Note: Do not read the post or watch the video below if it’s going to make you foam at the mouth and complain about how much you hate these shows. If you hate them, you are free click away from this page now.

Have I mentioned my husband’s penchant for judge shows? Let’s not even speak of some of his other television addictions – I’d be mortified to say. Then again, I’m the only person under 73 who watches PBS (a lot), so there is no accounting for my taste, either. Anyway, one day last week I happened to be in the room while my better half was watching Divorce Court. I was doing my best to tune it out when I heard Judge Lynn Toler say:

Quit having children with people you’re not married to!

And I yelled at the television screen, “Better yet, don’t start!”

That was the day I became a fan of Divorce Court and Judge Toler. I have some relatives I would like to sic her on! Both mine and my husband’s families are rapidly degenerating with every generation. You know how families used to be upwardly mobile? Not either of ours. Our families are both snuggly settled into handbaskets taking nosedives straight to hell and there isn’t much we can do about it other than pop some popcorn and settle in to watch.

I happened to be lounging around one day last week, procrastinating on a deadline, when someone on twitter announced that an obnoxious woman on Divorce Court was saying “there is no such thing as not wanting kids.” This sounded interesting to me, and luckily, Divorce Court airs in a later time slot in my area, so I grabbed my remote and set the episode to record. (I’m a quick draw with the remote.) I was dying to see what Judge Lynn Toler had to say about THAT, and I was greatly rewarded.

Here’s the highlights of the episode from last week. If you don’t have the stomach to watch it, that’s okay, I’m going to transcribe most of the episode for you anyway.

So! Recap of this show: The woman escaped from the North Pole where she’s normally busily making toys this time of year (I guess) and wants this guy to help her pass on her elfin-eared genes. He’s been up front all along that he’s childfree, but she’s “changed her mind” (or rather, she stayed with him for several years hoping HE would change HIS mind) and now is a baby-rabid ticking time bomb. Thus, he rightfully doesn’t feel he can trust her any longer.

Here is a brief transcript highlighting the more interesting parts of the case:

Elfin-Eared Leah: I’ve been with this man for five years. I’m ready to move forward and create a union in our relationship and have a child. I was young when we met, we didn’t want children then, but I’m almost thirty, my clock is ticking, and I’m ready to have a child. That request for me has caused a major ripple in our relationship.

Childfree Chris: She changed her mind, your honor.

Elfin-Eared Leah: For example, I caught him counting my birth control pills! He thinks I’m trying to trick him into having a child.

Childfree Chris: You pulled the goalie!

Elfin-Eared Leah: Oh shut up!

Judge Lynn Toler: She pulled a what?

Childfree Chris: She stopped taking the birth control pills!

Elfin-Eared Leah: I did not!

Judge Lynn Toler: Gotcha. I never heard that before but I like it. Ms. Harshaw, did you know he never wanted to have children?

Elfin-Eared Leah: At the time, yes, but… five years is a long time and things change!

Judge Lynn Toler: Mr. Taylor, tell me what is your take on this situation.

Childfree Chris: Your honor, she knew when we first got together that I didn’t care to have children. Not everybody on this planet has to breed! She was cool with that, but now she’s changing her story to the point where yea, I’m counting her pills.

Elfin-Eared Leah: He thinks I’m trying to trick him with the condoms, too. That’s crazy!

Is it? Doesn’t sound too crazy to me. More importantly, the type of person who would be planning to sabotage birth control would be the very kind of person who would insist suspecting them of doing it is “crazy.” You know, because they ARE crazy.

It comes out that Childfree Chris is 39, and Elfin-Eared Leah is 24. (Which she thinks is almost thirty. Counting is not her forte.)

Childfree Chris: I love kids and they love me, but I also love it when they go home at the end of the day. I travel a lot for work as well, so…

Judge Lynn Toler: So fatherhood is not for you.

Childfree Chris: Exactly.

Judge Lynn Toler: Which is a legitimate point of view, don’t you think?

Elfin-Eared Leah: (whiney) But you should see him, though, with his friends’ kids! He would be an amazing father! If I didn’t think that I would not be pushing this issue, trust me!

Which highlights the Childfree Catch-22. If we try to be nice to kids and play with them, people insist we’ll make such great parents and nag us incessantly to have kids of our own. On the other hand, if we don’t want to be around kids, then we are horrible people and they’ll start telling everyone that we’re “evil child haters” and a danger to society. We just can’t avoid harassment no matter what we do!

The next segment of the show wasn’t about childfreedom, but highlighted how ridiculous and immature this woman is. Elfin-Eared Leah whined that Childfree Chris was too neat and did all the housework. You know, because she seems to think that’s a character flaw. Does she have any idea how many women would LOVE to have a neat and tidy husband? Clearly she does not.

Additionally, we find out that Elfin-Eared Leah she wants to spend money all the time, wants the finer things in life, wants to look good and flirt with other men. Um, then why the hell does she want kids? Aren’t all those things the EXACT OPPOSITE of having kids? Get a clue!

Judge Lynn Toler: Ms. Harshaw, I gotta tell you. You are like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Elfin-Eared Leah: *sulks*

Oh, good. For a moment there I was afraid I was the only one thinking that.

Judge Lynn Toler: I wish more people would have the wisdom and the common sense to know that they’re not a person that needs to have children.

**Audience claps, Elfin-Eared Leah continues to sulk**

Judge Lynn Toler: I have people who come in here who are not ready, who don’t want ‘em, have never thought about them, and are not good parent material procreating.

Oh, I’m sorry. I guess she has already met my relatives. Good. Saves me the trouble of arranging the introductions.

Judge Lynn Toler: Both of you have to be 100% on that page or you can’t turn it. That’s just the way it is. Children are a commitment, an obligation and a job. You don’t have children to prove you love somebody. You have children because you are ready to sacrifice and I mean sacrifice. Your time, your money, your sanity; you gotta be ready to lose it all for those people. And he’s saying he’s not willing to do that, and THANK YOU for not bringing children into the world that you are not ready to do that for!

You know, when a lot of parents say, “Well, It’s a GOOOOOOOD thing you’re not having kids because you’d make a shitty parent!!!” and when they say it, it’s clearly a put-down and an attempt to shame us into proving them wrong. When a parent says that to you, I can pretty much guarantee that they are EXACTLY the kind of person who shouldn’t have children. These are people assholes who themselves only had kids to prove something to someone! We can all agree that is absolutely, 100% the motherfuckingist wrong reason to ever have children.

However, when Judge Lynn Toler said this, it didn’t feel like a put-down. It sounded more like an admonishment of all the shit parents out there that you and I complain about every day. Who but a family court judge would know exactly how bad for society crappy parents can be?

She wasn’t saying she knows we’ll be shitty parents. She’s saying that if we’re not completely on board with having them, then we’ll never be the best parents we can be, and that right there is reason enough not to have them. Even more than that, she’s saying we’re a hell of a lot better people for taking the time to THINK about the decision and make the right one for us than just ignorantly and irresponsibly having kids simply to keep up with our peers and be part of the “in crowd.” .

WHEN will people stop and figure out that having children is a RESPONSIBILITY not just a freakin’ game you play because all your friends are? No, having kids doesn’t make you COOL or HIP and it damn well doesn’t make you mature and grown up. If you weren’t mature and grown-up to begin with, you’re going to have a hell of a time learning those lessons once you have kids. All too many parents today are childish, selfish and immature because parenthood does NOT teach those lessons; you kinda have to figure them out on your own. All too often, however, parenting STUNTS people’s personal growth because they are too tired, too obsessed with poop, or too busy shuttling kids from one activity to another to achieve any real personal growth. Sad but true.

By the way, I know I’m an asshole for making fun of Leah’s ears, but the way they poked out of her hair was so funny!! I just can’t muster the maturity to resist mocking them. Besides, is that really an insult? A lot of guys go for that kind of thing, so maybe I’m just helping her to get a new man, one who not only wants children, but wants elfin-eared children!

That all said, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but before some of you really get upset about this, please know that these people are actors. Seriously, they are. It was still an amusing episode but it was make-believe. Yet we all know of situations just like this and it was good to see it played out on TV. Childfree Chris did not come across as an asshole and no one in the studio audience booed him. It was a pro-childfree episode! YAY. I applaud Judge Toler for putting out a positive message about childfreedom and one about parental responsibility.

I read this interesting article not long ago that had some interesting things to say about parents and cognitive dissonance and the myth that the only path to happiness is having children. Go read it, it’s got some lovely points. But this is the part of the article that I found most interesting.

In an earlier time, kids actually had economic value; they worked on farms or brought home paychecks, and they didn’t cost that much. Not coincidentally, emotional relationships between parents and children were less affectionate back then — and childhood was much less sentimentalized. Paradoxically, as the value of children has diminished, and the costs have escalated, the belief that parenthood is emotionally rewarding has gained currency. In that sense, the myth of parental joy is a modern psychological phenomenon.

Translated: Children are an economic liability and parents are desperately trying to find joy in the experience to feel they are getting their money’s worth. (Good luck with that!)

Kids are a major purchase. They are kind of like buying an overpriced boat without fully thinking it through, then feeling obligated to go boating every weekend to justify the expense. After a while, the newness wears off. Eventually everyone you had to show the boat off to has seen it and are bored with it. About the time you realize that having a boat is more work than you expected, you are no longer getting all the fawning attention and envy you had anticipated. At this point, it might begin to feel a bit like a chore. You don’t want to admit that, so you shove those thoughts away and tell yourself you just love boating because otherwise you’d have to admit to yourself was a stupid fucking idea it was to get the damn boat. You start joining every boat-enthusiast group you can find online and declaring your superiority to all those poor saps who don’t have boats.

Yet eventually you find yourself grumbling everywhere you go about the sunburn, the gas and maintenance costs, having to clean the birdshit off the damn boat all the damn time, the long drive out to the lake, forgetting your sunglasses (again), the obnoxiousness of other boaters, and especially about the swimmers who scream so loud and the sound carries across the lake and disturbs your peace and quiet.

However, when a coworker says, after listening to your twenty-five minute tirade, “Gee, I’m glad you told me this before I made the mistake of buying boat! I hadn’t realized how much suck it would be!” you get upset. You feel judged and uncomfortable. So you quickly insist that you REALLY do love the boat and it was the BEST investment of your life and you can’t imagine life without it — all to save face. You spend another ten minutes insisting all the supposedly great parts about boating, such as how it makes other people jealous that you can afford a boat, how you love the fresh air, the splash of the cool water on a hot day, and the calming nice breeze (when the weather is nice, which lately it hasn’t been very often) and that these things make it ALLLLL WORTH IT (supposedly).

Somewhere down the road, you get a little pissy when one afternoon your neighbor teases you about your boat growing roots in your yard when you haven’t gone out to the lake for three weeks in a row. You tell yourself, “Asshole. He’s just JEALOUS!” to protect your self-esteem. Anything to keep from feeling like a complete idiot for getting that boat that isn’t nearly as much fun as you thought it would be but now you’re stuck with it because the economy is bad and no one has money to buy boats except a couple of people you know who already have boats and don’t see the need to buy another one.

The main difference is that the economy may eventually recover and then you might be able to sell the boat and hopefully recoup some of your investment. Unfortunately, kids come stamped with “All Sales Final. No Returns.”

Personally, I’d rather have the boat.

Who else reads Post Secret website? New secrets posted every Sunday! That site can be amusing at times, but a lot of the secrets are rather dumb. Perhaps you saw this secret this week:

I didn’t send in the secret, but I could have, if that had BEEN a secret. Everyone knows I judge people based on the stupid-ass names they give their kids! I don’t just judge the made up names or the creatively spelled names, but it’s the people who like to give their kids odd, strangely-spelled ethnic/foreign names and they aren’t even that ethnicity/nationality. Oh, they’ll claim that their great-great grandfather’s brother was married to a woman of that persuasion, but hello, what’s the point? YOU’RE NOT. Your kid is growing up in THIS society, not that one. You might not like it, but in our society we generally prefer names to be something we’re commonly familiar with our phonetically spelled. (Wasn’t there a rash of Gaelic names in America the last couple of years? Was it Gaelic? It was ridiculous!)

And don’t you just love when the “creative” moms get mad when people don’t automatically know the “correct” way to pronounce the name! Um, how are we supposed to figure out that “Chyeana” is pronounced like the capital city of Wyoming?!

Now let’s move on and look at the responses to the postcard above (click to enlarge if needed):

I am amused by the commenter who thinks those girls named Nevaeh will become strippers, because I’m sure a lot of us had that thought. Let’s face it, these girls don’t come from brilliant parents with advanced college degrees and country club memberships. Those people know how to spell heaven correctly or at least they have spell-check! Nevaehs are going to come from the wrong side of the railroad tracks if you get my meaning and won’t have a plethora of options at their disposal. This explains the rampant assumption that these girls will grow up to be strippers (or 15-year-old baby-mammas).

How is that name even pronounced? Na-VAY-ah? NEV-ay-ah? NEE-vay-eh? Or is the H silent like in Sarah? and it’s like Nee-vay? I’m stumped. I fear each baby-mama who named their kid this pronounces it differently, which will only add to the confusion over this name. *sigh*

(Unfortunately, MY idiot, trailer-park, inbred relatives name their kids worse things that this. Mostly, they just name their kids after cities they’ve fucked in (and trust me, these folks don’t make it to fancy places like Paris or London or even Cheyenne), and apparently you have to die to fuck in heaven, if the rumor is true. Thus no Nevaeh’s in my family. The closest any of my relatives got to fucking in heaven was the one who was, if the name is to be believed, fucking behind a local church. I wish I was joking.)

Okay, so the second commenter to the “secret”, likely a high school dropout who named her kid Nevaeh, says the equivalent of: “DUH, your name was made up once, too!” as if that has anything to do with the price of tea in China. Let’s analyze this argument: We can agree that every name was, at one point, made up. True. However, these days, there are books with 100,000 baby names in them. We really don’t need to make up new names or spell existing names wrong. If you can’t find a name in that book, you probably can’t read which explains a lot of the illiterate spellings we see today.

More importantly, who cares if the name Christina was once made up? If your name is Christina and you go to the doctor’s office, they will be able to spell the name and pronounce it with ease. But if you name your kid, “Khrysteenia” that poor girl (I hope) will not only be correcting people’s spelling of that name every motherfucking day of her life, but she’ll often have to correct people’s pronunciation of it, as well. That’s not a nice thing to do to your child and it IS worth judging. Why don’t people THINK? This commenter’s point is so pointless. No wonder she never finished high school!

The third commenter is just as dumb, explaining that Nevaeh is just Heaven spelled backwards. No shit, Sherlock. Everyone knows that already. The point is, if you want your future stripper to be named Heaven, why not just name her HEAVEN. Why are we spelling names backwards these days? What’s next, boys named Leinad and Auhsoj? In fact, since these idiots love names being spelled backwards, from now on, whenever you see a parent who named their Nevaeh, start calling THEM by THEIR name backwards. Nevaeh’s mom is Amber? Call her Rebma from now on. I dare ya!

But even better, this gal is convinced that no kid with such a heavenly name could ever be a stripper. Really? So are we suggesting that kids who become strippers only do so because their parents didn’t name them something holy? So does this mean the solution to our prison problem in this country would be to require that ALL girl children be named “Nevaeh” and all boys be named, “Jesus” (or “Susej” if you prefer)? Then no kids would EVER do anything bad or disreputable since those magical holy names will solve everything! Right? Right?

Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. What would you all do without me and this anonymous commenter to solve all the world’s problems? Let’s all go out and celebrate!! Just don’t bring the kids.

But the best part is the follow up email that appeared a couple of days later reminding the earlier commenters about the whole purpose of the blog:

I love it! She’s calling out the judgmental bitches for complaining about judging while they are clearly judging! HA!

Generally, Post Secret replies, if any, are positive to help encourage people, not complain about the secret. Sometimes I’ve seen secrets on there that were clearly questionable — people admitting to doing things that are quite mean or unethical or even illegal. Funny they don’t get replies. Yet Nevaeh forbid you say something that might hurt a mommy’s feelings and it becomes a huge issue. What is it about having kids that makes women so horribly insecure and thin-skinned?

For more (American) holiday weekend amusement, I give you and oldie but a goodie website mocking bad baby names: Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing. Enjoy!

Love her or hate her, Roseanne Barr has some interesting things to say on her new reality series, Roseanne’s Nuts.

In the episode “Grrrl Power”, she’s been invited to give a speech to high school girls. Here she talks about what she wants to say to young girls today:

Roseanne: “The most out-there thing I’m saying is, ‘Don’t have babies. Don’t get married and have kids. Have a larger life than that.’”

Roseanne’s (grown) son: “You have five kids! You can’t talk about that. You have five!”

Roseanne: “I know I do, that’s why I have the right to say it! If somebody would come to me when I was sixteen years old and go, ‘You don’t have to get married or have a baby, that’s bullshit!’ I would have fuckin’ flipped! Cause I never heard one human say anything like that. I was so brainwashed to have five kids for the Jewish Nation. And now I’m like, wow, that wasn’t even my own life!

Roseanne’s son: There are actual people that really just want to have kids and get married.

Roseanne: Well, they’re mentally ill. Those people are completely unbalanced and mentally ill.

I know a lot of folks hated her when, in the last two seasons of her primetime series, everyone on the show had to have a baby. Ug! But I’m glad to see she’s finally realized that it was all such brainwashing and bullshit propaganda and that she wants to make sure girls today know they have other options and that they CAN have a larger life than that.

All too often I hear statements like this from unemployed mommies:

I’m not selfish like those childfree people, who are out flitting away their lives and only care about themselves. I’m a better person because I sacrifice SO MUCH for my kids. I put my own goals and dreams and wants on hold so my kids can have a better life and a good future!

There are three things wrong with this.

First of all: none of us are really seeing these parents making all these huge sacrifices. They claim they sacrificed their career? Hardly. Many of them had children specifically to justify not working. All too often they say things like, “Work was EASY compared to this!” yet they don’t go back to work, because clearly, they don’t believe it. Not that it matters. If they want to stay home and raise kids, fine! More jobs for the rest of us who want to actually work. But they need to stop pretending that they made this HUGE sacrifice by giving up jobs they didn’t want anyway. If they’d loved their work, they’d have figured out how to keep working or at least volunteering to keep their skills up.

And what are all these other sacrifices? All we see is that they continue to live their pre-kid lives, just dragging the kids along behind them and telling the rest of us to “suck it” that they are not going to change their lives just because they have kids. I don’t see any of these “sacrifices” they make, or any changing of their lifestyles now that they have kids. The only thing they seem to actually sacrifice is jobs, education, creative hobbies, intelligent conversation, manners and consideration for anyone else in society. All that pesky stuff they didn’t want anyway. Some sacrifice!

Secondly: They act like they are the first generation to ever have children or something. It never occurs to them that perhaps THEIR parents sacrificed for THEM to have a better life, does it? What are they doing with the “better” lives their parents wanted them to have? Oh, that’s right, they are blowing it. Instead of doing something with it, they are sacrificing it for the NEXT generation, which will probably do the same thing. So….. what is the point of a mother sacrificing all her hopes and dreams to give her kids a good life if the kids (at least the daughters) grow up and do the same thing? What a ridiculous vicious cycle!! “I’m not going to do anything with MY life, so the next generation can do something with their lives. So they can grow up and do nothing with THEIR lives so the NEXT generation can do something with their lives. So THEY can…” What the hell kind of sense is that?!

Perhaps some of the Almighty Sons might get something out of all this (faux) self-sacrifice (let’s hope so — someone should), but all that sacrifice was apparently wasted on the daughters who are expected to perpetuate the cycle. Unless they become childfree, I guess. Really, what are these Martyr Mommies teaching their daughters other than:

“Your life is meaningless. ESPECIALLY your life before having children. You only exist to produce sons for a man, and then throw your life away slaving to take care of your man and the children. Don’t bother having any hopes or dreams because it is your DUTY to throw them away so you can raise babies and then brag about what a motherfucking saint you are for doing it!”

Am I crazy or are you all hearing this refrain, too?

These women should NOT be allowed to raise daughters with these anti-feminist attitudes!! I’m not even sure they should be allowed to raise sons, either, who will see by her example that women are just doormats who exist to service men and children. It’s really rather pathetic.

(I’m not saying that unemployed motherhood is itself anti-feminist, but the Martyrdom Complex absofuckinglutely is!)

Thirdly: These mommies claim that mothers exist solely to SELF SACRIFICE to give their children better lives, yes? They always say that: “I want my kids to have better than what I have” which is admitting that what they have isn’t that grand. However, when they see us childfree, living the better life that apparently all mothers everywhere want for their own children, lives where we don’t have to be martyrs and don’t have to constantly (faux) self-sacrifice for others, where we can pursue our dreams, hobbies, educations, careers, etc., they get furious. We are, in the flesh, the result of mothers who wanted us to have better lives! Yet when our child-burdened peers see us, they hold only contempt for us. They stomp their feet, whining it’s not FAIR we don’t have to slave and sacrifice as much as they do. It’s not FAIR we found the loophole, the get-out-of-jail-free card! No fair, us finding other life-pursuits and having time for ourselves!! Point being, if they REALLY cared about that whole want-my-kids-to-grow-up-and-have-better-than-I-do crap, they’d be GLAD to see us living out that “better” life. But they don’t mean it. Not one bit.

I think that subconsciously (maybe even consciously), these women don’t want their kids to have better lives than them. That’s only what they are supposed to say. In reality, they see drudgery of parenthood as a “rite of passage” that everyone should suffer through just like they did. They expect their kids to “pay their dues” and make the same sacrifices, rather than doing better. Why else would they nag their kids for grandchildren? Why else do mothers everywhere snarl at their children, “I hope you have a bratty kid just like you someday!!” They see raising children as the ultimate punishment that we ALL must suffer through and if anyone doesn’t suffer through the hell of parenthood is just plain SELFISH to retain their hopes and dreams! It’s WRONG!!

So much for wanting that better life for their kids.

Hey, maybe some of us just haven’t sinned as much, and thus we don’t need that kind of punishment.

Note for Non-Americans: I don’t know about your country’s educational system and, don’t take this the wrong way but, frankly I don’t care. No matter how perfect your country and your country’s school system are, it’s not doing me much good to rub my nose in it. So for today we’re going to talk about the United States school system.

Note for Uptight People with No Senses of Humor: I’m just having fun here. No one would ever actually implement my ideas in a million years so unpucker your assholes and stop fretting about it. I just thought this would be some fun hypotheticals to play with. Relax and enjoy or just roll your eyes and go read dooce or something.

I know everyone is mad at me for not posting much the last few months. I’ve been preoccupied with real-life hassles, novel projects and watching too much (American) political news that is, for the most part, frustrating as hell. I apologize for being neglectful and rather cranky lately.

Without getting too political, I want to talk about my ideas of how to solve the school budget problems. Listen up, these are good!

Idea #1: Governors, don’t cut your school budget by a billion dollars so you can give that money to your cronies! Voters, don’t vote for governors who cut the school budget so they can give kickbacks to their wealthy, corporate friends!

Idea #2: No more public schools. None. I figure in the scheme of things, we should have free universal health care before free public schools. Take money from school budgets and put it into a new, public health care system. After all, clearly people CAN homeschool (I’m not saying they do it well, but they CAN do it) yet few people can give their child or spouse an appendectomy from home. I could try, but I think my husband might not be too pleased with the results.

I know, I know! You’re all crying, “But we don’t want an uneducated populace!” I have news for you. We DO have an uneducated populace. The only difference is: we’re paying for them to be uneducated. Today’s high school graduates are functionally illiterate! We’re paying for a ridiculously overpriced pizza that never gets delivered!!

But fine: Have a whiney-ass tantrum and say we can’t do away with schools because not all parents want to homeschool; it might cut into their time club hopping. Okay, fine. I have a backup plan that is even more genius.

Idea #3: Get rid of public schools. Not public education, just the school buildings. Or at least most of them. Think about how much could be saved every year if we shut down the majority of the school buildings! We could save all the maintenance, landscaping and janitorial costs, the electricity, water, heat, and air conditioning costs, and think of all the savings on the bus program, especially now that gas is so damned expensive! Yes, I do feel bad for the people who lose their jobs (such as janitors and bus drivers), but think of how much money is wasted in those areas alone?

My alternative to school buildings is distance learning like they do in many colleges. Have the kids log in and do their coursework online. They can log in to chat for tutoring. They can have instructional videos to teach them and maybe even video conferencing on certain dates and times. True, the school system might have to provide all students with laptops or iPads/tablets (and the data plan) for this to work. While I’m no economist, I’m fairly certain that is still cheaper than what we’re doing now.

Yes, we’d still need a few buildings for various things, such as administration and testing (the way I figure it, students might have to come in one or two half-days a month for testing, and they could stagger the blocks of students that come in so they wouldn’t all come in on the same day), but we’d need far fewer school buildings, thus saving us a lot of money.

(Locally they want to build yet another new school and can you tell I’m bitter about having to pay for it? I’m not the one irresponsibly breeding, creating the over-crowding problem in schools! I’m actually SAVING them money by NOT putting more kids into the system – I deserve a refund!! But that’s a rant for another day.)

This plan would put more of the burden on parents for their children’s education, which is where it belongs anyway. The single biggest problem (outside of budgets) facing schools is parents. Either parents who don’t want to be involved and don’t give a shit if their kid is failing OR the parents who think their child is super-special and should automatically be given As for everything (even if the A is terribly undeserved), they think their kid shouldn’t be given too much homework, they don’t like what is being taught or try to dictate what is being taught, or any other ridiculous complaints that hinder the educational process.

With my plan, parents wouldn’t exactly have to teach the kids (that’s what the online courses would be for), but they would have to monitor the children to see if they are doing their homework and keeping up, they would be responsible for focusing on any areas their children might be having problems with and bring it to the teacher’s attention or arrange for enrollment in a tutoring program. But from now on, if their child “fell through the cracks” it would be because they weren’t paying enough attention. No more blaming everyone else for that.

Yes, I know some parents have jobs and think they are too busy to do this, but how many hours a day would it take to review their children’s homework progress? It’s not an eight-hour job and it’s something they should be doing anyway!

Bonuses of this idea: no more complaining the school cafeterias serving crappy lunches, complaining about the cost of school clothes or supplies, no more demanding prayer and the ten commandments be in the schools, etc.

Even better bonus: There would be a wider range of elective courses for kids to take, since they wouldn’t necessarily be limited to just the classes offered at the local high school. Maybe a student wants to learn Russian — I’m sure we could find a Russian class being taught somewhere in the U.S. for them to enroll in.

There are three valid drawbacks I see to this plan:

Drawback 1: What are we going to do about kids who constantly break, lose, sell, etc. their free laptops/iPads? Many kids today are just plain irresponsible and destroy everything you hand them because they just don’t give a shit. It could get horribly expensive if the school needs to continually replace these items. I suppose we could say each kid is allowed one replacement item every two or three years, and if they continue to destroy/lose the equipment, they will just have to start handwriting all their assignments and mail them in like Netflix. How does that sound?

(If the item was defective or needing routine repairs, that wouldn’t count against their one replacement item.)

Drawback 2: A bigger problem I see with this option is that there would be a socialization problem. I know lots of people hated everyone they ever went to school with would think that never having to go to school and interact with anyone else is grand, but it really IS a problem. As much as pro-homeschoolers try to claim their kids are perfect geniuses who have perfect social skills… I’ve never met those kids. The homeschooled kids I’ve met were socially awkward or absolute narcissists who believed the world revolved around them. If we don’t send kids to school, they will miss out on a lot of social lessons. Here is an abbreviated list of things kids learn from school socialization:

This lack of socialization problem a big drawback. Sure, if we went to distance-learning for children, they might still socialize with other kids in their church group, ballet class, soccer practice, etc. but not all of them will, and even the ones who do might be missing a lot of that “being exposed to other ideas” part.

Drawback 2: Some kids come from bad home environments, and they really need to go to school to get away from that. However, maybe these children just need to be removed from those environments altogether.

Other criticisms I’ll hear, but might not be as valid:

Criticism 1 – Kids will no longer get free meals! The free meal program has always pissed me off because it’s unduly punishing the taxpayer and responsible parents and gives a benefits to irresponsible parents who would rather spend their money on booze and cigarettes than feed their children. Yes, I understand that the kids get punished if the rest of us refuse to cough up the dough to feed them, but isn’t there a better solution? Why is it that the parents of these kids with free lunches always have fancier cell phones than I do? And every video gaming system known to man? How do those kids survive to even be school aged if their parents never feed them?

I’m just rather tired of society constantly giving parents a free pass on everything. No one can criticize them for having children they can’t afford. No one can criticize parents who don’t feed their kids. No one can criticize parents who refuse to discipline their children. It’s got to stop. Maybe if we held parents to a higher standard, future generations would be far better off.

Criticism 2 – No more free daycare. Most parents today use schools as glorified day care centers. Well, too bad! Society does not owe them free day care. Taxpayers should not pay higher taxes for the sole reason that parents want their kids to be someone else’s problem eight hours a day.

It’s not that I don’t feel for working parents, but we still shouldn’t have to pay for their (very expensive) daycare. I have no sympathy for the unemployed mothers who look forward to the end of summer vacation so they don’t have to watch their own kids all day.

There are several solutions to this problem, but we’ll leave that to the parents to figure out. One idea off the top of my head is churches. Obviously this wouldn’t work so well for atheist kids, but most religious people have some sort of church building. These buildings sit around empty most of the week. Why don’t the churches sponsor school-aged day care for their parishioners? Yes, one could argue that those kids will be getting brainwashed while being educated, but if the parents already attend that church, apparently they are fine with the brainwashing. They wouldn’t need to employ teachers, just someone to supervise the kids, make sure they are doing their work and keep them from burning down the joint.

Another idea: It takes a village, right? So reach out to the village: friends, neighbors and relatives could watch your kids while they sit around doing their homework. There are plenty of unemployed mothers today. Of course, they generally don’t want to watch their own kids, let alone others, but maybe they need to grow up. It’s not like these are infants who need to be fed, burped, and diapered all day long. You just have to sit the kid down to do his lessons and make sure he doesn’t Darwinize himself for a few hours.

Mostly this no-free-daycare problem shouldn’t be a problem for long. I probably wouldn’t leave five, six or seven-year-olds alone all day, but once a kid gets to be about eight or nine, they should be able to stay home alone without burning down the joint or letting a child molester in. In my day, by third grade kids could stay home alone if they were sick. Of course, in my day, children might have been more mature and responsible, too. If kids turn out to be too immature and irresponsible to leave at home, it’s the parent’s fault for raising them that way. Anyway, eventually, when the older kids are old enough, they can at least supervise the younger siblings and keep them from burning down the joint and letting molesters in.

Criticism 3 – Kids not doing homework while home alone, but rather playing games and/or watching TV all day. Well, it’s good training to be an unemployed parent some day! Seriously, though, parents CAN set parental controls on the TV/DVR, they can lock up the video game systems or not have them at all, or whatever else needs to be done to keep the kids from being too distracted. Or they can arrange for someone else to watch the kids during the day if they really think the kids need supervision. As long as tax payers don’t have to pay for it.

Criticism 4 – Some parents will complain that they don’t want the responsibility of making sure their kids are doing well in school. Too bad! Don’t have kids if you don’t want responsibility!

Criticism 5 I realize a lot of people are going to complain about child welfare and how a system like this is ripe for parents to abuse their kids by neglecting their education, not feeding them, and no teacher involved to witness signs of physical abuse, among other things. That’s a good point. Although, it’s not that much different from a homeschool child now. No one knows if children who are getting homeschooled are getting fed, if they are being physically abused or even if they are getting a decent education, either. (I know homeschooling advocates love to claim homeschooled kids are 900x smarter and better educated than public school kids, but you have not heard the horror stories I’ve heard! One whack job relative told me their “homeschooling curriculum” for that semester was history (only history, nothing else) and that their text books were (I shit you not) Janette Oke books. There is no way those kids got a real education! Since those kids only got into non-accredited bible colleges, I’m going to assume that is true.)

Fine, this might be a valid point, but perhaps the money we are saving from paying for all the school buildings and buses, we could pour into improving and possibly expanding the Child Protective Services program to monitor such issues.

While this plan has absolutely ZERO or close chance of being implemented, why don’t we discuss it just for fun. What else should we consider. Go ahead and disagree and propose alternatives; I expect you to comment with all the holes in my theory or come up with better ideas! After all, I’m not too bright and I’ve only spent one day working on this theory. Argue amongst yourselves what may or may not work. But again, it’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, so just play with the idea. Might be fun.

BONUS IDEA: How about we implement a new system that says parents only get the child-tax credit on their tax refunds if their kids get good grades in school (B average or higher). No reason to reward them for not doing their job!

I haven’t posted much lately, because I just haven’t had much that pissed me off. But then this afternoon I worked myself into such a lather over this damn article and ended up blowing off my entire to-do list. I started to bitch about this on my fan page, but decided I still had more to say and needed more room in which to say it. Lucky you. Maybe.

I wanted to warn you about bitchmedia’s faux-childfree column that is really a bunch of pro-mommy bullshit. It’s supposedly a “feminist” website, but you know how that goes. It seems that most “feminism” today is not about equal right for women – it’s generally “mommyism” – special rights for mothers. What I saw today quickly suggests bitchmedia fits that description perfectly.

This columnist, who is claiming to be childfree (but call me crazy, I’m not sure I believe her from her tone and treatment of childfree), started up last week with an article about how she intends to write a series of articles about childlessness. (That’s right, we’re “childless” according to her.)

She starts out by insisting that she LOOOOOOOOVES babies and kids. She just loves them! And anyone who doesn’t can just go the fuck somewhere else, because no one is allowed to NOT like kids on her watch. Yes, we’re not allowed to discuss the possibility that anyone could dislike babies or children in this “childfree” column/forum – that would be demeaning and offensive to moms everywhere and those comments WILL be deleted.

Then she repeatedly refers to us “childless,” which really ruffles my feathers. She bitches about the word “breeder” being insulting, but doesn’t mind insulting us with the term “childless” as if we are lesser people, inferior and lacking somehow. The word didn’t bother me so much when I was younger, but the older I get, the more that “less” word ticks me off. Who is this woman to refer to me as LESS of anything? If I was unmarried would I be referred to as “manless” by these so-called feminists? Fuck that noise!

Worse, while she insists on referring to me as “LESS” of a person, she whines that those of us without children had better know our place: we can’t say anything at all that would offend mommies. No mean words like breeder or brats or anything more inflammatory than that. We’d better keep our damn traps shut because insulting moms or kids is the same as “kicking puppies” as far as she’s concerned. *eyeroll*

Then she stops, without giving any ground rules to parents. Mommies and wannabees (clearly her target audience) are allowed to say anything rude or inappropriate to us (including the put-down “childless”). She might as well have just written, “SCREW YOU CHILDFREE, THIS COLUMN AIN’T FOR YOU!” because that’s exactly what we’re being told.

If only that were the end of it. But no, there is more.

There is one thing we’re allowed to talk about (besides “we LOOOOOOOOOVE babies and kids!”): the “enormous prams that take up the whole sidewalk”. Oh good, I’m glad we childfree have permission to say ONE thing on a supposedly childfree forum!

Oh, wait! Not so fast! Someone DID comment on the enormous prams (strollers) on the sidewalk. Only to be slapped around by the mommy commenters who have free reign. They told her to shut up and learn the real issues, to stop whining about having to walk around the strollers and that HELLO, the whole world should be set up to make their lives and strollers more easy and if we weren’t so stupid (okay, they didn’t say stupid, but they might as well have) we’d know better! Okay, so we can’t even talk about strollers after being given permission to talk about strollers. Check.

Next up, some gal tried to ask why we can’t mention dislike of children and that there is nothing wrong with having personal preference. The mommies were all over her, screaming AGEISM and going back to the same old argument that anyone who doesn’t like kids is every other kind of ism. (You know what they mean: racism. If you don’t like kids, you’re as bad as a racist. You know, ever since Michael Jackson, these dumb white mommies seem to think that people of color will outgrow their skin color eventually, just like kids grow out of being kids. No bimbos, people of color do NOT grow-out of their race so racism is NOT the same as disliking children (ageism).)

Another childfree commenter complained about covering for parents at work while they are constantly out because of allegedly sick kids, and was quickly jumped upon by mommies lecturing her how she’s obligated to help cover for parents at work, DUH. After all, they don’t like caring for sick children, so we’d better be miserable, too! Okay, so another topic that is off topic on the childfree forum: Can’t complain about parent coworkers.

One childfree person had this intelligent contribution:

I do wish we could have some sort of moratorium on comments from parents trying to rationalize to us why they had kids. It’s great that people choose to have kids but this is not an appropriate place to make sure that you’re seen as “not one of those parents.” It would be completely inappropriate and not tolerated for people who are choosing to not have kids to go in a post about parenting and bray about their choice and why they made it, it should be no different here.

A completely reasonable request, right? I’m not going to go to a “July Babies 2011!” message board and sing the praises of childfree life and why I’m SO much better off than the preggos, so they really shouldn’t waddle on over to our childfree areas and sing the praises of their life choices, either. Fair’s fair? Right. Oh wait, nothing is fair to the childless on bitchmedia.

A woman (mommy) who calls herself the “web editor” insists that no such moratorium will be set because people have a right to have their say. And by “people” she means mommies! Childfree can (and are) censored at whim. Add “no suggestion that mommies stop talking incessantly about their kids on childfree forums” to the list of things childfree can’t talk about.

At this rate, we’re soon to run out of things to talk about you realize. If we can’t fucking talk about ANYTHING, what’s the motherfucking POINT of this damn column? (Clearly, there isn’t one.)

Someone else touched on the overpopulation issue as a reason not to have children, and that was pounced on, too. Waa, waa, waa, that would get into the eugenics of who is “right” and who is “wrong” to have kids and that’s unfair because anyone should be able to irresponsibly reproduce any time they want. Yea. Soooooo, add overpopulation to the things we can’t mention on this… faux-childfree forum.

Okay. Time to give up. The comments are being heavily moderated to make sure the childfree keep in our place, yet the parents are being given free reign to take over, argue with us, basically tell us we’re wrong and chase us out. The only thing we’re allowed to say is, “Squee! I love kids and I love this column!”.

My point being: Please don’t accidentally believe that bitchmedia or Ms. Shoot care one iota about the childfree movement or that this column is childfree-friendly in any way, shape or form. It’s essentially a column for mommies to sound off on all their pet peeves about people who choose not to have kids, and to shoot down or censor anything we say if we dare post there. Save yourselves some trouble and see it for what it is up front. Read it if you want but don’t waste your time taking any of it seriously. It’s a complete fucking joke. Hell, it makes about as much sense as me setting up a second blog on this site to discuss Mommyhood! Yes, let’s trick mommies into coming here thinking I was serious about discussion and then laugh while we all slap them around a bit and delete anything they say that doesn’t kiss our asses. It’ll be fun!!

Eh, never mind.

Wait, one other thing I wanted to mention while I’m on the topic of this idiotic article.

[I will] discuss what it means to be an intentionally childfree woman in Western culture. Why are some famous women (Oprah) relatively unscathed by the media when it comes to childbearing, while other famous women (Jennifer Aniston) can’t shake pregnancy speculation?

She really needs someone to explain this to her? All right, I’ll do it. Oprah is relatively unscathed by Western culture because she’s 1) over 50, 2) not the “right” race, and 3) many people still assume she’s a lesbian. Gee, mystery solved.

I cringe every time I hear some bimbo mommy justifying her stupidity and crap parenting by suggesting that it’s “all natural.” I’m not just talking about breastfeeding “natural” argument, but about a whole slew of other stupid behaviors I’ve heard mommies justify lately with this “natural” bullshit.

There was at least one other I was thinking about earlier, but damn if I can’t remember it. I’m sure one of you can help me out.

All right, I’ll play. I love this game! Listen up, folks!

If you want to be ALL NATURAL, here are some more tips on how to be like the animal kingdom:

I could go on, but I’m sure you can run with it yourselves.

Honestly, these bimbos don’t seem to realize that as humans, we’re SUPPOSED to be more highly evolved than animals. We’re not supposed to try to emulate animals. The thing is, they don’t want to live like animals – they want all their modern conveniences while using the “animal kingdom” and “all natural” excuses at random to justify whatever they do or don’t feel like doing. You know, like hard, parenting stuff.

I don’t really give a shit if some woman wants to hold her kid 24/7 and have him hanging off her tit the whole time. I think it’s incredibly misogynistic, and I pity her for not realizing that she’s being enslaved by a patriarchal society and culture that is so threatened by women they are brainwashing them to believe they are nothing but receptacles to produce offspring (particularly male offspring) and be chained to that offspring and be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen so they doesn’t get any “uppity ideas” and threaten the men’s freedoms. Yet if she wants to do it, FINE. But a) stop being so desperately insecure that you need to try and justify your crap behavior to anyone and b) find some better way to justify it than “oh, we need to behave more like animals” because that’s pure and utter bullshit!

If you like being a pawn of patriarchy and you don’t want to have to do anything with your life, fine, just say that. If you are just too lazy to discipline your children, why not admit it? No one respects you anyway, so no need to waste time saving face! Just be your silly, insipid little self who can’t handle anything more intellectually challenging than changing a diaper occasionally and shut the fuck up.

I absolutely cannot understand the instant gratification and never-satisfied attitudes of the current generation coming of age. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised — they are the same kids I have been complaining about for 15 years and they’ve grown into the very overgrown, spoiled brats I thought they would become. Still, I’d been holding out hope all along that I was wrong.

I’ve seen these kids open up their Christmas presents, getting all the loot they had demanded – a new xbox with all the accessories, $200 worth of games, a brand new cell phone with all the latest bells and whistles, and the newest, greatest iPod on the market – only to turn around 20 minutes later and whine, “Can we go shopping? I’m bored and I need new stuff.” I would be thinking, “Wait, you haven’t even finished playing with $1000 worth of loot you JUST got. How can you already be wanting something new?” Yet this is the prevailing attitude of this generation. “Give me what I want, when I want it and I’ll be bored with it right away, but so what? That’s my right!!”

As if that isn’t bad enough, I’m seeing this trend of boredom with their own children. I’ve seen this a fair amount lately and it blows my mind: They will have a baby, and when it is just a few months old, they are already whining about how they need a NEW baby. Apparently this one they have isn’t good enough.

I suppose I could maybe understand if the child is now three years old and the mommy is missing the newborn stage and thinks it’s time for a second baby. Fine, I suppose I can see that happening. But what the fuck is wrong with these gals who look down at their newborn infant and say, “Eh, you’re not entertaining me enough. I’m ready for a new one already“?!!?!

To these parents I say: If the current newborn in your arms is not filling the hole inside you, here’s a clue: You need to find some other way to fill that hole! Don’t keep creating human beings trying to fix some mess going on in your head. Besides, if the first baby leaves you feeling empty, then maybe you’re just fucking empty. Another kid ain’t gonna fix it.

Dr Phil is a quack, but I love when he says, “No child should come into this world with a job,” he’s absolutely right. We’re all PEOPLE not just toys for some bimbo to use to entertain herself, to get sympathy, attention and to give her an excuse to not work or get an education or do anything with her life. If her entire life’s purpose is to create people as some kind of sick “get out of work free” card, someone needs to spay her like they would any other dumb animal in heat who pointlessly reproduces!

Honestly, I cannot understood these people who want more than two kids. I’m open minded enough to understand why some people might enjoy parenthood. I can sort of comprehend wanting a couple of kids. After that, what is going on in their heads? Are they thinking each additional kid will finally be the one they’ve been “shooting” for? What is wrong with the kids they already have that they can’t be satisfied with them? What do they think the third (or fourth, or eight or twentieth) kid will magically give them that they couldn’t find in the others?

But clearly, there is something not right about someone who sees their newborn as their entertainment and when it ceases to be entertaining after a short period of time, they think they need a new one, like a replacement for a broken toy. And if the first one didn’t entertain you enough that you already had to start working on the next one, what makes you think the second one will be entertaining enough?! And what makes these fools think that additional infants will make life ANY easier? It makes no logical sense at all. Of course, I’m assuming any of these people possess logic, which is unlikely.

I’ve come to believe these women have the mental capacity to see that far in the future. Many of them are just addicted to the pregnancy attention and not so much the motherhood part of the equation. They are bored with the infant because they have lots all the attention they got while pregnant. That’s why they need a new one so quickly. The rest are just “new shit” junkies because they’ve been spoiled their whole lives, and instead of enjoying what they already have, they constantly need something new to feel special and happy.

It’s sick and it’s twisted, and I don’t know why society tolerates this behavior from these crazy, irresponsible women. WHEN are we going to start talking about the fact that the emperor has no clothes and that something needs to be done about the WRONG people continuing to breed for the wrong reasons? WHEN?

From PostSecret:

In case you have trouble reading the photo, it says:

One of these men is the father of the most amazing little girl in the world. He’s never met her, he never will. He probably can’t even remember my name.

Maybe, just maybe, if you didn’t sleep with seven different guys in the same week, perhaps you’d know which of these men was the baby-daddy and maybe the baby-daddy would know your name and know his most amazing little girl in the world! Sounds like the amazing little girl is getting cheated out of a relationship with her amazing father, since apparently she got her amazingness from someone, and I don’t suppose it’s from her professional mattress-back of a mother!

This post card is the perfect advertisement for that Norplant dart gun I suggested a while back!

(Yea, I know, I know. It’s a fake secret — some lame harry-potter-wannabee just WISHES she could get someone famous to fuck her. But I couldn’t resist mocking it anyway, since there are women who have these types of problems! And I found it amusing.)