up to have a “career.” What exactly is the exciting part about being a cog in the wheel of some mega-corporation or putting in 70-hour weeks to work your way up the ladder supposed to be? If anything, I’d think there would be a lot more women who shared Ann Coulter’s sentiments than Jessica Taylor’s:

Back in the prelapsarian fifties, women worked if they happened to fall into the .01 percent of the population who are able to have interesting jobs or they retired in their twenties to raise children and, incidentally, do what all serious people would like to do anyway — be a dilettante in many subjects. As far as I’m concerned this was a division of labor nothing short of perfect. Men worked and women didn’t. So, when our benefactors come under attack as “patriarchs” and “oppressors,” I realize, someone has to put in a kind word for the oppressors. For cocktails alone, I figure I owe the male population several thousand dollars. So, I will be the one to step forward and say: To the extent one gender is oppressing the other, it’s not women who should be complaining.