研究生课程theno-childfamily详解注释

研究生课程theno-childfamily详解注释
unit 4 The No-child Family: Going Against
Para 1
Cathy and Wayne N. are in their late 20?s, have been married five years, and are childless. The last time a member of Cathy?s family asked, “When are you going to start a family?” Her answer was “We?re a family!”
Para 2
Cathy and Wayne belong to a growing number of young married couples who are deciding not to have children. A recent survey showed that in the last five years the percentage of wives aged 25 to 29 who did not want children had almost doubled and among those 18 to 24 it had almost tripled. What lies behind 是…的原因this decision which seems to fly in the face of悍然不顾biology生物学and society?
Para 3
Perhaps the most publicly公然的outspoken直言不讳的childless couple are Ellen Peck, author of The Baby Trap, and her husband, William, an advertising executive who is president of the National Organization for Non-Parents. The Pecks insist neither they nor the organization is against parenthood亲子关系, just against the social pressures that push people into parenthood whether it is what they really want and need or not.
Para 4
“It?s a life-style choice,” Ellen says. “We chose freedom and spontaneity自发, privacy and leisure. It?s also a question of where you want to give your efforts –within your own family or in the larger community. This generation faces serious questions about the continuity of life on earth as well as its quality. Our
grandchildren may have to buy tickets to see the last redwoods 红杉or line up排队to get their oxygen ration配给量. There are men who complain about being caught in a traffic jam for hours on their way home to their five kids but can?t make the association联想、协会between the children and the traffic jam. In a world seriously threatened by the consequences后果of overpopulation we?re concerned with making life without children acceptabl e and respectable值得尊
敬的. Too many children are born as a result of cultural coercion强迫、压制. And the results show up in the statistics统计学on divorce and child-abuse虐待儿童.”
Para 5
Her husband adds, “Every friend, relative and business associate交往、同事is pressuring you to have kids …and find out what you?re missing.? T oo many people discover too late that what they were missing was something they were totally unsuited for.”
Para 6
And Ellen again: “From the first doll洋娃娃to soap operas 肥皂剧to cocktail鸡尾酒parties, the pressure is always there to be parents. But let?s take a look at the rate of parental failure. Perhaps parenthood should be regarded as a specialized occupation like being a doctor. Some people are good at it and they should have children; others aren?t, and they should feel they have other alternatives.”
Para 7
Professional observers agree that many people have children for the wrong reason, sometimes for no reason at all. Men often drift漂流into fatherhood without ever making a deliberate深思熟虑的choice. For many women pregnancy can be a way to
escape from unresolved未解决的conflicts矛盾、战斗, to achieve instant瞬间identity一致or strengthen a poor self image自我形象, to gratify使满足a need for the attention注意and affection感情、影响they feel they never had as children.
Para 8
I talked with a number of specialists in the field of human behavior about why many young married couples decide not to have children. Their reactions varied widely. A family therapist治疗师described the decision not to have children as “ a basic instinctual response to the world situation today,” implying意味、暗示that something like the herd成群instinct in animals was operating as a response to the dangers of overpopulation, crowding, pollution and nuclear war, causing women to feel a reluctance勉强、不情愿to reproduce繁殖and leading them to seek寻求new ways of realizing实现themselves outside of family life.
Para 9
More than one psychiatrist suggested that those who want to remain childless are narcissistic自恋的–making a virtue优点out of necessity by rationalizing合理化their inner conflicts矛盾about giving care vs. being taken care of. “These are people who can?t tolerate忍受the idea of caring for children, who have no margin利润of love to spare剩余them,” said one, adding, “You?re going
against something with 100,000 years of biology behind it.”
A colleague of his chimed in插话, “Well, we all rationalize our deficits不足、赤字, and these people probably shouldn?t have children whatever their real motives are, for the same reason there ought to be liberal abortion堕胎、流产laws. There should only be enthusiastic热情的parents in this world.”
Para 10
Psychologist Donald M. Kaplan believes that while some people have always opted选择not to have children, the increased frequency we are seeing is in those children of the nineteen-forties and fifties who were raised by parents whose character style had shifted移动、转变from what sociologist David Riesman called “inner-directed” to “other-directed缺乏主见的” and that these other-directed parents had two relevant相关的effects on their children. One was to give them a greater feeling of “narcissistic entitlement权利” – what one expects from life. The other was the loss of a sense of certainty. They are more open to self-doubt, he says, more preoccupied全神贯注with their bodies, their life-styles, less able to maintain stable attachments to others. The decision to have a baby, he thinks, is the kind of decision such people might be most likely to postpone延迟. It can?t be modified, can?t be undone. Baby boom what is done cannot be undone.
Para 11
“Many of these young adults are ambivalent about relinquishing放弃the role of the one who is cared for and taking on that of the one who does the caring,” says Dr. Kaplan.
Para 12
Dr. E. James Anthony is professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and co-author of “Parenthood, Its Psychology and Psychopathology.” In a recent conversation, Dr. Anthony said, “Many people I?ve talked to are very concerned about their own future and the future of children in this rather troubled world. In the past there was always a feeling implicit in the culture that parenthood was something very significant, attractive, enriching, creative. Now it seems to be
going by the board被遗忘. There seem to be so many other opportunities for women to express themselves creatively and family life requires them to give up so many things that the emphasis强调on family life as a good and creative thing, a way to contribute to the future of the world, doesn?t really ring a bell with many young people.
Para 13
“I think that part of what?s happening is that the ambivalence矛盾情绪of parents today is being passed on unconsciously无意识的to their children. Children are a great deal of trouble, and perhaps more so today than even before. They can be a pain in the neck. Their precocious development, adolescent acting-out, drug-taking, all loom隐约出现as problems. The young people feel, “If they don?t really want us, why should we want to have children? Then they rationalize this feeling in terms of the external questions like what the world has to offer. They ask questions like, “why add to the population explosion? Why create people who will have to face all the problems that are approaching in the next century?”
Para 14
“Despite their stated motives for not having children, the question arises whether young people really in fact lead richer lives today. I find that many college students today feel strangely empty. They live in a world full of stimuli of all sorts but lack a sense of inner satisfaction that may relate to these basic biologic things.” reproductions
Para 15
Whatever else they disagree on, the experts all seem to be saying that it?s not whether you have children or don?t that really m atters, what matters is that you are comfortable about what
you do. If you don?t have children and you have much inner conflict about it, you?ll be miserable in your childlessness; if you have children and regret it, you?ll be miserable and your children w ill be miserable too. The point seems to be to know yourself, to accept your deeper feelings and not to make such an important life decision because it?s the thing to do or to satisfy unrealistic fantasies, or to give your parents what they want or to escape from other responsibilities.
Para 16
Some people are afraid to admit their own feelings of the kind many of the childless couples interviewed could accept about themselves –what they called being “selfish.” They are ashamed to admit they would rather travel than bring up children. But what if that is what would make them happiest? Deeply held feelings are not easily changed and if you do not recognize what yours really are, you will not make the choices that are right for you.
Para 17
For many, if not most people, the joys欢乐of parenthood as well as its problems are what life is all about. To see one?s children grow and develop into individuals, and to see oneself continue on in them, can be the richest experience between one?s own birth and deat h. But there are also people for whom living a full life and realizing themselves take other routes路径. And we live in a time in which attitudes态度seem to be freeing upon a way which enables increasing numbers of men and women to question the way “everybody” lives if that is not the way that is right for them. The more people continue to ask themselves such questions as whether or not they really want to raise
a family before they begin to do so, the fewer unhappy parents and troubled children there will be.。