exciting, informative, snarky, and very likely fabricated tales of life as an american expat in london

giving the rest of us a bad name

by Jen at 9:38 pm on 12.02.2009 | 4 Comments
filed under: rant and rage

this is the kind of thing that gives the whole “childfree by choice” contingent a bad name.**

calling kids a “pain in the ass”, bemoaning their ability to “talk, scream and cry”, being “grossed out” by the thought of pregnancy…

*none* of this has anything to do with not wanting children because it’s not the right choice for you, and everything to do with being an immature, selfish twit.  *i* certainly don’t want to be identified with this kind of idiocy,

the sad thing is that this sort of thinking is not representative of most people i know who’ve elected not to have kids.  but this is the kind of thing that gets put on cnn.com.  it does a disservice to everyone by deliberately inflaming and polarising the issue.

the writer claims her biological clock is broken.  sadly her common sense seems to have gone awry as well.

**i must add that i do not identify as “childfree”, precisely because i feel it to be a term loaded with the kind of connotations set out in the article.

4 Comments »

4 Comments

  • 1

    Comment by Amity

    13.02.2009 @ 08:18 am

    Thank you for saying this. There is so much of this crap floating around out there. It’s like it’s suddenly become “cool” for some women who don’t want children to call kids horrible names (names they would NEVER call any adult), insult parents by insinuating they are all brain-dead, sleep-deprived, self-centered babymaking machines and talk about how much more fabulous their lives are just because they can get up and go without packing a nappy bag. It’s so mind-numbingly boring, this ‘revelation’. Just like no one thinks you’re special when you reproduce, nor should anyone think they’re special just because they don’t.

    There was a real gem in the Times last week by Rachel Cooke, saying that mothers are inherently boring. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/08/motherhood-children-babies Me thinks she doth protest too much. roll

  • 2

    Comment by gerix

    13.02.2009 @ 12:02 pm

    I like yr blog, Jen. Sounds like something about the childfree lady irritated you. Also, I noticed how she doesn’t like running.

  • 3

    Comment by Lindsay

    13.02.2009 @ 17:41 pm

    Yeah, I don’t get it. I’ve read some poisonous stuff online about people who have chosen to be childfree and all I can do if fall back on that general idea that they have “Issues” because both my siblings have chosen to be childfree and they just don’t feel the need to spout any kind of stuff about it! And in fact my sister’s partner is a wonderful godfather to my son.

  • 4

    Comment by Sarah

    15.02.2009 @ 01:02 am

    I agree it’s out of line. But I can imagine the frustration as it seems to be perfectly okay for so many to judge women who are child free. The assumptions and speculations that people make about my personal life are appalling – people would never say such things about other areas of my life, but somehow it’s okay? And it’s 99% mothers. So yeah, people like that give childfree women a bad name, but I can understand the frustration – we’re going against an enormous tide.

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