Then the minority lives in S Cal. And frequents this message board, since EVERY time the childfree try to push back on all of this entitlement, we get threads like this.
No, we have no interest in being friends with assholes like you, we are talking about the sheer entitlement attitude that parents tend to have these days. For some reason, you all think you are entitled to our time, money and property simply because you have children.
Are you stupid or just trying to avoid answering the question? What long term time suck commitment did these folks chose to have that you did these favors for?
So you apologized to Cat Whisperer for no reason?
Your childfree co-workers scrambled to cover your duties while you were out. Meanwhile, those like me who had medical problems not by choice were faced with running out of sick leave and having to use vacation time. Since you apparently see maternity leave as a right, you don’t seem to understand that you deciding to be off work for three to six months, maybe multiple times, is a burden on those you leave behind. Since it’s about children, it’s OK?
Why would it be tax deductible? Daycare is for those kids you chose to have - I chose to have dogs, and when we have had to pay for a sitter when we were both out of town, it never occurred to us that it should be deductible. But again, for some reason you think you should get a break on care for your kid(s) because its about children?
You mean like all of those folks who are currently not working? All the ones who got loans to go to college to get a degree that won’t get them a job? Or the ones who think minimum wage should be a living wage? Yeah, those folks really add a lot to society don’t they. But of course, since it’s about the children, it’s the thing to do; to claim that you are raising the next doctors or other such high tax payer.
It helps if you actually address what is said instead of making up things. No one has said anything at all about any given generation being the last one with the right to exist; hell, no one has even said anything about children directly, it’s the freaking entitlement minded parents that are the subject here. And it isn’t that children are too much trouble, it’s that these parents expect those of us who didn’t sign on for it to accommodate them continually. Maternity leave, baby changing stations, daycare, no access to parks and school yard, “they’re just kids” when they damage property, etc. Not to mention all of the government programs that are only available to those with children. And of course, these blogs where mommies are proud to say that they drag their little kids everyone and you WILL deal with it.
Congratulate your friends for me, since it sounds like they managed to actually raise their kids instead of just having them and then handing the responsibility to society. I too have friends with nice polite kids, and it’s because they raised them that way rather than excusing bad manners and wild behavior as “that’s what kids do”. And they certainly didn’t drag them everywhere, especially when they were very young.
Even if that were true, it’s certainly something I could get behind! Shut the fuck up about how the childfree should keep giving up rights to keep parents happy and just live your own lives! That is all we ask.
You don’t think that having children is a selfish choice? And demanding things like maternity leave isn’t imposing? Posting on blogs that we WILL deal with kids isn’t vitriol?
Curlcoat, please do me a personal favor and watch where you use the word “we.” I wouldn’t want anyone in the world to think that other people who don’t have children might be in any way associated with your insane rantings.
Thank you for your consideration.
I would like there to be a generation or two after me, to at least to keep things running. Again, unless you don’t plan on using any professional services (doctors, fire fighters, store clerks), then my choice to have kids, and the sacrifices I’ve made (financial, career and personal) directly benefits people like you.
My taking maternity leave, someone else taking their own sick leave or tend to a family member, someone else taking a leave of absence are all great parts of a functioning society. I am not a cog in your wheel, my only purpose to work. Society must bend and flex to people’s needs and absolutely yes, society is better off when mothers and fathers can take leave for having kids. You are wrong if you don’t think that’s so. Maternity leave is so fucking short, the idea that it radically disrupts work, generally, is crazy.
I’ve given you several. You keep moving the goalposts. Why on earth you think helping people during long-term voluntary commitments matters at all is beyond me. People offer help when other people need help. Nothing in post 14 says anything about long-term voluntary commitments.
But farming is a long-term voluntary commitment, and farmers help each other all the time. House renovations are long-term commitments that people help each other with. Rebuilding cars. Do you think anyone has lent a hand to Una at any point when her gender reassignment process? I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d bet somebody has. People get help from friends when they start a new business that may take years to get off the ground.
Those are all voluntary long-term commitments for which people offer and receive help.
Wow, you really are stupid. You’re so dumb, that you think I apologized to her because I confused her with someone else, despite the fact that I said nothing of the sort. I apologized to her for putting her on the same said of the argument as your dumbass self. Because being associated with you in any way on this board is considered a huge embarrassment. How was that unclear to you?
Duplicate
And for the record no one scrambled to cover anything while I was out with maternity leave. My own lab work didn’t get done- it affected no one but me. I’ve been the manager (department chair) finding coverage for people who were out and no one was inconvenienced. In fact, we hired extra people who wouldn’t had work that semester to cover them. And I work with human beings who know that I’ll cover them when their dad dies and they’ll help me when my kids were in a car wreck. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
I suggested daycare as tax deductible because it enabled me to work, earn a salary and pay taxes to support society. It’s a business expense. You going vacation and getting a dog sitter doesn’t even come close. It’s the child free who get the break, since they don’t have those added expenses. You like your social security and roads being paved? Then I gotta work to pay into the system.
This thread is hell on irony meters. ������
Re-read the OP and see who got nasty first. When someone jumps in using terms like breeders and crotch fruit, it’s hard to remain above the fray.
The fact that you cannot understand that different types exist within a community of like minded people is not my responsibility.
Again with the assumption that your children will be the ones to provide those services to “people like me”. And with the insinuation that you had children for any other reason than because you wanted them. Neither of those are true. For all you know, your children could grow up to continue to be a drain on society, and you did not have them because you feared a shortage of workers in the future. There is and will not be a shortage of workers in the foreseeable future, barring some sort of global die off - nobody has children other than because they want to have children, there is no noble and magnanimous reason for it.
Three to six months is not so fucking short, and it is the only guaranteed time off one can get by choice. Neither my husband or I got time off to care for his mother when she was dying, that fell to my unemployed sisters-in-law who had to come in from out of state.
I am not a cog in your wheel, put here to make your needs possible. I wouldn’t have a problem bending and flexing to all these mommies if there was some reciprocation, but there really isn’t.
Nope, go back and read the original post on this; my whole point is that children is the only long term time suck that people take on by choice and yet expect others to help them with it. It should have been obvious even to you that specific examples of help were merely details and not the whole question.
Oh, and post 14 has zero to do with this - talk about moving goalposts …
Farming is a job. Are you a farmer? Have you cleaned house for someone renovating or rebuilding their car (which isn’t a time suck but whatever)?
I wouldn’t know since I didn’t even know that Una had been reassigned.
And which of those people have you helped? How?
Bullshit.
Yes it is. Very good!
No I am not. I’ve helped some, though.
Yes on the house (I’m a builder), no on the car.
Answered above.
Which part, exactly, is bullshit? Here is the post in question(#199), made in response to you:
[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver]
Cat Whisperer, I felt bad for coming down hard on you earlier, but I feel way worse for bringing the crazy out of the woodwork to champion your side. Please accept my humblest of apologies for the latter sin.
[/quote]
Please help me understand which part of that, specifically, led you to believe that I had Cat Whisperer confused with someone else? Please, explain that post to me.
While we’re at it, did anyone else here think that post meant that I had confused Cat Whisperer with someone else? By all means, chime in.
Snort. You found coverage for those people that were out, meaning that your employer paid two paychecks for one job. Gee, its nice you’ll cover for them for the few days they get off for bereavement leave; balances well with the months of maternity leave and the days off for sick kids, kids out of school, etc.
Did I say vacation? I said when we were both out of town at the same time. My husband used to travel to Europe for two weeks at a time, and there were times when I had to be gone when he was out of the country. Yet neither business was even going to consider reimbursing us for the sitter while we were gone.
No, I don’t have childcare expenses, but I do have major expenses associated with the life choices I have made. If I’d had societal support as mothers do, I might still be able to work, as it would have made it far easier for me to “get to work, earn a salary and pay taxes to support society”. Instead society threw up road blocks and forced me to mitigate my health issues with stronger and stronger drugs, and so - here I am. Not working but still paying taxes.
You aren’t using or planning on using those things yourself?
It simply isn’t my responsibility if you had made a choice - have kids - that you cannot afford without outside help. Not that you don’t have that help, since you already get a tax deduction for each kid, and if you have flex spending with your employer, you can get a break on childcare that way. This is what parents don’t seem to get - you have all sorts of help and breaks just because you have kids, but anyone who made a different choice not only doesn’t get that help and those breaks, they are required to shoulder part of your burden.
And THEN, some blogger comes along and tells us that we have to provide eats and toys and beds and whatever else it was people were supposed to have if they wanted that mommy to come to their party, whether her kids were invited or appropriate, or not. Just makes us testy.
Your husband is guaranteed 12 weeks unpaid leave under FMLA to care for a sick parent-this is the same coverage afforded to parents. Any other maternity leave arrangements above this are covered at the discretion of the company. It is in no way factual to say that maternity leave is the only leave allowed by choice. Either your husband was unwilling to take the leave or he was uninformed.
Also, just to make it clear, not all maternity leave is paid, or paid by the company. For example, my maternity leave (6 weeks) was partially paid by an insurance policy that I hold for short term disability, (60%) and the remainder by my company as a part of the salary and benefits package that I negotiated when accepting the job.
Unpaid. The company he was working at then gave three months paid maternity leave, or six if it had been a c-section, but no paid family leave. The company I worked for then gave “up to” six months paid maternity leave (I don’t know how the “up to” was decided) but I wasn’t able to get family leave because it was my MIL. We couldn’t afford unpaid leave then.
If it happened now, he wouldn’t even get it unpaid as he works for a start up that employs fewer than 50 people. But they have paid maternity leave, even tho only three out of the 15 people could possibly use it.
Oh, I know, it’s just always been available in every non-minimum wage job I’ve ever had; same with my husband.
So you agree that maternity leave is not the only leave one can take by choice then? Just want to clear that up. As I said, my company and many others offer some compensation for maternity leave however I paid for insurance to cover the larger part of my salary were I to need it. It was a choice. Much like by having dogs was a choice of your family. Dogs are expensive too, and knowing that I may have to care for an ailing relative may have influenced some of my choices were I in your shoes.
If you are going to talk about personal responsibility, try to practice it. This wailing and knashing against the unfairness of it all is silly
A couple more data points for the discussion; I was curious, so I looked at the posting history of some of the posters on the Dope who I have noted as talking about being a parent/their kids frequently.
LavenderBlue - 17% of her last 100 posts have been about being a mommy and her kids.
overlyverbose - 45% of her last 100 posts have been about being a mommy and her kids.
MickNickMaggie - 49% of her last 100 posts have been about being a mommy and her kids (well, about her pregnancy - same idea).
Just thought I’d throw that out there. 
Another data point - maternity leave in Canada is twelve full months, with your job guaranteed at the end of it.
And then a sancti-mommy goes online and tells me that her life choices are more important than mine, and her bad behaviour is okay because she’s a mom, and even though she was aiming for humourous, I didn’t find it very funny based on my real-life experiences with entitled parents.
There’s something wrong with you.
[QUOTE=Cat Whisperer]
Just thought I’d throw that out there.
[/quote]
I don’t have a cat. I imagine you talk more about your cat than I talk about not having a cat, or how much I dislike cat owners.
I gotta say, that’s a long damn time. It’s not all paid, I assume.
Holy shit, who did that?