older != wiser

[the_siobhan]

I just left my last childfree community.

I first heard the term way back on Usenet, when people talked about identifying as someone who has actively chosen not to have kids. I lurked on and off in alt.support.childfree. I dropped it when it just got too busy. I don't think I ever made it as far as the moderated version.

When I started looking at communities on LJ I checked out the main childfree one, but I didn't stick around after reading only a few posts. Too many "OMG biology is so GROOOOSSSSSS" posts and sad stories about horrible parents.

But I stumbled across this latest one and thought it might have some potential. It was specifically designed to eliminate both the teenagers and the parents who inexplicably want to come in and talk about their kids. The moderator accepts new members only with references or after checking out their profiles to make sure they are over 30.

Yeah, I know there are tons of clueless over-30's out there, and lots of people who are younger who don't necessarily think "acceptance" means "for me and nobody else". But I had hoped that the level of care in admitting people meant that the culture in general would be a more mature one. That it would be a place where people would actually talk about what it means to actively chose to not raise children. How that relates to our politics. To talk about cultural pressures and family reactions and what happens when a partner starts to hear their biological clock. Hell, just a place to share once in a while how nice it is to have disposable income (ha!) and the house to yourself once in a while.

But no, turns out it's just yet another place to bitch about how unfair it is to have to be forced to share a planet with children and how repulsive it is whenever one is forced to acknowledge their existance. A safe space where people can call women "moos" and "breeders".

And you can bet I got brushed off when I protested that one. It felt much like it would if somebody just made a casual racial slur in front of me, assuming they had my automatic approval just because I'm white.

Fuck 'em. I have friends both with and without kids and everybody is welcome in my house.

Or will be once we've covered up all the lethal bits.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I've been wildly irritated by every "childfree" group that I've stumbled upon, for largely the same reasons.

I'll admit that it does irk me when people have a *LOT* of children. I really think that reducing the world population is key to any long-term sustainability plan. I'm not against children or people having children, but once the number of children in a family significantly outweighs the number of adults, it does start to bother me a little, on a purely resource-usage / we're-destroying-the-environment level.

That said, I don't know how one would address that goal. I'm not big on advocacy, for one. I'm very much the sort of person where I try to live my life the way I want to and if people are curious I'm happy to be a resource, but I don't want to push my ideals on others. And really, I waste a lot of resources in some ways too ad soothe my conscience about that by trying to make up for it in others, so this could just be those people's angle on that same trade-off. Also, I don't think hard limits are an answer. I don't know that it's something I really want to do anything about, even if it does irk me. I would prefer that they be able to make their own choice about that.

The one thing that really bothers me in the "It would be nice if this could be changed," thing is the media approach to having loads of children. Too often it's taken as one of two things: It's either glorified as an amazing, self-sacrificing decision and the community should pull together to help that person with the astounding thing they're doing, or it's taken as a terrible external disaster that's happened (which the community should pull together...) for which the person has no responsibility or culpability. As an example, Extreme Makeovers: Home Edition is a show that helps people out who have had just hard times, bad circumstances, etc., and don't have the means to help themselves. The show builds them a house that helps. I like when the house addresses the person's problems, rather than is simply a sort of "your life sucks, here's a great house," type of thing. An example is a guy who'd been partially paralyzed. His family was in a multi-story home and couldn't afford to make the house accessible. He'd been living in a tiny fraction of the house for a decade, he couldn't eat meals with the family at the dining room table, etc. The show re-did the house to put in a physical therapy spa for him, put in an elevator that could accomodate his wheelchair, made all the doors automatic, put a fully accessible bathroom in for him so he could go to the bathroom and wash himself with privacy and dignity, etc. It was great -- I honestly had tears in my eyes.

The other day, however, they had a couple on who had eight kids (all their own, none adopted or gotten through prior marriages, etc.) and this tiny, run-down house. That was the entire circumstance -- they had eight kids. They built them this amazing mansion with a water park in the back yard and the whole deal. They kept going on about how hard life would be with eight kids. Now, I admit, it probably does make life hard. At the same time, this didn't seem to fall into the 'a tragic accident befell these poor undeserving souls" category. They really spoke of it, however, as if it was something that just *befell* these people, that they were struggling with, and how incredible these people were for shouldering such an immense burden imposed upon them externally. That rubbed me the wrong way, and it also, I think, is a widely prevalent attitude toward large numbers of children in the media these days. That sort of thing really encourages people to think of having lots of kids as a noble goal, and that bothers me.

Anyway, at the same time, your post wasn't really *about* the childfree decision making process. I hope you don't mind me brain-dumping a little.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Dump away. :-)

Your story reminded me of somebody I know who has six kids. Two are biologically related to her, the other four are foster kids. She took in kids that had no success with other foster parents because they had so many problems, by now the youngest has lived with her for over ten years.

And there are people in her neighbourhood and in the school who just hate her. Because she looks like a "non-traditional" parent (really short hair and tattoos). Because they are obviously poor; the kids wear patched clothes and they grow vegetables in the backyard. (The support payments for fostering are shit.) Because a couple of the kids are obviously bi-racial.

She gets complaints lodged against her all the time. And of course the foster care system has to investigate them. And every time it happens it freaks the kids out because they are terrified it will end with them being removed from the only stable home they've ever had. Meanwhile I figure these people should be kissing this woman's feet for taking these kids in in the first place.

Now I'm the one brain-dumping. As soon as you started talking about this house I started thinking about how much something like that would mean to her family.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that I categorize "lots of biological kids" and "lots of foster kids" totally differently. In the latter case, the person's not *adding* anything to the human drain on planetary resources -- they're sharing in raising children that already exist, which really is a fantastically noble thing to do. (Raising biological kids is too, mind you.)

I wonder what the procedure for nominating someone for the show is.

There's a form you can download here to apply. (http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/casting.html) I'd be surprised if they handled homes in Canada, but if they do, it'd be neat to try!

more brain dumping

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that it does irk me when people have a *LOT* of children. I really think that reducing the world population is key to any long-term sustainability plan. I'm not against children or people having children, but once the number of children in a family significantly outweighs the number of adults, it does start to bother me a little, on a purely resource-usage / we're-destroying-the-environment level.

One of the primary things that will successfully bring down birth rates is an improvement in the status and education of women.

I remember there was a big discussion about it during the UN's International Year of The Woman. The Vatican and the orthodox Moslem countries banded together in protest. Nice.

Re: more brain dumping

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, completely. Also, raising the status of living for all people helps, too. First-world nations have significantly lower birth rates. There's a balance there to be kept an eye on, in that first-world citizens use up significantly more energy and water, but on any of those sustainability calculators it seems that a billion people living at a first world level could be sustained. It alarms me greatly that we were at 2.5 billion in 1950 and we're at 7 billion now. Almost triple in 50 years, for a population that's existed for tens of thousands of years. It's nutty. Education across the board, but especially of women (and especially in developing nations) is definitely key, though. (Women in developed nations as well, and people across the board as well, of course.)

It's worth taking a look at the developed nation vs. less-developed nation curves here (http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Population_Growth.htm), for example.

I don't know if it's an urban legend or not, but there was something going around about the government of India considering a plan to give everybody a television, because people with televisions had lower birth rates. I wonder how much of that is because people who can afford luxuries in general have lower birth rates, and how much of *that* is because people who can afford luxuries in general tend to have better educations. :/

I can't imagine protesting the idea of educating women. There is a lot of poor thinking going on in the world. :(

Re: more brain dumping

[melete.livejournal.com]

The india thing was true (IIRC). It was back in 2000 or 2001.

The fallacy of the argument is just so absurd. As you point out, the equation of tvs = low birth rates leaves out the parts about what it took/what it takes to get the tvs in the first place. It is also insulting as it essentially says poor people ave sex and get pregnant because they have nothing else to do with their time.

Re: more brain dumping

[melete.livejournal.com]

The india thing was true (IIRC). It was back in 2000 or 2001.

Yeah, it was reported in Science magazine back in Sept. 2001.