Like It Is

My, my. Talk about ASSHATTERY. When I read this, I thought, is it really possible for someone to publish such rubbish bullshit and actually indicate it is scientific? Apparently so. Read on childfree people. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Actually it is giving me a laugh – that people can actually think folk buy this. And of course I have to share.

The comments are great so do have a read of them especially DreamerMarie, Skinnybone and whoneedslight). Thanks for this link Carisa!

Are Childless Career Women Saving civilization as we know it?

Here’s an excerpt:

According to Aarssen, ladies who “would rather forgo parenthood in order to have a career, lavish vacations and leisurely lifestyles will of course leave no descendants at all”.

Wow, sounds like a jet-set adventure! Where do we sign up? But wait – what happens to this kind of female?

“Over time,” Aarssen says, “those genetic traits that influence women away from motherhood will necessarily be ‘bred out.’”

Bred out?! Riiight…
Then what?

Well, Aarse sorry Dr Aarssen, says

“in this way future generations of women will inherit a stronger genetic disposition for mating and having children as a priority in their lives. Dr (Dr?) Aarse Aarssen predicts that an increased desire for marriage and having children, in both men and women will be an inevitable product of evolution within the next few generations”.

As has been helpfully paraphrased in the article, what Aarsse Dr Aarssen is saying is that the fact that we don’t have kids means that future women will have a boatload, thereby saving humankind…

Is it April 1^st or something? Or are we really expected to buy this “scientific” tripe?

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Now, I like Google Blog Alerts. I generally find them useful. I look forward to them with avid anticipation. I tend to expect them to be about… well, Childfree blogs really. Or at least Childfree articles. Or blogs about Childfree issues. Well, it does say Google Blogs Alert for: childfree. And I know key words are… well key. Like Childfree.

So what is wrong with this picture link below?

I wonder if my our childfree blogs appear in parent blog alerts.

Google Blogs Alert for: childfree,

Getting Pregnant After Moving To Childfree…Did It Help?
By Sandy Robertson(Sandy Robertson)

After struggling with infertility and the rigors and complications of fertility treatments, my husband and I moved on to childfree… twice. How is that possible you ask. Well after two cycles of IVF ending in miscarriage..

http://infertility-fertility.blogspot.com/

Time to be even more selective…

Always on the lookout for interesting stories and stuff to share I happened upon this in a recent Childfree alert. After clicking the link I was partway into being annoyed at yet another parent blog on a childfree alert (I honestly don’t want to read parent blogs on a childfree alerts…) and then I decided to read the blog and came across this post.

http://pester.livejournal.com/126294.html

The question was “how often does breeder bingo happen?” There were some interesting responses in the thread and this was one of the answers, which I am quoting from the post responses.

The comment below was posted by boobalah on their live journal blog. I couldn’t be bothered to sign up for a LJ account, so I’m going to comment here. I posted the response as the link, when I checked it was no longer working. It may be working now. So here goes with the quoted text, credited to its author.

“I would assume that part of it depends on where one lives. I run in fairly liberal circles, where women having few or no children and marrying later is more normal and acceptable than it might be in, say, the Bible-belt in the south. My family is also rather liberal and laid-back, so they don’t really bother themselves with my reproductive choices.

OK, so far so good. I was nodding in agreement. And then Boobalah says:

“I also think a lot of it depends on the CF-er themselves. I like children and am comfortable around them. I think some CF-ers make their disgust for/dislike of children widely known, which is hardly the way to win friends among their parents. Some CF-ers also don’t seem to know the meaning of discretion. If you loudly parrot about the fact that you don’t want children to everyone, you’re more likely to run into the people who will take umbrage with that. And if CF-ers are arrogant and act condescending toward people who are parents, then they should expect to be treated the same way in return, I think.

It just seems like some internet cf-ers make the lack of desire in having children a defining characteristic of who they are. I mean, sure, I’m CF, but I’d much rather talk about something more interesting, because I do more in my day than just sitting around not wanting kids.

I know the poster is childfree. And it t began so well. But as of the second paragraph I felt it went downhill rapidly and needed some balance. Read the rest of this entry »

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CFSinceSix sent me this link and I thought it worth sharing. When you go to the link on the AZ Central you get asked for details that you mightn’t want to give so, should you not want to be quizzed I did a Google Search on the story and have included this link from the LA Times which has also covered it. You can also do a Google search on “Southwest Airlines ends Family First Boarding.”

According to the Arizona News article:

Families travelling with small children will no longer get to jump to the front of the boarding line at Southwest Airlines.

The airline, which carries more than one in three Phoenix passengers, is eliminating early pre-boarding for families beginning Oct. 2 in a bid to speed the boarding process.

Families with children four and under will now board after the first regular boarding group unless they have an A boarding pass to be in that first group. Southwest famously doesn’t assign seats. Passengers board in three groups, A, B and C, with their letter determined by when they checked in.

I’ve never been able to understand why people with babies and children under four (from my childfree perspective families are families even without children although some persistently seem to ignore this fact) are allowed to jump the queue and given priority over everyone else. If anything they make boarding slower as they take ages. And it seems to be just another way that children and those with children are given preference over those of us who either don’t have children or who are not travelling with them. Which ultimately discriminates against the latter. It should be first come, first served.

It appears SWA has actually tested not boarding people with kids and babies first and found that it’s faster. Yay! I think this is good news and I hope other airlines will take note, of this and follow suit.

Thanks CFSince Six for sending me the link!

Now don’t blow a gasket on reading this one sent to me by reader Kath. Seems that the Pope is getting really irate at us selfish childless childfree Europeans. Do people still listen to this old man?

Making his speech in Austria, it was of course just another opportunity for the old man to berate abortion in Austria. Abortion is allowed in Austria, and so far, despite the old Pope’s lambasting there will be no calls for a change in the law. Rather than criticising Europeans for discovering, happily that there is more to life than simply breeding (which, if you are a good Catholic wife I understand you are encouraged to do as part of your wifely duties) he’d be better off trying to determine why the church has lost so much of its influence over the past few years. Read the rest of this entry »

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Of the more recent conversations on Like It Is, this one has garnered an amazing number of comments. 104 to be exact. When I wrote the post I of course had no idea that it would generate such a lot of interesting comments from men and women who already have children, where no more children are wanted and yet more children are planned - at least by the partner who does want more children.

Given that this is a childfree blog (yes, I have to say that yet again, so that the anti-childfree, and those who wish to convert the childfree can look away now and stop reading) I was surprised at the number of childed folk who also posted. Aside from those who never bothered to read the actual posts and comments, – and the fact that I’m not encouraging childed posters on Like It Is unless they want to contribute positively to childfree conversations, I have to say I was surprised at the number of people who are actually in what to me would be an untenable situation.Where one partner’s choices are deemed less important if the choice does not contain a baby as the end result. I found many of the comments from the men very interesting – and certainly an education.

As I’d suspected, it seems that many men given the choice would either rather not have children at all or, at the very least, would prefer to limit the number of children they did have. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, childfree folks. Who says babies aren’t the latest celeb accessory? Feeling bored? Celeb status needs a boost? Feeling a lack of attention? Have a kid!

First we had Halle Berry FINALLY getting herself preggers as promised (well she did make no bones that’s what she’s always wanted, looks like she’s got it, hopefully it’s not bye-bye great looking sperm donor sorry, handsome model), but we now have Paris Hilton threatening to breed and launch her progeny Brangelina-like on the world.

Think of it. A complete twit of a celeb, who bawls when she’s made to pay for – errm driving driving under the influence of ALCOHOL drunk, announces to the world she wants a baby next year. On second thoughts, maybe you shouldn’t think about it…it’s pretty painful.

Of course,well, like, er, Paris has gotta keep up with pal Nicole Ritchie (hey, didn’t she drive drunk as well??). Can’t let Nicole be breeding and not Paris can she?

And Ms H isn’t resting on her laurels either. She’s on the look-out for, like, a good candidate to be the proud papa (er – like). Still, if the papa doesn’t appear (and be able to make her laugh) what’s the wager she’ll have a kid anyway? Ew. I can see the headlines already.

In an interview with Jackie Collins for Elle magazine, she revealed: “I wanna have like a family and a guy.”

Probably in that order, too.

“I used to care about looks, but I’ve grown out of that stage. They have to be a good person, someone I know would be a good husband, loyal and funny and smart. “

Arrgh! Like, um, pass the puke bucket someone. Poor kid. Unfortunately it has no say in the matter of its less than stellar parent. But it’ll be expected to be grateful for being born.

Too bad.

Paris Hilton - I want to have a baby next year

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Or, as we’d say – 20 reasons to be childfree. Here’s the follow up from the article on Corinne Maier’s book “No Kid.” This is what people should be hearing more often from parents, instead of the shocked “ No kids? How could you not want children?”

How could I not? Well, very easily. Nice to have this list. Thanks (again), Corinne Maier for writing this book!

YOU CAN WAVE GOODBYE TO ALL THIS:

— Childbirth is torture

— You will become a mobile feeding bottle

— You will struggle to continue having fun yourself

— You will lose touch with your friends

— You will have to learn a language of idiots to communicate with your children

— Your children will kill your desire

— Children sound the death knell of the couple

— Having children is conformist

— Children are expensive

— You will be duped into thinking that there is such a thing as a perfect child

— You will inevitably be disappointed by your own child

— You will be expected to be a mother before you are a professional and a woman

— Families are a nightmare

— Children will put the seal on your childhood dreams

— You can’t stop yourself wanting complete happiness for your progeny

— Staying at home to look after children is breathtakingly dull

— You have to choose between motherhood and professional success

— When a child appears, the father disappears

— There are already too many children on the planet

– Children are dangerous. They will take you to court without a second thought

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Before you read my new post below…

I’m off to England on Friday for a couple of weeks. Two wonderful weeks visiting home, family and friends. Yay! I’ve been looking forward to this for ages. We - Huzza and I - are counting the sleeps!

I’ll be checking in on Like It Is – as of course we’re going to have hi- speed Internet access – but I will be taking a break from my regular posting schedule. Well, that’s the plan, unless I find something I absolutely have to blog about. Like mothers with strollers on the Underground… heh! You never know. Seriously though, I’ll be out and about a lot and it’ll be really good to re-charge the batteries and just do whatever I want for two weeks.

And in fact I hope to be able to visit and read some of your blogs.

Keep up the conversations – and if you find anything you think I might want to blog about or that you might want to see us tackle, send along the link and your blog link if you have one. I’ll be posting a continuation of “No Kid” this week.

Merc and anyone who wants to… you’re on troll duty! Have a blast.

See you all after the 23rd!

Corinne Maier certainly thinks so. Most childfree people would agree with her, but then they’ve known that for ages. I know I agree with her. Oh, and in case you thought she was childfree, she isn’t. She has two kids.

Enfants Terribles

I’ve heard of Corinne Maier’s book No Kid – 40 Reasons not to have Children and I’m not surprised how scandalized the general populace is. It’s the same general populace which loses no time in quickly criticizing childfree people for daring to say not only do they not want children, but that their lives are so much better for not having them. To the childed we are selfish, abnormal, cold heartless, empty etc, etc. Maybe the record’s about to be changed.

The more I hear of Corinne Maier’s book though, the more I’m inclined to get hold of it and add it to my library. I think it would make great summer reading. At last, someone has said what’s been the ultimate taboo for so long, but which we childfree have known for as long as we’ve decided we wanted to be childfree. And talk about it coming from the bosom of fecundity – La belle France itself. What could be more shocking. France, where they PAY women to have babies. The more they have the higher the benefits paid to them.

Says Maier:

“Children are there to stop you enjoying yourself. It’s a child’s hidden face. Believe me, he will be very inventive in this area. He will be ill when you (finally) arrange a night out, he will bug you when you celebrate your birthday with your friends, he will hate it if you bring someone he’s never met back for the night, and beyond that you won’t dare tread for fear of traumatising him for life.”

And as an example of hitting one of the many nails on the head, her concerns I believe are justified : Read the rest of this entry »

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