Mommy Madness Redux

[ciroccoj]

OK, well, this is probably going to piss some people off. Sorry, guys.

A few days ago I posted a link from snarkhunter's lj, to an article called Mommy Madness. And I said that I had a bunch of stuff to say about it. And then linaelyn posted a link to it, along with her own reaction to the article, much of which I agreed with - except that I thought the article was also saying many of the exact same things linaelyn was, and at the time, she didn't ;)

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the link to linaelyn's post (and the brouhaha intense discussion that exploded ensued following it ;)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/linaelyn/822756.html


First off: funny thing - medee6040 posted a comment to my earlier post, as "the token child-free person here" - but actually, looking at my flist, I see ::counting:: two parents (including one step-parent in that count); 20 non-parents (7 of whom have defined themselves as very much life-long childfree by choice - and most of the others are pretty sure they'll never want kids either); and 8 'don't know' (6 of which I'm almost 100% certain are non-parents and childfree). So I'd say it's more like I'm the token parent, in a sea of non-parents ;)

Here's the thing. I'm down with that childfreedom thang. I really, really am. I do not believe everybody - or even most people - should have children. I do not believe that a woman (or man, for that matter) has to have children in order to have a life/make a contribution to society/get good karma/have status. I believe too many people have children just because of peer societal pressure, even though, if they really thought about it, they would realize that children are not for them.

I do not believe childfree folks are selfish. I do not believe they all hate children. I believe many are singularly self-aware folks who have the courage to make an unpopular life-choice because they know themselves and know that they will be far, far happier not spending a huge chunk of their adult lives at the mercy of demanding, annoying, and exhausting little beings.

I also believe that having a kid is a huge responsibility, and that the bulk of that responsibility must be borne by the parents. They are the ones who brought this being to life; they are the ones who should take care of it and nurture it to adulthood. That means making sacrifices - eg, realizing that expensive trips, lots of free time, professional advancement, late night parties, an immaculate house, various hobbies – most of that will have to go the way of the dodo until the child is ready to leave the nest.

However.

I was a lot more adamant about all of the above before law school, and before lj. Through law school and lj I've gained a... more nuanced look at childfreedom, which has frankly left me speechless several times. I've seen virulent hatred of children. Burning resentment of parents and children. A concept of children as nothing but parasites, parents as nothing but freeloaders, dragging society down with no positive contribution whatsoever. Typical statements I've heard/seen in the last couple of years:

"Oh, so we're supposed to pay more taxes so some woman can have 'affordable child care' - why should we have to raise her brats? She's the one who had them! She can damn well pay for them herself!"

"Why the hell don't airlines just ban all kids under 5?"

"Would it be that difficult for the supermarkets to declare just a couple of hours of the day child-free?"

So... if you reproduce, you should be grateful to get any financial assistance, stay put, and do your grocery shopping at a time when your 'brats' won't cause anyone else five minutes of inconvenience by squalling. Because what you've done, in choosing to reproduce, is so unnecessary to humanity and so selfish that you should just go hide in a hole until your brats can no longer inconvenience society as a whole.

We don't need more people in this world - in fact, we need many, many less. And children are annoying, and take up space, and yell, and are rude, and it's hard sometimes to understand why any of the tax dollars and resources of non-parents should go towards helping to feed, educate, take care of, and cover for parents and their children.

But when I see this outright hatred, absolute dismissal of children and parents, blanket statements regarding the utter uselessness of parenting as an institution... well, damn.

We may not need as many children as we have on the planet, but the fact is, we do need some. It would be nice if we could just transfer millions of the poor of the Third World to North America and Europe, educate them to become doctors, nurses, factory workers, and small business owners, and all live happily ever after until some time in the distant future when it became actually necessary to replenish human stocks before we all died out. But we all know that's not going to happen. In the meantime, if we're going to continue as a society and as a species, somebody needs to bring up the next generation. Not just for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of those who despise them.

The fact is, some day, when you are old, somebody (actually, several somebodies) will have to take care of you. Now I've heard variations on the theme "You're having a kid, they'll take care of you, but nobody's going to take care of me. I'll have to do that all on my own. So why should my money go towards your brats, who are only gonna benefit you and not me?"

I'm sure there are people out there who have kids so that somebody will take care of them when they get old - after all, people have kids for all kinds of stupid reasons. But I personally don't know one single solitary parent who thinks of their child as a personal resource for the future. On the contrary, most of us worry about our old age because we're so bloody broke feeding our kids and paying for day care and contributing to education funds that there's nothing left to go into retirement funds for ourselves. And we do not expect our kids to support us - in fact, eventually ending up as a burden on our children is a nightmare for most parents I know. I know it was for my mother.

So someday we'll all be in nursing homes. Childfree folks may not have the comfort of knowing that if they become penniless, eventually their kids will take them on (an assumption that I would sure as hell not be willing to make) but they will have had (on average) more money to contribute to their own retirement. They will (on average) be at nicer nursing homes. Parents will (on average) be at crappier nursing homes. And both groups will be taken care of by doctors and nurses and orderlies, and partly subsidized by the rest of the taxpayers. Even though the non-parents did not raise one single solitary one of those doctors or nurses or taxpayers.

I commented in the discussion on linaelyn's lj, "... I don't think [childfree people] are selfish just because they will some day be elderly and will be taken care of by a generation of doctors and nurses and taxpayers that they did not help to raise. It would be nice if they didn't call me selfish for choosing to raise them."

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.

Sorry, guys. I try to be supportive of childfreedom, but frankly the hatred and disdain for parenting, and the anti-child attitude of society in general and law school/lj in particular, has left me feeling rather defensive on this topic.

Comments

[bear.livejournal.com]

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.

YES.

Also, by way of defending myself (and consequently, your classmates), please believe that some of us aren't out there trying to make your life difficult. We just don't *know*. I'm three weeks from twenty-six and have pretty much just gotten the hang of building a support system from absolutely nothing and have finally figured out how to balance school and the rest of my life in a way that is mentally healthy. I'm a full-time student. I don't have a husband. I don't have kids. Things about a parent's schedule *just* *don't* *occur* to me, not because I hate parents or think children are evil, but because I *don't* *know*.

Many of my friends are married, but only one or two have a child. I haven't gotten to the point in my life yet where I automatically know all of the parent scheduling stuff that is second nature to you by now, because I haven't really had to deal with it yet. It doesn't mean that I want to make my life difficult for my friends who have kids -- just that I have absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever. So yeah, some of your classmates *are* probably asshats, but while parents can remember what it was like not to have children, those of us without can't really grasp what it's like to *have* them and need to be reminded when the occasion arises.

(Um. That was a more-defensive-sounding-than-I-intended way of saying that if my attidute toward parents/parenting has ever made you uncomfortable, I apologize -- rest assured it comes from ignorance, not malice.)

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

please believe that some of us aren't out there trying to make your life difficult. We just don't *know*.
Oh, I believe it, for the most part, and have very little problem with this stuff when it only stems from ignorance. IMHO, ignorance and self-centredness is the birthright of every single member of the human family, and it has a long and glorious history that is truly inspiring to behold ;)

It doesn't bother me when things are scheduled/arranged a certain way because that's what fits the majority of people - which means, in law school, non-parents. What I do mind is when any kind of concession to parents is seen as catering to their every need - when the one of the only needs for change that is not acceptable is one that has to do with children.

EG: you have a group of four people, and you want to book a meeting. How about 10AM, says somebody. Three heads nod, one person says, "No way, man. I don't even get up before 11." OK, try again. How about 1PM? Sure, say three people - and one says "My soap's on then." (BTW, this is not made up example). OK... everyone has class until 6PM - how about 7PM? Three heads nod, one person says, "Um... I don't know if I can get a babysitter by then..." Not-so-discreet eye rolls accompany this, and "Well, that's the only time the rest of us can make it" is the response.

Multiply that by way too many eye rolls, way too many snide "She pulling the parent pity card again?" comments [about, BTW, a woman who had only missed class twice - in sharp contrast to most of our classmates, who regularly missed due to socially acceptable hangovers]... and it's a pattern not so much of ignorance as of callous dismissal.

That was a more-defensive-sounding-than-I-intended way of saying that if my attidute toward parents/parenting has ever made you uncomfortable, I apologize
Can't think of any examples, actually - I think just about everything parental that has annoyed you also annoys me ;)