I guess maybe I’ve been lucky, but no one’s ever tried to push me into feeling like I should change my mind about having kids. It might have to do with my standard reply, which I’ve used for about 15 years now:
Them: “So, do you have any kids?” or, “Do you want to have kids?”
Me: “Oh, GOD No!”
Pretty much ends the conversation. If anybody pushes it, and that’s very rare, I say,“Anybody can be like a rabbit or a dog in heat, I choose to control my reproduction.” Never had a conversation go beyond that.
After the answer is “no” feeling compelled to pass judgment, question someone else’s life choices, or make prying inquiries into possible medical issues - THAT is rude!
If I could be the father instead of the mother, I would totally have children.
I really envy the way fathers can be exactly as involved with their children as they want to be, and unless they’re absent, deadbeat dads, they get kudos for whatever it is they do.
They work 16-hour days and go home saying they’re too worn out to see their kids? That’s nice, what a good provider. And that 15 minutes he spends with them occasionally on a weekend, that’s quality time.
They spend hours a day with their kids? Wow, that’s a really devoted dad. Must be a bad mother in that household, though, or else she’d be doing it.
They stay at home and take care of the kids all day? Wow, what a saint. Mother must be a basket case, though, and will probably burn in hell for her unmotherly instincts.
Even deadbeat, absent dads are only hated by the people they abandoned. They still have friends and coworkers who think they’re great guys. There’s probably a reason they abandoned the woman and kids, like, she’s probably an unholy bitch, anyway.
“If I want whiney, childish behavior in my life, I’ll just log onto the Dope.”
About six years ago, I hopped into a taxi, and the driver somehow got onto the subject of having children. I explained that I didn’t have any, and that my GF at the time was a week or so away from getting a hysterectomy. The cabbie immediately went into a diatribe about how she’d no longer be a “real woman” and how I should leave her immediately. Yeah, that would make me a really thoughtful BF. GF is staring down the barrel of cancer, is about to face one of the scariest events of her life, and I should leave her so that I can father a bunch of hungry brats that I never wanted in the first place?
Acts 2:30 “fruit of my loins”…not much of a jump to crotch fruit. The waterslide allusion didn’t seem at all insulting to the children, merely derisive of an over-producing mother. I found both quite funny.
-pantheon, who has a couple fucktrophies of his own
Hello, are you living in the past or the world of TV?
Do you really feel this still is the norm today? Most families I know have both parents working and the father nearly as active as the mom in raising the kids, helping with homework, entertaining, disciplining, teaching and etc.
Your stereotypes seem to be dated or taken from the world of TV and especially TVland and not reality.
I do not have children. I did not want to have children. Whenever anyone asked me why not, I would give them the most puzzled look I could muster and ask “Why?”
Peg Bracken once wrote: There are many reasons for not having children: biological, financial, psychological, sociological and personal.
I always thought asking people why they didn’t have children was the worst. Then someone asked me “Well, have you ever been pregnant?” :eek:
As for ‘crotch fruit’ and vagina slides, I can’t help but think that if something’s coming out of a woman’s vagina (and that’s what this is, in part – like abortion and birth control, a woman’s vagina and womb are everybody’s concern), she can paint it in as colorful terms as she pleases. If not, I’d be raising hell over at the DivaCup threads.
That’s even worse. Of course, I have some distant cousins who always make a point of mentioning the number of miscarriages in their emailed pregnancy announcements…
My SIL and her husband had had a girl, and were pregnant with their second child. For various reasons, they had amnio, so in addition to checking for various possible medical conditions, they knew the sex of the baby.
So, when they announced they were having another girl, my FIL asked, “So, after this one is born, are you going to try for a boy?” My MIL promptly grabbed his elbow and whispered furiously in his ear.
Some people are just nuts when it comes to kids. For me, my favorite response to a nosy question comes from Miss Manners, a nice :dubious: followed by “Why do you want to know?”
You know what I find equally rude and annoying? That it doesn’t stop after you have a kid. Really. I have a one-year-old, and since he was maybe 3 months old people have been asking me when we’re going to have another! Not “if,” but “when!”
I get that that was a stupid and offensive thing for her to say, and it was none of her damn business, and I understand that parents, (especially new parents) sunk deep in the huge changes, frustration, and exhiliration of having kids, can be massively annoying on the subject of kids, especially to people who haven’t had kids and aren’t planning to.
I’m sure there’s lots of reason for anger on the part of those who have been carped at. I still find derogatory terms used for children offensive. I think it would be less acceptable to use similar derogatory terminology for my husband, even though I chose to spend my life with him, as I chose to spend a good portion of my life with my child (or later, children), and even though I am probably as annoyingly enthusiastic about him as I am about my son.
Procreation is one of those good ideas that’s gotten out of hand. A bit like singing: something beneficial, best performed by those of sufficient ability. But thanks to karaoke and YouTube, every asshole thinks they can do it, and the whole world suffers as a result. Humanity doesn’t need your genetic donation any more than it needs your horrendous Coldplay cover.
You know, this isn’t about kids or not kids. This is about a coworker feeling that work is an appropriate place to make judgements about your non-work life. Which it really doesn’t make any difference if the coworker is bugging you about not having kids, about not accepting Jesus, about being a vegetarian, about not going out drinking on Thursday nights wih everyone else, or about the chocolate bar on your desk.
And that needs to be established by setting boundries at work, and enforcing them via management if needed. If an icy “I beg your pardon” doesn’t do it, a “I’m going to ask you stop now or I’ll have to get management involved, this is highly inappropriate” should be pursued.
