Check out this blog post by a friend of mine, about how you can have more than a dozen children and still pay less for health insurance than the childfree.

I honestly do not understand how insurance companies are this stupid. A family of 20 is going to use MORE services than a family of 2, so why charge the family of 20 less? I would think insurance companies would get smart and charge PER PERSON which is totally reasonable and would make them some extra cash. The fact tha they don’t shows how dumb they are!

Nothing has ever made me want to mow down a construction worker more than these signs:

No, not because I desperately want to mow people down. It’s because anyone who thinks their life is more valuable due to their inability to use birth control almost deserves to be mowed down. Twice!

Newsflash: the type of person who speeds through construction zones isn’t going to going to care WHO works there. They certainly aren’t going to see that sign and think, “Oh, man! Here I thought it was just a bunch of childless people who work here! Well, I’d better slow down now that I know it’s someone who is contributing to overpopulation!”

And check out the spelling on that sign in case you missed it the first time. Don’t you just love how breeders think it’s “cute” when their little brats are stupid and can’t spell? You know there is something wrong with society when people are PROUD of their kids being morons.

A couple of years ago, I started hearing about this “Family Day” drivel. At first I thought it was kind of a joke, so I ignored it. But it wouldn’t go away. Eventually I realized they actually want people to take them seriously. Apparently, it’s gotten so bad that someone had to start a national media campaign to try and convince people to spend time with their kids.

Yes, that’s right. Not surprisingly, there is a national crisis going on where a large number (possibly majority) of parents are too busy (probably surfing the internet) for their children. Why else would a big campaign like this be needed? The writing is on the wall folks: People just don’t want to spend time with their kids!

I’m not really shocked. I’ve met their kids while out at the grocery store, the movie theater, restaurants and even the library. I wouldn’t want to spend time with those brats, either!

What’s this stupid campaign about, anyway?

They say the purpose of family day is to “promote parental engagement” and “emphasize the importance of regular family activities”. The broader idea of this “Family Day” nonsense is that, supposedly, if parents are more involved with their kids, the kids are less likely to smoke, drink, or do drugs. (Whether or not that is actually true isn’t the point.) This aspect of Family Day is glossed over, though. Usually all you hear about is, “You should sit down at the dinner table with your kids.” Because apparently, people aren’t doing it.

Just the very fact that they have to remind parents not to fuck up just proves what I’ve been saying all along. Too many parents are fucking it up.

Not that I’m happy to be right. It really makes me angry that parents lecutre me on how they are SO much more mature and responsible people, while they totally blow off their kids. No wonder these kids are turning out so shitty. They are getting screwed.

Listen up: If this campaign actually makes you realize, “Hey, eating dinner with my family is a good idea!” because you couldn’t think of that on your own, you’re a lousy parent. If you don’t know, until the media tells you, that you should spend time with their kids, you’re a breeder!

When is family day?

While one website claimed it’s in March, all other websites agreed it’s in September. This year, Family Day is September 24th. You might find it amusing that it’s on a Monday (it’s always on a Monday). This is either because parents wanted to try and worm their way out of work using this as an excuse, or because they didn’t want to get stuck spending ALL DAY with the kids, so they agreed a school day would be less painful. Or more likely both.

Seriously, wouldn’t a Saturday be a better choice?!

What exactly are families supposed to do that day?

They are supposed to sit down to dinner together as a family and talk. Maybe play board games afterwards, or help the kids with homework. You know, stuff they are supposed to do every day, but don’t.

Wasn’t this the norm 20 years ago? They certainly didn’t have to campaign to remind my parents to do this when I was a kid. I can’t imagine what we would have done if we weren’t eating dinner together and talking! What do people do today? Ignore each other and everyone eats in their own bedroom in silence?!

Eating dinner together one night a year is supposed to curb substance abuse?!

Of course not. The idea behind all this is to encourage people to spend time with their kids all year round, but they don’t try very hard. They only advertise for this one day a year and they say things like, “Make September 24th Family Day!” not “Make every day Family Day!” If they wanted to encourage this behavior all the time, they would campaign for it all year round. What are families supposed to do in February when they’ve forgotten all about this “holiday”? Who is going to remind them? Certainly not the people beind this campaign.

So the whole thing is kind of pointless.

Could this get any more ridiculous?

Oh yes it could!

I found at least three websites dedicated to this fluff. Each one proved they think childed people are complete idiots.

They suggest parents make their kids sign a “family contract” promising not to do drugs. As if those purity pledges ever worked out! They also ask people to sign an online pledge, vowing to spend Family Day (September 24th) together. Not only is the pledge pointless, it only asks them to make the smallest commitment to do something ONE day a year. That’s it. They couldn’t possibly ask parents to make any more of an effort than that! *scoff*

These sites also have a list suggestions of things to do with the kids. Just the fact that lists are needed is offensive. It’s like they think parents have no idea what to do with or say to their kids. They offer suggestions of “eating dessert so that everyone will linger around the table longer.” Um yea, just what these overweight kids today need – more dessert!! They also suggest helping the kids with their homework, because without being reminded, parents wouldn’t know that is part of their job.

What they don’t suggest is getting the kids to help make dinner or better yet, help clean up after dinner. Heaven forbid you make kids do any chores!

The funniest part, though, was that these websites offer up conversation starters. I guess people with kids don’t know how to talk to their kids unless someone writes them a script. The questions were so incredibly stupid: “Who is the best laundry folder in the family?” and “Who controls the TV remote in the family?” THIS is the best they could come up with?! I don’t know what’s worse: That only a parent could think up stuff this dumb, or that some parents can’t even come up with stuff this dumb.

But parents are broke! They can’t afford Family Day!

The Family Day organizers realize that the members of their target audience cry “broke” every time they are asked to spend money on their kids, so they’re one step ahead of you.

They have form letters for parents to send to grocery stores, telling them about Family Day, asking the stores to advertise for it, and put food on sale that week for parents to encourage Family Day. Is that ridiculous or what? Is the implication that if food isn’t on sale that week, the family won’t eat? Give me a break. Here’s a clue: people are going to buy food regardless of if it’s Family Day or if it’s on sale. Besides, the type of people who need this campaign get free food through Food Stamps and WIC. Putting something on sale won’t make it any cheaper than FREE. If anything, they should put food on sale for people who don’t get free food, like the childless, childfree and empty nesters. Now THERE’S an idea! *snicker*

Even more obnoxious, though, is that they have form letters for parents to send to restaurants, telling them about Family Day, asking them to advertise for it, and to give discounts to families that day (larger discounts than they usually get, I mean). Apparently, for some people, the only way they will sit down with their kids at a table is if they can annoy a whole room full of people. Typical. *eyeroll*

I’m a little confused about this. I thought the whole point of Family Day was for people to stay home with their kids and have family time without distraction (no TV, no phones, no one else around, etc.). Yet, now they are encouraging people to eat out for Family Day? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? How are you going to sit around playing a board game in the restaurant?

What’s next, are they going to ask movie theaters to extend discounts to families so they will “bond” with their kids at the movies? I’m sure we’ll see that next year.

I was going to suggest childfree enjoy Family Day as a night out, hoping to find less bratty kids in public. I was going to encourage you to print out Family Day flyers and then hand them out to families they saw out NOT participating in Family Day. Of course, now it would seem that they’ll be overcrowding the restaurants that day, too, because the Family Day organizers encouraged them to do that.

So, my childfree friends, your best bet is to stay home that day, have dinner together with your significant other and/or friends, mock how the breeders are “attemping” Family Day and speculate how badly it’s going. I wonder how long that conversation about laundry folding will last!!

Raise your hand if you are sick of listening to single parents (most often women, but not always) constantly bitching about how hard it is and what an ass their ex is. Yea, me too!

Every time someone tells me that their ex is an asshole, I think, “Well, you picked him! What does that say about you?” I’m not saying I never dated any assholes, but I never dated them for long, and I never had kids with any of them. That’s because I’m not an idiot.

If you were to confront bitter single moms about this, and ask them WHY they’d choose to have a kid with an asshole, they all have the same stock answer, as if they are reading it out of a textbook: “Well, he CHANGED. He wasn’t always like that!”

While that excuse might be true some of the time, I’ve been around a long time and I know that it’s not true all that often. I know you’ve all known these women. They seek out losers. Everyone knew all along that he is a loser. But she’s a wannabe mommy, so she’s either so dumb she overlooks his bad qualities, or she knows he’s an ass, but she wants a baby soooooooo badly, she ignores it. Then she spends the next 18 years playing martyr and pretending he wasn’t always a loser. What a joke!

Someone needs to invent a Norplant dart gun, so that when we see these women going down that path, we can temporarily sterilize them until they come to their senses!!

Currently I know a gal who, a little over a year ago while on the rebound, went out in search of the biggest asshole she could possibly find. She stopped short of finding a convicted murderer, but she came close. She moved in with him about 2 months after she met him and married him about 4 months after that, then got knocked up almost immediately after the wedding. All this despite the fact that he:

- Is an alcoholic.
- Is a paint huffer.
- Has multiple DUIs.
- Has a suspended license from the DUIs.
- Has vowed to drink and drive again as soon as he gets his license back.
- Had “lost” all forms of ID (including social security card and birth certificate) and claimed there was “no way” to get replacement IDs so he used this as an excuse not to work (no one would hire him without ID) for about 9 months until SHE finally filed the papers to get his IDs back.
- Has shown a pattern of verbal/emotional abuse. (She hasn’t exactly admitted to this yet, but the signs are all there.)
- Works when he feels like it, which isn’t often, and when he does work, he blows most of his money on beer and cigarettes and isn’t keen on helping with household expenses. In fact, sometimes he bullies her into handing over some of her money so he can get more alcohol and cigarettes.

Obviously a train-wreck in progress. And these are only the flaws that are obvious or that she’s admitted to so far. He might be even worse.

Despite all these personality flaws, she “loooooooooves him” and wants babies with him. Because they are so broke and both have a mountain of debt, for about 10 minutes after the wedding she said, “I want babies, but maybe we should wait a couple of years until our debts are paid off.” Good thinking! But all her breeder friends convinced her that babies hardly cost a dime so she decided to dive right in and have a baby right away. After all, her friends all told her babies are practically free, so she’s sure she can afford one!

I predict that within 5 years, but probably less 2, they will divorce. Then the “OMG, He’s such a loser deadbeat” cries will come from my “friend” and I’m going to be right there to say, “He was always a loser deadbeat and will always be a loser deadbeat, but you still chose to have a child with him, so you have no right to complain!”

I might be wrong in my prediction, but I doubt it. I’ve seen this same train-wreck happen several times before. Friends, coworkers, relatives and acquaintances — it’s always the same. No amount of trying to reason with these girls works. She won’t listen. She doesn’t want to listen. Listening might mean not getting what she wants (a baby, attention, gifts and sympathy) the exact second she wants it.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying these women are such wonderful people themselves. On the contrary, I think if they were wonderful people they wouldn’t seek out the bottom of the gene pool to breed with. They are completely stupid and irresponsible and they just prove that by having children with these men. I’m just as disgusted with them as I am with the men in the stories.

(Do NOT turn the comments area into a debate on, “Those poor men shouldn’t have to pay child support!” because I hate that misogynistic debate and besides, these men are DEADBEATS. They don’t pay any bills, least of all child support, so it’s a moot issue in this thread.)

These women are stupid and irresponsible, which is enough of a reason to hate them. But then they try playing the victim and martyr card and I hate them even more. Since when is it “cool” to be a victim, anyway?

I know of one actual case where the man did change. He got into a car accident and had a brain injury. His personality changed and his disability kept him from holding down a job. I felt sorry for him, his wife and his kid. That is, until she went on to have two more kids with him anyway. At that point I lost sympathy for her. She divorced him and last I heard she was still bitching about what an asshole deadbeat he was! It’s incredible the way people can dig their own holes, then blame everyone else and pull the victim card. *disgusted sigh*

If you choose to have kids with a deadbeat loser, I’m not going to feel sorry for you. NO ONE should. We should NOT be rewarding stupidity and irresponsibility in any way, not even with attention and sympathy (which is what most of them crave). They certainly don’t deserve it.

Do you remember when we were kids (us old folks, anyway) and we were told the story of the little boy who cried wolf by Aesop? Here’s a recap for all the kids whose parents have refused to teach them this fable:

Some spoiled brat that we’ll call “Aiden” (since that’s the latest “trendy” name) was a shepherd who watched over sheep. Every day Aiden would take his flock out to pasture. It was a fairly boring job, but someone had to do it. He was told that if he ever saw a wolf, to cry out, “WOLF!” and the townsfolk would come running to save him and his flock.

Well, one day, Aiden forgot his video iPod at home and he had nothing to entertain him. This really bummed Aiden out and he was like, totally bored. So he thought he’d be cute and scream, “WOLF!” When he did, all the townsfolk came running. Aiden laughed at them in that obnoxious way that only spoiled brats can, and said, “Made ya look! Made ya look! HA HA!” They scolded him and reminded him of how important it was that he only cry wolf if there was an actual wolf. Then they went back to what they had been doing in town.

About a week later, Aiden’s video iPod was boring him, and he thought back to the prank he’d done the week before. Because he thought it was so funny, he decided to try it again. He yelled, “WOLF!” and everyone came running, only to find Aiden rolling on the floor laughing and slapping his thighs. They scolded him again, and went back to town.

Later that week, Aiden was shepherding again, when an actual wolf came out to eat him and the sheep. He screamed, “WOLF! WOLF! Everybody! WOOOOOOLF!” but no one came. With no one to stop him, the wolf took its time eating the sheep and, if we’re lucky, the obnoxious little brat named Aiden.

While the “official” moral of this story was that if you lie, people won’t believe you when you finally get around to telling the truth. But there is another, unofficial moral that we old fogies were taught when we were young.

“Don’t scream your head off unless it’s an emergency, otherwise people will get so used to hearing you scream that they will ignore you when you actually need help.”

Back in the days I was a kid, no one told us that we always had to use indoor voices. We were allowed to run and yell and shout and laugh loudly. But we were not allowed to scream or yell for help. Screaming (and calling for help) was considered “off limits” so that the adults in the area would know when something was seriously wrong.

About 10 years ago I noticed that parents had stopped teaching their kids not to “cry wolf”. I was working in an office near a residential area, and in the summer we’d prop the door open to let the breeze in. Shortly after I started propping the door open that first summer, I started hearing kids screaming outside — the types of shrieks you’d hear in horror films, and screams for “HELP! HEEEEELLLLP!!” I got up to go look, but my coworker said, “Ignore it. They are just playing.” I said, “But what if one is hurt or getting kidnapped?” She said, “If you run out there every time those kids scream, you’ll never get any work done. It’s unlikely they are getting kidnapped, but if they do, at least they’d shut up for a while.”

I wasn’t nearly as cynical and grumpy back in those days, so I thought her attitude was rather shocking and callous. At least I did that first week. As the summer wore on, I started to share her sentiment. Those kids would shriek all afternoon and it would drive us crazy. After a while, I totally understood why she (almost) hoped someone would kidnap those kids just so they’d shut the fuck up for 15 minutes.

The other night, I was reminded of this story as I was walking through my neighborhood. I heard some kid shrieking from a nearby house. Back in the early 90s, if I’d heard that, I’d probably called the police to say, “You might want to check out this house in my neighborhood. A kid is screaming its head off. You better hurry up and get over here!”

But this is the 21st century, and I have a feeling if I called the police today, they’d say, “Did you actually SEE a kid getting harmed?” and I’d say, “Well, no, I just heard screaming,” and they’d say, “It’s probably just some kids playing around. Don’t waste our time with this shit! There are actual crimes happening, you know!” And the thing is, they’d be right. If they came running every time some brat screamed its head off, they’d get nothing else done, and they’d waste a lot of time on false alarms.

Perhaps my neighbors beat their children. Or perhaps they just let their children scream for the sake of screaming. How am I supposed to know the difference?

A few months back, my husband and I were entering the grocery store just as some toddler was being dragged out, kicking, screaming and throwing a huge tantrum. After we watched the scene go by and after the noise level dropped enough for us to hear one another, my husband said, “Thank god we’ll never have to deal with that crap!! Holy hell!!”

I was not ungrateful that someone was taking that horrible child out of the store, but I couldn’t help but think that it was impossible for me to tell if that child was being abducted or just removed from the store by a frustrated parent. Even if the child had been old enough to scream, “That’s not my dad!” how do you know the kid isn’t just lying because he thinks it would be funny to “punish” dad for disciplining him? All “Dad” would have to do would look a little embarrassed and say, “Oh, Michael stop that! For Pete’s sake you’re embarrassing us!” and then turn to anyone near by and say, “Kids today, right? I’m sorry, he’s just a little ADD.” Most people would probably buy it.

After all, it’s today’s parents that have taught us not to believe kids when they say that stuff. They’ve already convinced the general public that kids WILL lie if they are mad at their handlers. (How many times have they told us, “We can’t yell at Johnny or he’ll call CPS on us and tell them lies?!”) So how are we to know when a kid is lying and telling the truth, and when are we to know when a child is being abducted or not? WE DON’T. And whose fault is that? Well, it’s the fault of people who allow children to behave like that!

We’re always hearing about this “village” that it takes to raise a child. There are many reasons why the “village” concept is ridiculous, but for now we’ll just focus on this one reason.

Villagers aren’t going to come to the aid of the village children because the village children cry wolf all the time. We’ve long since given up believing their cries.

If I actually thought people with kids would listen, I’d advise them to teach their children not to scream, shriek or scream “help” unless it was necessary. That’s all. I’m not asking for miracles like teaching their kids to say “please” and “thank you”. I’d ask them to teach their children that screaming is the universal cry for help and not to scream unless they seriously need help. Maybe if people can extend the tiniest bit of effort and teach their children that ONE thing, maybe the village might not ignore kids screams and cries for help and maybe next time a kid was in need, someone would actually go look and possibly even save the kid.

So the moral of this story is that the breeders who let their children cry wolf day after day are chasing off the villagers and leaving the door open for more kids to be harmed. Way to go, losers. Now you’re not just harming your own kids, but everyone else’s, too.

A few years ago I learned a valuable lesson: the only message boards worth hanging out on are childfree message boards.

At least if you are childfree.

It doesn’t matter what the topic of the other message board is – it is pretty much guaranteed to be breeder-central. If it’s a predominantly female board, there is no question: it WILL be breeder-central. If it’s a predominantly male board, it’s less likely to be breeder central, but if the topic of parenting comes up, it’s likely to go south quickly, while all the breeder dads pat themselves on the back for having proven their manhood.

As an example, let’s say I want to join a diet support group online. It’s going to be full of women, for sure. There will definitely be many off topic posts about motherhood and pregnancy, as there always are on female-dominated boards. That alone would annoy the hell out of me. But even in the threads about weight loss, all the mommies will claim the ONLY reason they are over weight is that they were pregnant, and will imply that anyone who isn’t a mommy is fat because she’s a lazy slob. Never mind the fact that all the mommies weigh over 200 pounds, but they’ll insist it’s ALL pregnancy weight.

As another example, let’s say I want to join a knitting group online. Again, full of women. Not only will at least half the posts be about motherhood and pregnancy, but about 90% of the threads will be about baby blankets and that will devolve into talk about pregnancies and childhood.

True, those examples are both about predominantly female boards. But even the political boards you might come across, which often have more men on them than women, will have their share of dorks who want to announce their wife just had another baby and morons who will want to bitch about how the whole world is being anti-family these days.

So I don’t visit nearly as many message boards as I used to, and the couple I still visit are childfree boards, where I, finally, find some peace from all the idiot moms and dads who spend all day long chatting about the fruit of their loins and their entitlement attitudes.

Apparently, many fellow childfree people have not learned the same lesson that I have.
At least once a month, some childfree person starts a thread on their favorite non-childfree board about “Anyone else here chosen not to have kids?” I know this, because I check my referral links at the end of every month just to see what kinds of sites are linking to me.

I usually skim through the threads on these non-childfree boards just to see how that works out. Usually there will be at least one or two other childfree who will jump into the thread. But there is always a handful of mommies who have to jump into the thread and pick a fight.

Funnily enough, never in all that time that I hung out on non-childfree boards did I ever feel the need to jump into a parenting thread and pick a fight. I never felt the need to join a thread that was specifically NOT for me and talk about how WONDERFUL my life is for not making the same choice they did, nor did I ever feel the need to jump in and tell them they’d all grow up and change their minds, or they’d regret their choices. So why the fuck do the dimwitted mommies always do that to us?

Don’t misunderstand me that this scenario has only happened once or twice. This happens on any number of boards and I’m telling you, at least once a month I find a link in my referral stats. I’ve noticed two already this month: a Disney World message board and a politics board. Last month it was a Christian message board (Christian breeders are the worst). Before that it was some crafting site, before that it was a feminist site, and before that I believe it was relationships message board. I even ran into it on some role playing message boards.

It always plays out the same. Someone says, “Hey, anyone else here childfree?” and someone says, “Yea, I am! Wow, what a relief to meet someone else who feels the same way I do!” and then the first person replies with, “I knew it! I knew there had to be other childfree people on this board! It’s great to meet you!” and then, before the thread gets any further along, three mommies (it’s usually mommies) show up to say, “I used to think JUST LIKE you girls but then I grew up and got married and now I have three kids and I’m SOOOOO happy, I wouldn’t change a thing!” and another mommy says, “How could anyone not love babies? I have one and I’m desperate to have another! You really shouldn’t avoid your maternal instincts!” and the third mommy says, “I’m glad you people aren’t having kids! I know lots of kids who were abused, and I say, anything that keeps kids from being abused is a good thing!” (as if anyone who is childfree is automatically a child-beater!!). And it usually goes downhill from there usually ending up with mud slinging. And the original posters weren’t even saying, “God, let’s get people with kids banned from the state!” The original posters are almost always just asking a question: “Is anyone else here childfree!” That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing even remotely un-family friendly!!

If breeders weren’t so insecure about their life choices, they wouldn’t feel the need to take over childfree threads.

It’s so pathetic.

Here’s a topic I’m sure many of you are familiar with.

Meet Betty. Betty developed baby rabies and just HAD to have a baby. A few months later she got her heart’s desire and one would think she would be happy at that point. But alas, Betty is not the kind of person who can ever be happy. Instead, she is soon whining non-stop about the lack of sleep, inability to find time in her “busy” life to take a shower, how absolutely NOTHING in the world is child-friendly and how unfair it is that the entire world doesn’t bow to her for her special talent of not being able to figure out how to use birth control.

She also almost certainly complains about her husband/boyfriend (if she even has one) not helping out with childcare enough, not helping out with household duties enough, working long hours and missing “special” occasions. Additionally, any time he’s out of her sight for more than half an hour, she’ll start in on what a huge martyr she is for “practically” being a single mother.

In addition to finding her incredibly boring and annoying, you probably pity her miserable life and thank your lucky stars that you don’t have kids and you’ll never have to go through all that. She’s the type that totally reinforces our decision not to have kids.

Just when you think you can’t listen to this crap for another second, Betty will most likely become enraged that you don’t fawn over her and feed her all the attention and sympathy she craves, so she’ll stop speaking to you. She’ll smugly think she got “even” with you, while you’ll be incredibly relieved to be rid of her.

Then one day, out of the blue, after you’ve all but forgotten about Betty, she’ll pop out of the woodwork again, to announce the impending arrival of baby #2 (with her hand out for baby loot, of course). At that moment, any sympathy you ever had for her (if any) will fly out the window.

While before this you might have thought, “It’s too bad she didn’t realize how miserable having a kid would make her life,” along with a bit of, “It’s too bad she didn’t choose a better father/husband,” — this time around you *know* she knew better.

At this point, you will realize that Betty is any number of the following:

• a martyr
• a drama queen
• a total attention whore (if she can’t get positive attention, she’ll take negative attention)
• a totally negative person who will never focus on the positive aspects of life
• a liar for making up stories about how miserable her life was – no SANE person would have a second child if the first one made her so utterly miserable.
• a total lunatic who should be in an insane asylum for having a second child when the first one made her so utterly miserable
• incredibly stupid for STILL not figuring out where babies come from or how to use birth control

Unless you are really rude to Betty at this point and call her on all of her bullshit, she’ll most likely hang around for several months, hoping to get loot from you from her the three (or more) baby showers she’ll have for this baby. There will be lots of whining about how hard it is to be pregnant with a toddler, and after that a lot of whining about how hard it is to have two children under three years old, and soon after that it’ll be how hard it is to be pregnant with two children under four, and so on and so forth.

I ran into another Betty recently and I just shook my head. Pre-kid, I thought this particular Betty was funny and interesting. She became the biggest whiner after her first kid, then she was just “too busy” for me, which wasn’t all that bad. But now after months of totally ignoring me, she pops up to smugly announce the second bun in her oven. If she thought I’d be impressed, she’s wrong. I think she’s pretty fucking dumb and any entertainment value she had as a trainwreck is long gone. I’m not sticking around for another round of, “Waa waa waa, this motherhood thing is SOOOOO hard and I’m SO depressed and I never get a chance to shower anymore!!!! My husband works too much! Waaaaaaa! Wait, I know!! I’ll have another kid! That’ll make things easier!” What kind of logic is that?! That’s 100% Placenta Brain right there, folks.

People like Betty are at least half the reason we think motherhood must suck totally. And people like Betty are at least half the reason we think that 90% of the “oh it’s so hard to be a mommy” whines are total bullshit. If it was really half as hard as Betty complained about, there is no way she’d go ahead and have more kids and make her life harder.

Lately we see more and more ridiculous pandering to breeders in commercials. 

Advertisers have apparently figured out that if you want a guy to buy something, sell it with sex.  If you want a mommy to buy something, sell it with the fantasy that this will make them a good mommy.

I recall a commercial for Hanes socks a couple of years ago where they tried to sell socks with the notion that it would make mom and her teenaged daughter “bond”.  I’d like to think that human beings are smarter than to fall for that, but I am sure that plenty of mommies raced to Wal-mart to pick up their Hanes socks, thinking the socks would actually give them that feeling.

Yesterday I saw an even more ridiculous commercial. It was for Acuvue contact lenses. It starts out with a voice over of a woman saying, “I have astigmatism so I have a big problem with my contact lenses going blurry.”  Then the commercial proceeds to tell you how Acuvue lenses are far superior to any other lenses and won’t go blurry or whatever the hell their pitch was.  Then they go back to the voice over woman who says, ridiculously, “Now I feel better about being a mom.”

Wait a minute… what?!  What the heck do contacts have to do with a mommy’s self esteem?  Is it that easy to pull one over on the mommy crowd?

I am now fairly certain that there are lots of mommies flocking to the nearest Acuvue retailer to get these because they are convinced this will solve all their problems and make them feel better about being moms.  It’s kind of sad when you think of it that way.  What makes them so gullible?

Just add this to the reasons I don’t want to ever have kids. 

Note: No, I’m not saying every single parent is this way. Don’t email me to whine that you think I’m attacking all parents in this or any other rant. I’ve already gotten at least two emails like that from mentally challenged mothers this week and I’m bored with retarded emails. Don’t waste your time sending them – I’m not going to keep answering them.

I was watching Super Size Me recently and found myself really annoyed at all the “for the children” whining going on. Everyone blames the “evil” fast food companies and/or schools, but why isn’t anyone blaming the friggin’ parents?!!

Stuff like (but not a direct quote:) How dare McDonald’s have a clown as their mascot to attract kids! How dare they have playgrounds to attract kids!!

Hold on there! Breeders *constantly* bleat about how UN-FAMILY FRIENDLY the entire world is. They whine that NO ONE caters to kids anymore. So if you take away the playgrounds and the clown, the parents will start screaming that McDonald’s is UN-FAMILY FRIENDLY by not catering to their kids. So don’t blame the restaurants for doing exactly what people with kids demand – a family friendly atmosphere to attract families and children.

Regardless, though, how are the kids getting all this fast food? Oh, that’s right – their PARENTS take them there. So… how is that the evil corporations’ fault? Is it that once you become a parent you are no longer a responsible person, so you can’t be blamed for your inability to drive by a fast food place without stopping? I don’t care if the fast food place is advertising to kids – the parent should still be able to say NO. You think there was no advertising to kids when I was young? There was! That doesn’t mean my parents gave in to my every demand. Oh, wait, that doesn’t count, because unlike parents today, my parents had a special wand called, “being able to say no to your children” that most parents today obviously don’t possess.

In Super Size Me, they also talked about the crap schools serve for breakfast and lunch. Once again, you can’t blame the schools. Just the fact that the parents are too lazy to give their kids breakfast in the morning shows that parents today don’t give a damn. What, it’s now too complicated to “cook” a bowl of cereal before taking the kids to school?! Are you kidding me?

Meanwhile, you just KNOW the parents want the absolute cheapest lunch meals they can get – some even demand FREE meals. So that affects what kinds of foods the school can serve – they need cheap food. Secondly, the parents will threaten to sue the school if they don’t serve food that their kids like – such as pizza, tacos, burgers, fries, chicken nuggets and of course, soda. So the school is limited to serving only the junk that kids won’t go crying to mommy about. So don’t blame the schools. Blame the parents who don’t want better for their children and certainly won’t pay for better. They bully the schools into serving cheap junk food.

If enough parents gave a crap, united together and complained to the school boards, schools would change their lunch menu. But remember, we live with a generation of parents who will buy or “cook” three different meals to make sure all the kids have something in front of them that they like, rather than do what our parents did and say, “Just eat what is in front of you or go to bed hungry!”

Personally, if John and Suzy Q want their kids to eat fast food and sodas and junk lunches at school, I don’t care. If they want their kids to grow up fat and sickly, it’s not my problem. Yes, I get that I’m SUPPOSED to care, because, after all, high cost of health care affects everyone. But John and Suzy Q are already screwing the rest of us over (by making taxpayers pay for not only lunch, but breakfast for their kids, too, among other ways) and there isn’t much we can do about that, either. I’m certainly not going to wring my hands over it every night. Their own kids will hate them when they grow up and realize how their parents screwed them over, and I find that amusing.

I’m just so sick of everyone being blamed EXCEPT the parents. It’s not just this situation, but lots of situations. Parents are to blame. Period. Stop blaming everyone else.

We stopped by a food court today shortly before they closed, and got stuck sitting in the one corner they weren’t cleaning up yet – the corner where the McBreedersons were sitting.

At the time I sat down, they were quiet and I thought it might be okay. There was Mr. and Mrs. McBreederson and three kids under 7. For the first five minutes or so, I thought, “Oh, look, a family who actually has well behaved kids!” I glanced over at them and found Mommy McBreederson looking back at me, and for a moment I wondered if this was going to turn into a Babystalking moment – where she was hoping I’d either comment on her kids or give her a look of approval or jealousy or… something. But there was no “expectant” look that you see in the eyes of Babystalkers – she just looked tired. Then I noticed that they had food from at least three different food stands, and I thought, “Thank god I never have to play that game – running around and getting each kid something different because they are all picky eaters!” No wonder she’s tired!

Shortly, though, the peace and quiet was a thing of the past. One of the kids, probably about 3.5 or 4, started whining and howling. It wasn’t terribly loud, thankfully, but it was constant which is very annoying. Mommy McBreederson did the whole fake-threatening count down, and the fake-threatening I’m-going-to-spank-you, neither of which worked. Um, probably because by now the kid has learned that Mommy’s threats are hollow and she never follows through. (When I was a kid, my mother only had to give me The Look and I straightened up, because my mother was serious about punishing me, and not just a push over like today’s mommys). When the fake-threats didn’t work, Mommy McBreederson started begging the kid to behave, and then later begging him to finish his food (which he didn’t finish, of course).

Not once did it occur to either of the McBreedersons that the other people might not enjoy listening to their kid yowl. They did not even consider taking the kid out and letting everyone have some peace and quiet. No, like most breeders, they figure if they have to deal with that misery, other people should have to deal with it, too. Typical.

Strangely enough, instead of being really pissed off, as I usually would be, the scenario cheered me up. I smiled at my dear husband and said, “Aren’t we lucky, honey? We get to go home to a quiet house, and Mommy over there has to live with that shit 24/7.” He laughed and agreed that we were quite lucky indeed. Then we snickered every time Mommy McBreederson would make the fake threats, and joked about making a drinking game out of it. Then we talked about how pathetic it is that she can’t even discipline her own kids and has to resort to groveling with them.  Man, what a miserable life.

But it’s not mine, so… Yay!! What a great way to start the new year!

Have a Happy, Childfree New Year!