Jezebel 
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New York, 11:06 PM
Sun Nov 22
20 posts in the last 24 hours
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05/28/09
05/28/09
I know a few couples who have no kids, and they're awesome friends. It just shouldn't matter. It's nobody's business.
05/28/09
Thanks, dears, feeling like my thoughts on myself are really respected.
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Which sure as hell beats doing what someone or society imposes because it's what you're supposed to do to be all 'fullfilled and complete" - which frankly makes me want to frickin punch someone. You don't know me - don't you DARE tell me what I should do to be a fully realized woman.
Fuck Tyra and her stupid insistence on keeping this shit going!
05/28/09
I'm a mother, and for a while I was a single mother. Nothing will change the joy I get from my daughter (honestly, nothing makes me happier than when I cook for my daughter and she says, "Can I have some more?"....It's like the best compliment ever), but I know a lot of wonderful women who don't want children and they are inspiring and beautiful and self-aware. The whole thing about running your own business and career....Enh, I don't buy it. The women I've met who chose not to have kids were honest about it---they never brought up their careers. I never pressured them to tell me, because it isn't my business. But all of them actually like children, and don't sound bitter about their choices.
Women who have children have to stop acting like they've done the noblest thing in the world. Please. I've known a lot of mothers who were monsters. I think we should just live and let live.
05/28/09
Why?
05/28/09
I agree with your statement that the women on the panel represent the worst of both sides. This girl on girl hating has to stop. These life choices are personal and must be respected. In other words, mind your business people!!!
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I don't know how to explain it to you, really. I know that my feelings about it don't fit any available cliche. I'm not the motherly type, but I believe, perhaps erroneously, that I'm a good person and can't go too terribly wrong with a child. I grew up in a large family and don't feel quite right at home without a lot of chaos (though I don't think we'll have as many kids as my parents did). I love him, but not in the same way as falling in love with a mate. I love him as part of my family. No idealization in it; I know better than anyone that he is fallible, but so are we all. I've never been one to idealize the notions of children. Otherwise, what's the point of growing up?
I do feel, in a very abstract way, that my life is better with him, that I am a better person because I have him, and that he gives shape and texture and meaning to my adulthood. But those things aren't true of everyone, and they are things about which one can make up one's mind, rather than things that come out organically. It's probably also not the same for people who were always sure they would have children. I'm afraid this all makes me sound rather cold and cerebral. The truth is that I'm emotional enough that if I didn't put a leash on it, I'd never get anything done. About children, at least, it's very easy for the fear of doing wrong to paralyze a person into doing nothing, not having them. Has that in common with skydiving, I expect. People will tell you you're foolish to take such a chance and they never do it, and people get up in the plane and can't bring themselves to jump. Once you do jump, there's no getting back in. And about thirty people a year kill themselves doing it. But most make it down safely in spite of themselves.
05/28/09
I think you know yourself and if you feel like you're 95% sure (which is probably more sure than most people are about almost anything!), you know.
05/28/09
05/28/09
Although everyone acts like we shouldn't judge each other, comments like "I'm so great because I don't want kids" and everyone who backs that up seem kind of insulting to the women on here that HAVE chosen that route.
And the phrase "breeder"? Can we seriously cut that shit out? I'm not a BREEDER. I'm a mother and there's nothing wrong with that.
Just as there is NOTHING wrong with someone NOT being one. I don't care either way. AT ALL. Do what you want with your life because it really doesn't affect mine.
We should all approach life that way (the reason I support gay marriage!) and stop the judging and comments that claim not to judge but sorta do.
Does that make sense? It's like the weight posts that claim to support women of all sizes but everyone is shouting out their dress size.
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I've PM'd with plenty of Jezemoms that feel the same way.
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05/28/09
You know, I think we should all just feel freakin' absolutely fortunate to live in places where we may actually HAVE choices about having/not having children. I just watched "China's Stolen Children" on HBO, and it broke my heart. These people can't even keep the children they had and want.
Yeah yeah, pro-choice/pro-life pro-parenthood/pro-singlehood debates will rage on endlessly. At least we are able to have the debates.
05/28/09
Breeders are considered to be those in society who thoughtlessly reproduce (usually multiple times) and then go on to do a piss poor parenting job. Their children come LAST on their priority list and they have the general air of not giving a fuck.
Parents however, are the people observed who put thoughtful consideration into how they raise their kids and are not a complete embarrassment to human procreation.
I have great respect for parents, it's breeders who receive my disdain. There is definitely a difference and I don't know any childfree person who paints everyone who has a kid with the same brush.
In general, Jezebel seems to have an awesome collection of parents from what I read here...
05/28/09
:/
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05/28/09
I just googled it, and caught this snipped from Forbes magazine's article directed at singletons: "You're a member of the only minority subject to officially sanctioned discrimination--call it singlism."
While I do understand where that sentiment is coming from, isn't that a maybe sorta belittling to those who actually suffer from racial, sexual, or economic discrimination in their daily lives? Do us privileged white kids get to choose our own oppression so we don't feel so left out? Le groan.
05/28/09
05/28/09
That being said, I'd totally agree that it's offensive to put the occasional harping and pity that I have to put up with a single, childless woman on a par with actual discrimination, which has an economic and physical impact.
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05/28/09
Point taken, but don't forget that black women, as the least-married group in the US, with something like 77% of black professional women single, suffer from singlism, too.
The singlism compounds the racism, sexism, classism, lookism that they suffer.
And treating anyone as inferior based on his or her marital status is simply wrong. Some people are single by choice; others by circumstance.
Here's a link to a book that's supposed to be good:
[www.belladepaulo.com]
05/28/09
(Also, to make clear any biases I may have, I'll mention that I'm a 29 year-old white mostly-straight female whose longest relationship lasted exactly one month, and who doesn't think she makes sense anymore because she's devoid of coffee.)
05/28/09
My mom would complain about how people with younger children would get a free pass on nights where her department absolutely had to get everything done that evening. For instance on Halloween, half the group would get up and leave to go home for trick-or-treating while the singles and older folks had to do their work for them.
Granted, it's not the end of the world, but I can see how this would rub people the wrong way.
05/28/09
We are having a seminar on work/life balance and in planning it I emphasized to those in charge that both male and female employees should lead the seminar, and at least one of the two should be childless so that work/life balance isn't presented as solely the province of mothers. I was ignored. They picked a mom and a man with a stay-at-home wife.
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05/28/09
This is why I seldom hang out with my mother and her friends. Oh, and the fact that they are giant Republican assholes.
05/28/09
05/28/09
I think having kids is sometimes the only thing you have in common with some people so they glom onto it and it's all they can talk about. I love my son like crazy but it's not particularly fascinating to talk about him and I don't presume anyone cares. He's nine months old. He's cute, he does some cute stuff - not a great topic of conversation.
05/28/09
I feel like I spent months trying to find anyone at all who would understand about the myriad pressures of motherhood, but not want to talk about kids all the time. I lived with him; I was and am desperate for a change of subject. It's been something nice about being in school and having my work. People there will talk about school or work. I feel normal again when I'm with them.
05/28/09
How far do you live from me, again? : )
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05/28/09
My other mom friends, who are very dear to me, live 1200 miles from me, and 1200 miles from each other. It's cruel! Nobody I'd rather have Starbucks at the playground with. You and I aren't far apart, though. I know people down that way.
05/28/09
Or you can... whatever. I have to go to a funeral today! My ex husband killed himself. I gotta take my kid to his damn funeral. But that's a totally different thread. I really hate TV sometimes.
05/28/09
*HUGS*
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05/28/09
i love kids! can't wait to have my own someday! proud aunt, too! yes, i know that i'll never know what it's like to have kids until i have my own (i add the italics because don't tell me you haven't heard that all your life), but parents going on and on about how having children changes their life - well NO FUCKING SHIT. OF COURSE it does. if it DIDN'T change your life, i'd be worried, but going on and on about it like you are the only person in the world who has ever experienced it is so self-congratulatory...people have been having babies since, um, the dawn of time.