I’ve seen a lot of blogs and articles online lately about who is happier: parents or childfree? This annoys me because I didn’t think it was a damned competition that only one side could win. Is there not enough happiness to go around for everyone?

Still, I’ll add my two cents to this argument by telling you what I’ve observed over the years: people who want to be happy generally find happiness. People who always want to complain or look at the dark side of everything generally don’t. This is true if you have kids or if you don’t. Sure everyone has random things happen to them that occasionally make people happier or sadder, but overall, if you genuinely want to be happy, you’ll find ways to be happy.

Here’s what I really want to talk about today: parents are always trying to convince us that their lives are oh-so-much-happier than our lives and that children are the light of their lives and they can’t imagine how miserable their lives would be without their children. *yawn* They are about as credible as Fox News. It’s like reading a magazine article with whatever famous starlet is on the cover. She is, of course, going to say her marriage is perfect and she’s happier than she’s ever been and everything is rosy in her life… only to have news of her bitter divorce break two weeks after the magazine hits the newsstand. Parents, much like the starlet, have to paint a pretty picture for you lest you pity them, and who honestly likes to be pitied? (Well, some attention whores, but besides them.)

The truth is in your actions, not your words and all you parents trying to sell us on parenting are not walking the walk. Parents, you know how your kids are watching everything you do? Well, we’re watching an awful lot of the time, too, sometimes even when we don’t want to. So if you want us to buy what you’re selling, do a better job of living that life you claim you have.

If that same starlet from the above example was telling interviewers for three years what a great marriage she had, and yet everywhere she and her husband went in public, they were arguing, ignoring one another or just plain frosty to each other, no one would really believe her tales of marital bliss. I suppose in some cases it’s possible to be happily married and still argue quite often and to ignore each other in public in favor of your blackberries (you’ll talk at home) and perhaps those “frosty” moments were just misinterpreted. Still, people on the outside looking in will think it’s a crap marriage and feel a little sorry for the couple because they won’t appear very happy.

Just like parents today.

We’re bombarded with claims that parenting is filled with all these wonderful Kodak moments, and yet, when do we ever get to see them? Here’s what I see:

I see coworkers on the phone arguing with the school over their kids’ behavior. I see a pregnant friend who bitching constantly about her pregnancy and how much she hates her doctors and being pregnant and how she wishes she’d just give birth already. I see people on my Facebook page complaining or telling “funny” jokes about their kid, like any of the stupid things you see on STFU Parents. One recently posted about how her kid painted himself with peanut butter and wasn’t that SO FUNNY and six of her mommy friends agreed, and all the time I’m thinking, “There is no way that is funny. These people have completely lost their sense of humor. Does having kids mean you lose all sense of humor?!”

I’m at the grocery store and I see one mother screaming at her kids, another woman’s kids screaming at her, and a third mother completely ignoring her kid while – you guessed it— yakking on the phone. While reading the local city activities feed on Facebook, I see a bunch of angry parents complain about every single item on the list. “Those concerts are TOO LOUD for my children!” and “Why are you playing an action film? Those are too violent! You don’t have enough family friendly activities!” (even when 99% of their activities are “family friendly”) and “There aren’t enough free things to do! Why is there no free food?!” and my personal favorite “There were TOO many people at that event! I’m not going again because you don’t limit the number of people at events and my kids got tired of waiting in line!” (Parents, are your brains so stunted that you do not realize the sweet irony that just by having kids, you are adding to the “too many people” part of that complaint? *snicker*)

I unintentionally overhear annoying conversations everywhere I go, since so many women can think of nothing to talk about other than children: “My son kept me up all night last night throwing up and I’m so exhausted today,” and “…I caught him trying to kill the cat! I had to tell him that no, we don’t kill the family pets and then he kicked me!” and “Do you have any idea how much money I’ve had to spend on this cheerleading thing so far? Between uniforms and camp alone, I’m going into the poorhouse!”

I try to be open minded about parenthood and people with kids, but in all honestly, the vast majority of parents I see all around me leaves me absolutely positively convinced I made the right choice. None of you seem all that damned happy! Where are all these great parenting moments that are supposed to melt my heart and convince me I want babies?! I don’t believe that I’m refusing to see them. I don’t think they are out there!!

Of course, now you’re asking if that’s so true, then why are people still having kids? Three reasons: stupidity, total brainwashing, or social pressure. I’m smart enough to use birth control correctly and consistently, I was not raised in some right-wing cult that told me my only use in life was to produce babies so I don’t fall for that line, and I’m too damn stubborn for social pressure. The more people try to pressure me to do something, the more I refuse to do it just to piss them off. It’s one of my favorite games.

But honestly, here’s the thing: I have zero desire to have kids, so there is nothing anyone could do to make me wake up and want kids tomorrow, anyway. Yet there are some people might be on the fence who are watching you and if you really, really want to sucker them in, you’d better shape up!

How about hanging up the phone and actually interacting with your kids? Pretend like you actually LIKE being a parent. How about trying positive interactions instead of you screaming at the kids or the kids screaming at you? How about not complaining all the time about the cost of kids or your lack of sleep or behavioral problems? How about when you share stories about them, you make sure they are actually fun or funny stories that don’t make you look like you’ve lost your mind?

Oh sure, sometimes I see parents and kids happy and loving and it looks, at least temporarily, like a neat gig. But it’s rare and fleeting, at least in my experience.

To the majority of you parents out there: You’re really not fooling any of us. Why not try a little harder and start showing us instead of telling us? That would be a refreshing change of pace.

Articles like this (NTSB: Give babies their own airline seats) annoy the hell out of me. Why? It’s not that I’m against giving babies their own seats. It’s stuff like this (emphasis mine):

The National Transportation Safety Board is urging parents to buckle baby carriers into airline seats instead of holding infants in their laps aboard planes.

Under current Federal Aviation Administration regulations, children younger than 2 can fly for free if they sit in a parent’s lap.

Not requiring. Urging. Well, every day I urge parents to stop being such jerks in public. Guess what? Urging doesn’t do jack shit. These agencies need to grow a pair and stand up to these idiots. Don’t even waste your time “urging.” It’s a god damned joke.

My emphasis again:

The NTSB and the Association of Flight Attendants have tried for years to convince the FAA and airlines to require seats for all passengers, including babies. Still, many parents prefer holding their children for free instead of buying a ticket for them.

*coughcheapskatescough*

The agency fears that parents will opt to drive to destinations rather than buying plane tickets for their babies, and FAA officials said they believe driving is more dangerous than flying.

Oh, please don’t make me laugh. I still haven’t recovered watching from the Robert Klein comedy special last night. (Please tell me you saw that! Good stuff!) These damn agencies actually want us to believe that they are “saving lives” by “encouraging” people to fly versus drive? This is all out of the goodness of their hearts? Give me a break. These people are about as genuine as BP!

So it’s all about fear of losing revenue, right? They think that parents will determine driving is cheaper than flying. Who can honestly say that driving is cheaper than flying these days, especially when we are dumping millions of gallons of finite oil resources into the ocean! I don’t want to do the math or research on costs of driving vs. flying because there are too many variables and I’m lazy, but my guess is that for shorter trips, maybe driving is cheaper. Longer trips, not so much, especially when you factor in wear-and-tear on your vehicle. If you want to go visit your mommy every year twice a year and she lives four states away (middle states, not those piddly East Coast states), that all adds up in time, gas expense and wear on the vehicle.

But more importantly though, who the hell is driving to Hawaii or Europe? Show of hands – I’m really curious! Yea, that’s what I thought. Yet you don’t see these asshats requiring children strapped into their own seats for overseas travel, now do you? If this was only about encouraging people to fly versus drive for safety reasons, then they would only offer the free lap babies on flights where one could opt to drive instead, right? That would only make sense. There is (albeit slightly) higher risk for overseas flights, so if they were concerned about safety, they’d want to keep infants safer on those flights. But they don’t.

Seriously, FAA and airlines don’t care about safety. Clearly they don’t. They care about money. Period. Right?

At this point, this becomes a whole lot like the smoking bans debate. Now, I don’t want to know what side of that debate you are on because that argument is a dead and rotting horse corpse, but I do recall many business owners screaming that they would be put out of business if smoking was banned in their establishments. Yet later, after smoking bans had been in place for a while, business owners were reluctantly admitting that business had picked up as the non-smokers returned and smokers continued to patronize them and grudgingly smoked outside. All the hysteria was for nothing.

These days its the airlines who are playing this Chicken Little game. “If parents stop flying because they can’t afford to pay for seats for their children, we’ll go out of business!! The only people who fly at all are people with children under the age of two! Our business will be decimated!”

Calm down and stop being ridiculous. Even IF demanding children be put in their own seats actually does keep people from flying with infants, trust me, many of us will start flying again once the unofficial “ban” on babies takes effect, more than making up for the supposed lost revenue. Can you imagine a flight with no screaming infants and no toddlers racing up and down the aisles because his mommy couldn’t keep hold of him? BLISS! If anything airlines should be DIScouraging small children on planes and it would likely be GOOD for business.

Additionally, what do you think happens to all these parents who are traveling with their children-under-two-for-free after the child turns two? Do they all just stop flying for the next sixteen years? Somehow I don’t think so. But even if they did, what do they do with the loss of that revenue? Obviously they make it up somewhere, just as they would if they lost revenue from butthurt mommies with infants.

Maybe I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, but I think the airlines are being incredibly stupid about this. I’m pretty sure they could make MORE money by requiring parents pay for seats for all children. These parents today are the instant gratification crowd, and they are not about to postpone their vacation because they can’t afford to pay for a seat for Junior! They’ll find a way to pay for that seat. They’ll beg, borrow or put it on the credit card they never plan to pay off. They are not about to practice the art of delayed gratification. Nor are they likely to drive; here’s a secret: they generally don’t like their kids any more than the rest of us do! They certainly do not want to be trapped in the car with Junior for six or eight hours! If they have to suffer, then damn it, they want everyone else to suffer right along with them!!

Ultimately, I don’t think the airlines really believe they’ll lose money on this. I think they assume that the planes will fill up anyway, and if it’s not the baby in the seat, then it’ll just be someone else and they’ll still make money. And with as crowded as flights are these days, maybe that’s true. But if it is true, then if the mommy with the lap baby refuses to fly, there will certainly be someone else willing to pay for the seat she was going to use. Right? So then what is the problem?

Here’s the bottom line: Airlines worry about the PR nightmare of changing the policy. While they must know that eventually they will be forced to change the policy, like the rest of us putting off that dentist appointment because we just don’t want to deal with it, they procrastinate. They know that as soon as the policy is changed, all the idiot, unemployed mommies with nothing better to do with their lives will start harassing them for their “right” to put their children in danger in the interests of saving a few dollars. (After all, mommies need that money to buy the latest cell phone, coach bag or video game system! They shouldn’t have to deprive themselves just because they have kids, don’t you know!)

But that is what really bothers me about this whole debate. Parents who don’t really give a shit about the safety of their kids. Oh, they SAY they would die for their kids, but if turns out that protecting their children might cost them a few bucks, their resolve crumbles. “We’ll risk it,” is their attitude. Lovely. Oh, that’s great. I wonder what other shortcuts they are taking to save money at their child’s expense? If it wasn’t required by law, would they even use car seats in the car? Probably not.

The bored housewife mommies will surely argue that they’ve flown dozens of times with a child on their lap and nothing happened and that the likelihood of something happening is almost nil, so it’s completely fine of them to take the chance to save a few bucks. Strangely enough, the airlines force adults to buckle up on those same flights where the chances of something happening are slim. If it’s SO unlikely that something will happen, why does anyone need to buckle in?

If anything, consenting adults should the only ones allowed to not buckle up. You’re grown, perhaps you can brace or protect yourself, and, having weighed the risks, you’ll forgo the seat belt. Fine. But these small children should be protected – that’s in the very job description of PARENT!! For fuck’s sake: protect your kid! Babies can’t protect themselves and they can’t give informed consent!

It’s not just airplane accidents that are a danger to lap babies. Turbulence can also be an issue. A kid squirming away from mom and running around the flight could hurt themselves in any number of ways (other passengers kicking or stepping on them (accidentally! Don’t get ideas!) or the food service cart could hit them, etc) and in at least one case, a mother smothered her infant (allegedly by accident) while holding the child during a flight. Why risk it? These issues wouldn’t be a problem if children were strapped in for their own safety which should always trump the parent’s convenience. Too bad it doesn’t.

I’ve never been in a car accident yet, but I always buckle up my seat belt regardless. One could argue that you’re about a billion times more likely to get into a car accident because all the teens are too busy texting to pay attention to the road. This is true, but airline pilots are all too often busy playing on their laptops to actually fly the planes, and air traffic controllers at major airports are too busy being “weekend dads” and playing with their kids while on the job to actually pay attention to their job, so I’m not feeling all that safe during air travel anymore, either. If you can’t trust the pilots and you can’t trust the air traffic controllers, who can you trust? It’s just dumb luck if you arrive in one piece anymore. And don’t even dare travel on a commuter flight without getting your will in order first.

I am pleased the article points out how terribly irresponsible it is for any parent to hold a child on their lap during flights. This IS dangerous and absolutely not in the child’s best interest. But isn’t it pathetic that as a society we literally have to force parents to do the right thing because they are too cheap and lazy to do so otherwise?

I know some of you were expecting an awesome Mother’s Day rant from me today, but I don’t have it in me right now. I thought about complaining about how creepy it is that women think Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day is sort of the same thing, but that’s about all that needs to be said about that.

In 2008 I ranted about why we even need this holiday, anyway — it’s just attention whoring after all. And in 2005 I complained about those ridiculous overinflated figures of how much a mom “should” get paid. (I thought about covering that topic again this year, with a twist, but I didn’t see those figures in the news this year. Have they finally figured out how stupid they are and stopped doing them?)

More importantly, I recently wrote about how just the act of being a mother does not make one worthy of respect, despite what this holiday stands for!

And I’m not going to wish you all a Happy Non-Mom Day or a Fur-Mommy Day, because that all seems kinda dumb and awkward. After all I wouldn’t wish my non-Christian friends “Happy Non-Christmas!” or “Happy Yule” on December 25th.

So I really thought I had nothing left to say. Until I saw this.

Shockingly enough, the folks at Post Secret posted this secret on today, the high holy day of mothers:

I expected to see nothing but lot of dumb, breeder-pleasing, pro-mommy cards on that website today — which defeats the purpose of the site. And much of it was. Like the one today that says:

When I was three the best thing in my world was a hug from my mom. I’m 20 now and proud to say nothing has changed…. I hope when I’m 40 I can still hug my mother.

and

Every day I become a little bit more like my mother and I couldn’t be prouder. (smiley face)

and

Let’s always have this much fun. We love you, Mom.

*Yawn* Why do the people running that site post these “secrets”? They aren’t secrets. People can tell these things to their mothers to their faces. I hate when people waste time with postcards like that, and I hate when Post Secret puts them up. I suppose they get hundreds of post cards a week so one would expect they’d have a lot to choose from and could put up the most interesting ones, not the most “feel good” ones.

(One might argue that the secret I posted isn’t much of a “secret” either, but it’s still not exactly socially acceptable to say that out type of thing out loud everywhere. I know people who are still closeted about their childfreedom and wouldn’t say this out loud for fear of offending their child-burdened friends and relatives. No one has to hide “in the closet” about loving their mommy!)

The folks at Post Secret also, surprisingly, posted cards about crappy mothers today, too, which is rather daring. No one is supposed to acknowledge that there are shit mothers in the world today. Heck, we’re not really supposed to point them out on other days, either, but most especially not on this day! Good for Post Secret for considering all viewpoints on this day.

I got this email about a week ago, asking for anyone from Germany who might like to share their experience for a soon-to-be-published in Germany childfree book.

I live in Germany, and although the difference between Childfree and childless would also perfectly work in German, the idea of childfreedom doesn’t really exist here. So I thought I’ll introduce it. I started writing a book about it, sent it to several agents (5 out of 8 were positively interested, that says a lot I think), I chose one of them, and now the book is currently offered to publishers. What I would like to include are personal stories of childfree people. So, I wanted to ask if you could maybe publish this request on your website and ask if people were willing to share their stories. Absolute confidentiality and anonymity are guaranteed! I would obviously be most interested in people who live in Germany (whether German or other nationals), but not exclusively. Anyway, I figured I might not be the only German reading your blog.

If you are in Germany or somewhere else in Europe, you might be interested in helping this author. Email me phoena @ happilychildfree.com and I’ll forward the email to her. (Americans (or other countries) can email me as well, but I think she’d prefer Europeans since their culture is more similar to German culture than other countries. Like when I read that French childfree book (No Kids: 40 Good Reasons Not To Have Children by Corinne Maier) I found that some cultural things just don’t translate well!)

This month,

Austin [Texas] City Council Members unanimously voted to require CPCs [Crisis Pregnancy Centers] to post signs disclosing the services they don’t provide – becoming only the second city in the nation with this protective measure!

(link)

What an awesome new law! Baltimore (Maryland) is the only other city to do this. Now women who want to be informed of all their options will not be mislead, lied to, or have their time and money wasted!

What’s wrong with full-disclosure? Patients should be made aware up front of what services are provided and who could argue with that? After all, if these Crisis Pregnancy Centers are so against abortion and refuse to provide the service, they should be proud to proclaim that! I mean, unless they intend to intentionally defraud customers. That’s the only reason they’d have a problem with this, right?

And guess what, they do have a problem with this!! I think that says a lot about them.

They are doing a lot of “This is unconstitutional! What happened to free speech?!” arguments. What free speech are they defending? The right to LIE to customers and mislead them about what services you provide? Classy! You aren’t allowed to circumvent “Truth In Advertising” laws in the name of “Free Speech!” Otherwise McDonald’s would have the “Free Speech” right to tell you that Big Macs might be a great diet plan! Phillip Morris certainly wasn’t able to win the “Free Speech” argument when they were forced to put Surgeon General’s warnings on their cigarette packs! How is this any different, really?

While one might argue that everyone knows that CPCs are (in most cases) unlicensed and thus unable to offer any medical services. But not everyone knows that! Even if it was common knowledge, then putting the sign out front to reiterate what everyone already knows won’t hurt a thing, will it?

Keep in mind, this law does NOT force these CPCs to offer abortion services or abortion referral services. The law is not asking them to do anything against their own “morality” (unless you consider lying to be part of your moral code – apparently many of them do). All it asks is that they are up front about what they refuse to offer. Period.

How brain-damaged (or unethical) do you have to be to have a problem with this? Do you realize that these CPCs take money (at least in Texas) from the government under the “Alternatives to Abortion” program? They do. And then… they don’t really provide any services.

Indeed, in 2005, lawmakers took $5 million that would otherwise go to providers of traditional family-planning services for low-income women to create the new Alternatives to Abortion program as a way to directly fund CPCs and task them with “promoting childbirth.” In a series of articles, the [Austin] Chronicle found that the money hasn’t exactly done much to provide women with any real services – aside from referring them to other state and federal programs and providing a nice annual raise for Vincent Friedewald, the executive director of the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, which administers the state contract.

(link)

Are these CPCs all run by teenagers? They certainly have the typical teenaged attitude down pat: “Gimme money but keep your nose out of my business and don’t tell me what to do!”

Oh, wait! NOW I get it! These CPCs are nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme! Step 1: Open up a phony “pregnancy counseling center.” Step 2: Collect state funds. Step 3: Offer no real services, thus keeping costs down. Step 4: Pocket the money and go on a shopping spree! Wheeeee!

The bottom line is that these folks are afraid that once people find out they don’t provide any services (well, maybe they buy home pregnancy tests and administer them – how much can that cost?) they’ll have to shut down and stop getting free money. If these groups were forced to get licensed and offer some form of medical care, why, there would be far less money to line everyone’s pockets! Can’t have that, now can we?

I find this really outrageous and offensive and –

I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought. I just realized I live in Texas (not Austin) and I just figured out a new early retirement scheme plan. I gotta go.

I got a little ramble-y on this one, but bear with me.

I’ve been hearing a fair amount of parenting whine lately that goes like this:

You childfree people refuse to respect our choice to have babies. You people say you want respect for your choices, but you won’t automatically respect me as a parent! *foot stomp* Grow up, childfree losers!

Okay, so some of them don’t say “losers” but even when they don’t, the “losers” is implied by their tone.

Here’s the thing about respect: Just because you do something, doesn’t mean you deserve respect for doing it. If you do a shitty job, no one is going to respect that.

If someone chooses to become a brain surgeon and they become a great brain surgeon, that’s worthy of respect. If someone decides they wouldn’t be a good brain surgeon, for whatever reason, that’s something we should respect as well. Opting out of something that you know you couldn’t do well, that’s a good thing. Would you insult and belittle someone into becoming a half-assed brain surgeon? I think not.

Now if someone decides to become a brain surgeon, and does a piss-poor job of it because they don’t really want to work all that hard at it, that’s NOT worthy of respect. That’s shameful.

Of course parenting isn’t brain surgery, but it’s still a huge job that requires quite a bit of maturity, responsibility, sacrifice and planning ahead. But all too often, we see many, many parents who think they can half-ass the job of parenting, and yet demand full respect and benefits for their half-ass job. I’m not going to respect that.

Here’s what’s really upsetting. Luckily for those of us grown, if we need a brain surgeon, we get to shop around. If the first brain surgeon we meet is a complete flake and probably someone who graduated last in his class in medical school, we can high-tail it out of there and find another brain surgeon. Kids don’t have that opportunity. Kids are stuck with whatever half-assed parent they get, and that horrifies me. Absolutely horrifies me!

Okay, one can argue that CPS (Child Protective Services) can come and take the kids away if the parents are too bad, but the problem is that CPS is overwhelmed with all the shit-parents they have to investigate every day, which leaves them with too few resources to do anything except in the worst cases. And let’s just dwell on that for a second: CPS is overwhelmed. This means there are a LOT of people fucking up the job of parenting. And you know there are a lot more people who haven’t even fallen on CPS’s radar yet. Obviously, there are a lot of awful parents out there.

So don’t tell me to respect you for having kids. ANYONE can have kids. If you want respect, you need to prove you’re not half-assing the job.

Now let’s just forget about all the severe abuse and neglect cases for a while, because I don’t need to tell you how awful and irresponsible that is. Let’s just talk about the everyday lazy parents who don’t want to be bothered to do the real work involved in parenting. Crappy parenting has become the norm in this society so much so that most people just overlook all the day-to-day crappy parenting. The stuff that won’t kill the kids, but certainly isn’t good for them or helping them to become productive citizens.

Let’s at least start with some basic qualities of good parents. Good parenting requires:

And of course, we’re often told we’re “selfish” for not being required to change our lifestyles to adapt to a child, so let’s add one more:

Which really would fall under “sacrifice” but I want to highlight this as its own issue, since it comes up so damn often.

By that measuring stick, an awful lot is expected of parents. But are most parents up to it? When you are out and about, whether you are childfree, fencesitter or parent, take these points with you and take assessment of the parents you see in life, whether they are friends, coworkers, relatives or strangers you see while out shopping. Honestly, try to be objective, but what do you see?

I’m going to tell you what I see. I see people taking their children to R rated movies at 10pm. Who can justify this? Yea, so this won’t kill the kid. It might traumatize the kid if it’s got any frightening scenes. It might likely bore the kid. It’s likely to annoy other audience goers. And why? Someone please tell me why?

I rarely go to the movie theater anymore because I think they charge way too much for way too little so that Hollywood fat-cats can live in multi-million dollar mansions. But the last time I went to the theater I went at 10pm to an R rated movie and couldn’t believe how many kids I saw. I went at 10pm convinced it was the time to go to AVOID kids. And of course, the kids were crying and fussing loudly during the movie because they were bored and tired and didn’t want to be there.

Now tell me, why should I respect those parents? What is so mature and responsible about this choice? Nothing. Where is the sacrifice, planning ahead or changing of their lifestyle? There isn’t. Where is that patience (you know, waiting for it to come out on video)? Not there! And of course, they are not being financially responsible – if you can’t afford a sitter, you certainly can’t afford the cost of the movies!

This behavior is the behavior of half-assed parents, and there is nothing worthy of respect if you’re going to half-ass the job of parenting. What they are saying, essentially, is:

“I don’t care if I have kids. I’m not changing my life. I’m doing what I want to do anyway, and so what if my kid has to be dragged along, and he’s tired, cranky, noisy and/or gets frightened by the images on the screen? So what if other people don’t like it. TOUGH BALLS. I’m gonna live my life any way I damn well please. It’s all about me! You childfree fuckers can just kill yourselves if you don’t like it.”

And we let people like this raise children? Lovely.

What’s with the people who are so busy chatting on the phone while out in public that they aren’t even watching their kids? Forget about “hang up and drive” how about “hang up and parent your kids”?! So often I see them shuffling along in the store, phone glued to their ear while they talk about nonsense gossip, and they just assume their kids are following behind them like little ducks. They are so engrossed in their conversation, they don’t even notice when the kids get in trouble!

Last week while out in public, a gal was so busy yakking on the phone she wasn’t watching as her kid was messing with the automatic doors and his hand got caught. Of course, mommies like this always think it’s the store’s fault for not making the doors safer, but why the hell aren’t these women watching their kids?

Now tell me, why should I respect parents like her? Their cell phones are more important to them than their kids! They certainly pay more attention to the phone than the kids. (I never understand these people who are always on the phone when out and about. Maybe I’m just less rude than most people, but if I’m going to talk to you on the phone, I’m going to wait until I’m home and can give you my full attention. I’m not going to expect you to entertain me while I’m doing my grocery shopping or picking up my photos at Walgreens. But that’s just me.)

What is so mature and responsible about these cell-phone addicted parents? Unless they are calling for emergency services, nothing! It’s not mature or responsible to ignore your kids! If you’re out and about, let people leave you a message, get your errands done, keep an eye on your kids, and then go home and talk on the phone all you like. Where is the sacrifice, planning ahead or changing of their lifestyle? Oh no, they couldn’t possibly miss that call – it’s IMPORTANT. It might be some good gossip!

What about all the people out in public with screaming kids? My husband has this theory that you can’t go anywhere in public without at least one screaming kid, and I laughed when he first said it, but since then, I’ve found he’s right more often than not. Sometimes we’ll move a few aisles away to avoid the screaming kid, only to run into another screaming kid. And all too often, the parents aren’t doing anything about the screaming kid. While a screaming kid is but an annoyance (and a good reason to carry your headphones and music player with you everywhere you go), it still shows a huge lack of judgment on the part of people with children. If your kid is that miserable, do something to help them! If the kid is just a brat, stop taking him out in public. If he’s tired, why are you dragging him out when you know he’s tired? Why not get a sitter? Or have the other parent or a relative watch the kid while you run your errands! There is no excuse to intentionally make your kid and other shoppers miserable just because of your bad attitude! I’ve been saying it for years, but I’ll say it again: if you think making your kid and everyone else miserable is “your right” you make a shitty parent and a shitty human being. I’m not going to respect that kind of parenting, and no one should.

Then there are the mommies who run around saying that the childfree movement in general says that “kids should never be allowed in public” and you know that’s just a lie. That’s not what we’re saying! We’re saying: Don’t take your kids to inappropriate movies late at night. Don’t take your kids to bars. Don’t take your kids out when you know they’ll be miserable and cranky. Don’t ignore your kids while you talk on the phone, and don’t ignore your kids while they scream. If you are absolutely incapable of being considerate of others in public, you’re not capable of teaching consideration to your kids, and that makes you a bad parent. I’m not going to respect bad parents!

And before you whine, “You childfree people can be jerks, too!” Fine, sometimes we can be, and you know what? It doesn’t matter. We’re not responsible for teaching the next generation how to behave. YOU ARE. So you need to behave better than us or you need to opt out of parenting. If you want to be a parent, you don’t have the right to be a jerk. That’s the choice you made.

Don’t try to claim “The Hardest Job in the World” or “Most Important Job in the World” status if you’re not willing to actually work hard and treat the job like it’s important. Maybe if you were making more responsible choices and raising well-behaved and happy kids, we’d respect you. In the meantime, don’t hold your breath.

And for those of you dipshit mommies who are going to cry, “FINE! Don’t respect my choice but I won’t respect yours, either!” First of all, that’s childish and secondly, go back and read the sixth paragraph and try and figure it out, if you can. Maybe get your mommy to explain it to you if you still don’t get it.

I recently obtained a copy of the book The Baby Trap written by Ellen Peck, a childfree author. The book was published in 1971 and is now out of print, so if you see a copy, snatch it up. It’s pretty good, despite being a bit dated (the whole chapter on birth control and abortion is particularly outdated!).

The first seven chapters were especially good. She starts off the book explaining she is not going to be objective or tell both sides of the story on purpose to balance out all the pro-child sentiments society blasts at us.

She discusses how having kids is big business to capitalist society. Having babies keeps you spending money on them and they’ll grow up to be spenders, too. Meanwhile, workerbees can’t afford to risk their jobs because they have a family to support. She discusses how advertisers use children and family to sell everything, from baby cribs to socks. (There was a particular Hanes commercial a few years ago that annoyed the hell out of me. Mom and teen daughter bonded because… they wore the same socks?! I don’t think the socks are that miraculous!)

In another chapter, Ms Peck discusses how the mainstream media sells motherhood, partially by glorifying celebrity mothers and perpetuating the “baby saves marriage” myth. Next, she discusses how our culture has become more obsessed with reproducing itself than with improving itself — something I’m sure we all recognize.

…babies are emphasized and adults are de-emphasized… a woman is regarded as a means to an end (propagating the species)… she is not seen as beautiful, vibrant, valuable in and of herself.

There is so much true about that, even today. How many mommies do you know who claim that their children are their “crowning achievement” – they de-value any personal accomplishments they might have had educationally or professionally or even hobbies they were really good at. No, the children are her only real glory – because she sees herself as just a baby producer. It makes me ill. As far as she’s concerned, the first twenty (or so) years of her life, before having babies, was almost like wasted time where she were nothing but an empty shell, waiting to fulfill her destiny as mother. Really, I think I’m going to throw up here!

Ms Peck goes on to argue that there is no “maternal instinct” but rather a sexual instinct, and babies just happen to be a consequence of that. The maternal instinct is wholly manufactured to keep women busy and at home and spending money on lots and lots of things for baby. What happens if more and more women decide not to have kids? Why, we might get educated and realize there is more to life. We might take valuable jobs away from men. We might not be stuck staying with shitty husbands, and then all those crap guys might not get laid anymore. Oh no, can’t have that! Better to keep women down and their expectations low – it’s better for men, especially the assholes.

I could go on all day, but these are the highlights. While there isn’t anything new in this book – it is almost 40 years old, after all – but it’s an interesting read and puts a lot of ideas we already have into print, validating them. I’m proud that our fore mothers and fathers were working for the childfree movement four decades ago to pave the way for our choices.

I really enjoyed the book, and you likely would, too, if you can find a copy!

Now that I posted the information on the childfree-friendly doctors, I have been getting a lot of requests for more information about people’s experiences with various procedures (Essure, Vasectomy, etc) and the costs. I know that everyone’s experience and cost will be different, so I decided to start this thread for you all to discuss your experiences.

If you could, briefly, give people an overview of your experiences from IUDs to vasectomies to abortions. Start about by explaining what you had done, how it was done, how much pain or discomfort you were in, what your recovery time was and how soon you felt back to normal. Did you have an complications? If your insurance covered all or part of it, what insurance do you have? If you found some charity or program to help cover the cost, please include that information. If you paid the whole thing outright, how much did it set you back? When talking amongst your friends who have had similar procedures done, what is the average cost of these procedures?

Thanks for helping share this information with the childfree community!

One of my biggest pet peeves is myth that “pregnant women shalt not drink a drop of alcohol lest the child surely turn out retardeth”. Well, you know, looking around at the general population, if that’s true, I’d guess 90% of mothers must be drinking during pregnancy because I’m surrounded by idiots! Maybe that’s what this whole autism epidemic is about – not vaccines, but drunken mothers! Yea, let’s spread that rumor around. The other one caught on, maybe this one, will too!!

Do you honestly think a glass of wine will retard the fetus? I totally understand that one shouldn’t drink to excess for their own sake as well as of their child, but drinking in moderation isn’t that bad. This whole temperance movement has got to go. They are spreading lies and misinformation just as much as the anti-choice* movement. Neither group cares about fetuses or babies! I sometimes even wonder if they put out these lies just to see how many women they can find who are dumb enough to fall for them!

Pretty much everyone in the United States has jumped on this bullshit bandwagon. It’s difficult to find a news publication or doctor in this country that will tell you the truth, lest they be condemned by the anti-drinking police. Do you realize that women are more demonized for drinking during pregnancy than smoking? True, people don’t generally find smoking during pregnancy to be acceptable, but few believe that the risk for low birth weight or future asthma problems is nearly as horrific as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The FAS propaganda machine has been far more successful. In fact, many people want you to believe that smokers are helpless, unjustly persecuted victims who can’t give up their peer-pressure induced addiction, but a pregnant woman who imbibes even the slightest amount is just plain evil.

The folks at babycenter claim that any amount of alcohol during pregnancy is “too much”. In fact, they go so far as to claim that women who are even thinking about getting pregnant shouldn’t drink, because apparently that, too, will retard the not-yet-conceived fetus. Gee, that’s a neat trick since alcohol doesn’t stay in your system that long.

I did find someone on the internet willing to tell the truth: that a glass or two of wine isn’t going to hurt anything and might even have some health benefits. But first I had to wade through umpteen articles about how anyone who drinks will miscarry and if that doesn’t happen, for sure the baby will either be born dead or he’ll be an alcoholic ‘tard. FOR SURE! (Note to childfree people, apparently we don’t need abortion! If you find yourself accidentally pregnant, drink lots of coffee and alcohol! Automatic miscarriage**! YAY!)

Yea, that’s interesting, since excerpts from this article say the complete opposite (emphasis mine):

the American government, medical authorities and media have not been telling American women the entire truth. Although the official message is “don’t drink at all during pregnancy”, a great deal of recent research and a re-examination of the alcohol-pregnancy issue show that there is no conclusive evidence to demonstrate that moderate drinking during pregnancy can harm the fetus.

…According to Doctors David Whitten and Martin Lipp of the University of California at San Francisco, “the campaign against drinking during pregnancy started in 1973 when several studies showed that heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause the condition known as the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. These studies demonstrated that the children of many alcoholic mothers were born with a cluster of severe birth defects. “What the government conveniently chose to ignore” say Whitten and Lipp, is that this syndrome is extremely rare, occurring only 3 times in 100,000 births, and then only when the mother drinks abusively throughout her pregnancy.”

Later in the article, they even suggested that moderate alcohol consumption might actually be (gasp) beneficial!

I’m going to go with these guys. I have an alcoholic relative who managed to have a handful of kids that were born healthy despite her single-handedly keeping Anheuser-Busch in business, and while her kids are somewhat fucked up personally, that’s because they were raised in a morality-free zone by an alcoholic. Who wouldn’t turn out with issues in that situation? But they didn’t have serious physical problems or retardation due to her drinking, despite everyone in the family being completely sure they would. We used to WISH alcohol caused miscarriage because we felt sorry for anyone born to her, and yet, it didn’t work. While this drunken relative was just plain lucky her kids weren’t fucked up, it’s very interesting that women are told not to even have a sip of champagne because that will seriously harm their fetus. Yet this drunken relative had a lot more than a sip and she didn’t even run into such problems.

My goal here isn’t to tell all preggos to start drinking. If a woman doesn’t want to drink – for whatever reason – that’s her business! I just don’t want her blindly believing the lies being spread by the lying liars who lie to control women.

I absolutely hate how in movies and TV shows, everyone finds out that Betty Bimbo is pregnant because she puts her hand over her wine glass to stop someone for pouring her a drink. Everyone goes, “(gasp!) Betty, you’re not drinking? Oh my god, does this mean what I think it means?” and Betty sheepishly grins and giggles and THE SECRET IS OUT, cue gushing of all the women and congratulations all around. Oh, groan! That scene always drives me crazy. It’s so cliché and stupid. If she wanted to tell people she was pregnant, why not just tell them? Who writes this crap?

Meanwhile, millions of women who most definitely aren’t pregnant are looked at suspiciously if they pass up a drink. There are many reasons why someone might not want a drink. They might be a recovering alcoholic. They might be related to alcoholics and don’t even want to risk turning into one. They could be on some medication that isn’t supposed to be mixed with alcohol. They could be the designated driver. They might not like what is being served, or maybe they just don’t like alcohol. They could be some teetotalling right-winger who thinks alcohol is evil. Who knows? But I really hate that if a woman isn’t drinking, society has been conditioned (largely by Hollywood) to automatically jump to the (often incorrect) conclusion she’s pregnant! No, actually, I hate that society is obsessed with analyzing women’s alcohol consumption at all.

Women should not have to defend her choice to drink or not to drink! Society needs to stop constantly trying to control women’s behavior!

Of course, we all know that alcohol and coffee aren’t the only things that will supposedly kill the fetus. As the article continues, it explains how pretty much anything women might enjoy is allegedly a danger to her unborn child:

In her recently published book “The Myths of Motherhood”, Shary Turner indicates that alcohol is far from the only risk factor pregnant women are warned against. Other items on the list include caffeine, chocolate, raw oysters, unpasteurized cheese, tropical fruits, drugs that alleviate cold symptoms, nail polish, suntan lotion and hair dye, all of which in some amount may harm the fetus. Turner’s conclusion is that “the only risk free pregnancy is one that is meant less to benefit the baby than to imprison the mother in anxiety and self-reproach.“

Tropical fruits? Notice McDonald’s isn’t off-limits, but healthy things like fruit are forbidden? Honestly, shouldn’t there be more concerned about these severely-overweight pregnant women than we are about fruit and a glass of wine? How can obesity be healthy for the fetus?!

But never mind that. Isn’t the bolded statement above exactly what the whole right-wing, anti-choice, temperance movement wants? To control and imprison women, make them full of self-doubt and anxieties, and most importantly, stuck at the home, with children, unemployed, breastfeeding, and unable to cause a stink? As they say, “Well behaved women rarely make history!” All these people really want is for women to have no choices, no fun, be completely subservient and dependent on men! The scary part is that so many women are falling for it and turning on other women.

*speaking of the anti-choice movement, they have started a facebook group called ” I’m Pro-Life, and no, that does NOT mean anti-choice, that means anti-DEATH” Well, let’s see, here. Telling women we have no option but to give birth to an unwanted child is the very definition of no choice. Apparently the anti-choice group is full of such idiots they don’t even know what the word “choice” means!!

**This is not valid medical advice, so don’t take it! Despite the fact that these idiots insist any woman who drinks coffee or alcohol will likely miscarry, it’s unlikely to work.

Here’s the new page of the website! Childfree Friendly Doctors! I’ll need everyone’s help to keep the list up to date! If you ever have new or updated information, send it my way!

Childfree-Friendly Doctors Resource List