I also believe that having a kid is a huge responsibility, and that the bulk of that responsibility must be borne by the parents.
My personal experience here puts you in the distinct minority. You are one of about three people with kids that I know who actually GETS IT. Because of people like you, I don’t make blanket statements about parents or kids. Unlike a lot of CFs, I don’t feel a need to express my anger by using a lot of creative, insulting names for parents and children. “Breeder” is about as far as it goes, but I hear parents calling breeders that as well. Besides, the whole ugly name calling thing is so fucking adolescent, and they give CFs a bad name. I’ve called more than a few on it. Most of the ill-mannered CFs are very young and have just discovered the whole concept – they’re suddenly in a place where it’s okay to express an unpopular opionion. They go overboard. Most of them mellow out and eventually realize that there are better ways to get our point across when it needs to be gotten across. The rest were assholes in the first place, they just happened to have not gotten knocked up.
There are ugly CFs out there. But we’re dwarfed in sheer number by rude, inadequate parents who expect us to kiss their asses on a daily basis. The kind of people who give all parents a bad name.
It would be really nice if parenting was not seen as something that either (a) everybody has to do whether they want to or not, or (b) the supremely selfish act of burdening society with totally unnecessary parasites. It would be really nice if parenting was seen as a valid life-choice, something that is of personal emotional benefit to parents and eventual social benefit to the rest of society, and we could respect each other's choices and not feel the need to tear each other down at every opportunity.
Being respected for what we are is what we want too. But the fact is that the culture on this continent is such that CF people are considered to be noncontributing drones. We just want our lives to mean as much as yours. I don’t mind my taxes paying for benefits to parents as long as there were equal benefits made available to me (parity in social services when needed, equal taxation, equal treatment in the workplace, for instance). I’d like some respect for having done a responsible thing with my life.
Part 2 of 2
My personal experience here puts you in the distinct minority. You are one of about three people with kids that I know who actually GETS IT. Because of people like you, I don’t make blanket statements about parents or kids. Unlike a lot of CFs, I don’t feel a need to express my anger by using a lot of creative, insulting names for parents and children. “Breeder” is about as far as it goes, but I hear parents calling breeders that as well. Besides, the whole ugly name calling thing is so fucking adolescent, and they give CFs a bad name. I’ve called more than a few on it. Most of the ill-mannered CFs are very young and have just discovered the whole concept – they’re suddenly in a place where it’s okay to express an unpopular opionion. They go overboard. Most of them mellow out and eventually realize that there are better ways to get our point across when it needs to be gotten across. The rest were assholes in the first place, they just happened to have not gotten knocked up.
There are ugly CFs out there. But we’re dwarfed in sheer number by rude, inadequate parents who expect us to kiss their asses on a daily basis. The kind of people who give all parents a bad name.
It would be really nice if parenting was not seen as something that either (a) everybody has to do whether they want to or not, or (b) the supremely selfish act of burdening society with totally unnecessary parasites. It would be really nice if parenting was seen as a valid life-choice, something that is of personal emotional benefit to parents and eventual social benefit to the rest of society, and we could respect each other's choices and not feel the need to tear each other down at every opportunity.
Being respected for what we are is what we want too. But the fact is that the culture on this continent is such that CF people are considered to be noncontributing drones. We just want our lives to mean as much as yours. I don’t mind my taxes paying for benefits to parents as long as there were equal benefits made available to me (parity in social services when needed, equal taxation, equal treatment in the workplace, for instance). I’d like some respect for having done a responsible thing with my life.
Same things, really.