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 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!

Someone alerted me that Dr. Phil was doing a show on the childfree today and that I needed to watch, so I taped it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it, as Dr. Phil is almost as bad as Oprah for pandering to stay-at-home-mommydom, but I decided to risk it and made sure to have the barf bag handy.

It wasn’t a great segment but it wasn’t terrible. It was a short, maybe 6-minute segment squished in the midst of telling other (un-related) stories and a series of in-show commercials for ABC primetime shows. (groan)

The couple described themselves as “childless” rather than childfree, leading me to believe there will be a follow-up episode three years from now with them holding their new baby after they’ve seen “the light.” Time will tell. But for this show, they told Dr Phil about why they don’t want kids and how his mother is putting pressure on them.

The segment started out making them look incredibly dumb. The first thing they said about why they don’t want children (for now) was,

If we had children it would limit our ability to watch certain movies.

This immediately made me think of the Jeff Foxworthy routine where he says, And you know the thing is, southerners are as smart as anybody else in this country, our only problem is we just can’t keep the most ignorant amongst us off the television. That’s the truth. I mean, every time we have a disaster, they never film a doctor or a lawyer, they always get that woman in the muumuu and the sponge rollers.

Did Dr Phil and his staff specifically look for a couple who would lead off with remarks like that to diminish the childfree choice? I know, I’m not supposed to attack other childfree people, but let’s be fair. If he had on some ditz talking about why she just has to have kids, and the first reason for having kids out of her mouth was, “I want kids so I can go play at Chuck E Cheese!” we’d all be going, “Oh what a dumb bitch! You’re going to create a human being for THAT reason? As if you can’t go to Chuck E Cheese anyway!!”

And conversely, if someone’s first excuse for not having kids is that they want to watch R rated movies, they are going to look like dumbasses. Everyone, parents and non-parent alike are going to think, “Really? REALLY?” I know that in our childfree communities we joke that once you have kids, you no longer get to have any fun or do anything anymore, but you people don’t really believe that, do you? People with kids watch R rated movies all the time – probably more than we do. There are still two couples left in the United States who get a sitter and go out to see their R rated movies at the theater, sans kids. A few dozen rent movies and watch them after the kids are in bed, and the rest all just watch the R rated movies with their kids! So… judges? Yes, we’re all in agreement. That was the lamest ass reason not to have kids I’ve ever seen. Did they have to say that?!

I’m fairly certain that this was spiteful editing by someone on Dr Phil’s staff, wanting to make this couple look dumb and idiotic, but honestly, if I was going on Dr Phil, I wouldn’t list all the little piddly reasons I don’t want kids. I’d only tell them the important ones. This way they wouldn’t have the opportunity to lead off with a dumb reason like that and make me look like a fool. Just last week I was talking to a friend who was complaining about her kids and I laughed and said to her, “This is why I don’t have kids! I don’t have to share any of the good toys with them!!” and while there is some truth to that, I wouldn’t say THAT while being interviewed for a national television program. Even if it’s a valid reason to not want kids, there are bigger and better issues to be addressed. Helpful hint: On national television, you’re kinda representing the childfree community at large. Try hard not to look stupid. Just saying.

Dr. Phil redeemed himself a little by being supportive of their choice (although he did take time out to talk about how he himself used to not want kids but he “saw the light” and the wax nostalgic about how wonderful parenting is and how he’s looking forward to his first grandchild being born. *gag*).

Two quotes I liked hearing from Dr Phil, that I’m sure his primary viewership is foaming at the mouth over:

1) There is a fair amount of research out there that suggests there is a significant percentage of mothers who regret it.
2) I totally believe… if you aren’t really just hot to do it, you shouldn’t do it.

Of course, then he ruined it by advising them to re-evaluate their choice every year. *eyeroll* To be fair, if you do consider yourself “childless” it couldn’t hurt to re-evaluate the choice from time to time. Still, if someone had told Dr Phil that they couldn’t wait to get married and have kids, he would never tell them to re-evaluate their choice every year. So it seemed a little obnoxious here, but whatever.

The segment was mostly a drive-by and had its good points and its bad points, but if you missed it, it was no big loss.

———————–
P.S. If you’re wondering about the Bratfree website, it’s down because the domain expired yesterday. I have no idea if she just forgot to renew it or if she plans to let it go. You’ll have to check back in a couple of weeks to see if it’s back up or not.

Slightly off topic, but anyone NaNoWriMo-ing this year?

Some of you may not have heard of NaNoWriMo. It’s a project to get amateur writers who claim “someday I’m going to write a novel” to start writing one. You start a fresh novel idea November 1st and the goal is to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month — about 1700 words a day. To give you an idea of how many words 1700 is, it’s not quite three pages in MS Word (single spaced). NaNoWriMo is on the honor system, so you can cheat if you want, but what’s the point? All you get is a certificate. The real reward is the sense of accomplishment you get from actually finishing.

A friend and I got to talking about how difficult it was to find NaNoWriMo buddies who weren’t teenagers or stay-at-home moms. Teens can be, well, teens, and SAHMommy writing buddies are likely to spend a lot of time making kid-related excuses and getting annoyed if you get too far ahead and making snippy comments like, “Well, it’s EASY if you don’t have a FAMILY. ” *eyeroll* That’s why I prefer to steer clear of them, and perhaps you do, too.

So I agreed to set up a thread here where people who might be looking for writing buddies can match up. Post a link to your NaNoWriMo profile, a little about the genre you write, perhaps your age group, state or country you live in, perhaps other hobbies/interests, etc. – whatever you think might help you find a writing buddy that you might have something in common with.

And for all you NaNoWriMo-ers out there, good luck!

I just added a new childfree book to my Childfree Reading List:

Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living
Childless by Choice
by Laura S. Scott

“In Two Is Enough, Laura S. Scott examines the most compelling motives to remain childfree and the decisionmaking process, exploring the growing trend of childlessness through her own story and those of others who have made this choice.”

It just came out so I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t review it, but if any of you have, let us know what you think!

Click here to read more about it on amazon.com (You don’t have to buy it there. it’s just a good place to find reviews.)

Here is some mandatory reading for anyone considering having kids! I know he thinks this is funny, but the fact that most of it is true kinda makes it scary: Kids For Sale

Thanks to Childfreedom for sharing the link with me.

Update: And now he’s upset because us evil childfree people are talking about him and don’t we know that parenting is hard?! (But in his next breath he is sure to smugly inform us that it’s harder than anything we’ll ever do. Yea, that old tune again.) He’s in such a snit, you’d think we’d said his kids were ugly!

I bet his next trick will be claiming he’s not at all insecure.

Extra Update: Do not go over there and pick a fight. Just leave it alone. They have a lot more free time on their hands than we do for internet dramaz.

One of the things I know a lot of us hate is the Martyr Mommies who make a huge deal about how long-suffering they are, “sacrificing” for their kids, etc. Martyr complexes really annoy the hell out of me.

That said, it will come as no surprise to you that it also drives me nuts when I see childfree folks playing the martyr card. The best part of being childfree is having our freedom. Martyr moms don’t have much choice in changing their circumstances, but we do. So listen up. This is some of the best damn advice you’re ever going to get.

If you don’t like baby showers, DON’T GO. Seriously, grow a back bone, and don’t go. Don’t give me the 101 excuses you keep in your bag, such as “But I have to! It’s a relative!” or “She’s a good friend and she’ll be mad at me if I don’t go!” No. No no no no no! It doesn’t matter. First of all, just because you are related to people does not obligate you to anything. This is many people’s first mistake in life. If you can stand up to these people about not giving them grandkids/nieces/cousins, then you can most certainly stand up to them about something like a baby shower!

“Well, it’s selfish of you not to want to go to their baby shower!” What, it’s not selfish of them to expect me to spend my money to buy them stuff they should be buying themselves? It’s not selfish of them to expect me to shower them with praise and attention for having a kid? It’s not selfish of them to expect me to spend some of my precious time off attending their “Look at me, I’m the center of attention!!” party? In the selfish competition, them asking me to go is more selfish than me choosing not to.

I don’t care if the person having the baby shower is someone you love and adore and is your bestest, bestest friend. If you don’t enjoy baby showers and you’re going to be miserable the whole time, then just don’t go. Simple enough. If the person having the shower actually cares about you and really knows you, they’ll know you’d rather not go and wouldn’t make you! And anyone who isn’t a total attention whore/drama queen wouldn’t want people there who aren’t going to enjoy it anyway! The last person I’d want at my party is a wet blanket who is only there because I emotionally blackmailed them into showing up!

My mantra is that life is too short to be miserable. What if you are destined to die on the way home from that damned baby shower. Do you really want to waste your last afternoon on earth being miserable? Okay, so it most likely isn’t your last day on earth, in this day and age, we’re all working so much and we should be able to enjoy our time off, rather than doing obligatory crap that we dread anyway.

If you still want to go to the baby shower because you like baby showers or you enjoy being miserable or you don’t have a backbone, that’s fine, I don’t care. It’s your life and what you chose to do is up to you. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t fucking bitch about it then! You have a CHOICE. If you CHOOSE to go, don’t be a martyr about it. That’s all I ask.

Along these lines, please stop whining about how badly your family treats you! I hear soooo many people these days who love to whine about “I haaaaaaate the holidays because it means I haaaaaave to go visit my faaaaamily.” No, you don’t. Nope. Like I said a minute ago, just because you are related to people doesn’t obligate you to do anything. If you don’t enjoy family gatherings DON’T GO. If everyone there gives you shit, treats you like a criminal, berates you for not having kids/not liking kids, only talks to you when they want a gift or free meal, and all they do is emotionally blackmail you… don’t go. Simple as that. Life is too short to be miserable (especially on holidays!). Don’t give me the excuse, “Well, I like my Aunt Martha so I have to go.” No you don’t. If you like Aunt Martha, nothing is stopping you from going to see Aunt Martha any other day of the year when no one else is around. So don’t make excuses. If you chose to go spend time with these people even though you HAVE a CHOICE, don’t fucking whine about it.

Think about this like it was high school. You went to school with a bunch of people, some were friends and some you didn’t get along with or didn’t know. After high school, you generally have almost nothing in common with these people anymore. So you naturally stop having anything to do with the ones you didn’t get along with, you drift apart from the ones you only hung out with due to proximity, and then you maybe keep a few friends that you still like and have enough in common with. So why don’t we treat family the same way? Override all that programming that says, “YOU MUST SPEND TIME WITH YOUR RELATIVES!” and treat relatives just like they were kids from high school. Keep around the ones you still like and get along with, and drift away from the rest.

People tell me crap like, “I hate going to family gatherings because some of them are mean to me!! But if I don’t go, everyone will think I’m horrible!” Let me get this straight: they are going to be jerks to you either way, right? So…
what’s the incentive to go again? Oh that’s right. There isn’t.

I’m not saying this to be a bitch, really! I’m saying it because I’ve been there. It took me a long time to realize, “Why am I still talking to these people? Most of them I don’t like, don’t have anything in common with, and they only want to talk to me when a gimmee party comes around. The rest I hate for their bigoted, narrow-minded, faux-religious crap that they keep spewing. I think I’m just going to block their numbers and their emails and ignore them the 600 times they try to friend me on Facebook.” And let me tell you, I’ve never felt better since I did it!! My life is so much richer now that I don’t have to worry about that crap. I no longer have to play this phony game of pretending I like people that I don’t like at all, just because “well, that’s the way nice people are.” No, nice people don’t force other people to play stupid games and be phony and take abuse from someone because of a mistake of nature making you share some genetic material!

Of course, you have to set clear boundaries with relatives you stay in touch with. “No, I don’t want to hear what so-and-so it doing. It just annoys me. No, I don’t want to talk about why I don’t have a relationship with so-and-so. Please respect my feelings.” People who matter will support you. The ones who don’t support you show their true colors quickly. This line might help: “I don’t tell you who you should and shouldn’t speak to, and you don’t have a right to tell me that, either.”

Just don’t let other people give you crap, relatives or not. If they do, walk away. What’s the worst that could happen? Someone who doesn’t like you already will think bad things about you? So what? They already were! Making yourself miserable and spending time with them has the same results as being happy and not spending time with them, so… it’s a no brainer. Intentionally keeping in touch with people who hurt you is sick and twisted.

Your family can be whomever you choose it to be. Surround yourself by people you love and care for, and spend time with THEM. You’ll be happier and you’ll be easier to be around, too. Who really wants to be around someone who always whines about their family, anyway?

I realize that some people just enjoy being martyrs and they’re going to keep playing this game no matter what I (or anyone else) says. But the rest of you maybe didn’t look at it this way before, and maybe now you’ll have some new insight. Think of it this way: If you have the courage to stand up to all of society about reproductive choices, what makes you think you don’t have the courage to stand up to people who bully you into doing things you don’t enjoy doing? You already have the courage. Use it.

Before anyone accuses me of “not playing well with others” that’s not what this is about. I’m not being mean by not attending baby or bridal showers, I’m just being honest. I’m not being mean about not hanging out with relatives I don’t enjoy, I’m just being true to myself. What’s really so wrong with that?

Whatever you decide, remember, it’s your decision. No one put a gun to your head. If you don’t like the way things are, change them. If you don’t want to change them, then don’t be a martyr about it.

Because I’ve been a total slacker lately, here’s a bonus rant.

I read an article recently about Facebook’s sexist ads. You see, the ads on Facebook are supposed to be related to your demographics, which is, in theory, a good thing. The problem was, Facebook was targeting women with weight loss ads. They weren’t very nice ads, either. They accused us of having “muffin tops” and being “fat brides” and such.

I had seen the ads and had thought it was pretty rude to assume “woman = fat” (or at least “woman = insecure about her appearance”) but at the time it hadn’t occurred to me to bitch about it. It was annoying, but fat acceptance isn’t high on my list of crusades.

According to the article, enough people complained that Facebook took the fat ads down and implemented the ability to “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” an ad. Good, I decided I would start doing jus that. So now I pay much more attention to the facebook ads, which isn’t exactly a good thing. Now the ads on Facebook are really getting under my skin!

Now that Facebook has realized that “woman ≠ fat” they have changed to another annoying stereotype. They now think that “woman = mother”. Obviously I wasn’t going to stand for that! Just today alone I’ve seen ads for diapers, baby photo contests and “Moms who dread cooking”. (Also some bridal ad, which you’d think they’d only target to people who list their status as “engaged”. I don’t.) I’ve thumbs down the ads but they come back a few minutes later, which sort of defeats the purpose of being able to thumbs them down, don’t you think? Finally I clicked “other” and wrote a snippy response, along the lines of:

Wait, because I’m a woman I must be a mother? And you think that only women with children cook dinner? Have you met any women with children? The only “cooking” they do is nuking shit in the microwave. Chicken nuggets, hot dogs and even macaroni and cheese. That’s not cooking!! Those of us without kids *actually* have to cook because we don’t eat that kind of microwaved crap! Why not offer a gender-neutral, reproductive choice-neutral ad that says, “Do you dread cooking?” Would that be so hard? I’m offended by you, Facebook! Stop offending me!!

Well… That’s what I would have written, only I ran out of room. But that’s what I wanted to say!! They really need to give me more room for complaints! It’s impossible for me to be succinct.

(Yea, I know, there is probably one or two moms out there who *actually* cook, but has anyone ever met them? You know I’m talking about moms under 40, of course. Our mothers cooked but that was a different generation. If I had a dollar for every time I heard some dumb mommy of my generation say, “But I can’t make anything besides chicken nuggets because DaKota won’t eat anything else! I don’t want him to starve and it would be mean to make him eat things he doesn’t like! I think he’s allergic to everything else,” I’d be retired and I’d own a childfree hotel/casino in Aruba. Besides, I have to pick on mommies in every rant or I won’t get any hate mail!)

I’m not trying to nitpick, but Facebook should do a better job of screening demographics. Perhaps they should have a question on your profile that asks your reproductive status (like MySpace does). This way they would know to target the mommy ads to the mommy crowd. I just can’t stand the idea that “woman = mother” (or “woman = bridezilla”)! I’m neither and I don’t really want to be lumped in with either crowd, thank you!

Just out of curiosity, men, do the ads on Facebook assume you are all porn addicts seeking Rogaine and Viagra and upset about your child support/alimony checks? Just curious if their sexism rubs both ways or not.

On a similar note, who do I report the sexism of spam emails to? I’m not sure which I find more offensive – advertisers assuming all women are mothers, or spammers assuming everyone with an email account is a deadbeat man with erectile dysfunction.

I know my battle with Facebook is minor and maybe a bit petty, but I just keep plugging along, trying to combat the myth that not all us women are mommies. Maybe someday these people will get it through their heads!

But the one thing I can’t complain about: the ads on Facebook aren’t as plentiful and obnoxious as the ones on MySpace. I just don’t have the energy to fight MySpace.

Two more notes that didn’t belong in the last post:

I’m watching gymnastics on TV today. Some of these girls might be underage. Wait, isn’t this a lot like cheerleading? *gasp* If so, shouldn’t it be considered porn? Shouldn’t the guy who recorded it be arrested for creating and distributing child porn?! I think he should!! Who do I call to report this?!

Also, please go check out the restaurants guide and the vacation guide on this site. If you have visited any of the places on the list, let me know if they are as they represent themselves to be (adults only or limiting small children). Also, if you live near some of those restaurants, go check them out and let me know about your experience, or if you know of a place not on my list, let me know. I just want to make sure I’m not advertising for places that are actually family friendly.

You can comment here or email me. Try Phoena @ and the name of this site. If that’s not enough hints for you, I don’t want you emailing me anyway. *snicker*