(no subject)

[taerowyn]

This was going to be a comment sparked by the comments to this post from littledevi, but there were so many issues I wanted to address it would have been much too long.

First, I am currently of the childfree/childless mindest. I do not want kids, but I am not completely eliminating the possibility from my life. I've spent several years knowing I wanted to be A only to discover that in fact I want to be B. As I am not resolute in my opinion, it may be easily dismissed but .

I can understand wanting to have a childfree community, a gathering of people of the same mindset where things don't revolve around what little Tommy did/needs/wants/feels/ate/puked/peed/etc. A gathering of people who feel that life can be complete without the spouse, the white picket fence, the 2.4 kids. That's good. But as littledevi points out, these communities all revolve around children, not "my life without children," but rather "why children suck and how they infringed on my day today." If you want to be childfree to such an extent, then, as drfardook said If you don't like something and don't want to be a part of it, its not karmically wise to spend all your time and energy complaining about it. I realize that it's rather difficult to avoid children, but don't focus on them so much. It's like trying to annoy the jackhammer from the construction site down the street, difficult, but it can be done and life moves on.

I understand that children can be annoying, screaming in a public place, running around and generally being as obnoxious as is imaginable. In those cases, I don't get annoyed at the kids, I'm annoyed at the parents. I know some of the most amazing, polite, quiet, well-behaved children, and I also know what can only be considered spawns of, no, not Satan, but Carrot Top. Yes, they're that annoying. In either case, it's apparent to me that it's the parents doing. Either they've raised their children to understand limits and how to behave or they've given the kids everything they've ever wanted, never introduced the concept of "no" and inflict these little terrors on other people. Annoying? Hell yes. The kids fault? In my opinion no.

As for being so judgmental as to not want to have kids around you at all, I can't even begin to get my brain around that. Guess what, you were once a kid too. If I were to decide to be partnerfree, to never have a significant other, I wouldn't feel that I should never encounter a couple in public or that my friends should never bring their partners with them when I was going to be there as well.

I guess what I'm saying is if people are tired of being judged for wanting to be childfree, the last thing they need to do is bitch and complain and disparage those who have made the opposite decision. People who live in glass houses and all that.

Comments

[funkbunny.livejournal.com]

I completely agree - there are parents out there ruining their children by never saying no. In fact, I made a conscious decision before I had kids on what I didn't want to be as a parent (I've pretty much always wanted kids). It's much easier to avoid something you know you don't want than to aspire to an unattainable goal of model parenting.

I mean, really. i have kids, but other kids (for the most part) piss me off. Unless my kids get along with them and the parents have half a brain. Then we all get along swimmingly.

The responsibility to make sure your kid isn't a total ass rests squarely on the parent. End of story.

And I've never understood those people who b&m about kids all day and how they have a much better life without kiddies. I'm sure they do, because they would be too inconvenienced by their kids' needs if they ever had any. You are 100% right about you being a kid once too and someone put up with your punk ass. :)

right on. :)

[samjooky.livejournal.com]

I like Taerowyn's posts. Fun to discuss.

With that in mind ...

I think you are correct that a childfree group would be better off as a place where children are simply left out. Basically an "adults-only"-type gathering. Some groups (on the web, in rl, etc) seem to want to do this, but most of them do do seem to just revolve around "I hate kids so much! Look, here's one that really pissed me off today and I'm going to bitch."

I think there's good and bad there. It's bad for the reasons given in littledevi's comments, namely that they are corrupting the point of the group from being a place to do things / say things "childfree" to a place to bitch about kids.

At the same time, that's good because maybe these folks don't feel like there is any other place they can bitch about kids. At the very least, here is the one place they can go when they can say what they feel about children, however inflammatory it may be, and they know they won't have a group of parents screaming at them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, letting them get it off their chest.

The bad thing is that they concentrate on it too much.

Onto other points, I don't think the point that folks who don't want to be around kids should remember that they themselves were once kids is a very strong one. The argument can be made that, yes, they remember how they were when they were kids and don't want to be around kids like that.

Everyone had to be a kid at one time. Should they understand what it means to be a kid, then? Yes, definitely. Should they be berated for not wanting to be around kids anymore? No. It's just one more valid lifestyle choice.

Everything I said can pretty much go out the window when you start dealing with the rabidly anti-child, but that's the case with all extremists. They skew the sample.

Course, just to put forth my bias, I'm not really much of the child-bearing mindset. I have my own reasons, some private, some public. I just can't look into the future and see a time when I'd be able to give up the time, energy or money to raise new humans. Not to mention my feelings on the amount of overconsumption already present in the USA, and not needing another consumer to feed the beast.

But I'm not anti-child. I'm not around many very often, except for a couple 7 to 11 year olds and one 3 year old, and they're very well-behaved (mostly). I think when people state they're anti-child, they could probably say it better by saying they are "anti- bad parents".

Re:

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think the point that folks who don't want to be around kids should remember that they themselves were once kids is a very strong one. The argument can be made that, yes, they remember how they were when they were kids and don't want to be around kids like that.

I'm making it in the arguement that kids are something so fundamentally human how can you be against it. It's the same way I feel about people who are racist. It's another human being, just like you.

Being, I don't know, ageist?, seems even more ridiculous because not only is it another human being, but you are discriminating about something you once were. In a round about way you're saying that it would have been ok for people to feel that way about you at one point, and somehow I can't see someone saying "yeah, it's ok for you to hate me for something I am (not believe/think/feel, but have no control over AM)and cannot change." Kind of garbled there. I can't get the words to work right, but I hope you get my drift.

[samjooky.livejournal.com]

I see where you're coming from, and I think I was coming at it from an altogether different standpoint. Something about the statement:
"Because I was once a [insert anything here], I cannot have negative feelings towards anyone who now IS a [insert that same thing here]." just doesn't sit well with me. Personal preference I think is all this boils down to.

I mean, I automatically started filling in that statement with examples like "Because I was once a [republic/skinhead/student renter], I know how they [think/act/can't pay rent on time], but I am not allowed to have negative feelings towards anyone who now [thinks drilling in the ANWC is good/is a violent racist/can't remember to pay the rent for the house this month.", but that's probably just my contrarian nature ...

[lots42.livejournal.com]

How does having once been a kid have anything to do with wanting to avoid kids as a grownup?

It really makes no sense to me.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I think you might be a bit confused. Just because someone doesn't want kids out and about them all the time, does not mean they HATE kids. (yes, some people DO hate kids but as long as they aren't hurting them, it's fine with me).

I don't hate kids but I would gladly patronize businesses where kids were banned.

As you indicated, some can't control their kid mannerisms. And those mannerisms annoy me and I wish to be distanced from them.

P.S. Some organazations called 'Nokidding' (chapters across the country) hold kid-free events.

[funkbunny.livejournal.com]

even parents don't want to be around kids all the time. But it seems as though there are a plethora of people who don't mind calling *anyone* who has children a "breeder" and automatically considers the offspring to be unruly assholes who's sole purpose is to piss you off.

I can certainly understand how just because you were a kid once doens't mean you have to tolerate them when you are a grown-up. Tom has a good point - just because you paid rent late every month for 6 years doesn't mean you will pay rent late every month in 10 years. But, I think it's equally important to note that it's very possible *you* were some snot-nosed brat who whined in the grocery store and your parents didn't leave you on a street corner. There's a certain amount of "respect" that needs to be given ... maybe not "respect" but acknowledgement ... that kids arer simply that way. Just because you choose not to have kids doesn't mean you need to b&m about them.

In some ways it's like smoking. Lots of people choose to smoke. Many of them are considerate of others, but there are others who simply don't care who is around them or where they throw their butt. Should I create a community, a whole organization, around Why Smokers Suck Ass? No ... if I am a normal well-adjusted person I will simply accept that as the way things are and move on. There are more important things in life to get hung up about.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Some people can't help but be mal-adjusted, thank you very much.

If you don't care for the child-free forums, no one is forcing you to read them. Let the people there be.

[skunk237.livejournal.com]

i don't think the asc or the 'childfree' people would bitch about kids so much if the parents would actually parent.

i have heard, but never experienced this myself, that children of parents from Eastern Asia are never (or hardly ever) misbehaved. they say, they are quiet, polite, and generally pleasant to be around.

of course, if every child were like this, there would still be 'childfree' groups, but i would expect their numbers to be fewer, and they wouldn't just bitch about children. i think they would actually focus on the good aspects of their decision, just like littledevi was hoping for.

i think it's funny that we live in an age where you will hear the Ad Counsil filling our airwaves with tips on how to parent your children. why is parenting a natural instinct for every species except ours?

Re:

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

OK, to clarify this (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=littledevi&itemid=362241&thread=5155585) is the exchange that really got to me, especially this: I'd like to just ignore the breeders and all the laws they get passed, but I can't. I'd like to ignore their little vandals, but I can't. They have a nasty way of intruding on my life. There is so much negativity, stereotyping and hate in that statement that I find it very hard to stomach.

I think childfree communities are a good idea, but I am not a member of any because the good idea is not fufilling what I think it should be. I think it would be a positive place to discuss the childfree lifestyle, make childfree plans with those in your area etc. What I find is, as I stated in my original post, mass amounts of negativity and "how little Timmy pissed me off in the grocery store and ruined my day."

Childfree communities are usually started as a way to exchange childfree opinions without being judged by so-called breeders (and I won't get into how much that nickname riles me), but for the most part, the members just sit back and judge people who have kids.

Re:

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

why is parenting a natural instinct for every species except ours?

Probably several reasons. First, no other species has so long of a development period. We need our parents care longer.

But, I really don't think that's the real reason, because I think parenting was much easier earlier in our history. I think the problem now is that kids aren't just being raised by their parents. There's daycare providers and teachers and tutors and TV and the friends who the kid stays with til mom and dad get home and countless other people/things that have intruded on the parent/child relationship thus devaluing it and making it harder to raise kids.

This is, in fact, why I am currently of the childfree mindset. I do not feel willing to give up the time and energy needed to raise a child. I would want one parent home all the time when the kid is growing up. I don't want to give up my career and I can't know the mindset of whoever I end up having as a possible coparent. I refuse to do daycare or anything like that. I would want to raise my child not farm it out to somebody else. Since I'm not willing to make that sacrifice, I'm not willing to have kids.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

Just to be sure you understand, I have nothing against the idea of childfree communities. It's like cherlyn said (http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=littledevi&replyto=5166081) (I read [littledevi's] original question as "Where can I find the ones interested in the bigger picture?" not "How come they call themselves childfree if all they do is talk about kids all the time?")

Re:

[skunk237.livejournal.com]

i'm with you - completely!

my decision to be childfree for the first few years of our marriage is because, well, it's the first few years of our marriage, and i have seen too many children fucked in the head because their parents split up because they were irresponsible by having kids before they knew that the marriage would work out.

also, the world population is, i think, too overwhelming for our earth to sustain the status quo.

also, i am reluctant to provide the seed of a child that will have grandparents who will do everything within their power to make the child in their own image while only loving the child conditionally.

also, i am definitely not emotionally or finacially capable of being a father yet.

but i'm not ruling out having a child in the future. i AM ruling out having more than one (unless some cataclismic event wipes out the majority of humanity).

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

Probably several reasons. First, no other species has so long of a development period. We need our parents care longer.

I thought I read somewhere that dolphins actually had us beat on that, but I could be mistaken. Besides, that statistic was probably cancelled out by the nineties when you had irresponsible 30-year-olds moving back in with their folks (whew... just made it in under the wire).

But, I really don't think that's the real reason, because I think parenting was much easier earlier in our history. I think the problem now is that kids aren't just being raised by their parents. There's daycare providers and teachers and tutors and TV and the friends who the kid stays with til mom and dad get home and countless other people/things that have intruded on the parent/child relationship thus devaluing it and making it harder to raise kids

The thing is, kids are nurtured far longer now than they were a few hundred years ago. True, the sources are less likely to be two parents. BUT, children were treated as adults at a much younger age then, and exposed to the "adult world" by the time they were in the late single-digits or early teens. The concept of keeping kids in school, or even requiring them to be schooled at all (which, yes, for the most part is government-sponsored daycare that keeps the kid away from the family but does allow them to build their own social structures with their, er, "peers") is fairly new in the grand scheme of things. It's been required, what, since the early twentieth century? Plus, how many 8-year-olds did you have working in sweatshops since the start of the industrial revolution, and look how that number has decreased a wee bit... at least in this country... at least for those under legitimate scrutiny by the authorities. But anyway, whose to say that kids behave any worse or better than they do five hundred, one thousand, six thousand years ago?

There are good parents and there are bad parents. There always have been, and there always will be. As a civilization (American history for the last 500 years or so) we go through periods of overnurturing and undernurturing. We've just gotten out of the undernurturing period (IMHO) and are turning back towards overnurturing. The current crop of brats growing up will probably be more prized and treasured than say, the Gen Xers or the Lost Generation, and will probably be on par with the Silent or the Boomers. As to how the kids are raised, whether they will be taught to behave or be little brats, well, I think generally speaking, they will be more behaved as a whole. I've already seen it working at Paris, and heard from my elders, that those currently in their early years and teens are a bit politer and more well-behaved then those in there late twenties and thirties. Not to say that there aren't young obnoxious fucks or reserved, polite slackers, but I'm speaking in generalities.

-- Schwa ---

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers." - Socrates

[funkbunny.livejournal.com]

I don't read childfree forums because I have kids. Why would I want to listen to them bitch about it? I move on with my life, acknowledging that they are out there. I don't like it but you can't please everyone.

I wasn't specifically pointing a finger at you, it was "you" figurative.