只顧自己 他們爲什麼不要孩子

Chelsea Handler, the television host and best-selling author of “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands,” and Geoff Dyer, the critically acclaimed British writer whose 15 books include “Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D. H. Lawrence,” don’t have much in common on the surface, aside from both calling Los Angeles home. But neither has an interest in procreating.

電視節目主持人切爾茜·漢德勒(Chelsea Handler)出版過暢銷書《躺平人生：我那老是出槌的一夜情》（My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands）。廣受好評的英國作家傑夫·戴爾(Geoff Dyer)則出版過15本書，包括《一怒之下：與D·H·勞倫斯搏鬥》(Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D. H. Lawrence)。除了都把洛杉磯稱爲家鄉，倆人乍看上去似乎沒有太多共同之處。不過，他們都沒興趣生育子女。

“I definitely don’t want to have kids,” Ms. Handler, 40, said in a 2013 television interview. “I don’t think I’d be a great mother. I’m a great aunt or friend of a mother.”

“我肯定不要孩子，”2013年，40歲的漢德勒在電視採訪中說，“我覺得自己不會成爲一個好媽媽。我是孩子們的好阿姨，媽媽們的好朋友。”

Mr. Dyer, 56, contributed an essay to the anthology “Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids,” out last week (the title sardonically appropriates the traditional criticisms against childless couples).

上週，一本名爲《自私、膚淺、只顧自己：十六位作家談論不要孩子的決定》（Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids，文集標題諷刺性地借用人們對無子女夫婦的傳統批評）的文集出版，其中一篇來自56歲的戴爾。

In it, he related an episode a few years back in which gamboling children kept interrupting his tennis game in London as their mothers did nothing, much to his displeasure. The incident was “a clear demonstration that the rights of parents and their children to do whatever they please have priority over everyone else’s,” he wrote.

戴爾在文中提到幾年前的一件事，當時他在倫敦打網球，幾個玩鬧的孩子不斷打擾，孩子的媽媽們完全不加管束，這讓他非常不快。他寫道，這件事“清楚表明，父母和孩子比其他人更有隨心所欲的優先權”。

(The disruption of racket sports at the hands of youth seems to be a bête noire for Mr. Dyer. Two winters ago, I found myself playing table tennis with him in a Brooklyn establishment. Within 10 minutes, we were booted out for a child’s birthday party as dozens of children and their guardians swarmed the room. “The only thing I hate more than children,” he told me as we gathered our belongings, “are parents.”)

（小孩擾亂戴爾打球似乎是他最討厭的事。兩年前，我在布魯克林的一個體育館和他打乒乓球。剛打了不到十分鐘，幾十個孩子和他們的監護人擠滿房間，舉辦生日派對，我們被趕走了。我們收拾東西準備離開時，他對我說，“唯一一種比孩子更討厭的人就是父母。”）

Ms. Handler’s and Mr. Dyer’s desire to be childless — or child-free, as some prefer — syncs with nationwide shifts over the last several decades, and with a host of celebrities who have spoken publicly about their decisions, like George Clooney, Oprah and Ricky Gervais.

漢德勒和戴爾不要孩子（有些人更喜歡說成“無子女拖累”）的願望與過去幾十年美國全國的趨勢一致，一大堆名人公開表示不要孩子，比如喬治·克魯尼(George Clooney)、奧普拉(Oprah)和裏基·熱維斯(Ricky Gervais)。

The percentage of childless women ages 40 to 44 doubled from 1976 to 2006, when the figure stood at over one-fifth of women. Their ranks have increased enough that the first NotMom Summit will take place in Cleveland this October. (The numbers have tailed off slightly since 2006, to about 15 percent; some explanations may be more-flexible workplace cultures for women, advances in fertility treatments and increasing acceptance of unmarried women who conceive through sperm donors.)

從1976年到2006年，40歲至44歲無子女女性占人口中的比例增長了一倍，2006年的比例超過五分之一。今年10月，這個人數不斷增長的羣體將在克利夫蘭舉辦第一屆“非媽媽峯會”（從2006年起，這個比例略微減少，降至約15%，原因可能包括工作場所文化對女性更爲靈活；不孕治療技術改進；人們更能接受通過捐精懷孕的未婚女人）。

People’s reasons for not reproducing remain as varied as ever, encompassing the personal, political, financial, environmental or the anti-narcissistic, as in the case of John Warner, the author of the novel “The Funny Man,” who self-deprecatingly wrote in an email, “I’m not convinced my genes are anything to wish on anyone.”

人們不想生育的原因和從前一樣多種多樣，包括個人、政治、經濟和環境等因素以及反自戀。小說《有趣的人》(The Funny Man)的作者約翰·沃納(John Warner)就是最後這種情況。他在電子郵件中謙虛地說，“我不確信自己的基因是任何人想要的。”

But one particular strain may be resistance to the current atmosphere of overparenting and its attendant upper-middle-class signifiers.

不過，對目前過度養育風氣的抗拒，以及對與之相伴的中上層階級意味的反感，也帶來一種特別的壓力。

“If I had kids, I can’t see doing it in New York City,” said Kate Bolick, the author of the coming book “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own.” “Not just because I couldn’t afford it, but because I don’t like the idea of raising a child in this epicenter of class disparity and extreme wealth.”

“假如我有孩子，我覺得自己沒法在紐約市養活他們，”作家凱特·博利克(Kate Bolick)說。她即將出版新書《不婚女子：自己過活》(Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own)。“不只是因爲我負擔不起，而且因爲我不喜歡在這個等級分明、極度富有的地方養孩子。”

Meghan Daum, the editor of the anthology and a Los Angeles Times opinion columnist, said, “It’s undeniable that watching this culture play out — the helicopter parenting, the media fixation on baby bumps and celebrity childbearing and -rearing — is overwhelming, and it’s natural that people would react against it.”

這本文集的編輯、《洛杉磯時報》(Los Angeles Times)專欄作家梅根·多姆(Meghan Daum)說，“不可否認，看着這種文化愈演愈烈——隨時監護的家長，媒體對名人懷孕、產子、育子的過度關注——的確令人不安，人們對它產生抗拒心理也是自然的。”

“I can’t tell you how many baby showers I’ve been to where the woman who’s having the child has this moment of ‘Oh, my God, what have I signed up for?’ ” Ms. Daum said. “I think there are people in the book who may have made a different decision if they’d been living in a different moment.”

“我記不清有多少次在寶寶派對上聽到即將當媽媽的女人說：‘哦，天哪，我這是選擇了什麼？’”多姆說，“我覺得，這本書中肯定會有人認爲，如果他們換個生活的時代，就有可能做出不同的決定。”

Still, she cautioned against attributing too much of the recent surge in childlessness by choice to societal trends. “Not to have a child is a very personal, visceral decision,” she said. “Ultimately, it comes from within, not from Park Slope.”

不過，她告誡大家不要把最近主動選擇不要孩子現象的激增過多歸因於社會潮流。“決定不要孩子是非常個人的、發自內心的決定，”她說，“說到底，它取決於個人，而非公園坡（Park Slope，紐約布魯克林名人住宅區——譯註）的影響。”

A few contributors to her anthology do, nevertheless, chalk up some of their misgivings to Park Slope-ish fads that seem intent on creating a generation of Stepford moms.

不過，這本文集中的幾位作者也把某些擔憂歸因於公園坡的風氣，那裏似乎想造就一代“複製媽媽”（Stepford moms，此語來自電影《複製嬌妻》[The Stepford Wives]——譯註）。

Anna Holmes cataloged the “hoary ideas of womanhood” on display in her Brooklyn neighborhood, which has “overpriced boutiques filled with one-of-a-kind maternity clothes and hundred-dollar sets of receiving blankets made of ‘all-organic cotton.’ ”

安娜·霍姆斯(Anna Holmes)講述了她所在的布魯克林區展示出來的“關於女人特質的陳舊觀點”。她說，那個區有很多“過於昂貴的孕嬰精品店，裏面充滿孤品孕婦裝以及用‘純有機棉’做成的上百美元一套的嬰兒毯”。

Laura Kipnis wrote about her “profound dread of being conscripted into the community of other mothers — the sociality of the playground and day-care center, and at the endless activities and lessons that are de rigueur in today’s codes of upper-middle-class parenting.”

勞拉·基普尼斯(Laura Kipnis)寫道，她“特別害怕被拉入其他媽媽的團體，害怕遊樂場和日託中心的交際，以及那些沒完沒了的活動和課程——如今這些活動和課程是中上層階級養育子女的常規內容”。

Both descriptions reflect a few of the ways parenting (at least in this rarefied socioeconomic milieu) has evolved since the 1980s into a competitive and consumerist sport. Partly as a result of this overextension, the culture has begun representing parenting as a less-than-satisfying occupation.

她們的描述都反映出，自20世紀80年代以來，養育子女的某些方式（至少在這個特定的社會經濟環境中）已演變成競爭性的消費主義活動。這種文化的過度發展在某些方面導致養育子女變成了一種不太令人滿意的工作。

The news media periodically trot out articles about how parents are unhappier than their childless counterparts. The debatable postulation is often traced back to an influential 2004 study in which working mothers ranked child care the second-most-negative activity on a list of 16 (rated less negatively were commuting and housework).

新聞媒體偶爾高調拋出文章，聲稱有子女的人比無子女的人更不快樂。這個有爭議的論斷通常可以追溯到2004年一項有影響力的研究——在16項活動中，職業母親們把照顧孩子列爲第二個最不喜歡的活動（排在通勤和做家務之前）。

Child care, of course, is just one aspect of parenthood, albeit a significant part, and the mothers were polled on workdays, which likely increased their exhaustion and hostility toward their children. Yet other research followed that has, if not debunked claims of the misery of parenting, then at least made them more nuanced.

當然，照顧孩子只是爲人父母的一個方面——雖然它是很重要的一個方面——而且那項調查是在工作日進行的，母親們在工作日可能更疲憊，對孩子更有敵意。不過，之後的一些研究就算不能駁斥“養育子女很痛苦”這個觀點，也至少表明實際情況更復雜。

A study last year from the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business found that “parents’ happiness increases over time relative to non-parents.” Another 2014 paper, from the London School of Economics and the University of Western Ontario, determined that the first two children boost short-term happiness (which later returns to pre-birth levels), but not a third.

去年，聖克拉拉大學(Santa Clara University)利維商學院(Leavey School of Business)的一項研究發現，“隨着時間流逝，與無子女人士相比，爲人父母者的幸福感會慢慢增加”。去年，倫敦經濟學院(London School of Economics)和安大略西部大學(University of Western Ontario)的另一項研究表明，前兩個孩子能短暫增加幸福感（之後恢復到生孩子前的水平），但是第三個孩子不會產生這種效果。

So while the long-held opinion that having children is the key to a fulfilling life may, indeed, be true for most people, contemporary popular culture habitually indicates otherwise.

所以，雖然孩子是完滿人生的關鍵這一傳統觀點可能的確符合大部分人的情況，但是當今流行文化總體來說表明了相反的情況。

Novels like Jenny Offil’s “Dept. of Speculation,” Lionel Shriver’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (and the film version) and Elisa Albert’s “After Birth” all portray the ambivalence and agonies of motherhood; the runaway best-seller “Go the ____to Sleep” was a release valve for irritably fatigued parents; and a popular blog is a mocking backlash to “parent overshare on social networking sites.”

有很多小說描繪了做母親的矛盾和痛苦，比如珍妮·奧菲爾(Jenny Offil)的《猜測部》(Dept. of Speculation)、萊昂內爾·施賴弗(Lionel Shriver)的《凱文怎麼了》(We Need to Talk About Kevin，以及它的電影版)，以及埃莉莎·艾伯特(Elisa Albert)的《出生之後》(After Birth)。非常暢銷的圖書《快去睡覺》(Go the ____to Sleep)是暴躁疲憊父母的發泄口；還有個很受歡迎的博客，它嘲弄性地抵制“在社交網絡上過度分享孩子照片的父母”。

With a few exceptions like NBC’s “Parenthood,” a paean to the titular vocation’s rewards (but which also didn’t shy away from the challenges of child rearing), TV parents are routinely sleep-deprived, harried, anxious, confused, cash-strapped, sexually frustrated or divorced, a far cry from the days of the comfortable and comforting stewards on “Family Ties,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Father Knows Best.”

也有少數幾個例外——比如NBC頻道的《爲人父母》(Parenthood)，它稱頌爲人父母能帶來的回報（不過它也沒有迴避育兒的挑戰）——電視劇裏的父母們往往睡眠不足，飽受折磨，焦慮困惑，囊中羞澀，沒機會做愛或者已經離婚，與《親情紐帶》(Family Ties)、《脫線家族》(The Brady Bunch)和《父親最清楚》(Father Knows Best)中舒服欣慰的監護人們大相徑庭。

And the children in these offerings are repeatedly depicted as the bratty, tyrannical rulers of their enslaved progenitors. Perhaps this is one reason that Andrea Dickstein, 34, a director of e-business and marketing communications who lives on Long Island, doesn’t want children.

這些電視劇中的孩子都被描繪成放肆專橫、奴役父母的暴君。也許這是34歲的安德烈婭·迪克斯坦(Andrea Dickstein)不想要孩子的一個原因。她是一名電子商務和營銷傳播主管，住在長島。

“I think about having to attend or host children’s birthday parties, and it seems exhausting and unappealing,” she said. “Of course, the irony is I’m attending a colleague’s 2-year-old’s party this weekend. Maybe they’ll think I’m there to kidnap one.”

“我想，要是生了孩子，就必須參加或舉辦孩子生日派對，這些事很累人，也沒什麼意思，”她說，“當然，諷刺的是，這個週末我要去參加一個同事兩歲孩子的派對。也許他們會覺得我去那兒是想綁架一個孩子。”

In a previous time, that statement would have been spoken in a whisper to evade censure. Now it’s anything but heretical, a standard line for people who not only see how difficult raising children can be, but for the generation that came of age as divorce rates spiked in the 1970s and ’80s (and which have since settled down some) and may be less optimistic about the classic nuclear family. For those who aren’t part of a cohesive familial unit that can provide different means of support, it’s far more daunting — emotionally and monetarily — to start a new clan.

要是從前，這話只能悄悄說，以免遭到非難。如今，這話不再是異端邪說，而是有些人常說的話，他們不僅看到了養孩子的艱難，而且作爲在20世紀七八十年代離婚率激增時（之後離婚率下降了一些）成年的一代，他們對標準核心家庭不太樂觀。對那些不是在有凝聚力的家庭（這樣的家庭能提供各種支持）長大的人，組建一個新的小家庭會讓人畏懼得多——不管是從心理上和財力上。

Nonetheless, spouses without children are still frequently perceived as self-centered; the symbolic couple for this stereotype may be the Machiavellian Frank and Claire Underwood on “House of Cards,” for whom nothing gets in the way of political ambition.

不過，不要孩子的夫妻依然經常被認爲以自我爲中心。這種固有思維的典型代表可能是《紙牌屋》(House of Cards)中不擇手段的弗蘭克和克萊爾·安德伍德(Frank and Claire Underwood)——任何事情都不能妨礙他們的政治野心。

Frank’s marriage proposal included the romantic pledge that “I’m not going to give you a couple of kids. … I promise you freedom from that.” Claire’s Lady Macbeth has had three abortions, one during one of her husband’s campaigns, which she lied about, claiming the pregnancy was the product of a rape. (She’s also been less than nurturing about other women’s pregnancies.)

弗蘭克的求婚內容包括那句浪漫的誓言：“我不會讓你生幾個孩子……我保證你不會受孩子拖累。”麥克白夫人般的克萊爾流產過三次，其中一次是在丈夫競選期間，她撒謊說那次懷孕是強姦所致（她對其他孕婦也不是很關愛）。

A less toxic on-screen duo would be the 40-something Brooklyn couple played by Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts in Noah Baumbach’s new film, “While We’re Young.” Having suffered through a few miscarriages, and noticeably ill-at-ease around babies and children, they have decided, or at least claim, that they like their lives as they are, which is to say career-focused, responsibility-free and self-absorbed.

本·斯蒂勒(Ben Stiller)和娜奧米·沃茨(Naomi Watts)在諾亞·邦巴赫(Noah Baumbach)的新片《年輕時候》(While We’re Young)中飾演的一對40歲左右的布魯克林夫婦，他倆可能還不那麼惡毒。他們經歷過幾次流產，和嬰兒或孩子在一起顯然侷促不安，所以，他們決定安於目前的生活狀態——至少是聲稱如此——專注事業，沒有責任，以自我爲中心。

But “it’s the parents who are selfish,” said Mr. Dyer, pointing to families typically own larger cars and use up more resources. Regarding “any environmental consciousness, the needs of their family get ahead of everything else,” he said in an interview. “In terms of behaving in a civic way, I feel my behavior is always exemplary.”

不過，戴爾說，“真正自私的是那些做父母的”，他指出有孩子的家庭往往擁有更大的汽車，佔用更多資源。他在採訪中說，至於“環保意識，對於他們來說，自己家庭的需要高於其他一切”，“從文明行爲的角度看，我感覺自己的行爲一直堪稱典範”。

His assertion is backed up by some studies showing that childless adults volunteer more for their community. In addition, their interest in leaving behind a better world has nothing to do with their own genetic line but with humanity itself. (Ms. Daum said that after she decided not to have children, she believed she “had to compensate by volunteering, doing more work, being there more for my friends.”)

他的論斷得到了某些研究的支持。這些研究表明，無子女的成年人更多爲社區義務工作。另外，他們想留下一個更美好的世界不是爲了自己的後代，而是爲了全人類（多姆說，在她決定不要孩子後，她認爲自己“必須通過多做義工、多工作、多陪伴朋友來進行補償”）。

One could also make the economic case that, with their taxes, childless couples are selflessly subsidizing the education and well-being of other people’s children (who provide tax breaks for their parents). Conversely, it is these parents’ descendants who will be taking care of the childless adults — and keeping society operational — when they are elderly.

有人可能會說，從經濟角度講，無子女夫婦通過納稅無私地資助他人子女的教育和福利（父母們還可以享受稅收減免）。反過來，這些父母的子女將在無子女者年老之後照顧他們，維持社會運轉。

“The fact is, everybody is selfish,” Ms. Daum said. “It’s like saying, ‘You breathe.’ Parents and non-parents need to think of themselves as partners. Kids need all sorts of role models, and not have every adult they know be somebody’s parent. We need to reframe the conversation, otherwise it just becomes, ‘Who’s more selfish?’ ”

“實際上，每個人都是自私的，”多姆說，“這就像是說，‘你呼吸空氣了。’爲人父母者和無子女者需要視彼此爲搭檔。孩子需要各種各樣的榜樣，他們認識的所有成年人不必都是某個人的父母。我們需要重新組織對話，否則問題就變成了：‘誰更自私？’”

Related to questions of egotism are those of class and reservations about participating in bourgeois child rearing, let alone their inability to meet its expenses.

與自我中心問題相關的是階級問題，以及用中產階級方式養育子女的爭議，更別提入不敷出的問題。

Ms. Holmes’s essay touched upon “the creeping commodification of childhood in the form of must-have status symbols — baby carriages, sleeper clothing — and the economic inequalities and educational failures that find parents signing up their toddlers for placement in private elementary schools years in advance” as accounting “for some of the aversion I have for the demands of modern American parenthood.”

霍姆斯的文章提到“不斷髮展的童年商品化問題——很多東西變成社會地位的象徵，比如嬰兒推車和嬰兒睡袍——以及經濟不平等和教育失敗的問題，有些父母提前多年爲尚在學步的孩子預訂私立小學的位置”，這是“我厭惡現代美國養育子女要求”的原因之一。

“From the outside, parenting today seems so harried and overwhelmed with Disney and plastic junk,” said Ms. Bolick, the author of “Spinster.” “Or you can be really rich and buy handmade Swedish wooden toys and curate your child’s life.”

“從表面上看，如今，迪士尼樂園和塑料玩具等讓養育孩子變得痛苦，令人不知所措，”《不婚女子：自己過活》的作者博利克說，“或者，你非常富有，給孩子買瑞典手工製作的木頭玩具，策劃孩子的人生。”

She compared today’s modern accouterments of childhood with the simpler time of “when I grew up in the ’70s, when you sat a kid down with a bowl and a wooden spoon,” she said. (Pressed for clarification as to exactly which century her recreation with kitchenware occurred in, she maintained it was the 1970s, not the 1870s.)

她把如今孩子們的玩具與“自己70年代童年時的玩具”進行比較：在那個更純樸的年代，“給孩子一個碗和一個木勺，讓他們自己玩就行了”（當被要求說明到底她拿廚房用具玩耍是在哪個世紀時，她說是20世紀70年代，而不是19世紀70年代）。

Even some of the staunchest anti-reproduction advocates, though, concede that they may eventually second-guess their decision.

不過，甚至連有些堅決反對要孩子的人也承認，他們可能最終會質疑自己的決定。

“There are regrets, but my entire life is an ocean of regret, and that’s just one drop in it,” Mr. Dyer said. “I would probably, in my 60s, be ready to start having kids, as long as I was spared all the stuff about it that doesn’t appeal to me. By then I’d have lost interest in practically everything, so there’d be no opportunity cost involved.”

“會有遺憾，不過我的一生充滿遺憾，這只是滄海一粟，”戴爾說，“我很可能會在60多歲時準備好開始要孩子，只要我不用去做任何我不喜歡的事情就行。到那時，我會失去對任何事情的興趣，所以應該不會有機會成本。”

But to do that, he acknowledged, “I’d have to trade in my wife for a younger model,” before cheekily adding, “Younger — and also a model, I’d hope.”

不過他承認，要想那時候要孩子，“我必須把妻子換成一個年輕點的模特”，後來他又厚臉皮地補充說，“年輕點的——我希望是個模特”。

Mr. Dyer was recently awarded a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, which comes with $150,000. When it was suggested to him that, after taxes, the money could have been used for almost two years of top-tier college tuition, Mr. Dyer had a less scholastic plan for his winnings.

前不久，戴爾獲得了溫德姆-坎貝爾文學獎(Windham-Campbell Literature Prize)，獎金是15萬美元。有人對他說，扣完稅後，這些錢差不多足以支付頂級大學兩年的學費，不過戴爾對獎金的計劃與求學關係不大。

“Instead it’s bought 20 years of beer drinking,” he said.

“它夠我買20年啤酒，”他說。