Yeah, um, what she said

[ciroccoj]

Link courtesy of snarkhunter:

Mommy Madness.

Will probably post what I think about all of this tomorrow. Because thoughts have been buzzing around about this, and the child-raising village (or lack thereof), and childfreedom, and choices, and tolerance, and... lots of stuff. For quite a while. They just haven't known where to buzz to.


Edit: OK, whaddup with the mood bear? My problem with the blue glob, my previous mood dude, was that his default expression was Glum. Unless I actually said I was happy, he'd make thoughtful = thinking sad thoughts, tired = weeping with exhaustion, nostaligic = sadly pining for the fjords, busy = stressed out... even happy = wistfully contemplating this brief break in a deep depression.

Bear dude is the opposite. I'm "thoughtful". Not "thinking about candy". And a lot of the other neutral emotions also seem to lean towards blissed-out interpretations.

Can't we find some happy neutral medium?

Comments

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

View from the token childfree here:

Articles like this reassure me that I've done the right thing. No wonder so many people are realizing that they don't need this in their lives, and are opting out. As I'm one of the post-boom women the article describes, I remember being told that I could "have it all" - and sensing that it wasn't true. I was right. You can't. You can only really do one thing at a time and not lose your mind.

In our current culture, having kids is an expensive hobby, and realistically needs to be seen as such. We don't need more bodies on this planet, or more workers to harvest the crops. The only real reason people have children these days (where it's a choice) is simply because they want to.

I honest-to-God don't know how you do it. I know many, many people who have kids, but you also have a *life* and other interests, which makes you one in about 3 billion.

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

What really stood out for me in that article was how people are so obsessed with being the "perfect" parent, which seems to mean micro-managing every second of your child's life. IMHO, that's bullshit. I was most certainly not micro-managed, and I turned out fine.

(Also? What's up with people wanting to turn out hyper-gifted kids? Speaking as someone who survived growing up "gifted," I don't think I'd wish that on my children. This is not a society that rewards the exceptional. Blessed, as our dear Cirocco says, is the norm.)