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.

Just last week, I was talking with a friend about the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” syndrome. When you’re single and sitting at home, it’s easy to go, “I really wish I was in a relationship right now. Remember when I was in a relationship? Wow, that was really great!” Then, when you’re in a relationship, there’s a part of you that goes, “I miss the excitement of chasing different women and being able to do exactly what I want to do, when I wanted to do it like I could when I was single.” The same goes for a marriage. The same goes for kids. The same even goes for DOGS. My amazing dog passed away in September. Now, I have a puppy that I got from a shelter. She’s adorable. She also wakes me up early, demands attention, makes a big mess, and bounces off the walls because she’s so full of energy,

Would life be easier right now if she wasn’t around? Yes, but would I already miss her if she wasn’t around? Yes. Welcome to Life 101. There’s a lot of emotional push/pull in the whole process.

All this goes double for children and in a real sense, being able to have children is a core part of what makes women exceptional. Gavin McInnes of Vice/Proud Boys/Conservative Media fame talked about that with me in an interview that I did with him a while back:

You know how Iron Man has that glowing blue thing in his chest that keeps him alive? It’s a miraculous thing. It’s more than just an electronic device. It’s also biological. It’s an incredible thing. I’m not a superhero guy, by the way, I just think this is funny.

That’s sort of like this divine intervention that women have. They’ve been given this magical gift that allows them to give birth. So, a human comes out of them, and soon, it’s walking around, talking, making them laugh, hugging them, and when it’s 24, it’s having a glass of wine with them and talking about life. That thing that came out of you is having a glass of wine with you right now? And it bought you a sweater? What kind of magic wizard are you?

...It’s sort of like Superman if he was just Clark Kent. He’d be this bumbling, nerdy journalist, not really getting good scoops and getting abused by his editor and you’d go up to him and go, “Clark, you can fly so fast around the world that time goes backward. Why are you focusing on this Daily Planet crap?” It’s like a wizard if he just worked at a record store and didn’t do any spells. It’d be like, “Dude, you can turn people into a frog. Why are you selling vinyl?”

...So, I think feminism has told women a lie and the truth is 95% of women will be happier at home using their magical gift, their iron man superpower, and 5%, I don’t think should have kids. We’ve told them the reverse. 95% need to have a career and if they want to have kids, they need to have them at 45 or 50 when they need to have $20,000 to try to turn back the ovarian clock. That makes them miserable. It’s cruel. It’s cruel to make Clark Kent focus on his crapwork at the Daily Planet.

…It’s important to convey because when you’re seen as sexist, you’re seen as someone who disrespects women. No, I disrespect women who have been told they’re men. Like all these movies where, as Nick Di Paolo says, “My suspension of disbelief can’t handle Angelina Jolie kicking the crap out of 6 Green Berets anymore.” I’ve noticed this in bar fights. These women will put up their dukes and try to beat up the bouncer. I think they have been brainwashed by all of this crap. It’s like, “You are a sh*tty man.” So, feminism has gone from saying, “Women should have the right to work, and they should have the right to vote” and other reasonable things to now, “Women are men.” Women make sh*tty men. They’re not good at it. I’m sure a few lesbians are good mechanics but telling every woman that she has to replace a transmission is sexist.

The other funny thing about it, too is turning women into sluts where they’re just booty calls and they never get married and they never have kids…. they just get chewed up and spit out by all of these guys. Women in New York get used for booty calls. They get used on Tinder. They just get tossed away like human garbage and you think, “Congratulations. Your empowerment suits the worst men have to offer. It suits the most disgusting, lazy perverts around.” In my version of events, you’re happy, you’re married, you’re taken care of.

Back in my college years, I used to do Amway AKA Alticor. It’s not something I’d recommend, but in all fairness, I did learn some important lessons from it. Although I couldn’t find the exact text, I still remember something one of the biggest guys in the company, Bill Britt, said all these years later. Basically, he said:

“No matter how rich you get, you can only get a steak that’s so thick, a bed that’s so soft, and a car that’s so quiet.”

In other words, at a certain point, spending ever greater amounts of wealth will only produce increasingly marginal improvements in your life. This same principle applies to the pleasures of the moment. There are only so many video games, so many places to travel to, so many nice restaurants to eat at and so many nights you can spend out with the girls. It’s true that if you’re not encumbered with a partner or a child, you might be able to partake in a few more of those pleasures. However, will those fleeting joys of the moment make up for not having a love of your life or not having a child that depends on you and thinks you’re the most amazing person in the world? When you’re 80, will you be looking back as fondly at the extra hours you spent making sales calls in your “career” as you would at a grandchild asking what his mama was like when she was little? If you can’t have kids, you can’t have kids, but if you can and you CHOOSE not to have them because you want to put in more hours on your “career” or just don’t want the commitment, that seems like something you’re going to regret one day.

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