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 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.

Seen this week on Post Secret:

The real reason I do want to have kids is that if I do get divorced or my future husband dies, I won’t be lonely and I can meet new people through them.

Really? You’re creating human beings because you have a fear of being alone and a fear of not being able to meet new people without a child in tow? Oh, that’s a GRAND reason to create a person. Why not get some therapy to get over your insecurity issues instead of having children to be your crutch? If you don’t have a better reason to have kids than that, DON’T.

I might not like Dr. Phil much, but he’s right about one thing: Children should not be born with a job!!

It just horrifies me that all too often, the people having kids are the ones who are so messed up in the head that they shouldn’t be having kids.

Some random pill-popping, mommy blogger named Courtney was recently having a bit of a tantrum about childfree people. It went something like this:

“You know what I hate about childfree people? They always say, ‘I’m too selfish to have kids.’ Those jerks are PROUD of this shit? Since when should people run around bragging about how immature and selfish they are? They need to grow up and become better people. Selfishness is bad and no one should be selfish! Grown-ups do their best to grow out of that!”

*sigh* The world won’t get to be a better place until we stop letting the incredibly stupid breed and pass their stupidity on.

Here’s a newsflash, Courtney: WE’RE ALL SELFISH. Grown-ups, too!! Refusing to admit you are selfish doesn’t make you any less selfish. You had kids for selfish reasons!! You’re no less selfish than childfree people. At least childfree people are responsible enough to know our limitations in life and not cave to societal pressure. What’s more grown-up than that?

So what if someone’s reason for not having kids is that they are “selfish”? I have dozens of reasons why I don’t want kids. Many of those reasons are selfish. People have plenty of reasons why they have kids, and I can’t think of one that isn’t selfish.

The selfish vs. unselfish argument always brings me back to this: The people I know who do the most volunteering of their time to help others don’t have children. People who have kids are (generally) much more selfish of their time and will only volunteer if it’s something to do with their own kids. In other words, it’s not volunteering as much as it is “parenting”. Volunteering is less selfish than parenting.

To be fair, I want to see parents spending time with their kids and raising them right – so I’m not saying they should ignore their kids in favor of volunteering in their communities. I AM saying that people with kids are more inherently selfish because they are wrapped up in their own family life. That’s not unselfish. What is good for their family is good for them, so it’s all done in self-interest.

I’m not trying to argue that childfree people, as a rule, are less selfish than parents. I don’t know if that is true. My point is that every time parents open the door to the “selfish debate” they’ll lose, because nothing is more selfish than creating children for your own amusement.

I thought I would share this clip from Bill Cosby’s “Himself” routine. This is from 1983, proving that breeders are not a new phenomena, they are just more common now than they were in those days.

I generally hate when people plaster childfree boards with “True Mom/Dad Confessions” crap, but recently a friend pointed this one out to me and told me I just had to comment on it.

Next time someone asks you who is going to take care of you when you’re old, send them this link. Here’s what it says, from truedadconfessions.com (I’m not sure why it’s not on truesonconfessions):

My dad is tapping me on the shoulder and wanting to know when I’m going to support him now that he’s reached old age and retirement. Saying that “whose going to take care of you when you’re old?? Your kids!!”

Well, sorry Dad, every last dime I make is going to the care of MY children, aka your GRANDchildren! I would rather send my daughter to college than support him because he didn’t have the responsibility to plan for his own retirement. My babies come first. Sorry Dad.

Now it’s possible that’s a plant (I wonder if half the posts on those sites are just plants to make the other side (of whatever argument) look bad), but it surely does sound like most people I know. Help take care of their parents? NO WAY. They are too busy looking out only for themselves and, when they are done doing that, looking out for their kids. To hell with anyone outside their nuclear family.

People who actually think their kids are going to take care of them when they are old are seriously delusional. Even if their kids have enough money to take care of them, odds are they are going to blow it on every expensive electronic gadget they can find for themselves and their kids. Just like the confession above. People with kids aren’t “unselfish,” they are just selfish in a different way.

So next time someone asks you who is going to take care of you when you’re old, give them this link and say, “Same person who is going to take care of you!”

Once upon a time, back when people had class, they didn’t need to constantly be the center of attention. In those days, people didn’t pretend like their entire identity was wrapped up in “parent” and they didn’t use their kids to get attention. Back in those days, people didn’t make a big deal about their pregnancies, and they certainly didn’t announce them until after they were in the second trimester. They also didn’t have outrageous baby gift registries.

But times have changed.

Those obnoxious entirely self-centered kids we used to bitch about have grown up into the obnoxious teens and twenty-somethings we are all disgusted with today.

Don’t try and convince me that they aren’t getting pregnant for the attention! They are! This is why they talk about the phenomena of pregnancy being “contagious” especially in younger girls. Now that teen and un-wed motherhood are no longer shameful, lots of people shower these girls with attention as if bringing another bastard child into the world was a responsible choice! Most of these girls have nothing else going for them, and this is the first time they’ve ever gotten attention. They certainly aren’t going to get attention for their good grades or their athletic prowess. The only way they can get attention without having to do any real work is get knocked up. And that’s not too hard — all you have to do is find some guy drunk enough to have sex with you. Teen boys love to get drunk and have sex, so it’s pretty damn easy. And no studying, working hard or having to get in shape involved! Viola, instant attention!

But it’s not just the teen girls. You get a bunch of twenty-somethings who just want some group to fit in to, and all the other girls their age are having babies, so they just do it, too, just to “fit in” and of course, to get the attention. Granted, down the line, parenthood will be hard, but that first year all you have to do is waddle your way from baby shower to baby shower, then have the baby and expect everyone to wait on you. It’s pretty easy. Down the line it’ll be some work, but no one ever said these women were smart enough to plan ahead. Besides, they will just get knocked up with their second the minute the attention starts to die down from the first.

These attention-whores have dumped the custom of waiting until the 2nd trimester to announce their pregnancies. They announce the pregnancies the minute they pee on the stick, because they don’t want to miss out on ONE MINUTE of attention. If they waited, they might miss two whole months of attention! You couldn’t expect them to do that!

More importantly, if they miscarry, they want oodles of attention and sympathy for that, too. In fact, at least 25% of why they announce their pregnancies early (despite the miscarriage risk) is because they want the extra sympathy in case they miscarry.

Studies show that miscarriage is very common, and some claim that nearly half of all pregnancies result in miscarriage. If miscarriage is so common, why do they act like it’s a huge tragedy? If everyone pretty much goes through it at one time or another, what makes theirs so special? It’s ridiculous how they want to milk it for so much attention.

I’ve always suspected that a fair number of these early “miscarriages” were really drama queens who either lied about being pregnant (and had to find a way out of it when they didn’t get a “baby bump”), or they were attention whores who claimed they were pregnant if their period was 5 seconds late, and when their period finally showed up, they just claimed “miscarriage” because it was less embarassing than admitting they are stupid and were never pregnant.

The ones who don’t miscarry still milk the pregnancy for all the attention they can get out of it. They start taking pictures of their “baby bump” at three months, even though that’s just fat from eating too much junk food and they had it long before they got pregnant. Most women don’t start showing until the 4th or 5th month, and some not until the 6th!

What IS with all this showing off of the baby bump, anyway? What’s the point in that? Oh, yea, more attention. There is absolutely no other reason for it. No one really gives a shit about your baby bump but you. Not even the daddies give a shit!

Keep in mind if you don’t want to touch the baby bump, the mommies will be offended. If you DO touch the baby bump, they’ll be offended. You really can’t win. It’s all a game, and no matter what you do, they’ll be bitching about you tomorrow to get attention from their mommy friends. Pretty much everything you do will be fodder for their whining to their mommy friends tomorrow.

We’ve discussed the ridiculous ultrasound photos to death, but did you know about these new 3D/4D ultrasounds now? Thankfully most insurance won’t pay for them (the cheapest ones are around $150), but you’ll notice even the most broke-ass breeders will scrape up the money for these because you’re nobody if you don’t get the SPECIAL ultrasounds. These are probably worse than regular ultrasounds because are gross. They don’t even look like a baby; they just look like a stillborn preemie! They are creepy as hell, even to grown-ups who aren’t totally grossed out by everything pregnancy-related. Yea, just what everyone needs in their personal photo album: a picture of themselves before they were born when they look like a dead preemie. Ew! If you are mature enough to handle it, just google “3D/4D ultrasound”

What about the baby showers? Showers – plural. Not only do these greedy bimbos want baby showers for every kid (when in the old days, no self respecting person would have more than one shower for the first child) but they want multiple showers per kid. I was shocked when a woman told me a few years ago that she was having a work baby shower, a shower for her friends, one for her family and one for her in-laws. FOUR showers for one kid? What the heck? I was even more shocked when I’ve seen this more and more every year. They couldn’t possibly make their friends, coworkers, families and in-laws all come to the same shower. If they did that, they’d only get ONE special day being showered with attention. If they have several baby showers, they can have several special days being showered with attention! Isn’t that the whole reason they got pregnant in the first place?

And of course, next time they are pregnant, they want another set of showers, because they think their next child needs ALL NEW things, as long as the all new things are paid for by other people.

Yuck. That kind of greed just makes me want to vomit. When the hell did greed become so socially acceptable? How is greed ever a positive characteristic?! And why is it that if I, as a childfree person, want to have nice things (that I pay for myself), I’m “greedy” by not wanting to share my money with a child, but they aren’t considered “greedy” if they don’t want to spend their money on their child, so they make everyone ELSE pay for it? How does that make sense?

Have you seen what baby registries look like today? Back in the day they’d be asking for diapers, bottles, onesies, pacifiers and some greedy people asked for baby furniture. These days, not only do they want all that baby furniture for free, but they want you to become their personal slave as well! After you buy them a gift, they expect you to pledge to cook them meals, clean their houses, baby-sit for free, put together baby scrap books or websites for free, and other outrageous volunteer work for them. I can’t believe these immature Gen X and Y-ers have the gall to even ask for that stuff. Parents today have it easier than ever (despite what they try to tell you) and yet they think they should do less. They certainly don’t want to spend their own money on all the things one needs to have a child. They certainly don’t want to cook or clean their own houses (even when “cooking” today means putting something in the microwave, pressing start and waiting five minutes, and “cleaning” means spending the five minutes loading the dishwasher which will do all the work for them). It’s fucking ridiculous how lazy these parents are today!

So let me get this straight. They want non-stop attention from the second they pee on the stick until the baby is born. Additionally, they want us to shower them with gifts (namely: buy them everything their baby needs so they don’t have to spend their own money) and then they want us to volunteer our time to do THEIR housework because they want to be waited on hand and foot.

It blows my mind. What are they supposed to do? What is their responsibility in all this? Oh that’s right — they are just supposed to sit around soaking up all the love and attention and not ever lift a finger again!

I don’t know what is worse, that they actually think they deserve this treatment for at all, let alone deserve this for their irresponsible behavior, or that people actually cater to them.

What is this world coming to?

From Dear Abby last weekend. I highlighted the important parts.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 23-year-old single mother of a 1-year-old son. My boyfriend wants to change my life. He wants me to delete all my friends and family from my cell phone and says I can see my family only once a month. (I am very family-oriented.) My boyfriend thinks that because I go and see my parents and sisters a lot that I don’t “put him first.”

I don’t know what to do, because my son comes first. I understand the concept that once you find your true love, you move in with him and you’re supposed to be happy. But he’s never happy. He always finds something to argue about.

I work from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m., come home, take care of my son, clean the house, cook dinner and clean up afterward. I am at my wits’ end trying to do everything and be a good mother and girlfriend. He loves my son, but he never offers to help me with bills or anything. He never buys me anything, only stuff for himself or my son.

I’m so confused right now, I don’t know what to think. Please give me some advice. — UNCERTAIN IN OHIO

DEAR UNCERTAIN: Gladly. Do NOT allow your boyfriend to limit your telephone contact or visits with friends and family. This is a classic sign of an abuser, and so is constantly picking arguments. You appear to be doing everything in this relationship — cooking, cleaning, paying the bills. What exactly is he contributing?

A healthy relationship is a partnership in which both members pull their own weight. Unless your boyfriend is prepared to make some serious changes, you should move back with your family.

What is missing from Abby’s response?

Dear Uncertain:

You DO need to focus on your son. A kid that age needs a lot of attention. You need to stop taking attention away from him in favor of looking for your next baby-daddy! Quit the dating scene and put your kid first. You’ll have plenty of time to date when he’s old enough to take care of himself, but for now you need to be a MOTHER, not a girlfriend. If you don’t want to be a mother and make sacrifices for your son, put your kid up for adoption now so he can find a family that does.

Good luck getting your priorities straight,
Phoena

I’m so entirely fed up with these girls (not women) today who always have to have a man in their lives, and they’ll do anything to get or keep a man, even neglect their kids over it. These women are the first to claim that motherhood makes them oh-so-mature, but who do they think they are fooling? They are so pathetic and immature and while they say their kids are their top priority, in reality, having a man is now and always will be their top-priority. Kids are just little souvenirs they collect along the way.

I could go on, but I already covered this subject a few years ago.

I get a little annoyed sometimes when I see same old clichés passed around childfree communities, specifically the “parents are all fat!” and “having kids will make you fat!” clichés. Yes, some parents are fat. Yes, many parents use their kids and pregnancies as excuses to get fat. But that doesn’t mean all parents are fat, so let’s stop pretending that it’s true.

But since we’re on the topic of fat parents, let’s talk about fat parents. (The ones that are actually fat. I’m not insinuating that all parents are fat.)

Several weeks ago, I saw this episode of Dr. Phil where women asked Dr. Phil to help them figure out why their kids were so overweight. The mothers got offended that Dr. Phil pointed out their own weight issues:

“The logic is, when I have an overweight mother bring me an overweight child, a bell goes off in my head that says, ‘Don’t be a fool; you cannot ignore this.’”

It’s always a shame to see grossly overweight parents and their grossly overweight children. What the hell is wrong with those people?! Shouldn’t that be considered child abuse? If someone got their kid addicted to drugs or cigarettes, it would be abuse. But somehow, getting them addicted to junk food isn’t? Teaching them to live a sedentary lifestyle isn’t? Setting them up for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, irritable bowel syndrome, gall stones, arthritis, early puberty, polycystic ovary syndrome, depression, low self esteem, and bullying isn’t? Are you kidding me?

Breeders want this huge double standard in life – they want all the respect and to be held in higher regard than the rest of us, but they most certainly do not want to be held to a higher standard for their actions and behaviors. Basically, they want everyone to think they are SO selfless, while being as selfish as they want to be. Sorry. That doesn’t fly with me.

As a childfree person, if I wanted to weigh 400 pounds and eat ice cream and Twinkies for every meal, at least I’d only be punishing myself. Well, one could argue I’d be fucking up health insurance premiums for everyone with my obesity-related issues. On the other hand, if I was a parent and I wanted to weigh 400 pounds and eat nothing but junk, I would be punishing my kids as well as myself, and it would be me plus (insert number of children) fucking up the health insurance premiums for everyone.

Parents call us selfish all the time, which is annoying and offensive, especially if the parent in question is too selfish to make sacrifices that are in the best interests of their children. What could possibly be more selfish than teaching your children unhealthy lifestyle habits? Being too lazy to take care of yourself (for your children’s benefit) is selfish! Being too lazy to care about your children’s health is selfish! Far, far more selfish than any childfree person could ever be!!

I wonder why family court judges don’t take this more into account when making custody decisions. The stereotype seems to be that if you are a woman, you get custody, unless someone can prove you’re an axe murderer. I know it’s not always true, but it seems to be true a lot of the time. I have to wonder why judges don’t think more about which parent is healthier. Given all other things being equal, if you have, say, a really obese mother, and a healthy-weight father, what would be in the children’s best interest? Living with Mom, who teaches them to sit around surfing the net or playing computer games all day and eat Twinkies, ice cream and McDonald’s for every meal? Or Dad, who works out and maintains a healthy weight? Call me crazy, but courts should be concerned with who can provide a healthier lifestyle and example, not about who has the vagina.

“Oh noes, you’re being politically incorrect by ‘fat bashing’!!”

Hey, didn’t I just say I don’t have a problem with non-parents being as fat as they want? If you choose to be a parent, you should be healthy and take care of yourself, and feed your kids right and make sure they get plenty of exercise so they aren’t 145 pounds by their 7th birthday. You have a choice. What is more important to you? Stop trying to have your cake and eat it, too!

Parents should be held to a higher standard, just like how teachers are held to a higher standard. People who spend the most time with children SHOULD be setting good examples for kids. If they are unwilling or able to do that, perhaps they shouldn’t be spending that much time around children.

Growing up is hard enough without your own parents setting you up for a lifelong struggle with your weight! Every time I see these obese kids, I feel like calling in a report of child abuse. It’s not their fault they got stuck with crappy parents. Someone has got to do something about it! When is someone going to?

Ah, the joys of fall. The days get cooler, the leaves start to change colors, and best of all, the kids go back to school! YAY!

As a childfree person, I enjoy fall because the neighborhood kids are back in school and not out playing in the street. The only downside to fall is that all those kids with “weekend dads” who have been gone all summer come back. *groan* Oh well. I can’t have everything.

For some reason, I had this idea in my mind that parents would be rejoicing about back-to-school, too. Somehow I pictured them jumping for joy and doing high fives saying, “YES! Now the kids are someone else’s problem all day!”

But instead of being thankful for their state-subsidized daycare taking the kid off their hands for several hours a day, the ungrateful breeders are complaining louder than ever.

I found a plethora of articles whining about this. Here is one example. The writer whines about how horribly expensive school fees have come to. Apparently in her school district they force parents to buy yearbooks for each student, a directory of families, school picture packages, school supplies, lunchboxes, backpacks, and, worst of all LUNCHES and SHOES. Can you believe the horror of being expected to buy your kids food and clothing?! What is this world coming to?!

She whines that: But have we become so skewed as a nation that we are underfunding public education to the point that it’s really not a free education anymore?

Excuse me, what? Were you born yesterday? Many, many, MANY years ago, back when I was in school, it wasn’t a free education. The school yearbooks weren’t free. The picture packages were not free. We didn’t even HAVE family directories because our parents weren’t ‘tards who needed those. Field trips weren’t free. School parties weren’t free. School lunches weren’t free (unless your parents were on welfare). School supplies weren’t free. Scientific calculators weren’t free. Lunchboxes weren’t free. Backpacks weren’t free. Tennis shoes weren’t free. Other school clothes weren’t free. As for various other school fees: Science and computer labs weren’t free. Music lessons weren’t free.

There is nothing new about school costs. This isn’t something that just suddenly cropped up in the last year or two, despite what all these crying yuppies want you to believe. The only difference is that parents today whine about them more. In our day, our parents did NOT spend every dime they had on eating out, going to the movies, trips to Disney World, iPods, every gaming system known to man, big-screen TVs, etc. etc. Our parents actually spent money on their kids and didn’t piss and moan about it the whole time, whining that society should have to pay for their child’s every need. Our parents were responsible adults. Unlike these overgrown kids raising children today.

I’m still not over the fact that she bitched about having to pay for things like food and shoes for her kid! The entitlement attitude knows no bounds! Isn’t this REALLY where the breeders are trying to move toward?! A society that not only pays them to have kids (through large tax refunds) but also gives them everything for their children free, including free food and clothing. Could they be any more selfish and greedy?!

This article has parents whining that they have to pay $1 a day to use the school bus. How tragic. Next thing you know, they’ll be asking people to pay the city bus, too! Is nothing free anymore?!

Seriously, do they think school districts don’t have to pay for gas? With gas prices being what they are, someone has to make up the difference. And since I’m not allowed to ride the school bus or even set foot on school property (that would make me a pedophile), I really don’t want to pay the difference. So it makes perfect sense that the people who USE the bus, help support the bus.

Yea, yea, in a perfect world we’d discourage parents from driving their kids to school, wasting more gas, clogging up traffic more, etc. Fine, then fine the parents who don’t use the bus $1 day to drive their kids to school and put that money towards the buses. I don’t care, just don’t make ME pay for the buses, because I’M not the one using the buses, driving kids to school, wasting gas, clogging up traffic or setting foot on school property.

Here’s another article . This one talks about the horrors of paying lab fees for certain classes, a $50 deposit so their kid can have a school issued (and taxpayer funded) laptop to use for the year, and that people actually pay $10 to the school to ensure their kid is a band geek. (I think that’s child abuse.)

None of these school fees listed seem all that bad to me. Half of those are optional, and the others aren’t that high.

Last year I caught a news segment of bleating parents complaining about sports fees. One of the whiners was an angry woman saying she’d had to pay for cheerleading camp already that summer, and she shouldn’t have to pay anything more.

*blink*

I’m sorry, but if you can afford to pay for cheerleading camp, you can shut the fuck up.

Meanwhile, every February, March and April, you hear breeders saying, “Yay! I’m getting my big refund check next week! I’m going to spend it on (fill in the blank with some luxury item rather than on something for their kids)!” You rarely hear a parent saying, “I just got my tax refund. I’m putting it in savings so that when my kid needs something, I’ll have money to pay for it.” Of course you rarely hear that, because responsibility and planning-ahead are not traits that most childed people these days possess. *scoff* (notice I said most, not ALL)

The very same people who whine to us that they DESERVE the child tax credit because “kids are expensive!” will then whine when they have to actually spend the money on their kids. It’s so obnoxious.

Next time you see a parent whining about school fees, suggest to them that if they really think schools need to be funded more by tax dollars, that they and all their friends should sign over their tax refunds to the school districts when they get them. And next year when they are bragging about all the money they just got back from the IRS, suggest that they give that money to the school district to ensure that education is properly funded. I’m betting THAT won’t go over well. Because when they SAY they want a well-funded school district, they MEAN they want *everyone else* to pay for it. They don’t want to pay for it themselves.

No wonder we can’t take them seriously!

Yes, I know. Someone is going to use that old tired line that, “OMG, everyone benefits from a well-educated population so everyone should have to pay for schools!” I would argue that kids today can barely even read and write when they finish high school and they damn well don’t know how to spell, so kids today are NOT being well-educated, in which case, no one should be paying for education, since nothing is coming of it.

But I didn’t write, “There should be no property taxes for schools.” I’m saying if parents want schools to be better, to put their money into the system to help it. After all, they get more of a benefit from schools than the rest of us. I might have to help pay for schools, but I don’t get a say. I’m not even allowed on school grounds. Meanwhile, while all I’m getting is the hope that someday the future kids will be educated, parents are getting that hope AND state-subsidized day care (and possibly their kids are learning something.) If they are getting more out of the school system than the rest of us, they should be expected to put more into it.

Especially if they expect free yearbooks, free food and free shoes.

Update, Sept 23, 2007: Someone just brought to my attention that certain states allow parents to deduct school supplies from their taxes. So the parents are bitching about spending money for school supplies but they’ll get the money back when they file their taxes (in addition to their large tax refunds just for having kids). How fucking obnoxious can they get?! Next time you hear them whining about all their tax deductible expenses, tell them to go to hell.