These rants are brought to you by STFU Parents and Facebook.

First of all, some mommy whines that the waitstaff at restaurants call her baby a “half” when talking about how many needed at a table. (i.e. Mom and Dad plus baby equals 2.5)

Funny how these mothers never have a problem paying half price for their kids, but suddenly half is an insult? Mommies in the thread even point out that their kids take up as much room and eat about as much and are just as loud (if not louder) than grown people. Good, glad they are admitting it. Let this be a lesson to you mommies then: you don’t want your kid called a “half” and you acknowledge they take the same space/food/noise-equivalent as anyone else? Start paying full price for them then! Glad we cleared that up!

Next, STFU Parents alerted me to this Facebook exchange under a TV Station’s fan page (the post was on January 7 if you want to go back and find it). Highly amusing! STFU Parents did not show the whole exchange, so I will post it here. (STFU Parents obscures last names for good reason, but I didn’t bother because this is on a public fan page and anyone can find the names as easily as I just did, so obscuring the names seemed pointless. These people already put their names out there in the public so it’s not like I’m “outing” them or anything.)

WTTW Channel 11 Don’t forget, “An Evening with Emma” on January 12 in anticipation of the premiere of the new adaptation of Jane Austen’s comic masterpiece! Join us to watch the first hour followed by a discussion. Admission is FREE and is first-come, first-served at 6pm at the Pritzker Auditorium of the Harold Washington Library.

Janet Woo Why couldn’t there also have been one session in the a.m. so mommy types could go while the kids are in school? Try as I may, the kids simply don’t like Austen as much as I do, and I don’t think you want a 9 and 11 yo in the audience!

Heidi McReynolds There are helpful people called babysitters to watch children in the evening while adults go out to adult events.

Teri Rotondo Tracey Amen Heidi!

Monica Bhopatkar Teredesai In this day and age, some people may not want to spend money on helpful people called baby sitters- Just another perspective…

Diane O’Neill Thanks for offering that perspective, Monica! When my now 18-year-old son was little, I could barely afford child care for when I was working, never mind for fun events. I suspect a lot of parents nowadays are in the same financial boat–and it isn’t always that easy to find a babysitter you can trust.

Heidi McReynolds I follow Miss Manner’s advice. If you can’t afford a babysitter, send your regrets to that black tie wedding. If you can’t afford to tip, don’t go out to dinner. I sympathize with stretched parents, but there is always a way to find more money. If you find you can’t afford a night out, cancel your cable or cut back on your cell phone plan. Use the public library for movies instead of netflix and to borrow instead of buying Emma whenever you want to reread it. If you are lucky enough to have family living in the area, arrange a sleepover at the Grandparent’s home if you don’t trust babysitters.

Is it possible to become a fan of this Heidi McReynolds on facebook? Someone start the page and I’ll be there! I’m a fan!!

I love Monica’s “in this day and age” people can’t afford babysitter’s defense, since everyone I know with kids, especially the ones who cry broke the loudest, has every video gaming system known to man, web surfing cell phones and bluray DVD players in every room of the house and every vehicle. Most people have more money than they want to admit, they just don’t want to give up all their “fun money” to be responsible. Hey, it’s true.

Diane complains that it’s not always easy to find a babysitter you can trust. I hate that line! It’s the worst!
First off, these women act like the children’s fathers can’t possibly watch them. I have very, very little respect for women who have children with men who are too irresponsible to be fathers! These women can’t ALL be widowed, and all the fathers can’t be incapable of watching them. Come on! I don’t care if you’re divorced and if it’s not “his” night for the kids. Maybe he’d like to have his kids more often and even if he doesn’t, he should step up and parent his kids once in a while!

You know, if a childfree person rants about bad parents out there, this is the very type of person who will complain, “You can’t judge parents! You can’t tell people they don’t have the right to be parents!” because they want to assume all (or most) parents are good parents, everyone should have kids and yet never be criticized. YET when you suggest they get a babysitter (like say another parent) they say, “I can’t trust any of those other parents!!1!” So they are judging all those other parents to be totally inept and unfit, but if we do it, they tell us we’re wrong. Which way is it? You can’t have it both ways!

I just cannot imagine that these people have no relatives or friends who can babysit for them. It’s bullshit. If they are refusing to develop a relationship with anyone else in their community, that’s THEIR fault. And if they do know a lot of people but suspect everyone they associate with are horrible people you can’t trust, then I suggest they get a better class of friends.

And in other Facebook news, I’ve found that some of the moms I’m friends with are posting these tidbits on each others’ profiles:

Sometimes you just need to hear it… You are a beautiful woman, inside & out. You are an exquisite mother, who can make a way out of no way,YOU ARE A GREAT MOM!!! You are doing a fantastic job and are very loved!!! ♥♥♥♥♥ Post this on the wall of 10 moms- Mom’s (sic) who always put their kids first and who balance it all! I just did….

Wait, aren’t these the same women that you can’t trust to babysit your kids? *snort*

Mommies post this crap on other mommies’ profiles even if the mom in question is an idiot who isn’t a great mom, isn’t doing a fantastic job, doesn’t always put her kids first and doesn’t balance it all. But of course, even though motherhood is SO worth it and SO rewarding, they still need pointless platitudes like this to get them through the day. Gee, guess motherhood isn’t its own reward, huh?

This got me to thinking about how they pass these things around to mommies only. I’ve gotten into arguments with mommies before where they would say things like, “We women should support each other! You shouldn’t be hating on women! We all need to work together to make things better for women everywhere!!” Oh sure, that’s what they say! But when it comes down to it, they want more benefits for mommies and parents and they want more discounts for families and they want everything family (ie child) friendly and then even when they pass around the pointless platitudes, it’s for mommies only. Suddenly they don’t care about women sticking together. There are not sending messages to all women saying things like:

Sometimes you just need to hear it… You are a beautiful woman, inside & out. You are an exquisite lady, who can make a way out of no way,YOU ARE A GREAT PERSON!!! You are doing a fantastic job and are very loved!!! ♥♥♥♥♥ Post this on the wall of 10 women- women who always put their loved ones first and who balance it all! I just did….

You know? Don’t get me wrong, it would still be pointless, but it’s just typical of them. As far as they are concerned, only moms count! Which is exactly why childfree women don’t feel much (if any) solidarity with women who have kids. Every chance they get they exclude us, then turn around and bitch at us for not doing more to ease their burdens. Gee, I wonder why we don’t?

And finally, just for fun, I have to show you this post over on Lamebook that Stepher showed me and totally cracked me up. It’s the first one. Go read and enjoy.

A few thoughts on the holidays:

Point 1: It really makes me ill at how much money people spend on their kids this time of year. These parents today are so afraid of their kids not liking them that they will spend way more than they can afford to give the kids everything they demand.

Growing up, my parents were not about to spend all that much on us, and we didn’t dare demand high priced items. I was allowed to give my parents a list of about dozen moderately-priced items I was interested in and then they’d by me 4 or 5 of them and I’d be happy and surprised when I opened the presents. I appreciate that I didn’t get everything I demanded because I think in the long run it made me a better person. More importantly, if you get everything you want or demand, and you don’t have to work to earn it, it devalues everything. The quickest way to teach your kids to grow up to be productive citizens is to teach them that if they want the nicer stuff, they have to WORK for it. The reason so many young people today are such slackers is that they were spoiled brats who never learned the value of working for anything. They believe everything should be handed to them and they should only have to make the appearance of working.

Today’s spoiled brats tell their parents, “You WILL get me a PS3 for Christmas, and here’s a list of $50 PS3 games I’d better get with it!” and the parents actually do it! I’m shocked beyond belief that people do this! It makes me glad I don’t have kids because I would have to beat their faces in the first time they told me I’d be spending a few hundred dollars on them for one holiday. Regular guilt has never worked on me, so I’m not sure parental guilt would, either. Of course, my kids would then hate me, seeing as I wouldn’t be the spineless wimp that all their peers’ parents would be!

It’s not just that it offends me personally to spend that much on one person for one holiday (although that’s a big part of it), but I’ll be honest – I love my free time, so I don’t want to work 40 hours a week. To that end, I keep my tastes simple so I can afford to not work 40 hours a week. If I had bratty, demanding kids and if I gave in to their demands, I’d have to work long hours to be able to afford them and their expensive tastes, and you know what would happen next. They’d grow up and go to therapy, blaming all their life problems on me not being home enough to properly raise them, even though the only reason I’d be working long hours would be to buy them all the shit they demanded! God damned ungrateful kids!!

I have a friend with two preteen boys who each demanded iPod Touches for xmas (among other things). These two spoiled brats already have their own cell phones (why do kids not even in high school need cell phones?) and at least one of them lost his last overpriced iPod by “forgetting” it at school and it wasn’t there when he got back. WHY would you give kids who aren’t even very responsible such an expensive toy? (I personally think $200 is too expensive to give to a kid who won’t appreciate it or take care of it, but your mileage may vary.) Worse, these kids would not be satisfied with ONLY the iPod Touch for Christmas… she had to buy them more gifts than that. She was out $400 total just for each kids’ first gift! This might not be bad if she had the income to support that, but she really can’t. Even worse? She got them each the smallest model for the iPod Touch, and one kid told her, “You’d better not have gotten me the cheap-y model. I want the big one!”

I’d have drowned that kid if he was mine.

Point 2: I’m really tired of everyone telling me that “the holidays are for the kids!” One friend told me about how broke she was after buying gifts not for her own kids (she doesn’t have kids) but for her friends’ kids. “Well, I have to buy the kids gifts! The holidays are FOR kids, you know!” No, I didn’t know that. You’re teaching the kids the wrong thing by spoiling them that way, and making them think the world revolves around them! I don’t know if this friend is just crazy or if her friends are so horrible they make her feel like she OWES their kids gifts. I’m not sure which is worse. I just don’t see going broke over OTHER people’s kids!!

I’m not big on the holidays myself. I usually don’t decorate for the holidays because I’m not big on holidays. I don’t have a huge list of people I buy presents for, but I like to get things for my friends. I make a list early and I get my holiday shopping done in November or early December, since most of those gifts have to be mailed off. I also just like to get it all out of the way.

The last couple of weeks when people have asked me the usual holiday questions, I’ve gotten the usual breeder answers.

Someone stupid: “Did you get your shopping done yet?”
Me: “Oh yea, I got mine over Thanksgiving weekend.”
Someone stupid: “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have kids, so you probably have hardly any shopping to do at all! ”

WTF? I don’t have kids, so I must not have anyone to buy for? No, I’m just more organized and I plan ahead, that’s all that means. And because I’m not blowing $500 per kid, I can buy more presents for more people, so I probably have MORE shopping to do than people with kids. Why do breeders always have to have some stupid breeder response to everything?

Someone stupid: “Do you have your Christmas tree up yet?”
Me: “No, I’m probably not doing one this year. It’s too much hassle.”
Someone stupid: “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have kids. It doesn’t mean the same thing if you don’t have kids.”

Seriously? My childfree status has nothing to do with any of it! I HATE that people have to equate everything to having kids or not having kids. If I wanted a tree, kids or no, I’d have one. I (regardless of my reproductive status) just don’t like the hassle. I don’t like the smell. I don’t like having to store a fake tree and ornaments. These are things I probably would dislike even if I HAD kids and I don’t know if I’d put up a tree if we had kids. If they complained, I’d take them to the store and let them look at all the trees there. It’s easier.

I really don’t like Christmas much (hey, I like getting gifts and I even like giving gifts, but if we abolished Christmas tomorrow, I’d be cool with that). I prefer Thanksgiving because the meaning of the holiday is much more important – being thankful vs. being greedy. Maybe if we had holiday trees for Thanksgiving I’d be more willing to decorate. Ha!

Point 3: This isn’t really a holiday thing as a general point, but whatever. At the store today, there was a kid about a year and some change screaming and screaming while its handlers ignored it. This leads me to wonder: if they are able to ignore this noise, this must be something they are used to. If kids scream all the time like that, why do people have them? Honestly, either kids can be controlled, and people who don’t are just plain too lazy to do it, or they can’t, and people actually live with this noise all the time. Which is it? If ti’s the latter, that’s horrifying! If babies and toddler are that noisy all the time, why do people have kids? Why do they have more than one, knowing what they are in for?! If I had to live with something that screamed like that all the time, I’d have left it in a dumpster on day three for sure. Who volunteers to listen to that shit for three or four straight years?! I can only guess there is some form of mental illness that causes people to want children because I can’t see how a sane person would sign up for that shit.

Point 4: I used to love doing things to help the needy this time of year, but about 10 years ago all the fun was taken out of that for me and now I don’t get involved at all unless I personally know the people in need. Half the people who sign up for those handouts aren’t really that bad off – they just don’t want to spend their own money on this stuff if they don’t have to. I recall being asked to donate foods and toys for a military donation drive one year and I did because I wanted to help people out. Shortly after donating to this drive, I found out that the people running the program told anyone of a certain rank or lower with children (because you know, people without kids could never be in need) that if they signed up they’d get some of the donations, no questions asked. Someone I knew signed up, even though he and his wife made very good money together. He laughed about it, saying, “Hell, I can afford to buy stuff, but if they’ll give it to me free, why not take it?” While I can’t entirely fault him for that, I was really disappointed that the military didn’t want to verify these people actually qualified as “in need.” There were actual families in need who didn’t get anything that year while people who were financially well-off were getting freebies just because they could. That soured the whole charitable spirit for me.

In the years since then, I met a gal who is a HUGE scammer – she finds friends, family members and a string of ex-husbands (four so far, she’s looking for victim #5 – it could be you!) to mooch off of while refusing to work, but she’s always got her hand out at Christmas time. Meanwhile, she owns designer handbags and designer dog breeds and all the latest tech gadgets that people with JOBS can’t afford, but because she won’t get a job, she gets on all the “poor people in need” lists to get handouts. Any money she manages to wrangle out of people she spends on herself for her designer lifestyle, while expecting handouts for everything else. She’s the first one down to those holiday giving trees to sign up, and she asks other people to buy her kids PSPs and Laptops!

It bothers me that if I donated to some of those “in need” programs, the stuff might go to someone just like her – professional mooches who aren’t that poor and COULD get jobs, but scamming is more fun. I honestly don’t know how she’s kept it up this long. You’d think eventually she’d run out of people to scam, but she hasn’t so far. Not in the nine years or so I’ve known her. *sigh*

Earlier this season I saw something about “help donate toys to families of deployed soldiers” and I did a double take. While this tactic might work in other communities, most of us living in military communities won’t really fall for that. We know that deployed soldiers are the least broke families in the military because a) they get more pay and benefits while in a deployed location and b) while the soldier is deployed, he (or she) spends less money, meaning he needs less money at the same time as he’s making more. It’s usually an equation for people to make out like bandits… that’s why quite a few soldiers volunteer to go back overseas – they generally make good money doing it. They can also sign up for tax free re-enlistment bonuses over there, getting a 5-figure lump sum tax free and many soldiers take advantage of that. Hell, why not if you can?

So call me a cold-hearted bitch, but someone trying to convince me I need to donate toys to these poor kids whose parents are deployed and have absolutely no money to support them, because if I don’t, the children won’t have a Christmas…. it just rubs me the wrong way. While I know it totally sucks to not to have your soldier home for the holidays (been there, done that), but these families are not broke. Extra toys won’t bring daddy home sooner, and in the service, you learn quickly (or you don’t survive) that Christmas is whenever your soldier is home, not Dec 25.

Along the same lines, I recently saw some notice in the grocery store that if you buy (whatever) product, you would be supporting a program to give pizza to military families in need. Wait, what? Call me crazy, but when I think of hungry families in need, I don’t think, “Pizza! We’ll give them pizza!” Generally I’d think of getting the most food for the money, and I’d probably think of getting them things that are somewhat healthier. Oh, but how dare I suggest that poor kids not get their favorite food, right? Poor kids should have all the luxuries of other kids! Never mind the fact that more families could be helped if cheaper foods were purchased for these needy families. But apparently their attitude is that those of us with money should donate MORE to make up for that, right?! *sigh*

It just seems so ridiculous. This time of year just seems to highlight the ridiculous.

Point 5: Since when is NYE supposed to be a family holiday?! New Year’s is supposed to be for adults and kids are supposed to be in bed by midnight or at least at home watching it on TV. Now I see places (not many yet, but enough) talking about a “family friendly” New Year’s parties and I’m blown away. Talk about diaper-whipped parents that they can’t even take a night for themselves without the kids!

I mention Christmas a fair mount in this post only because most everyone around me is doing Christmas and talking about Christmas. (Don’t even get me started on how much I hate the whole “We must force Christmas on everyone” attitude going around with the “It’s MERRY CHRISTMAS not Happy Holidays” bigoted bullshit, because it’s not a childfree issues so I’ll save that rant for another journal.)

But Happy Holidays to all of you, whatever holiday you celebrate, even if it’s only NYE. Best of luck in 2010!

Go read this childfree blog post while you’re at it. I found it very interesting and you probably will, too.

I’m so sick of finding kindercrap in my yard! Of all the places I’ve lived in my life, there are the fewest kids in this neighborhood, which is wonderful. There are still kids, but none are my immediate neighbors and I hardly see or hear kids in the neighborhood. Yay! Still, there seems to be some kind of Bermuda Triangle effect that all this kiddie crap in a 4-block radius gets sucked into my yard! How the hell is that possible?! I’ve never had this problem anywhere else I’ve ever lived! Why MY yard?

Most of the times it’s balls of various shapes and sizes, but I’ve found all kinds of junk in my yard. I’ve taken to keeping anything I find and, if no one comes to claim it, it ends up donated to one of the thrift stores in town. I’m not a total ogre – I don’t sit at my window watching to see if a kid’s ball bounces into my yard and then bound out there and snatch it from the kid trying to retrieve it and say, “MINE NOW!” I know some breeder lurkers here would like to think that, but that’s not the case.

What actually happens is this: I will come home to find crap in my yard yet no kids are anywhere in sight. They just leave their stuff in my yard and go home. ????? I don’t get it! I can’t stand to have crap all over my yard and I shouldn’t have to! Still, because I’m not a total ogre, I usually ignore it for a while but if it’s still there the next time I go out, I put it in the “lost and found” box in my garage. I wait to see if anyone shows up to claim it, and if no does, I eventually empty the box at a local thrift store.

A couple of times kids have come to my door and politely asked if I’d seen their ball, and in those cases, I’ve given it back to them with a reminder to keep better track of their toys. After all, some other kid could have stolen their stuff and they’d never have gotten it back. They were lucky I was nice enough to hold it for them and return it when they asked.

Usually, though, the kids are so dumb they don’t even remember where they left the ball, so I never hear from them again. They just go home and demand their idiot parents buy them new toys. Apparently the idiot parents comply, or the kids would keep better track of their stuff!

A few weeks ago, a scooter started ending up in our yard every other day or so. Occasionally we’d find it in the street or someone else’s yard, but it seemed to be in our yard most often! Again, why MY yard? Worse, sometimes it was in my driveway, which was really inconvenient! If I’d had any idea which house the kid belonged to, I’d have gone and had a talk with the parents (who, I’m sure, wouldn’t have given a shit – they obviously weren’t paying attention). But I don’t know which houses have kids. The only people in the neighborhood who have been friendly with us are the ones without kids or the ones who were empty-nesters.

Like I already mentioned, I don’t see a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and I most certainly have not watched the few kids I’ve seen to find out which house they returned to. If I had, I’d probably be arrested for pedophilia or something. (“How dare you be watching my kid and stalking him!!”)

It really bothers me that these kids today have no respect for their stuff. They figure, “Eh, I’ll just leave my scooter (or other toys) just anywhere in the neighborhood. If it gets stolen, I don’t care. My mom will just buy me another!” Yea, I know this scooter is only worth about $25, but still! Take care of your stuff, kid!

It isn’t just the cheap stuff, either. My nephew recently told me a story about some kid at school leaving his PSP laying around. Nephew’s friend stole it, although, is it still “stealing” under the finders keepers rule? If you are dumb enough to leave something out in the open, it’s your own damn fault if someone else claims it. (In this case, the PSP did originally get back to the owner, don’t worry).

I’m not shocked that kids today have NO respect for their stuff, even something expensive like a PSP. Their parents spoil them so badly, buying them every gaming device, music device, digital camera and cell phone they point their little fingers at. I’m shocked. If I’d wanted expensive stuff like that, my parents would have told me to get a job! I can’t imagine my parents having spent upwards of $1500 on electronic crap for me when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t have expected them to. But then, I wasn’t a spoiled brat, either! I was recently talking to a gal who said she had to buy her kid a new iPod because he’d lost his, and I was blown away. It’s bad enough she bought him one in the first place, but buying a replacement after he hadn’t taken care of his first one? I’m speechless. If I’d lost anything when I was a kid, even a $5 cassette tape of my favorite band, my parents would have said, “You didn’t take care of it, so you have to pay for the replacement on your own.”

More importantly, why don’t these kids ever lose something good like an iPod in my yard? Why is it always junk?!

Anyway, after finding the scooter in our driveway yet again, a couple of weeks ago my husband said he’d had enough, and put it in the lost and found box. If a kid had shown up at our door and politely asked for it back and apologized, we’d have returned it after telling him to take better care of his shit and for the love of all that is holy, keep it the fuck out of my driveway! The last thing I need is to be backing out of the garage and run over it!

No kid ever showed up. I’m sure he just went home and said, “MOM! Get me another scooter! RIGHT NOW!” and she did.

So today there is probably a kid going into the DAV thrift store with his mother and for $5 he’ll walk out with a scooter and be so happy. Hopefully that kid will appreciate more than the last kid did. I certainly hope so.

I feel less sorry for parents these days when they cry broke, since they not only buy their kids everything they point at, including overpriced shit, but then pay to keep replacing all their shit when they don’t take care of it. Don’t even get me started on the parents who spoil their brats who are 16+ and old enough to get a job and buy their own shit.

Lurking parents: teach your kids to take better care of their shit and keep it out of our yards. I don’t want to be picking up after your kids. That’s YOUR job. I would much rather they kept their balls and scooters and miscellaneous other crapola so I didn’t have to waste a trip to the thrift store every couple of months with a box full of their junk from my yard!