Childfree: "To Save The World"

As I was driving home yesterday at the end of the workday, I heard a very interesting advertisement on the radio (yes, I'm one of those who must listen to the radio or to music while driving): It was an add about condoms, mainly directed to men, and it was sketched in the way of an opinion survey, where different men said why they used condoms. One of them, a happy, chirp, young man said:

"Because I want to save the Planet."

This hit me and got me thinking. It was in the very begining, loud and clear, and put in a way not only that it sounded reasonable, but it sounded noble. But how's that? How do you save the planet by using a condom? Well, you use a condom to prevent the transmision of venereal diseases, and also to prevent pregnancy, or in other, more simpler words: to avoid having kids. So, while, yes, saying that you save the planet by doing your share in stopping the propagation of sexually transmitted diseases, in many environments, with established couples that "not sample on the side", the function of condoms is to prevent the birth of children. Unless, of course, you think that condoms are only used by people with multiple sexual partners, most of which are casual, and that established couples use other means of birth control.

However, starting with the presumption that condoms are used by a wide range of people in a wide range of sexual partnership arrangements, then the purpose of these are double in many cases (avoid diseases and children) or serve to one purpose: birthcontrol. Now, from that message, could you think that "saving the Planet" would be in any way related with "not having children"? Well, actually, yes. Though in several developped countries the population has been aging - meaning that the number of elder people is larger than the number of younger people - in many other countries the population has continued to grow, and grow enough to keep our global population growing - thus not only compensating but surpassing the low in growth in those countries with aging population. 

Okay, that sounded too "technicist", so let me explain this quickly and simply: while in richer countries people have less and less babies, and they have more old people than young people, in poorer countries not only have they more young people than old people, but they actually have enough babies to compensate the lack of babies in richer countries, and then some.

To make things worse, the resources of our planet aren't well distributed, with less access to food, education, health, infratructure and so on in the countries with higher population growth rates, while those with a lower growth rate enjoy a surplus of resources they then transform into something else. Thus, the food needed in a poor country, it's converted into biofuel in richer countries that swim in food and other resources. In the meantime the prices of everything hike up and even the richer countries are developping within their citizens ample rings of poverty. The way things go - and there's an European Crisis that proves me right - soon we won't be speaking of "rich countries" only about rich people and rich corporations, which will float on a sea of poverty keeping the resources from the planet, for their own excessive consumption.

And what does that have to do with children? Well, the more children are born, the more pressure is put on the resources of the planet. It means more poor people, whether your baby belongs to one of the poor or one of the rich groups. It's another mouth to feed, another kid to put through school, another child to clothes and shelter, another kid who would consume toys and all sorts of goods, than then will put pressure on the job market, on the unemployment rates - either your kid gets the job or not - the demand for fuel, housing and so on. Let me see if I can say this straight and simple: a baby isn't "a baby": it's a person who will have to fight for a job, will need social insurance, healthcare, education, food, transportation, housing, communications, all sorts of infrastructure, and so on. A baby is a person in the future, with the needs of the future, living often in countries that haven't invested in any of these in ages!

Do you save the Planet by choosing to be Childfree? Well, you for sure don't put more pressure on the lean and ill distribuited resources of the planet, you have more time to dedicate to a job or different causes to seek saving the planet (yes, you can do that with a kid, but let's be honest, with a kid you SHOULD pay attention to the kid too, while the Childfree could invest the time you spend on the child either in more voluntary job, or resting to recover energies to be able to do more job than what a drained parent can, but it all depends on the parent and their view about what parenting is). So, the answer, I believe is "yes". You can save the Planet and have children, but you can also hot have children as your wait to aid into saving the Planet.

Being Childfree often isn't just about one reason: "I don't want a child because they would have no space in my life", "I don't want a child because I want to save the planet", "I don't want a child because they don't deserve to live in such a rotten place", etc.  Being Childfree more often than not is a decision you have gotten to through a series of elements. You don't feel like it, you worry what sort of conditions would receive your child, you believe that the last thing the Planet needs is another person adding to the contamination, you have decided to dedicate yourself to a project that means more to you, or you decided to work with other people's children, thus give that part of your time to them, or simply you know you can't stand children, you don't get along with them, thus you avoid them (the "but it would be different with your own children" conveniently hides the fact that children attract children, thus you may like your own children, but you will have to deal with their friends, their classmates, their birthday parties and so on), or simply that you like your life the way it is without children and you don't want to give it up.

As becoming a parent should be a decision made only on one aspect "I want to be a parent", "I don't want to be left alone when I'm old", "I like babies", "that's what adults do", "I want to 'consumate' and fulfill my marriage" - choosing to be childfree isn't also a one variable decision.

Finally, what also hit me from that advertisement of condoms was, how acceptable and natural it sounded coming from a man, but would have been the same coming from a woman? The Law can't force you, but society seems to believe that men are entitled to choose not to have children, while women must have children. A man can choose to protect himself, not to have children and even deny the children they have outside the wedlock, but in many countries women can't even decide to abort a child they don't want, not even if that child is the result of rape.

Childfree and Childfree women still have a long path to go.

Thoughts on Writting Letters

Two letters sent and two more to go. My fingers, my right hand hurts quite some, but I'm happy. I reached out to my friends! To more letters to read, to reply, to send on their way... and then go back to receive them in my old, metal P.O. Box, replying them and knowing that the friends that get my letters within the week, will get them now - maybe - within a month.

It's weird, but I'm getting a little bit giddy about going back to Costa Rica. Yes, yes, I should be sad and sappy, and half of me is - really! - but the other side is thinking "I'll see my friends again!" and "Man! I can grab Sookie (my car) and go for the weekend to Limón (Caribbean province) or to Jacó (beach at the Pacific Ocean)!". And though we all know that the Postal Service in Costa Rica sucks the big banana, I can't wait to send postcards to my friends about our beaches, our vulcanoes and our cities. Yes, I've got a little bit crazy about postcards and have been probably annoying my friends with them. (Wonder if I've sent any postcards to Trish... I think I don't... It kinda feels weird to send her a post card because I feel that's like sending a postcard to your nextdoor neighbour. Really, since she came back from the States I feel like she's the girl next door, like instead of posting her letters I should be slipping them under her door! Weird, huh?)

Hyne, I feel like getting our my post card stash and write some postcards to my friends. :-)

In one of the letters I've replied, a friend of mine told me about a sad case where some friends of hers, who became parents a few years ago, had taken advantage of their new status and her willingness to accomodate to their needs in order to impose. My friend isn't a childfree person like me, at least I think so, so her relating me about how when she asked her friends to please accomodate a little for her, and they refused, threw me aback. 

I really don't get this attitude. To protect the inocent I'll relate the story changing a few minor things, but the idea remains untouched. So, my friend  Veronica has these friends from long time ago - Jenny and Ben -, who fell in love with each other, married and then had a daughter, Elena. Before Elena was born, Veronica, Ben and Jenny went out every weekend or visited each other, to get a coffee and catch up. Veronica spent lots of time in their first place, and then the new home they've got when they were expecting the baby, and Jenny and Ben also spent lots of time at Veronica's place. In those days, they even had a few places they loved to visit, coffee houses and bars where they already felt at home. However, since Elena take up all the time of the new Mom and Daddy, stopped visiting, and told Veronica that they prefered if she would visit them, since the baby was so small. For over six years Veronica visited dutifully her friends, often feeling like an intruder, or being left alone in the kitchen while both parents rushed to tend the whailing girl.

Veronica, who got married in the mean time, but didn't have any children yet by herself, wrote this off to "mornal parent stuff". The topic of "Elena" and everything that was about Elena permeated the conversation to such a degree, that Jenny and Ben seemed to constantly dominate the conversation. Veronica had no experiences of her own to share, and her polite questions about day care and diapers were quickly exhausted. She tried to bring in the old topics they had, like new movies or books, but each time her friends reacted uninterested and cold, brushing off the subject with a patronizing "well, we have Elena now, we don't have time for those things".

Veronica still kept up with them, visited them and tried to find in the obsessive parents who spoke of things that had nothing to do with her life, the great friends she used to have. So, when Veronica got into school, and was spending time over Ben's parents while Ben or Jenny came home from work, she thought about asking them to go back to their old visiting habit, and kindly invited them to her place for a quick coffee. Her husband, an awesome architect, and her had moved to a new place - actually closer to Jenny and Ben - and she wanted to show them the gorgeous skylight he had designed.

Jenny and Ben told her simply, "no". Veronica first thought she understood wrong, so she rephrased, and expended her invitation to them, to which her friends said that they didn't like visiting anymore, and if she wanted to keep in contact with them, she should be the one visiting them, in their home and at their convenience.

Veronica's case isn't the first such I hear, and though the ones imposing this way on their friends are usually parents (though we all know I once had a friend who wasn't married, not had kids, who liked to impose of their friends this way), the funny thing is that we all know many parents - new Mommies and Dadies that still make it and are still able to keep up their regular lives and regular friends. Sure, they can't drop to a party anytime they want, but I certainly know many people who are parents to manage to continue their lives while attending their children. They work, the study, the keep up their hobbies, tend their pets, and meet with friends. How come that for some people becoming a parent basically equals becoming socially disabled, while for others becoming a parent simply means that they have more responsabilities and that they simply have to manage more tasks.

Becoming a parent isn't equal to becoming stupid or imposing, but I do think that some people are really like that, want to feel served by others, want to lord and impose over others, and they take parenthood as an excuse to do so.

I hope my friend gets to sort out the situation with her friends and makes the best possible decision.

Why It's All About You

Feeling insignificant is one of the most common feelings in the world. Feeling like nothing you say and nothing you do matter to anyone (or maybe only the closest people to you, like your closest family, your partner or your best friends), feeling so small, so invisible, so insignificant, you stand powerless in the middle of your own life, or the big space where all the lives around you collide, losing sight of your own life because that seems so small too, and you feel vulnerable, defenseless, powerless. If you die, who would remember you? This drives many to seek fame, enduring the troubles that come with it, or pull them to a life of constant deception and unfulfillment. Others try to make sure they will be remembered, by making a family, and thus outlive their deaths through their descendence.

In this condition, feeling so gray, so invisible, so irremediably eluded by attention, it's hard to believe that anything is about us, or that the company's record "your call is important to us" hold any truth. If you feel so, you've probably are one of the "lucky ones" that have kept to the social program, and have acted always on schedule, wanting what you are supposed to want, acting as you are supposed to act, saying what you are supposed to say and thinking as you are supposed to think. You, invisible dot invisible in the great, homogenous mass, are a successful product of the society. Things change when you are not like "the rest" even if there are thousands and thousands of people exactly like you. Things change if you are a colored dot.

In today's society, (as it has probably been for a long, long time ago, since the begining of history, probably), each time someone doesn't follow the program, gets attacked by the program and the rest of the elements in it. Whatever it is you stick out with, such a thing becomes a crime, and you are labeled several things ranging from immature, selfish to freak and antinatural. It's pretty bad when you are held guilty for things that belong to your nature and that hurt nobody at all, such as being gay, or being black/white/red/yellow, or having been born on this or that country, even for being born woman (in some cases, in others society has evolved somewhat); however, I consider the harrassing for your choices still the worse of all.

When you are born gay, just to give you an example, there's nothing you can do to change that fact. It's like being born Latin. There are "churches" that swear they can convert you and pull "the devil out of you", but they might - at best - simply repress you, but never change you. They can't change a gay person into a straight person as much as a straight person can't be changed into a gay person, or as much as a black person can't be changed white or viceversa (except Michael Jackson, but that's another story). It's hard, it's horrible, but slowly people are learning to understand that nothing changes nature. What's harder for people to understand are when you stick out for your choices.

You stick out if you choose not to marry, you stick out if you choose not to have kids, you stick out if you choose to abort your child, you stick out if you choose not to follow the "civilized" way of life, but rather live in communion with nature and grow your own food and weave and sew your own clothes. Whatever your choice is, if it doesn't fit the "get a job, marry, have kids, honor the culture and society you live in" scheme, then you are a selfish, immature shame to your community and you need to correct your ways.

Those taking such decisions are often called selfish because they deny others of something. This is particularly thrown at the head of people choosing to be childfree or aborting. Say you are childfree and you decided that's the way you want to live your life. You probably then have been said more times than you care to remember, that "What about your partner? Are you going to deny him/her the pleasure of having children?". Yes, very distasteful, arrogant, uninvited, unconsidered words. Aside from eliminating any chance for your own feelings and choices to be of any importance even to yourself, and aside from the fact that you may not have been as unconsiderate as to say "you plan on having another child? Why? Couldn't get enough fucking up the first one?", there's the fact that these sort of comments center the whole universe around you in a negative way.

So, just because you don't want to commit, and rather keep an open relationship (or several), or maybe prefer casual encounters, now you personally deny every single person you sleep with the chance to get married and have kids? Or just because you personally don't want to have kids, you are denying your partner - if he or she ever decides that they can't live another second without a kid - with someone else? Even a marriage can be broken, if one day one partner decides that children are important to them, no matter what, and the other hasn't changed it's mind. You are not the only semen-shooting-penis in town, or the last fertile-womb in the world. Also, just because you decided to abort your child, whatever is your reason, you are not becoming a killer (radical Catholics think that using anticonceptives are equal to murdering unborn children), nor make you irresponsible for taking a decision that probably is already hard on you.

Back in 1996 I met a girl, who was going to get her second abortion. That child and the first was from her longtime boyfriend. They lived together, loved each other and wanted to get married and have a family. They both worked, but their incomes were so low they knew there was no way they could support their child. So, with much pain, they decided to abort it. She knew she wouldn't be able to give the child in adoption, knowing that out there there's a child thinking that their parents didn't love them, because she did, but neither her nor her boyfriend kid themselves about their real chances to support a family. It wasn't rape, it wasn't a life threatening pregnancy, not even a one night stand or a child with severe health problems, it was a very respectable, rational decision. A decision made precisely for the child, since as you must know, poverty isn't as romantic as in the novels, nor a child is happy when it has to be all day long in daycare and see their parents pick them up, tired and worn, to get home and sleep.

The world isn't indeed about you, except when you fall off the wagon. The acusations and arguments held the power of bullying, not the power of argument. No matter the words used, the biggest flaw in their reasoning is always why do they mind the personal decisions of other people. Why is your coworker or friend so involved in your decision to leave your job, sell your house and go live in a farm, where you can make sure that the milk you drink and the veggies you eat are really organic? Why  is so important to them whether you want to have children or not? Whether you will keep your child or not? Whether you'll ever marry or not?

Do you get a say on who they marry and why? Do you get a say on how many children they get and when? Do you get a say on what job shall they pursue and which staples shall the buy? Then why do they feel so entitled to get a say about your life?

Your environment feels entitled to criticise the way you dress and how much you weight, whether you are anorexic thin, as you are expected, or if you have healthy, round curves. If your hair is short or long, dyed or peppered with grayhairs, if your mobile is new or old. Come one, have you noticed how you feel pressured to give an excuse if your mobile is anything less than an iPhone? So what if your ten years old Nokia still works? Or if you choose a phone that really does only the basic, which is "voice call"? Will the rest try to use the Internet on your phone, or read their newspapers? Then what's wrong with a phone that can't even send and SMS - if there are still such?

If your life, your choices and nobody should have a say about that. Except they seem to do. What can we do to stop that?

Popping a Belly

An acquintance of mine is pregnant with her second child. She's really happy and has been getting blown up like a balloon fish. She's all giddy and happy, telling everybody who will listen to her, or seem like would about her pregnancy, and even show the video of her first time giving birth, as well as an unending sequence of her first child, her belly of her first child, minute by minute. As a woman, you are expected to ohhh! and ahh! and smile a lot and squint your eyes and baby talk and say "oh how beautiful!" and "you are so lucky" and "I'm so envious of you". Of course, if you are like me, and merely forcing a demure, stiff smile why holding back the gag reflex and strongly considering submerging your head in the nearest trashcan and blow groceries into it, then you are seen like the "odd duckling of the pack". Oddly, though you are the one on whom the whole "maternity crap" is imposed on (you never ASKED to see the fucking pics, vids, nor you are interested in the least on the process - neither have you imposed the "we don't speak 'Children' here" policy), you are the one making excuses, which are met with patronizing lines about how you will "get it one day when you have your own" and so on.

Pregnant as she is from her second offspring, she has come to use a picture of her blown up belly as icon for everything that requires or could use an avatar on the net. Basically you are exposed at any given time to see a huge, Malignant Mellon looking lump pop up and down in the corner of your screen every so often, depending on the quality of her connection. (Have tried to block her, but the freaking new messenger has hid the option away.) Malignant Mellon has not once used her pregnancy to shake off work related issues (yeah, like if you go on vacation you are no longer accountable for the progress of the work assigned to you, or what you did on the days before or after it), which sounds really somewhat besides the point, except that this kind of pushes you towards an important root of "evil". Malignant Mellon is just a small appendix of what's going on, of what stands behind the whole matter of having children.

As a woman submerged in the society Malignant Mellon represents, you are not expected to work or to be good at working, you are just expected to give birth. It's beyond the point whether you are good at what you do or whether you are bad, it really doesn't matter, because women's "destiny", their ultimate goal and purpose in life is to give birth. People around mommies are lenient, and don't bitch if they skip the office early, or are systematically late, if they are shabby looking or underperform at their office duties. It all goes understood and accepted because "they are mommies, and mommies priorities are the children". Of course, where a dad to skip the office, get late, be shabby or underperform... that wouldn't be tolerated. He is a man and he must perform.

This, however is a double sided thing, as since Mums are unreliable on the laboral sphere, and all women are supposed to become at some point "Mums" because that's our manifest destiny, employers rather stir away from hiring women, or by default, make sure to fire them as soon as they get pregnant, or not hire them back when the maternity leave is over. What for? A company can't be run half assed just because the workforce is "otherwise engaged".

Some of the arguments I've heard when wincing at the sight of a pregnant woman, or children is that "well, you wouldn't be here if your mom wouldn't have gone through the same process", or "you were a baby too". Okay, in my case - as the case of many people - I was born from straight parents: does that automatically exclude that I could be gay or bisexual? What if I were transgender? Yes, my folks when through the whole make-a-babe process, but why should I too? Should I also be a shoemaker if that's what my parents are? Shall I also be an alcoholic if that's what my parents are? And also, just because I was a baby, why should make I one? And on that line, if I'm Asian or Black or Caucasian, shall I also make one like me? I was a little girl, must I also make a little girl? What if I get pregnant and it's a little boy? I wasn't a little boy, is that agains the "norm" then?

Though I understand that Malignant Mellon has all the right to flaunt her condition and her "achievements" and regard them as she pleases, I also have the right to react to it, and for me it is deeply distasteful, and insulting as well. Sure, maybe it's just me, but forgive me if I'm touchy when mothers are crass about their state, their condition, their "status" while us, Childfree are bullied and called names that don't even apply to the reality of things.

We are being pushed with lies - because that's what they are - seeking to disqualify our choice, calling us unfulfilled, or as someone said "living a superficial life" or "passing on a life with more purpose". Right.

Let me put things in perspective:

1. As a Childfree, when my significant other and I, or my friends and I, decide to go out, all we do is say when (which can be spontaneously), where, and go. Okay, maybe some dressing up is required. We go, have a good time, laugh, if we are driving we are careful about what we drink, and when the party is over, or we get tired, or we decide we must wake up early to work nect day, we go. We get home, take off the clothes, shower and hit the sack. 

2. A person with children must first decide whether the children can take being away from him or her, look for a nanny, or start bothering friends and family looking for someone willing to look up for the kids. When getting ready they still have to deal with the kids, hopefully not with a temper tantrum and "I want to go too" or "Don't leave me", which can end up in picking up the phone and cancelling. Or maybe the nanny cancelled and nobody will take YOUR children, so you must cancel. If you manage to go, then you won't enjoy yourself all that much because you are thinking about picking up your children - you are subjected to a curfew! - while keeping an eye on the phone in case it rings, and if it rings you get upset, worried and spend a part of the evening calming the children or explaining things to the nanny. You will be prone to leave early, while all your friends are still feeling good and enjoying themselves. You get home and you still have to check on the kids, clean up the messes left, maybe wrestle them into bed and make them promises to atone for leaving them.

Yes, a life without kids is a life with less worries, with more time and more energy. It's a life fully balanced - or better balanced - between work and relaxation time. Any physician would tell you it's a healthy lifestyle. We can better apply ourselves to what we do, have better chances to be good at our jobs, at our hobbies, at our passion. More room to improve, more time to work on it. Is our life lesser in purpose? Is our purpose inferior?

It's different, it suit us, it makes us happy, which is something some parents can't say about themselves.

Man Up To Your Choices

Today is my birthday. Yay!! Friends and family have been ringing me up and sending me e-mails and SMS, or posting on my facebook wall (which you may not be able to access if I don't know you, for I have security levels so high that compete with The Wall from Game of Thrones, and hopefully not even the wildlings and white walkers will be able to pass it). Lots and lots of years ago I was born on this day a baby, grew up and turned up to be the woman tapping on the keyboard you've got today. It is kinda funny that my topic for today is precisely that of Childfree-ness, but it is.

When posting on Facebook about my believe of no children (for me) from time to time I get this selfconscious nag about my sister-in-law, whom I've friended and can read my rantling. Never says a thing - there's not much to be said - but it's still there. The last comment of mine on this topic was about this Malaysian airline that decided to ban babies from first class. Not that I have the means to fly first class, but it warmed my heart. I'm not a frequent flyer, as you all know, but I do fly in average once a year, and in these occasions I seat on a plane for about 7.5 to 12 hours, depending on the airline (KLM takes longer, Air France is faster, but I also love Air France for sooooooo many other wonderful reasons!), and through them, having to suffer whining children and wailing babies has been the one down I can't forgive. Thoughts like "please someone just shoot them down", "ain't a terrorist that can just destroy this plane so we get over with it?" and so on cross my mind. Of course, the valuable aid of my laptop and all the movies and series I can watch is appreciated, but some children are so loud you can hear their crying through your earphones in the middle of an accion scene from "Prince of Persia".

In an airport isn't so terrible (unless you have to crash there because your flight got delayed, cancelled or something), as you can go somewhere else (often smoker booths and bars are the best place to escape the children!), but in a confined place it is a nightmare. So far, in a society that truly beheld family and children as the ultimate goal of marriage and women, adults were all expected to put up with the annoyance of unruly brats. Children crying in the movie theatre, children throwing temper tantrums at stores and restaurants, loud children on airplanes... The excuse was always "they are children", and that should suffice for anyone to suck it up and put away any thing that might get interrupted because of the kid. You could hardly even complain in a public transportation mean when some baby vomited on you or started pulling your  hair, clothes or things. Slapping the child or even looking at them like "stay away from me, you shit-machine" was right next to murder. Is, still, I believe. So, what do we, adults-not-carrying-a-kid expect? (Because believe it or not, not childfree people, like people with older, teen kids, also get annoyed!) Well, we rightfully expect the parent of the child to be responsible and contain the child.

Indeed, to expect a baby to out of the blue understand how it should behave among other people is unreasonable. On that same line, if we would expect the baby to know how to behave just by being put in a situation, we should also expect them to speak the local language and chat with us about the current global politics, maybe toss an idea or two about how to solve the Greek situation. No, lets clear something right now: it's not the child, it's the parent. Yes, we get mad at the child, but isn't automatically the feeling passed onto the parent who proves incompetent in properly parenting the offspring? Do we get mad at the baby pulling our hair or at the parent who hasn't thought the child that such a thing shouldn't be done? Yep, the culprit is the parent.

It is the parent's responsability to educate the child, teach them good from wrong, proper from unproper, and also, yes, to teach them how to behave in different social situations. It is also the parent's responsability to determinate whether the child is ready to be exposed to certain social situations. Just as you wouldn't take your uncontrollable pet (be it a dog, a cat or a reptile... or anything) to a public place (or you are supposed not to), a parent should also consider whether they can expose their children to situations they can't handle. After all - going back to the pets -  you wouldn't take your big, unruly dog to a playground full of kids, and unleash it  knowing it won't listen to you if you call them, and then expect parents and children to put up with your terrorizing dog while excusing the both of you saying "well, it's a dog". However parents often act like they are inmune to those basic social rules. Sadly this irresponsible attitude is learned by their children, who then learn that children can do anything they want and adults with children too.

Pop-question: Are Childfree bitter because we don't have the human shield of a children to get away with annoying others? Well, as a Childfree I'd say, I don't want to get away with annoying others, I want not to be annoyed. I'd love it also if pro-family and fringe parents would stop a second on their tracks and think about what so carelessly they say. They call us immature and selfish. I look back at them. They bring children to this life, act irresponsably about them, regarding others... and we are the immature. They don't do what's requiered to not impose on the rest of society because of a choice they made by themselves... and we are the selfish. Well, being childfree surely is fucking up with my semantics.

However the world goes by and parents rather hide behind their children and "being left out of choices" attitudes, instead of owning up to their decisions and realizing that while the child isn't ready to properly function in society, they must make sure neither them or their children disrupt the social mechanics and impose on other people. This sadly forces people and companies fed up with the gamble of whether a parent is responsible for their kids and if they bring them is because the kids are ready, or not, and take matters to their own hands. This is how children and families get separated, secluded or down right banned from different places. You may say it is unfair, and well, it could be. There are parents who are really responsible, who really educate their children to behave, and there are children who are real angels, quite and undisturbing, but that's not the case of all of them. As a matter of fact, that's more an exception  that the norm, so until parents get through their thick skulls that yes, they are entirely responsible of their children and they shouldn't impose them on the rest of the world, the rest of the world will have to ban them, distrust them and lock them far away where they can let others be in peace.

Child Noise and Joy

My boyfriend and I spent three nights at Panama. We are actually on our last night tonight, and well, in a way I'm happy we are getting the heck out of here. Don't get me wrong, I like Panama really much, and the city is adorable, but the hotel, well, It wasn't the best decision I've made. Now, let's not go over the fact that this site that I made the reservation on (a certain "Despegar.com", much advertized in Latin America, seems quite shady as a lot of things included in the description of the hotel proved not to be right - such as the safe included, or airport shuffle included, or the checking hours, not to mention the difficulty the hotel seems to have with finding our reservation...), now shall we go on the matter of the multiple inefficiencies of the hotel - that I'm reserving for the evaluation of the place - but the families lodged at the hotel.

I read a time ago - in one of those childfree, pro-child arguments - how some people talked about the sound of children as a "source of joy". If I recall correctly, it was a matter of having children at a wedding, and how they playing and laugher made the whole event much more enjoyable. Yep, sure. When I read the article I imagined that person lived in a Jane Austen world with melodic laugher, or a "Little House in the Praire", surrounded by Ingalls or something of the sort. Certainly, if you like children, the idea of children sounds and laugher may appear - theoretically - as something heartwarming. (If you've recently seen the movie "The Orphanage", it does not!), but still, for me it's like people saying that music from the 80's makes them happier: yes, it does the trick for them, but it doesn't do it for me.

I'm honestly happier with peace and quiet, or certain selected noises, such as a techno party, a sports bar in the middle of a Superbowl game, or the noise of trains. Some noisy movies also get to me, such as Fast and Furious, but kids are not my favored flavor in noises. A party is far more enjoyable with soothing jazz music and good conversation, than with children running around while you are looking out to make sure one of them are not distroying your property (car, coat, purse, home), or with your interlocutor paying you only half attention because they are looking our for the kids. Now, of course, it's always better a parent that keeps an eye on the kids, that one that detaches from it and leave the mess to the rest of the crew, but still, when kids are around adults are always somewhat in the edge. It's even worse than having an uncomfortable veggan friend in the party for whom you gara get out of the way to keep pleased and not "hurt sensitivities" - like not serving a big, juicy BBQ baby ribs because the scent of meat offends them.

Anyway, theoretically might be nice and romantic, but in the real life, in the practice, it's UNBEARABLE! Sure, I guess people who really want children find it lovely, just like hard metal rock lovers awe at the regurgitating and vomiting sounds of their singers, but for the regular folk, the sond of children may not be so pleasant. At the hotel a family was lodged, and whenever they were in the diner, you couldn't wait to bust the joint. The children weren't even running around and annoying directly the rest of the customers, but their shrieking voices, their demanding, their dumb playing were everywhere. It was so harsh, so high pitched, it worked like a poisoned needle piercing into your brain and interrupting your thoughts. Holding a conversation over their whining was just as hard.

The kids played even in the pool - a shallow, small, unsuitable pool - and the sight was disgusting. Maybe it was only those children, but there was a boy around 7 or 8 constantly trying to hump a 2-3 year old girl's butt, while the parents watched unfazed, and a 1-2 year old tried to mount the 8 year old. Their playing sounds weren't any more pleasing, with lots of "now me" and "lets do this" all over the place. No volume control. As I watched them rather disgusted (my boyfriend noticed I was looking at them as if I were staring at crap in a box), I wondered who would want those noises or maybe similar scenes anywhere else? Nowadays you can't count on parents to control their kids, because they don't, but rather expect all others to endure their trespassing. For instance, how many times have you actually heard of parents paying for the damage their kids do on someone else's property? Mostly they expect to be let off the hook because "they are kids". At a mass, if kids are allowed in, you are expected to endure their loud shrieking and crying, even at movies (I have been at movies where the irresponsable parents wouldn't leave the theatre when their children cried because "they payed the movie and have the right to be there"). 

An acquintance of mine, who has a child - a real monster - once told us about the time the kid made a scene at a public place, and they were so out of it, so fed up with the kid's temper tantrum, that they decided not to do a thing as the kid rolled on the floor and kicked and bothered other people, even when requested by others to control the child. That's modern parenting to you. Often parents also decide to let the kid throw temper tantrums and not attend them, since "paying attention and reacting to them will only make things worse", but then the rest of the people suffer from the teaching. Do those of us who haven't had a say on the birth of that particular child should suffer it? I'd say no. So joyful? Ummm... not.

Yes, children are the future and we've all been children, but please, don't come up with shit like "children bring joy" and that their sounds make everything "happier". No, it doesn't. It might work for you, but not for all of us, and yes, some of us actually like to hear what we have to think. Some of us do like to relax and have people around us who are relaxed, doing what they like, and not getting in the way with us.

Live and let live, or rather "live and let enjoy".

Get Out of the Toychest

Listening to different witchy podcasts, I found out that they talk about "comming out of the broomcloset". The first time it was funny, because it's like when people talk about gay people "coming out of the closet", as in meaning they stop hiding who they are and let it out to the world, whether their surroundings like it or not. Well, in our current society, sadly a lot of people is locked in different closets. Gay people have their own closet, pagans of all sorts have their own closet (called "broomcloset", by those who are on the Path), so then reading an article by Stefanie Iris Weiss, I realized that the childfree are also in a closet. A broomcloset? Well, no, being childfree isn't the same as being Pagan. A plain closet? So we like share it with the gay people because our condition is the same? So I was looking for the closet we were hiding in - I wasn't going to poke Harry Potter's cupboard - when it came to me, that we are hiding in the toychest. Yes we are.

You see, when childfree and hiding it, we actually bow to childish things. We come up with excuses about why "we still have no children", or lie about "why are we waiting for" and make all these faces when people come up with their moronic lines like "well, you ain't getting younger! You gara hurry!" and say stuff like "yeah, I better do! hahahaha!" but we are like "yeah, I better stay clear away from you and your imp-breeding ideas". Then, sadly, whenever we try to give a reply that stirs off the unwanted question, people actually think we are immature. Well, we are when we are not assuming who we are and make up excuses for others. Or plain when we make up excuses to explain out behavior to others in ways that clearly seek their approval. Often our wish to hide our perceived "abnormality" leads us to really awkward situations like being left with kids so that our "parental self stirs up". Dude, you know what that does? I mean, I'm fairly resolute in not having children, but anytime the "bug" gets to me - so to say - and I think about reproducing my kind (specially when looking at Matt Bomer, yes), and breed evil little economists that will walk the Earth with Karl Marx under their arm, and Keynes in their hearts, I come across children, and the thought is spirited away. Children are not mini-you's, they are not pet-projects, they are people and they have their things.

Deal with their shrieking, try to keep up with their endless energy, their constant demand for attention, talk them into eating, into washing their teeth, into going to bed... And this is the good part! It never fails to amuse me - and sure one day if rubbed the wrong way I'll bring it up - how the very people who go around telling you "ah, you are gonna change your mind", or "children are a great blessing" and stuff like that are the one's that ACTUALLY plan to take vacations AWAY FROM THEIR KIDS! They try to look all cool when they go to the movies to watch some kiddy flick like Cars, and pretend not to mind they haven't seen Black Swan, or any of the last 10 movies you've seen, because "you know, I have kids, and really, I don't have time for such things, but I don't mind because kids make me happy". Sure, that's why they want vacations away from them. They scream at their children, get more grey hair than people of their same age with no kids, and suddenly say things like "when are they going to grow up and leave the house" or "when's summer vacations ending" or "I just can't stand them anymore!". As a childfree, when you witness something like that, your head reels back and say "wait, but aren't these your... blessings?".

As a childfree, you know that the "threats" thrown you way are mostly bogus. No, it's not true you are going to regret not having children, because you know yourself, you don't need someone of your own flesh and blood to scream at and emotionally scar with your bullshit. No, your financial future do not depend on whether you have kids or not. Dude, that was like in the medieval ages, when the only way you could access some sort of fortune was by having your kids marrying well. In these days we work for it, and there's a thing called "retirement pension" or "retirement nest" and you can invest and plan for your elderly days. Now you have other choices than becoming the elderly leech your kids have to keep, whom they can't wait to get rid off, by sending to an elderly home, or murdering in any unsustitious way. The speech of "well, that depends of how you raise them" does give me the giggles. Dude, are you serious? Here you are complaining to me about your children, how much you have to struggle to keep them behaved and you talk about raising them to take care of you? You can't make them eat their diner but you will teach them to pay for yours? You yell at them, punish them, and you will teach them to respect you when you are older, vulnerable and clumsy? Okay, let me sit well, calm my giggling down, and can you tell me all that again? Please, from the begining. Can I record it? I so love live comedy stand ups!

The other day in yet another article I don't precise right now, read about how "Proud Moms" (you know, the "Yes! I'm so fulfilled being a mom" types that can say "fulfilled" with so much anger, almost hatred, it really makes you want to never feel that fulfilled in your life) were pissed because 45% of their female friends couldn't stand their continual babbling about their kids, and their practical spamming about their children and their improper behavior all covered up "because they are moms". There was a quoting of the sort, like "don't hate me because I'm a mom", which I felt kinda out of place. We - whether childfree or not - don't hate them because they are moms, we don't hate them: we find them either boring or annoying, and well, who wouldn't? They are like a one track tune: all the time the same. No imput of their own thing, their own lives, it's all about the motherhood. Really, as if the moment they became parents, their whole personhood would have been transfered to the child and they are nothing but a carcass, an empty shell, the shell being parenthood. There's absolutely nothing there, nothing, only parenthood and the matters of the child. Once you get over the boredom or the annoyance, you realize how sad the situation is. However, be calm, be glad, there are well balanced parents too, who keep their personhood inspite of the offspring. There is hope. (Encountered the case in a Pagan household and a Dutch household, so maybe the Bible Belt is hopeless, no-man land, but we can always hope against hope.)

Anyway, on the same arwhole icle - the one I can't recall - a mom tried to explain herself saying that, well, her whole life was now about their kids. Take them to school, pick them up, do homework with them, play with them, cook for them, dress them, go to Parent Meetings, go to their games... so yes, when she was posting about her life, her life was that she had with her kids. Oh man, and she didn't really see it! Let me put it this way. You have a friend who's deep, and I mean deeeeeeeeeeep in Internet. Speaks of nothing but the internet, is all day sitting on the internet, goes to sleep next to the computer, wakes up and goes up to the Internet. A month into this and you pull your friend aside and tell them: "Dude, you should really get a life. Would you like to go out with me for the movies?". So, why is it ok with children to lose even your identity, lose your whole life, but it's not with anything else?

I never get tired of reminding parents that kids are people, not pets, not toys, not blessings, not badges of success, not trophees, but people. That's one advantage us childfree have: we are not hazed, we have not come across a threshold such where the parent-person separates themselves from the child-person and entirely forgets what it was like to be a child. (Could this be also part of the personhood transfer some do?)

As childfree, we have a different look at children. We don't hate them like a lot of people say - people who are not childfree, but have children and often hate their children, or other people's children and find it so easy to transfer their feelings to us and say we hate children -, but relate to them as what they are: people who are younger. We don't give them special concessions, like think it's okay for them to throw temper tantrums or break things, but we don't expect them either to sit down with us and discuss the Stoic philosophy from Seneca's point of view. Ironically, a lot of kids actually love us more, like us more and relate to us more, because we actually treat them as equals, not because we are "so immature", but because we don't think ourselves their superiors and we respect them as people, and demand respect the same way.

The childfree would hardly ever reply to a child's question by saying "because I say so", or "I'll tell you when you are older". Okay, we do say "go ask your parents" or sometimes "ask your folks if it's okay I tell you about this". Yeah, yeah, it's "easy for us to say so" because we "don't have to deal with their questions all the time". Oh, okay, let me go back a tad here: didn't you say that kids were a blessing? The joy of your life? Because if that's the case, what's so bad about dealing with their questions all the time? Honestly, how many of you, my fellow childfree, have conspired with the child of a friend or family member, or acquintance and answered a question they really wanted answered and you told them "but you promise not to say a word about this and specially not to tell mom and dad I told you?". And the sad thing is that they often ask things they should be allowed to know, such as were babies come from, are people from other religions bad, or is it true that the world is going to end, or what is "conservative" and are "democrats" bad, or why you don't have kids (this is a bad one for some parents because they are genuinely afraid we will turn their kids!).

I explained Halloween to the children of an outrageously religious couple, who wouldn't let their children read Harry Potter, because that was evil. Of course I made them swear not to breath a word of it, mainly for their safety. As a childfree, you can always fend the angry parent by saying: "they asked I answered, I don't see anything wrong in it", or "like they wouldn't google it eventually". So yes, we are cool. Damned, imagine that. Which, well, could also leave the impression on kids that we are cool, they wanna be like us, and so they end up childfree like us. It happens, trust me.

The childfree, when by choice, hardly has any regrets. The one or twice "the bug" may come around - if ever - goes away rather fast, compared with the regrets parents often have, which you can hear of. Didn't go to this place, didn't do this, didn't finish that, never got the business they wanted, couldn't work on that dream... Often that brings parents to put everything into their kids, kinda like the alcoholic drinks to forget, which then is bad to the children, who has to grow up as a host body for the old, feeding demands and expectations of the "fulfilled" parents. The childfree has all the oportunities and can takes those they choose to take, discard those they choose to discard. I don't say all of us are balanced, but often we are more prepared to shoulder the responsability of our decisions, than parents, who always have that wildcard, that get-out-of-jail card and say "they didn't have a choice, they had to do it for the children".

Do we mind mind being alone? Well, are we? We have our friends, we have our family, we can have our partners, and yes, we can enjoy the blessed solitude when we can be alone with ourselves and enjoy the full extent of ourselves without being interrupted. It might be offensive for some, to witness in us all they gave up for diapers and rebel teenagers, but it's their choice, not ours. 

Perhaps for us getting out of the toychest is harder than for others to get out of their closets, but we should consider doing so wisely. Often we are of a mainstream religion, straight, so we should be joining the ranks of the pro-family people, but we derail, and that brings the heat. It's not that we are seen as "weird", but often as "traitors", particularly women. Oh dude! Like it doesn't matter what we think, we MUST give our womb for child making. Oh, and if we don't, we are selfish because we are denying so many men in the world, and the society in general, of children. Riiiiiiiight, wanna accuse me and all my female coworkers also of being selfish for not being at home cooking, cleaning and bearing children, but out working and earning money? 

You don't need to broadcast your Childfreedom, but you can assume it, stop feeling ashamed of it, and stop defending your choice in front of people hell bent on changing you. I blog, but I hardly get into discussions on the matter. I don't need tales about the matter of children, and honestly I'm not afraid to leave the person alone talking. No need to rub it under their noses, but no need to take their bile for it either. Like one of my fave podcasters said: just because you are no longer in the (closet) it doesn't mean you can't be private about it. Think about it, you have sex, but you don't go telling everybody you had some and you did this and that. So, it's okay to be private, and it's okay to be Proud of being Childfree too.

So really, next time someone brings the matter up, you smile and change the conversation or say "It's my personal decision. I don't see how's that of your concern". ^_^

Proud Not To Be A Mom

On Facebook I found a paragraph of "Mother Pride". It was abhorrent. I read the words with horror, trying to understand how could anyone actually state that wit a proud or happy heart. Given, however, that this message is common in our society, I felt moved to reply to it, and here is the arena where I shall do that.

I am not a Mom, and I'm able to love my mom, understand her as human, as woman, as peer. I am not a Mom and I don't feel nor consider myself less or unachieved. I am not a Mom. I sleep until the sun or the alarm clock does. I go to bed when I'm tired. I mind my own business. I keep in touch with my friends, go out with them and enjoy my time with them, without worrying the entire time about the nanny, the kids, or feeling guilty for feeling good with them. I can stay out late whenever I want, with whomever I want.

I haven't changed my make up for the tired, disheveled look. I don't sacrifice my nights for months. I don't have people throw up on me. I do not endure shrieking and crying. I don't need to wish for my closest next of kin to shut up and fall asleep to have a moment of peace. I don't get frustrated, don't need to fight for attention, for others to understand me at home, partake in the chores because I feel burned out. I don't have to smell someone else's shit or piss. I don't feel guilty for spending my wage on me or my friends an family.

I am not a Mom, I didn't need to leave who I am to accomodate someone else into my life. I am not a Mom, and I can't be happier about it. I am not a Mom and I don't need to justify myself for it, I'm bragging about it. I am not a Mom, I'm a happy, accomplished human being that knows and wishes to share with the world than there's more to life than being born, grow up, marry, have kids and die.

I am not a Mom, and I'm surrounded by love. My friends and family, because I am not a Mom, and I can appreciate, value their love as well.

Achievement

Like in the life of every childfree person, recently I had a "run into" with an acquintance - friends, for some - who questioned again my decision about not to have children from two fronts, which amazed me by their irrationality. One was, the questioning about whether my boyfriend knows and what does he think about it. The other was the argument, that I was a child too.

For the first, whether my boyfriend knows or doesn't and what his thoughts are on the matter, are something that pertain strictly to him and me. Besides, I am not the property of my boyfriend, nor am I the property of nobody, therefore it is in my rights to decide what happens or not with my body. Giving birth, having children is MY RIGHT, not my obligation. It is my right also to decide not to have children. Topics about my boyfriend's rights to have children have already been addressed in prior posts.

For the second matter, yes, I was a child, because people can't be born in adult form, but that doesn't mean that, because I was a child, I must make children. Or is it that, because we were poor and I "had want" of many things in my childhood, if I were to have children, they must suffer the same needs and shortnings? Because I was raised atheist, even if I've found God later and believe in Him, I must raise children atheists? Or maybe because I was born  a girl I must have only girls? However this irrational, laughable argument is the kickstart of this post.

One of the usual arguments pro-child campaign is that children and parenthood is a vital stage of life, and not living it equals to miss a step of life that ensures the only real maturity. In their philosophy, no real maturity can be attained if not through parenthood. I'll step away here from counter-arguing that no rational maturity can be assigned through parenthood when it comes to the parents that kill their babies or torture them, put their children to work or prostitute themselves, or down right neglect them or raise them in unhealthy environments. These are beyond proving and the shelves of Children Protection are filled with plenty of sad cases that can, alone, rest this case.

The point here comes from the line of "attaining maturity". The question here is "What do we understand under 'maturity'?". Maturity is often related to adulthood, wisedom, the capability to reason and be able to make decisions of its own and shoulder the upcoming consequences of it. It can be said in simpler terms, that maturity means being fully responsible of one's actions. Though indeed parenthood demands - ideally - capability to be fully responsible of one's actions, since with parenthood you must assume responsible over someone else, it doesn't mean that parenthood indeed gives you such responsability, or that - lacking of it before parenthood - you will grow into it by the force of being a parent. Furthermore, the idea of waiting until parenthood to become responsible and therefore mature (as no maturity can attained without parenthood, as pro-child preechers say) nulifies any other source of learning, maturing, stripping any sense or need to be responsible of one's actions and one's life and its conditions and circumstances. Let's not talk here about the shock it means for parents-to-be to not only become suddenly responsible for themselves - something they've never done so far - and also responsible for someone who is not in the capability to be responsible for itself.

Something these pro-family groups don't seem to want others to know is that you can learn to be responsible much before you become a parent, and therefore, you can attain maturity not only before parenthood, but also without it. This is particularly applied to women, where even today no woman can seem to be considered fulfilled, mature, achieved or even normal, if she doesn't go through motherhood. No matter how good she is in her other activities - be it work or not - if she's not a mother at a given age, she's a freak, bitter, aberration. In this same line, women close to the age of having children or slightly under are not taken seriously because they are "up to be taken", and therefore considered unreliable. It's not strange though that in a world that pushed the family-centric model over us, that force us to choose to be a mother over everything else, even being a woman or being a person, laborally women are in such a terrible position. No women is seen as a person, therefore able to prove her reliability through her daily actions, but seen as a womb that some man will eventually fill with seen and have poping children, breastfeeding them, converted to domestic life and puting her family before everything. We are socially and laborally preceived as unreliable, temporal work that will never be able to step in the place of men.

As women, family-centric  societies preech that the only kind of real achievement we can ever aspire for is in motherhood. If motherhood doesn't make you feel fulfilled, you are unnatural. If you are fulfilled by something else, then "you don't know what's good", "you are immature", "you'll grow out of it eventually". Family-centric groups, of course, excersize this sort of pressure over men as well, making them see family as the last link of a long chain of conquests that prove his virility, his manliness, and add to it, they are socially pressed to take responsability not only for the children, but also the woman or women sexually linked to him. So back off ladies, men are in in this with us.

So basically we are bullied into family, rather than let to choose it by our own free will. It's almost as if childfree-ness were the only real, freely taken decision. By selling us this preposterous idea that parenthood is the only acceptable mean towards maturity or achievement, be it or not, attained or not, children become a tool, a mean towards that end. It's not only unfair to use someone to get ahead in life, but then proven that no maturity can be attained, what kind of achievement do you get from having a baby? You've achieved to get laid? You've achieved to get knocked up? That you've got past the splitting pain of childbirth - or made someone go through it? Talking about the achievement got through "watching him grow" and "his achievements are mine" sound to me like crap or stealing. First of all, either you simply achieve to keep it alive, which is hardly and achievement, but your responsability for giving birth to him or her, or taking credit for something that's entirely the child's achievement. You can't learn for others, you can't evolve for others, you can't progress for others, just like noone can do any of those for you. So where's your achievement? In making your teachings stick? Okay, and what are you teaching?

Because, if you've denied yourself the chance to mature outside of parenthood, if you denied yourself to accept responsability if not until after parenthood, if you bought the line that parenthood is the only real achievement you've got - which is using others, your own children, to accept worth in yourself, and steal their achievements, congratulate yourself for what's your responsability in the begining, or even for what's not yours to decide or control - then on which grounds can you expect your kids to be responsible, to mature, or on what ground you dare to tell them that they can be whatever they dream to be? Are you going to honestly tell your little girl that she can be all she wants as long as she'll drop it when the time comes to have children? Or are you gonna lie and spend your life spinning tales, because once you were a child and that's what your parents did with you?

Nice.

Yes, I break off the path designed by society to me. I've chosen to achieve fulfillment through other means, towards builiding myself by myself. I chose to make no one my achievement, but myself. No use of children, but develop myself, try out the path without dragging in innocent bystanders in my quest for completition. Funny thing, I do feel achieved, fulfilled and happy, and this is more than what I can say for many of those with kids. Childfree need not to blame their frustration or inability to enjoy themselves in "have kids and you must sacrifice things for them", but the childfree takes the responsability, when that excuse is often heard from parents, or told to parents by others, when they try to do things they could do when they didn't have them.

Thing is, to summarize, that parents or not, childfree or not, as people we should seek honestly our personal fulfilling - whatever it is - and attain maturity through life as a constant process since birth, and instead of making the choice of becoming a parent a social obligation, make it into a personal choice where whatever the outcome, whatever the decision, it will be respected by all of those around us.

As a childfree, I respect your decision to become a parent, even though I don't share it nor I can comprehend it. Please show me and my piers the same kindness.