Why is parenting an "alternative lifestyle"?

i admit not reading that the forum was for discussing alternative ways of parenting, and hence the ignorant question.

 

I would argue that parenting is an "alternative lifestyle".

With contraceptives, people by and large choose to become parents, i.e. they 'choose' to be different by following a lifestyle that is different to the one they lived before. Parenting is shorthand for child rearing. Child rearing itself is a transient state -when the child grows up it no longer needs to be ‘reared’. This means that most people are only parents, (and by this I mean ‘child rearers’ as opposed to people who have simply reproduced), for a relatively short period.

For example, little Lucy’s lifetime is thus:



0-12 no child



12-18 adolescence, still no child.



18 -25 still no child.



26 – child 1



27 – child 2



29 – child 3



47 – no more children



80 – death



Assuming her children become independent adults by the time they reach 18years, Lucy will be a parent (i.e. child rearer), for only 21 years, making her only 47 years old when her last child becomes an adult. Assuming Lucy lives to 80, this means that Lucy has spent 58 years of her life NOT being a parent.

 

Independent at 18 years old? Good luck with that one!

 

Yeah, sorry, but parenting is LIFETIME venture.

 

yeah that

unless you are such a crappy parent, that the kids run away and never come back as soon as they graduate highschool...

 

Not usually. I've been a parent for 20 years. My youngest in only 6. That means eighteen MORE years before she is out of college. That would make my intense parenting experience 38 years, not 20 years. Also, many parents start LONG before 25. By 26 I had 2 kids, some parents have kids a lot younger than that.

All four of our kids still live with us, the oldest still have 2 or 3 years of undergraduate work before she gets her degree and can get a decent job. Assuming she doesn't get partnered for life and moves out (in which case, the college payments will be hers) we will still have HER until she is 22 or 23. Then, my youngest, Sage, won't be done with undergrad work until 2022 to 20204.(or a year or two earlier, if they skip grades with her, like they are supposed to.)


In this day and age, expecting all kids to be on their own at 18 is really not realistic.

How many kids do you have, fister, and how old are they?

 

Do agree, not sure I know anyone who was fully independant at 18. Perhaps that was fairly common in 'the olden days', but not now consider the trend for further education and rising house prices.
Obviously my fifty year old father doesn't need rearing but his parents are still involved in his life. Truly a lifelong commitment on their part.

Even if I was independant at 18, my brother is three years younger than me. So my parents would still child rear for twenty one years in total. More if we had additional siblings.

As a social trend having children is certainly the norm. The childfree by choice regularly met with bafflement and even contempt (not that they don't give as good as they get but still). Accidents happen of course, but even without that I think a lot of people end up having children out of social obligation or reasons other than a genuine calling for it.

 

that "parenting is a lifetime venture" thing nailed it.
Yeah, most of the people I went to high school with are in their 20's and still living with mom and dad. They have no intest in moving....and most of these people never even finished high school, let alone going to college.
That aside, once you're a parent, you're always a parent. You're always going to worry about your kids and want to help them as much as you can. The "job" never ends, it just changes.
Parenting in itself isn't an alternative lifestyle...most people today have kids...it's the way that the parents choose to raise them that's "alternative."