Review and Ad that Shows Parenthood Sucks

I was reading an article by childfree psychologist Ellen Walker yesterday, Are There Disadvantages to Being Childfree?

I've read some of her other articles and liked them, but I did not care for this one at all. She lists 5 possible disadvantages to being childfree:

Being a misfit among ones peers

Increased need for social support

Needing to plan one's estate more carefully

Too much free time

Need to identify meaning in life

...and I disagree with them all. I'll review each one in brief detail, but first I want to share the inadvertent irony I noticed. It wasn't till after reading the article that I paid attention to the advertisement on the right hand side:

Hmmm... if it's a disadvantage to not experience my daughter turning to drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate, sign me up! It's ads like these that reveal that parenting truly sucks.

Back to Walker's list of disadvantages to being childfree:

Being a misfit among ones peers. This just does not resonate with me at all. I care very little what other people think about my choices. It would be a waste of my life to worry about that. But if I did, I suppose I could make an effort to surround myself with peers who also do not have children, but I just don't care that much. If they treated me poorly that would be different, but as a rule I am not friends with people who are judgmental snobs, parents or not. Like Walker, I usually have very little in common with stay at home mothers, and struggle to even make interesting conversation. I usually find them to be very boring, uninspiring people. But feeling like a misfit? Hell no. Different, sure. It's different in a good way, though; I have more time, money, sleep, energy, and creativity than my parented peers. My life is so much better that theirs (in my opinion), and I enjoy the choice I made.

Increased need for social support. She has a point here, but I see no social support that cannot be gotten from friends or paid assistants. In fact, I think it's really wrong to expect my children to be built-in helpers when I am sick, injured or old. Children aren't a guaranteed safety net. I think that due to the fact that I will have more time, money and energy to take care of myself, in general I will need less social support anyway. And I would never trade my life for parenting as insurance for bad days.

Needing to plan one's estate more carefully. Ehhhh...not so much. I don't need to plan it more carefully, I just need to plan it differently. Instead of giving my assets to my children, they will be left to my spouse, nieces and nephews, friends or charity. I'll have thousands more to leave them. This is really a non-issue.

Too much free time. What?! This makes no sense! How is that a disadvantage? My free time is spent working, getting enough sleep, traveling, learning, reading and enjoying life. I could never possibly run out of things to do. Walker even says,

When interviewing adults without kids for my book, I expected to find that people were bored with too much time on their hands, but this was simply not the case. These childfree adults were busy with hobbies, careers, and personal relationships, plus they had more time for healthy meal preparation, exercise, and sleep.

Bored? No way! I have no patience for people who are bored, whether they have kids or not. If you're bored, it means you have no imagination, no desire to learn and explore, and you need to change your life. If you're bored, you are letting yourself be a victim and I have no respect for that way of life. If you're bored, get off your ass and do something, learn something, make something happen.

Need to identify meaning in life. Oh, please. Walker is right in the sense that we all need to understand who we want to be as people and to know what we want from life. But I take offense at the suggestion that if you're not a parent, you have to work really hard to fill in the gaps and find a way to define yourself. For the childfree, there is nothing missing and there are no gaps. We make our own meaning in life, and obviously we place a higher value on titles other than Mother and Father!

*sigh* I was disappointed by this article. I agree that there are differences and consequences to choosing to be childfree, but this article makes me have the sense that Walker feels like some things are missing from her life. All of her disadvantages I see as either positives, or neutrals with better alternatives out there.

--BadSec

Shit My Kids Ruin

I was a kid once. I've ruined a few irreplaceable family portraits and tubes of lipstick in my time. If only I knew the power of devastation that lay at my fingertips if I just tried a little harder. I salute these Satanic children for ruining far more than I ever did:

Shit My Kids Ruined. Photographic reality of day-to-day parenting (that you never see in the movies).

I have several friends who are pregnant or planning on being pregnant soon. They all idolize parenting and children, and have lengthy discussions on how they will do such fabulous jobs of parenting their children. They'll never be angry, they'll never miss a soccer game, and they would never, ever leave their child unattended. (That woman whose toddler died because she got up from her nap, took her mother's car keys, and locked herself in the car during the summer while her mother was sleeping--shame on that woman for ever taking a break!) Oh no. Those people who complain of their DVD players being ruined or walls crayoned, why, they're just poor disciplinarians who don't keep an eye on their children.

I just laugh, because in this regard, my friends are idiots. Their children will hurt themselves, and they will destroy things. Many things.

Prepare to have crayons, paint, shaving cream, peanut butter, sodas and candy smeared into your chairs, cars, carpets, computers and walls. Hope you didn't care too much about that TV, or laptop, or couch--oh, and sorry about your car. Get used to pee, poo and vomit on pretty much everything, and set aside many hours a week to clean and repair. Oh, it's all so worth it.

Yeahhhhhhh, think I'll pass. My home and my vehicles are a safe haven of calm and order, and I prefer my life that way.

--BadSec

Why I Don't Hate (or Eat) Children

After my last post, I want to show a softer side to my coldhearted bitchness. I've got a lot going against me, you know. Atheists are rumored to eat babies, and childfree people are rumored to hate children and sometimes snack on them. As a childfree atheist, I need to succumb to my sinful, infantile tastes and eat a damn baby already. But I won't, and I'll explain why.

There's a rant in the childfree community about childfree people inserting the disclaimer that "I like kids" for no other reason than to make them seem like more likable people to the outside community. While I agree that it is unnecessary and dishonest to try to placate someone with an untruth, I actually do mean it when I say, "I like kids, but they're not for me."

My decision to be childfree is mostly to do with the negatives that parenting responsibilities entail, not with the kids themselves so much. True, I don't like bratty or spoiled children--but who is to blame there? The parents. It is the knowledge of what a never-ending, enormous responsibility parenting is. If I had children, I would throw my everything into parenting. I would do the best job that I could possibly do, and I would go out of my way to do it. I would kill myself working so hard, because I understand how extraordinarily valuable a happy, healthy human being is. Many people have told me what a good mother I would be, and I agree. I take it as a compliment, because the people who have said it say it to me in a you-are-so-put-together-and-happy-you-would-be-great-at-teaching-others-how-to-be-so kind of way. I do think I would be good at it. I would be a great mother, but I would be a very sad, stressed, depressed person, and the cost of it is not worth it to me.

I value children for two main reasons: they have practically unlimited potential, and they are usually completely innocent beings. Sure, they are annoying and messy most of the time, but they're very morally innocent. I really enjoy this innocence. It's such an obscene, horrible world sometimes. The innocence and potential that children have is critical, because children inevitably become adults. Adults have power to do good things and bad things, and to help or hurt a lot of people, especially themselves. If children were raised to be responsible, compassionate, critical thinkers, imagine how much better the world could be when they become adults! Instead, most of them are raised with harmful dogma, thought control, contempt and distrust for "outsiders", and a great lack of coping and communication skills for real life. For the most part, children are fed and clothed but not truly educated.

I am protective over children because they have very little power to educate themselves and better their circumstances (although their power increases as they age) if they are in the care of bad parents. They didn't get to choose their parents or guardians, and as it stands, there are no "parenting licenses" or any kind of standards for parental fitness before people become parents. I'm not necessarily saying that there should be laws or regulations--this is another post, and a very sticky subject. For now, I'm simply making the observation that children are born helpless and at the mercy of whatever kind of parents, good or bad, they happen to get. When I see or hear of children being abused or neglected, it makes me incredibly angry. There are few things that revolt me more.

I like children (most of the time) because they are cute, funny, and I love seeing them learn things. Certain age groups appeal to me more than others. I love me some babies. But I don't like the toddler stage at all. They're cool again when they're about 5 because they're not so high maintenance and you can have conversations and stuff. But the 10-18 year range is a total gamble. So many kids that age are complete jerks. A lot aren't. I was a sweet teenager (really!) and didn't give any trouble, but some of my peers.... whew! looking back, I don't know how their parents didn't push them off a cliff.

I would make a good mother. But the cost is too high. However, I have a desire to help children reach their full potential, and to help fill in some of the gaps in their upbringing, which is why I am interested in volunteering.

But for those atheists and childfree who thinks babies are mighty tasty, here is a helpful recipe:



"Peel an onion and shove it right up its ass. This will enhance the flavor, and will add a rick, dark color to the juices for your Christian baby gravy."

--BadSec