Conventionalists.doc

Unit Four: The No-child Family: Going Against 100,000 Years of BiologyRita KramerIntroduction: With the development of a commercialized society, some people have decided to remain single, and more and more married couples have decided not to have any children. The reasons seem to be many-sided. One of reasons seemingly lies in the pressures of modern work and life. Conventionalists argue that generation faces serious questions about the continuity of life and as well as its quality, so it is selfish to stay childless after marriage, and that“ the no-child family fly in the face of biology and society.” We have also noticed that in a commercial society, many men drift into the parenthood. Do they have to make a virtue out of necessity to rear a child even when dont want to? 1) Cathy and Wayne N. are in their late 20s have been married five years, and are childless. The last time a member of Cathys family asked, “when are you going to start a family?” Her answer was We are a family!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 this decision which seems to fly in the face of biology and society?3) Perhaps the most public outspoken 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, just against the social pressures that push people into parenthood whether it is what they really want and need or not.4) Its a life-style choice, Ellen says. “We chose freedom and spontaneity, privacy and leisure. Its 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 and as well as its quality. Our grandchildren may have to buy tickets to see the last redwoods or line up to get their oxygen ration. There are men who complain about being caught in a traffic jam for hours on their home to their five kids but cant make the association between the children and the traffic jam. In a world seriously threatened by the consequences of overpopulation were concerned with making life without children acceptance and respectable. Too many children are born as a result of cultural coercion. And the results show up in the statistics on divorce and child-abuse. ”5) Her husband adds, “Every friend, relative and business associate is pressuring you to have kids and find what youre missing. Too many people discover too late that what they were missing was something they were totally unsuited for.”6) And Ellen again: “From the first doll to soap operas to cocktail parties, the pressure or always there to be parents. But lets 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; other arent, and they should feel they have other alternatives.”7) Professional observers agree that many people have children for the wrong reason, something for no reason at all. Men often drift into fatherhood without ever making a deliberate choice. For many women pregnancy can be a way to escape from unresolved conflicts, to achieve instant identity or strengthen a poor self-image, to gratify a need for the attention and affection they feel they never had as children.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 described the decision not to have children as “a basic instinctual response to the world situation today,” implying that something like the herd instinct in animals was operating as a response to the dangers of over-population, crowding, pollution and nuclear war, causing women to feel a reluctance to reproduce and leading them to seek new ways of realizing themselves outside of family life.9) More than one psychiatrist suggested that those who want to remain childless are narcissistic making a virtue out of necessity by rationalizing their inner conflict about giving care vs. being taken care of. “There are people who cant tolerate the idea of caring for children, who have no margin of love to spare them,” said one, adding, “Youre going against something with 100,000 years of biology behind it.” A colleague of his chimed in, “well, we all rationalize our deficits, and these people probably shouldnt have children whatever their real motives are, for the same reason there ought to be liberal abortion law. There should only be enthusiastic parents in this world.”10) Psychologist Donald M. Kaplan believes that while some people have always opted 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 from what sociologist David Risesman called “inner-directed” to “other-directed,” and that these other-directed parents had two relevant effects on their children. One was to give expects them a greater feeling of narcissistic entiltement from life. The other was the loss of a sense of certainty. They are more open to self-doubt, he says, more preoccupied with their bodies, their life-styles, less able to maintain stable attachment to others. The decision to have a baby, he thinks, is the kind of decision such people might be most likely to postpone. It cant be modified, cant be undone.11) “Many of these young adults are ambivalent about relinquishing the role of the one who is cared for and taking on that of the one who does the caring,” says Dr. Kaplan.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 Ive 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. 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 on family of the world, doesnt really ring a bell with many young people.” 13) “I think that part of whats happening is that the ambivalence of parents today is being passed on unconsciously to their children. Children are a great deal of trouble, and perhaps more so today than ever before. They can be a pain in the neck. Their precocious development, adolescent acting-out, drug-taking, all loom as problems. The young people feel, if they dont 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?”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 many relate to these basic biologic things.”15) Whatever else they disagree on, the experts all seem to be saying that its not whether you have children or dont that really matters, what matters is that you are comfortable about what you do. If you dont have children and you have much inner conflict about it, youll be miserable in your childlessness; if you have children and regret it, youll be miserable and your children will be miserable too. The point seems to be to know yourself, to accept your deeper feelings and not make such an important life decision because its the thing to do or to satisfy unrealistic fantasies, or to give your parents what they want or to escape from other responsibilities.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 changed and if you do not recognize what yours really are, you will not make the choices that are right for you.17) For many, of not most people, the joys of parenthood as well as its problems are what life is all about. To see ones children grow and develop into individuals, and to see oneself continue on in them, can be the richest experience between ones own birth and death. But there are also people for whom living in a time in which attitudes seem to be freeing up in a way which enables increasing numbers of men and women to question the way “everybody” lives if that is not the way 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.A. Translate the following English into Chinese.ASome observers suggest that perhaps what we are seeing is not a real change at all, that, like the sexual revolution, it is not really a revolution in behavior but in expression. | It may be, says one Connecticut psychoanalyst, that an identifiable group that has existed all along is simply coming out of the closet, like homosexuals. | The spirit of the time is to do your own thing and not hide it, and these people may reflect an increased frankness and openness rather than any real change. B In recent decades it has become clear that for a distinct minority of American women the traditional mother role in the seclusion of the home is no longer acceptable. | For many the family is of diminishing importance. The development of education for women has been a crucial factor in this change. | Today, over 80 percent of all women complete four years of high school as compared to only 35 percent in 1940. This is related to the fact that marriage now occurs a year later for the average woman. The proportion of women aged 20 to 24 who are single increased from 28 percent in 1960to 40 percent by the mid 1970s. Childbearing is being postponed so that, Compared to the 1960s, 10 percent fewer women bear their first child in the two years immediately following marriage, and childlessness are the basic changes that have taken place in womens roles in recent years.B Translate the following sentences into English.、 、 一些职业观察家认为，现在的年轻人不再对政治和事业感兴趣，他们越来越关注与他们自身关系更为密切的问题。(preoccupied with)、 、 、 一个妇女所获得的教育程度越高，就越有可能走出小家庭这个环境，到社会上去实现自我。(be likely to, realize oneself)、 、 、 就我而言，一些已婚夫妇作出选择不要小孩的真正原因是他们非常自恋，以至于他们没有多余的爱给别人。(start a family, lie behind, have no margin of, spare)、 、 、 这家公司甚至在未征求发明人同意的情况下，就将其一项注册过的新发明投放市场。这一行为违反了专利法。(go against)、 、 、 在一些国家的敦促下，联合国对该国施加压力，迫使其放弃研制和使用核武器。(pressure sb. to do)、 、 、 按照每个会员必须是无子女的这一规定，怀特先生及其太太只好退出Non-Parent协会，因为他们很快就要当父母了。(alternative, parenthood)、 、 、 他期望通过上演一部肥皂剧来揭示现实生活所固有的复杂性。(Implicit)、 、 、 几乎在每个国家，嗜用麻醉品、酗酒和摧残儿童都有变为最令人深思的社会问题的趋势。(loom as)、 、 、 在接受采访时，这些老年人合理地解释了为什么会对当今青年人产生矛盾心理的原因。(be ambivalent about, rationalize)、 、 、 不少大学生更关心怎样在毕业后谋得一份报酬优厚的工作，怎样在这个充满竞争的社会里迅速得到提升(be concerned with)Stylistic Comprehension of the text:1. 1. Stylistically, the text can be divided into three parts. Can you identify the paragraphs for each part?Part One is from paragraph _ to paragraph _.Part two is from paragraph _ to paragraph _.Part three is from paragraph _ to paragraph _.2. 2. The outspoken couple William Peck and Ellen Peck bring forward five reasons for deciding to remain childless. Can you find them Out?A._B. _C. _D._E._3. According to a professor of child psychiatry, there are three reasons why many young people are not so interested in family life as their parents. Can you find out the reasons?A._B. _C. _1. go against 违反= be contrary to, oppose | The title means that the no-child family is opposing sth, which has a history of 100,000 years of biological reproduction. E.g.: He went against my wish when he said that. | go against 不利于: I should warn you that if the case goes against you, you might find yourself in prison.2. drift into the parenthood = become parent without realizing it. drift into = go from one situation or condition to another without realizing it.不知不觉地成为 e.g.: I didnt want to be a teacher, I sort of (真有点）drift into it. | c.f.: drift in = (people) move casually or aimlessly e.g.: She finally drifted in two hours after everyone else. 在大家都到齐后两小时，她终于姗姗而来。| -hood is a suffix meaning which is often combined with an adjective or a noun to form a new noun meaning 1) state or condition of, such as childhood, fatherhood, falsehood; 2) group of, such as priesthood(s) （全体）教士，牧师，神职人员3. make a virtue out of necessity = do willingly or freely what must be done anyway e.g.: Being short of money, I make a virtue out of necessity and gave up smoking. 由于缺钱，我也乐得把烟戒了。4. start a family = have a child5. triple vi. = three times e.g.: Output has tripled. | adj. having three part e.g.: The plan has a triple purpose = The plan has three purposes | c.f.: double = two times 6. lie behind = be the cause of e.g.: What lies behind the old mans determination to learn English? / Their parents are trying to find out what lies behind the childs telling lies again. / Greed lay behind his desire for power. | lie behind 曾经发生，成为过去 e.g.: Some difficulties lie behind us, but greater one lie ahead. / Behind lay a terrible winter, ahead was a promised spring. 7. fly in the face of = also fly in the teeth of 悍然不顾 = go against; be opposite to what most people would expect e.g.: You are flying in the face of the law. / You cant fly in the face of good business rules and expect to be successful. | c.f.: fly in the face of discretion 轻举妄动 e.g.: Any one who is tempted to fly in the face of discretion had better think twice. 8 outspoken = expressing their opinions more openly and honestly 9 spontaneity n. U = spontanuousness | spontaneous adj. 10 ration C n. 定量 e.g.: the monthly grain ration / ration book, ration card | 按定量配给 v. ration sth to sb e.g.: People were rationed to one egg a week at that time. 11 make the association between . = see the relationship between.12 overpopulation Pay attention to the prefix over-: 1) combined with nouns forming nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, meaning above, outside, across, such as overcoat, overhang, overhead etc. 2) used widely with verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs meaning excess, too much, such as overeat, overestimate, overtime, over-aggressively, etc. 13 coercion = pressure; In the text, the cultural coercion refers to socially accepted ideas, beliefs, and customs that married people should have children | coerce vt. sb into sth / doing sth | coercive adj. e.g.: a method14 child-abuse U cruel or violent treatment of child whom you are responsible for | abuse n. = 1) wrong or bad use of sth, e.g.: an abuse of trust 辜负了别人的信任/ abuse of privilege 2) unjust or corrupt practice 恶习 e.g.: Put a stop to political abuses 煞住政治上的不正之风 | abuse v. 1) make bad or wrong use of (sth) 滥用: abuse ones authority 2）treat badly e.g.: an abused wife15. associate n. = partner, colleague, companion e.g.: She is my business associate. / They are associates in crimes. 他们是共犯 / associate member 准会员16. parental = of, relating to a parent or both parents | c.f.: paternal = of, relating to father | maternal = of, relating to mother | fraternal17 alternative n. C = choice of two or more possibilities. e.g.: You have the alternative of marrying or remaining a bachelor.18 drift into fatherhood (refer to Note 2) 19 deliberate adj. = 1) slow and careful 慎重的 e.g.: She has a slow, deliberate way of talking. 2) done on purpose e.g.: a deliberate insult, lie, act. etc. | deliberate vt. deliberate + (that clause) / on/about sth e.g.: We had no time to deliberate on the problem. 20. pregnancy = the condition of having an unborn baby growing in the uterus | pregnant e.g.: She was six month pregnant = She has been pregnant for six months.21. gratify vt. (formal) = satisfy | be gratified with/ at / by sth. e.g.: I was most gratified at the outcome of the meeting. | gratification n. 22. instinctual （常用instinctive）= inborn, inherit, 本能的 23. the herd instinct n. = the animal instinct | instinct n. = the inborn nature e.g.: Birds learn to fly by instinct. 24. narcissistic adj. = exclusively interested in ones own self; s