As a childfree by choice person who has to speak to people as part of her job, I am constantly reassured that it really doesn’t take any special skill to breed. Speaking to people sucks.
Contrary to popular belief, breeding is not hard. I could go out, get drunk, get ploughed and have an egg fertilised by a sperm and BAM! Pregnant. It doesn’t have to be good sex, hell even a turkey baster could do the job.
So why is it that some parents need to constantly reassure themselves that falling pregnant and raising a child is the greatest achievement a person will ever accomplish? Some parents will even expand on that and tell people like myself, that not only is motherhood the greatest accomplishment for a woman but women shouldn’t feel complete until after they’ve had children.
That’s right, shouldn’t feel complete.
Because they’re insecure? Possibly.
Because they feel the need to feel better about their choices? Possibly.
Because they can’t understand how people can be happy making the choice not to have children? Definitely.
I was having a conversation with a coworker yesterday and mentioned how my weekend was awesome. We’d thrown a dinner party for some childfree friends of ours and it was a raging success. We ate cheese and had wine while talking about our cats for an hour and discussing our friends decision to adopt a third cat. All and all, a nice night.
My coworkers response? “That sounds nice but you should really grow up”
Fucking excuse me? Hello, mummy martyr!
“You should really leave behind your teenage years and start being an adult. No woman can feel complete without children. How can you call yourself responsible?”
Well don’t you just know more than me about my life. This kind of trash talk to childfree people is insulting on many levels.
1. To blatantly state that the only way a woman will feel complete is to copy your choice in life, disregards all of the things she has worked hard for.
2. To state that the only way a childfree person can be an adult is to have children, completely disrespects and disregards their choice to be childfree.
3. To state that the only way to be a responsible adult is to have children is a logical fallacy. Not all people who have had children are responsible child rearers.
I’m sorry mummy-advocating coworker but you can keep your mummy-martyring shit to yourself. Having sex and falling pregnant doesn’t take skill and raising a child doesn’t make you responsible nor does being an adult make you responsible. You don’t get an automatic “I’m a responsible adult” card just because your egg has been fertlised/you’ve fertilised an egg and am now raising a child. Raising a child, like looking after any dependent takes a lot of responsibility however one does not need to be responsible or even smart to do those things. Raising a child to be a well adjusted intelligent individual – takes hard work and responsibility. Making sure your kid is a fed at least once a day and they don’t drown in a bowl – not so much hard work. My sibling is a prime example of a person who is raising children irresponsibly. Irresponsible child raisers exist and it sucks.
Fortunately the number of responsible people secure in their choice to raise children outnumber the number of irresponsible insecure childrearing people.
Sadly for me, I’m not seeing many responsible parents in my role. Lots of ill-informed racists who believe our country will be less peaceful if more immigrants are allowed in (note: “immigrants” in this case, doesn’t mean “individuals from another country”. For the people I’m talking to, it means “Anyone not white”). The level of ill-informed people I speak to who have no concept of how the government works, or elections, or refugees vs illegal immigrants and basic science amongst other things just saddens me. And they’re teaching their children these things.
How can anyone claim to be a responsible child raiser when they can’t even teach their child how not to be racist? Or basic critical thinking skills? We live in a country with rampant anti-intellectualism – how can anyone claim that parenthood automatically equals “responsible person” when we have people teaching their children that it isn’t okay to be intelligent?
It boggles the mind.
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