Alenda Lux

. . . . about being childless in a child-obsessed world.

I was reading this AskMetaFilter thread, and I read this comment. I totally agree with that person. I actually said the other day that if having kids makes me an adult, rather than all the other things I do, then I don’t ever want to grow up. See, it’s not selfish to not have kids when you know that for yourself, it is not the right answer. I do not want to be one of these pathetic people that have kids and then don’t know what to do with them because they’re only an appropriate accessory for certain parts of their lives. We’ve all seen these people. It’s the plastic soccer moms in mexican restaurants, drinking margaritas and allowing their kids to terrorize anyone else in the restaurant. It’s the women who can’t put down the Gucci long enough to see why their kid is crying. Hell, I know some people whose mother was that person.

It’s as if people get to a certain point and they start checking off a list. High school graduation? Check. College? Check. Marriage? Check. House? Check. 2.3 kids? Check. Some women get to a certain point and start freaking out about it. “OH MY GOD!! I’m 32 and I don’t have kids!! WOE!!!” What the fuck? Because it’s not just that you aren’t an adult if you don’t have kids. If you’re female, it’s that you’re not really a woman, you’re not really a good wife, or a good daughter(-in-law). You, as a woman, are not really any good to society, you see, until you’ve reproduced. This is the subliminal message that women get, and it starts with the goddamned people that are not even related to you who assume that you will immediately begin spawning in the first ten minutes after you say, “I do.” The other thing I just love is how one’s childbearing status is just anyone at all’s business. No, it’s not, you freaks. It’s not a “harmless question,” because if it was, no one would be mortified to bring their co-worker, daughter-in-law, neice, or granddaughter to tears when they have to tell you that they’ve just had an ectopic pregnancy, hysterectomy, or that PID has rendered them infertile, or that they’re just fucking sick of people wanting to know whether or not they’re fucking at all. God konws, you couldn’t get into someone’s personal life by obliquely inquiring about whether or not they’re having (unprotected) sex with the partner of their choice. It’s called social pressure, and it would be the same thing if people continuously asked women over 40 when they were going to get their tubes tied (since at 40 you are a dried up, useless husk of a subhumanbeing if you haven’t had kids).

And if you think for even one fucking minute that this isn’t also tied up in the reproductive rights debate, you are totally fucking delusional. Women who make studied choices about reproduction, who do not fall victim to stupid propaganda and who do not allow the patriarchy to tell them what to do with their uteruses and when show the lie of the “ideal woman,” this idea that women who spurn having kids just don’t know what they really want, and that having children will make it all crystal clear.

Yeah, crystal clear like the goddamned glass ceiling.

I know exactly what I want, and I know myself. If I ever change my mind about not having kids, it will be for some reason better than feeling as if I “should” for some reason. (Such as: my in-laws expect them, total strangers expect it, society at large expects it, I want a minivan, whatever.) As my mother says, if she hasn’t got anything better to do in retirement than worry about whether or not I’m having kids, she is way too bored for her own good. I submit that any bored, meddling (sons of) bitches who want to get into my face about my life should go find a fucking hobby.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2005 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Observations, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.