Kids. Do you have
them or not? Plenty of nosy, bossy,
superior-feeling, condescending busybodies with righteous fury say all women
must have kids – if you physically can that is.
What the hell business is it of theirs I ask you?
Lets back up and start at the beginning. When I was a child, teenager and even young
adult, I thought I wanted children.
Three, just like my momma and oldest sister. Then I grew up and realized a few
things. Wait. Let’s back this up memory train up even
farther.
I became an aunt when I was 5.5 years old, became an aunt
for the second time 1 year later, and became an aunt for the third time when I
was 10. Back then I did not fully
realize what an aunt was supposed to be.
My nieces felt like little sisters.
My oldest sister and her husband and their three daughters all lived
relatively close to my parents, middle sister and me for most of my nieces’
child and teenage years.
My nieces and I were literally growing up together. We had plenty of fun times together - riding
horses, playing in the hayshed attached to my dad’s barn, walking through the
horse pasture and woods and other farm related activities. And since there is 13 years difference
between my oldest sister and me, and 6 years between my middle sister and me,
my nieces did give me youngsters to play board games and Barbie dolls
with. It was delightful having them
around. And so, I thought it would be
cool to have kids of my own to play with as well when I got to that point in my
life.
Now, on with the story as implied by the title.
So, probably up until the age of 22, I believed I was
going to have three children – all girls.
You know following family tradition.
;-) Then as I was growing into a
somewhat mature thoughtful adult, I started learning more about the world and
myself. Through this learning and
accompanying observations, I decided that two children would be easier for me
to handle. A couple of years after
dating my boyfriend, now husband, he thought having two children would work for
us as well. He grew up in a family of
three too, but he is the oldest of a brother and sister. Then a few more years went by, and we sort of
debated about only having one child.
Then as time went on, we realized that ‘no children’ was the way for
us.
You see, after nearly 6 years of marriage (married in
June 2009), we sincerely, without a flicker of doubt, truly enjoy our childless
marriage. We like having time just for
ourselves, being responsible for only ourselves (dog and fish being the
exceptions here). It has gotten to the
point where when someone (stranger or not) asks when we are having children, we
may have to resort to LYING. We lie and
say ‘they are not in the plans just now.’
When a society values honesty, they sure as hell are hypocrites when the
truth is different than their opinion.
Shame on us for trying to be honest and answer those terrible, personal
inquiries with an honest answer by saying ‘we do not want children.’
I am of the mind that a person should do what makes them
happy since we only get one shot at living in this big, opinion-filled,
shame-you-for-being-different world. Not
having children makes my husband and me happy.
Do those interfering, patronizing people who say we should have children
not care if it will make my husband and me happy? No.
Absolutely not. You know why. Because they are selfish clowns who feel they
must pressure couples, women in particular, to be just like them. Why would I want to be just like someone else
and live a life similar to them?
Take children to dance recitals, music lessons,
sportsball stuff, birthday parties of classmates, miss work because they are
sick, plan summer vacations around them, and choose restaurants and movies
because of them? What makes people who
don’t know me (even some who do) think all of that will make me happy? Just because that works for them does NOT
automatically mean it will work for me.
In fact, that does not mean that kind of lifestyle works for all
women. Yes, I specifically said women in
that previous sentence, because it’s usually not the men who are pressured by
society to create children.
The other day I was reading a blog on Facebook, Humans of
New York, and in it a woman talked about a male co-worker saying she should
have children “because [she is] a woman.”
What the hell kind of reasoning is that?
My immediate, internal reply to his dumbass excuse was “You are a man with
sperm. Does that mean you are going to
procreate? Because you know, having the
resources to create life absolutely means you must have children.”
I have had arguments with people about this very
subject. One was with a disrespectful,
loud-mouth co-worker and the other close-minded, chauvinistic customer who felt
he knew me well enough to have this kind of personal conversation with me. Let me first say a little something about the
co-worker argument. Husband and I have a
dog, had him since he was 8 weeks old, and for the first few months of having
him, he slept in his bed on the floor at the foot of our bed. Then around 7 months old, he decided it would
be great fun to get up at 5am to play.
Hubby and I minded that decision quite a bit and would get him in to bed
with us so we could all sleep another couple of hours before getting up and
ready for work. Then getting him in bed
with us at that un-godly hour, eventually turned into him jumping into bed of
his own accord at the even un-godlier hour of 3am. This, as you can probably guess the natural
progression of things, turned into him just getting into bed with us when we
went to bed. When he was little, and
before he really became the spoiled rotten dog that he is today, I said that I
would never let a dog sleep in my bed.
So because of this statement “I would never let a dog sleep in my bed,”
my co-worker thought that was a logical reasoning to refute my stance of not
ever having kids. “But Kacee,” he would
say, “you said you never would let your dog sleep with but he does now. So that means by saying you never want kids
means that someday you will want them.”
Really??? How the hell does
letting a dog sleep in my bed when I originally did not want him to in any
small way compare to that of having children?
People do realize that moving a dog’s sleeping place is vastly,
unequivocally different than having children right? Is there something I am missing to this puzzle? Since when did having a dog sleep in my bed
show that I am ready to have sleepless nights, make many trips to a
pediatrician, prepare a child for school, help for 12 years with homework,
attend PTAs and all the other responsibilities that come along with raising
children? Since WHEN???? NEVER, is the appropriate answer.
The argument I had with the all-too-inquisitive,
no-boundaries customer was kind of similar to that with my co-worker. He could not understand how I, and every
other woman, have a CHOICE on whether or not we want to actually produce
offspring. CHOICE. We have a CHOICE. Do I need to write it again? Do you need to read it again? CHOICE.
We have a CHOICE. Having children
is NOT a requirement to be a fulfilled woman or spouse. With the co-worker and
customer, I finally had to tell them that this conversation topic was closed
for further discussion, and that I was not arguing anymore with them about it.
Then recently, I had a former co-worker – female - tell
me that ‘[my] clock is ticking and [I] better hurry.’ (as I write this, I will turn 34 yo this
year). What the hell? Since her child was with her, I could not
respond in the verbally profane way I wanted, so I just replied that my clock
doesn’t work and moved the conversation along.
Who the fuck do these people think they are telling me
that I should have children? Are they
going to help me raise them? Are they
going to support my children financially?
Are they going to help me take the children to the doctor? The answers are No, No, and No. So in that case, they can shut their mouths
and learn some respect.
As you can tell, this subject gets me extremely riled up
and full of rage. Why why why does
society and other moms think that all
women MUST have children? If you listen
to/read entertainment news, you will find that many times female celebrities
are asked when they will have a child or another child. Or they are asked why they don’t want
children. Check out this link of what I
am talking about and the thoughtful, forthright answers. http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/08/25-famous-women-on-childlessness.html These ladies have a great, unabashed and
confident handle on themselves and their life, and I particularly like Gloria
Steinem’s “everybody does not have to
live in the same way.” As best I can
tell, male celebrities aren’t asked when they will have children. Or have someone stupidly and absurdly ask ‘if
you do have children how will you balance work and family or will you quit work
to raise your children.” If male celebrities
are asked this, it is rarely reported on.
So if the other half of our species, who has the other part of the
required goods that helps make more of us, is not asked when they will make a
child, why does the fairer half of our species seem to be the only ones nosy
busybodies concentrate on when talking about children?????
Ok, rant over. I
just hope that people will start being respectful of others, especially on this
subject.
Today’s pun courtesy of the interwebs
I asked a librarian if she was free this afternoon,
she said she was all booked up.
