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

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

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

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

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

Just like parents today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today’s rant isn’t a rant, but rather an explaination about why I chose not to have kids.

People often ask me WHY I am childfree. The question annoys me because I shouldn’t *have* to explain. But okay, I’ll share the main influences in my life and get it off my chest. The bottom line is, I don’t like babies. Not in the least bit. I’m not too keen on small children, either. Elementary schoolers with their “Why? Why? Why?” questions drives me absolutely bonkers. Teenagers with their snotty attitudes, total lack of imagination and the fact that they think they know it all makes me weep for the future.

I don’t like kids. That’s not going to change, trust me. Heck, I didn’t even like them when I WAS one of them.

But even more importantly, I’m happy with my life just the way it is. I don’t see a point in changing something if I’m already satisfied with it. When people say to me, “When are you going to have kids?” I’ve been known to answer, “When I run out of better things to do.” I highly doubt I’ll ever run out of better things to do.

Occasionally, someone says to me, “You’ll regret it,” and when that happens, I just look to my sisters, and they remind me that I’m doing the right thing.

Not that they SAY that to me. I just have to look at their lives to know I’m doing the right thing.

Peggy and Emma are my older sisters. Emma is a year older than Peggy, and was a hard act to follow. She’s pretty much good at everything. There was only one thing Emma couldn’t do.

Emma couldn’t have kids.

She found out as a teenager, due to some health issues. Emma loves kids, so I’m sure it was a hard blow to be dealt. This is why I’m so highly offended by prying questions about why people don’t have kids. While it’s annoying for me, I know that when breeders pry, people like Emma – good people – get hurt because it’s a painful subject. It really ticks me off.

Emma handled the news the way she handles everything – she made the best of it. She figured she’d find another way to be involved in children’s lives and became a teacher. Now she can be a positive influence in many more lives than if she’d just had her own kids. Read the rest of this entry »

Why the heck do we need a day to celebrate mothers anyway? Do we have a day to celebrate garbage men? No. But at least garbage men do the job they are supposed to do — they haul away our garbage. But there is no guarantee that mothers do what they are supposed to be doing: raising future PRODUCTIVE members of society.

They can argue their kids will be productive, but who really knows? They may end up in prison, or on welfare or being stay-at-home-moms. We have no guarantee these future adults will be paying taxes, providing a real service or helping the economy.

If motherhood really was “all woooooorth it” as we hear so often from women, they wouldn’t be desperately seeking outside praise to prove it. They wouldn’t need a special day to remind everyone how wonderful motherhood is –they’d already know.

Obviously, it’s NOT all worth it.

And just in time for their “special day” they are passing around some “study” that says a stay at home mom should get paid over $131,000 a year. Oh really? Is that how much we pay daycare workers? I think not. Boy, these women are really deluding themselves. Of course, it’s not like they’ll ever get the money. But the very fact that they seem to think they are THAT valuable is insulting to anyone who actually has a job.

The article says that they perform the following jobs: day-care center teacher, van driver, housekeeper, cook, chief executive officer, nurse and general maintenance worker.

First off, I believe day care workers get paid around $7 an hour, not $131,000 a year. Secondly, I wouldn’t doubt that most day are workers ALSO do some housekeeping, cooking, nursing and general maintenance work. And they still only get around $7 an hour. So why do SAHMs think they are worth more?

Heck, *I* do some housekeeping, cooking, nursing, CEOing and general maintenance work. In fact, I bet most women do. So are they conceding that all women, including working women, earn $131,000 (in addition to their normal paychecks)? Or is this just supposed to stroke the egos of women with kids who sit at home all day long?

If we really break it down, if these women are “housekeepers” they’d better have spotless homes. No one would keep a housekeeper who did a crappy job. And if these women are “cooks” that means more than just frozen pizza and chicken fingers — they’d better be cooking from scratch! The “van driver” title is laughable, because the only places they take the kids is places they were going to anyway! Oooh, they dragged the kids with them to the grocery store — so that entitles them the title of “van driver/taxi driver?” Ha! Heck, from now on, any of us who carpool to anyplace, can we demand a salary for a “taxi driver”? Probably not! Being a “nurse” is a LOT more than taking a temperature and running to the doctor every time the kid points to his ears. I think it’s an insult to nurses to insinuate that any SAHM could do their job!! And as for the “general maintenance worker” hat, I bet that’s more often than not left to their boyfriends or husbands.

And last but not least, Chief Executive Officer? Of what? Their house? And what does that entail? Having to pay bills? Gee, like none of the rest of us have to do that. *eyeroll*

And since when do you get paid for every hat you wear at your job? If I answer any phones at work, do I demand the salary of an executive assistant? And if I handle money at all, do I demand an additional paycheck for being an accountant? And if I have to write any memos, do I get an additional paycheck for copywriter? NO! But it’s obvious the person who came up with this figure added the salary of a day care worker, the salary of a housekeeper, the salary of a cook, etc. together to make one big salary. If these women had ever worked a day in their lives, they’d know you don’t get paid multiple salaries for one job. Idiots!

But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend they really DO keep a spotless house, well-behaved kids, cook wholesome meals from scratch, play taxi-driver, pay all the bills, do all the household repairs, etc. So who do they deserve their salary from?

Their husbands, of course. After all, HE’S the one who benefits from it all, not the rest of us. If a man doesn’t want to pay his wife $131,000 for those services, then he apparently doesn’t think she’s worth it.

Breeders suck, and they need a lot of ego strokes.

I seem to be drawn to train-wreck episodes of Oprah. It’s a gift I guess. I don’t even like Oprah, because she’s always pimping something, ‘Buy this book! Go see this movie! This is my favorite handgel — go buy it!” Gag. If Oprah really cared for her viewers, why would she always be trying to get them to spend every last dime they have?

This week I saw parts of her show with Brooke Shields. I couldn’t watch it all. Brooke was going on and on about how horrible post-partum depression (PPD) is, and all I could think was, “Add this to all the reasons why I never want to have children!” Color me crazy, but I actually happen to ENJOY being happy. Go figure.

Sure the “experts” will all tell you that PPD is just about a hormone imbalance, or some flimsy answer like that, but I’m not buying it. I’m wondering how much of PPD is “motherhood really sucks” and how much of it is “I’m not getting the oodles of attention I got during my pregnancy” and how much of it is, “I’ve had to give up too much to be a mommy.”

Yea, motherhood does suck, especially in the beginning. More and more men are just walking out on the women they get pregnant, and the majority of the ones who stick around aren’t willing to help out with childcare. They still think that is “woman’s work” or they’ll use the excuse, ‘I work all day. I shouldn’t have to come home to work some more.” So many women have fallen into the trap where the man says, “Of COURSE I’ll do my share of the work,” until the baby arrives and he reneges. I don’t blame anyone for getting depressed when they are getting no sleep, having no help, and the baby cries 22 hours a day!

And we’ve all known those attention whores who LOVE being pregnant because everyone showers them with attention and gifts, and pregnancy is a built in excuse to be lazy and not worry about their figure, etc. Being pregnant for those gals is *great*. And then the baby comes, and within a couple of weeks, everyone stops lavishing the attention and gifts, and they can’t be lazy anymore because the baby won’t let them, and now they have no excuse for weighing 325 pounds anymore. Obviously they’ll get depressed. They go from being the star of the show to being a 24 hour slave to a crying infant.

Obviously having a baby changes everything, and now all the fun stuff that the mommy’s friends are doing, they are doing without her. All the fun things she used to do she can’t do anymore, at least not for a while. Sucks, huh? I remember when one of my sisters had her first child, and suddenly she was lashing out at me anytime I talked about anything going on in my life — how dare I remind her how much she’d given up! Sure, she was pretty depressed. Who wouldn’t be?

Eventually Brooke admitted to taking some medication to get over her PPD. But how “wonderful” is motherhood if some doctor has to drug you up in order for you to like it?

Breeders suck. And apparently they are depressed about it.

Hollywood apparently is pretty threatened by the CF movement, because they keep making movies on the same premise: someone who doesn’t have kids wakes up one day with a family and by the end of the movie they just “looooooove” children and are “reformed”. One movie was enough, but several? Total overkill!!

First I saw the movie Me Myself I which was an Australian movie that I actually liked — it was cute without being too syrupy and obnoxious. CF career woman starts out the movie wondering if she was wrong to not marry and have children. Then finds herself meeting her alter ego — the one who did marry and have children, and they switch places for a week.

Then there was a Demi Moore movie (Passion of Mind) along the same theme. In this version, she went to sleep at night, and woke up in the other life, and didn’t know which was her real life and which was her dream life. Of course, one life had children, and one had a career.

Then Nicolas Cage did a movie (The Family Man) along the same lines. He was a successful career man, but then wakes up in suburbia with a wife and kids, and by the end of the movie, he just LOOOOOVED being a family man.

Now I see that Lifetime is doing a TV movie for tomorrow night, starring Nancy McKeon. The description says: “In Comfort and Joy Materialistic Jane gets in a car accident, and wakes up with a husband and kids and finds out what life is REALLY about.” GAG. The tag line is “What if the life you are living isn’t the one you are meant to live”. How totally insulting.

Apparently movie-makers are convinced that anyone who doesn’t have kids is horribly unhappy and unfulfilled, and if they just got forced into a “family” life, they’d realize how wonderful it is. How insane and narrow-minded! What is so wrong with people having different preferences in life?

Hey, I’m not saying having kids is a bad thing, but come on, people can be happy and fulfilled without them. It would seem someone in Hollywood is really afraid other people might realize it’s true– you don’t need children to be happy, so they have to keep cranking out movies trying to try and brainwash people into having children. What’s so wrong with letting people think for themselves? Get OVER it already.

Honestly, I can’t help but think that if parenting was so fullfilling, they wouldn’t need to try to brainwash us this way.

What I’d really like to see is the movie where the frumpy stay-at-home-mom wakes up one day as a powerful career woman and realizes how fulfilling it can be. At least that would be original.

Breeders suck. And they are running scared.

I’ve gone into a few chat rooms lately, and people in chat are scary! But what drives me crazy is that no matter how innocent the room title is, it’s full of tons of guys on the prowl for sex. After asking me the basics (age, gender, location and marital status) the next question these guys ask is almost always “how many kids do you have?” They don’t want to know about ME, they want to know about my kids! I half wonder if these are all pedophiles looking to prey on single mothers!!

If I dare reply, “I don’t like children” the next question is always “why?” Why? When someone says they don’t like meat, I don’t say, “Why?” When someone tells me they like heterosexual sex, I don’t say “Why?” So why is my like or dislike of children a “why?” kind of question?! I usually answer with, “What’s to like?” Because as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a simple answer to why I dislike them. I just don’t like them, the way some people don’t like dogs and some people don’t like airplanes. I just don’t. Get it?

The next question from these sexist pigs is usually, “Is your husband okay with you not liking children?!” Excuse me? What an insult. They think if I dislike kids, I’m stupid enough to marry someone who just loves and wants children?! Or maybe they think my husband is the idiot! Or maybe they think that I am a piece of property, and I need my husband’s permission to do anything. Sexist pigs!

If we get any farther into the conversation, it’s like they are all following the same script. Their wives NEVER have sex with them, and they are SO deprived, but they can’t possibly get divorced because they’d never see their kids again. As if divorced dads never see their kids!! Meanwhile, they don’t have a problem with cheating? *rolling my eyes* Wait a minute, though — if they never get sex, where did the kids come from?

Strangely enough, I’ve never run into a CF guy who claims his wife won’t have sex with him. So either breeder men are liars, or kids kill your sex life. Take your chances.

Breeders suck. And it would seem they aren’t getting much sex.

Today my rant is not just about a breeder, but about a bunch of CF folks who feed him.

I like to read the Bratpage Discussion board a lot. I don’t post there because I get a javascript error when I try, and most of the time I don’t feel the need to post anyway — just reading is enough for me. One of the reasons I like that board so well is that there is no censorship and people can say just about anything they want to, unlike a lot of mamby-pamby childfree boards where we have to “play nice” lest the breeders think we are evil. Fuck that.

On the discussion board, there used to be a guy named Cyrano who posted there. He claimed to be CF. But unlike a CF person, Cyrano doesn’t use birth control and he was sleeping with a wanna-breed (someone who wants babies). So eventually, Cyrano whined and cried that he had been “oopsed” by his girlfriend.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “oopsed” means when one partner supposedly gets pregnant to trap the other person, and then pretends like it was an accident. I have very little sympathy for any CF person who claims to be “oopsed”, since if you were truly CF, you would take responsibility for birth control and not leave it in the hands of someone else, and you wouldn’t be sleeping with a wanna-breed. Men often cry that it’s NOT FAIR that once a woman is pregnant they have no options (i.e., they can’t chose abortion, only the woman can). Give me a break, you cry-babies! For one thing, any man with half a brain knows this disadvantage ahead of time, and is able to take proper precautions. People cry, “But birth control isn’t reliable!” Then use multiple forms of birth control! What are the odds that they’ll all fail on the same day? And for heaven’s sakes, don’t sleep with a wanna-breed!

Side Rant: Besides that, if you want to have a contest of “not fairs”, let’s do it. It’s NOT FAIR that vasectomies are easier to get and far less complicated to have than tubal ligations. Also, the only thing men contribute to a pregnancy is an orgasm, and it’s NOT FAIR that women have to do all the work and put up with all the pain. And if we want to get real nit-picky here, it’s NOT FAIR men don’t have to deal with having their period every month, and all the aches, pains, and occasional embarrassment that go along with that. It’s NOT FAIR that women get much more social pressure to be mothers, and it’s NOT FAIR men get paid more in the workplace. So let’s not start crying about what is and isn’t fair, boys. Grow up, take responsibility for birth control — or even get a vasectomy. Or better yet, stop fucking every skanky ho that crosses your path. Then you don’t have to worry about not having the right to chose abortion.

Recently, Cyrano returned to the Bratpage board to complain about his wife and kid, and makes claims that he does almost all the child-care. Personally, I have a hard time believing that some woman would “oops” a man and get pregnant if she didn’t even want the kid, so already his story doesn’t wash with me. Even if it did, are we supposed to feel sorry for him because he was too lazy to use birth control? For all we know, he was never CF to begin with — he was just a breeder trolling on the board, and now regrets his choice. Or perhaps he’s a breeder trying to show what a good parent he is (he’s not) . Either way, he has some serious issues.

First he whines that he went with his wife to a wedding of her friends, and then bitches he spent so much time caring for the kid he didn’t get to see much of it. These weren’t even people he knew getting married, so what does he care? He selfishly whines that his wife (whom he lovingly calls “breeder-brain”) wouldn’t take the kid out when it cried, so he had to do it. So? It was her friend’s wedding and reception, and she’d like to see most of it. If it had been his friend’s wedding, then I could see his point. The worst part is that at the beginning of his whine-fest, he even suggested staying home with the kid (whom he lovingly calls “the little noisemaker”). So why’s he crying? If he’d stayed home, he’d have had to do all the child care then, too! Next time I hope he DOES stay home. If he really was a PARENT and not a BREEDER, he would have stayed home or gotten a sitter. He thinks saying that he took the kid out of the wedding when it cried makes him a PNB (parent, not breeder), but he’s wrong. A PNB would never bring a baby to a wedding (or any other adult-oriented gathering) in the first place.

Next he complains about going to a funeral of someone his wife knew. He bitches about having to stay outside with “the little noisemaker” the whole time. Again, not one of his friends, so why is he complaining about missing most of the funeral? Why didn’t he stay home? Why didn’t he get a babysitter? He whines again that his wife didn’t take time out from her mourning to do more child-care, and that when she finally did take the child, all the woman gave her attention. Sounds to me like he’s more upset that his wife gets more attention than he does.

Sure, Cyrano the Cry-Baby annoyed me with his whimpering for sympathy. Personally, I think he got what he deserved, and hopefully in the future that condom won’t be so terrible to wear, after all. I hope he is miserable, because men like that really burn me up. I really get disgusted at men who say such nasty things about the mother of their children. If she was such a bad person, why the hell was he fucking her in the first place? What a prick!

My real beef, though, is with the reaction from the regulars on the Brats page. Did they tell him, “Sorry, loser, but you deserved it”? Nope! They all pooh-poohed him, and felt sorry for the bastard! Several suggested he leave his wife so his child isn’t brought up in a hostile environment, and they were indeed correct. He claims to be such a martyr — a Childfree person who “steps up to his responsibilities” and is helping raise his child, but then he says nasty things about the mother and the child! That’s not noble, that’s just pathetic! And if he truly was Childfree, I don’t think he’d have wanted to move in and help raise the kid. Regardless, he’s obviously very hostile toward both the mother and child, and everyone would be better off if he moved out. But he has been silent on the board since folks told him that, which makes me wonder if he enjoys being a martyr, or if he just doesn’t want to get stuck paying child support. Typical Breeder.

What I want to know is why is everyone so afraid to come forward and say what I would say if only I could post on that board: “Cyrano, you pig! You fucked the bitch, didn’t bother to use a condom, now you have a kid, and all you can do is bitch about your life? Grow up! Stop being a whiner! Take responsibility and stop acting like a victim. And stop posting here as you are NOT Childfree!” If a parent (a true parent, not a whiney breeder like Cyrano) posted on the board, they’d rip her a new asshole. So why is it okay if Cyrano posts? It ISN’T! Someone, PLEASE get a backbone and tell him to stop whining. And whatever you do, don’t encourage him to come back and say more nasty things about his wife and child.

Breeders suck. But so do Childfree folks who feed them.

Every once in a while I make the mistake of tuning in to Oprah Winfrey. She could easily be a CF heroine, as she has chosen not to have children despite social pressure, but instead she would rather be the stay-at-home-mom’s best friend. And why not? They are the only ones home to watch her show.

But a couple of weeks ago I caught an episode of Oprah about discipline. I’ve found that women of my generation are, for the most part, anti-spanking. I’ve never been anti-spanking; I was spanked occasionally as a small child, and I never felt like everyone hated me or hated myself or my parents whatever strange side effects that spanking supposedly causes. Still, I see nothing wrong with parents choosing not to spank as long as they do find other ways to discipline. Newsflash — children need limits! This episode or Oprah was about alternatives to spanking, and it was actually a good episode.

They had on a few women who talked about how they stopped spanking and changed to reasoning with their children, and giving them choices, with consistent rewards and punishments. Their whole point was that you can give children a choice in anything. An example one of the women gave this: one day the child was having a melt-down on the front lawn, and his mother gave him a choice. “You can either walk into the house, or I can carry you. You choose.” I thought that was brilliant, and not something I would have thought of.

But as the lady explained, it’s not an easy process. Kids don’t just suddenly start behaving the first day. She explained how she cured her children of getting out of bed every night, and said that it didn’t happen over night. She pointed out that it would take a lot of time, patience and consistency to make it work.

That’s when I realized what is wrong with many parents today. They think spanking is wrong, but they don’t want to put in the amount of work it takes to instill discipline in their children. Every time I see a bratty kid in public throwing a tantrum and their parents giving in to them, I think, “Now that kid knows his parents are spineless and he can get away with anything. What a rotten lesson that breeder is teaching him.” I learned very early on that when my parents said “no” they meant it, and throwing a tantrum was the last thing to do to change their minds. But my parents were good parents, not lazy breeders.

So many breeders today think, “If I give him this it’ll shut him up.” Sure it’ll shut him up for now but not for long, and you are teaching him that you can be railroaded. Spoiled children become spoiled adults. Oh sure, you might think it’s “cute” when your five-year-old throws a tantrum and cries to get what he wants. But just how cute is he going to be throwing that same tantrum in front of his boss when he’s twenty-five?

Parenting is not easy work, so stop trying to take short cuts! You don’t do yourself, your precious children, or the world around you any favors by being too lazy to set limits. Don’t have kids if you are too lazy to raise them properly!

Breeders suck.