Why Is Motherhood Subsidised As If It’s Dormant Farmland?
1 10 2007I agree with Liz Johnson. Enough of bleating on about saving the planet by way of fiddling with the non-essentials. If you really, really want to be green, don’t have kids. Or,if you must have them have fewer.
Unfortunately, as Liz Johnson also notes, mothers are the last sacred cows in our society and beyond reproach. Childfree women? Don’t expect much of a look-in when it comes to “making sure families can make ends meet” as David Cameron (the UK Conservative leader) says he wants to do. Of course, the families that matter seem only to be those with kids.
Must they subsidise motherhood as if it’s dormant farmland?
I know that even daring to raise an eyebrow at a mother’s 2nd maternity leave in as many years brings protests of shock that we could be so cold and uncaring? Clearly, that shows we’ve never had kids!!
No, I‘ve never had kids. And seeing how coddled and spoiled most kids today are I’m glad. But are people (except the childfree of course) totally ignorant of the extra damage to the environment that having three or four kids does? The nappy mountains for example?
I know exactly how Liz feels. When mothers leave the office on the dot and we’re left to pick up any slack we childfree aren’t not allowed to complain. After going off and having their kids, we are then subjected to how hard it is for them, how little sleep they now get, tired they are, how expensive child-care is, how exhausted they are, how hard it is to find a bigger house, how expensive everything is.. etc etc.
I could care less. THEY wanted to have the kid. They should quite complaining, because not only does it bore me, it reminds me that I am subsidising their kids. I could understand having one kid. But what about the ones that go on to have two, three, four? Don’t tell me they are thinking of saving the planet.
Yet now, in the UK mothers can get lump sums of £250 at birth, free IVF, the right to an expensive home birth and help with child care, not to mention a just introduced new subsidy – the equivalent of about $200 to “eat good food”. (A silly idea since the pregnant mothers are free to spend it on booze and fags if they like)
Just why does the Government subsidise motherhood (and breeding) as if it were dormant farmland? Far from parents being the backbone of hardworking society, who do they think is holding the fort when they’re off on maternity leave every other year? Surprise! it is the unsung hardworking singletons and the childfree, from whose taxes the government fund these mother-centric programs.
I think Liz Johnson’s article is brilliant. At last someone saying what many people think. For the government to beat the be green drum on one hand and be encouraging even higher population on the other is hypocritical, to say the least.
Your thoughts?
(Thanks to mercurior for the link)
Technorati Tags: Childfree, childfree
I agree with Ms. Jones. Really.
Here’s my “but.” I’ll be a critic.
I took offense to this line (emphasis mine):
Guess which part of that really ruined the whole article for me? (No, not the cat food part. I’d love to be subsidized for taking these two fat boys I have off the street…)
So while I completely agree with her article, it seems to me that she wanted to “tone it down” by saying she’s CF by “misfortune.” Awww… (/sarcasm) I’m sure a breeder reading her article would be, by the end of it, foaming at the mouth, incensed that someone is calling out their taking advantage of children (because they are taking advantage of children, they ARE USING THEIR CHILDREN to get out of WORK or any other “not so fun” obligation) and then they come accross that line and think, ” awww.. POOR THING, she was unable to have her own children! She could not join us in our higher, holier than thou calling!”
Am I being too critical? I don’t know. All I know is that while it’s refreshing to see more articles being published regarding the plight of the CF in the workplace, most of them are then slashed by a line such as the one above. And when I say slashed, I mean the impact the article could have by simply stating your stance, standing by it, and making no apologies. That’s essentially what’s she’s doing with that line of being CF “by misfortune.”
Oh, and while I just thought about it, that also continues to perpetuate that childfree people are “unfortunate.” Quite frankly, whenever I talk about being CF, I pretty much almost always use the word “fortunate.” Being CF is a GOOD thing.
All of that being said …
I am fortunate in that I have not been made to stay late for others due to their needing to tend to their crotchlings. When my 8 hours are through, I am done and I go home. And I have no problem with saying “No.” I agree with the stance that “Hey, YOU got knocked up. YOU need to be responsible.” But I do see it all around me all the time, and I do hear the whining from some parents about being a parent.
BTW, I was all for Mrs. Clinton for president, although now I’m not so sure. Check this out: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3668781&page=1 She wants to give babies a $5000 bond that can grow so when they’re 18 they have money for college. When I read Ms. Jones’ article that Britgirl posted I immediately thought of that.
Disgusting.
Why not use that money to help with universal healthcare so my mother doesn’t have to go without her diabetes medicine since she has decided she wants to, oh.. I don’t know.. EAT? This infuriates me to NO end.
Also, why not use that money to help with CURRENT EDUCATIONAL COSTS for people who are here NOW? If we really want to get strong as a nation, help people get educations by slashing the cost of higher education so we don’t come out of it with so much debt. (Yes, I have HUGE debts in educational loans so I admit a personal bias on this.) But then if we did that, we couldn’t be under the thumb of corporations and legalized loan sharks.
Ok. I went off on a tangent. Ms. Jones has some excellent points. We talk about global warming (”climate change” to soften the effect of what we’re REALLY doing to the atmosphere) and yet we vote into public office people who affect us by voting to subsidize creating MORE people - worsening the chance of us being able to reverse our effects on the environment.
Ugh. I hate reading stuff like this because it angers me so much.
@CFSinceSix: Clinton’s gotta play up the “woman” card and appeal to the “woman” vote, which these days pathetically means only the mommy vote. Exactly why I won’t be voting for her.
As for the so-called “population decline” in Europe, that’s all a bunch of hogwash. The population isn’t going down, the European population is going down. All these breeder subsidies are about breeding the “right” kind of people. Otherwise they’ll be overrun by “others.” There are plenty of people in Europe, just not European people. And that’s what these governments have a problem with.
Some people will say that Europe’s too old so they do these breeder incentives to get more workers to support the retirees. Problem is, with unemployment rates what they are in many European countries, the state will just end up supporting the new kids and the retirees. You can’t create more workers without creating more jobs. Yeesh.
“I have ended up child-free not by design but by misfortune, so shouldn’t I at least get the £120 towards cat food?”
I don’t even know what this means. No one is child-free by misfortune, because anything with functioning reproductive organs can have sex with random men until she gets pregnant if she really wants a child. Misfortune my ass.
“@CFSinceSix: Clinton’s gotta play up the “woman” card and appeal to the “woman” vote, which these days pathetically means only the mommy vote. Exactly why I won’t be voting for her.”
Because, for some crazy reason, someone out there is pulling the line about the “sisterhood of women”, where we’re all supposed to agree and support each other simply because we have the same genital structure. There are many reasons to not vote for her, this being just one. Please, for everyone’s sake, just vote for the candidate who best represents your beliefs, even if they don’t have a snowballs chance in hell. It’s the only way we’ll get out of the one party/two names system.
Child free by misfortune I’d guess means that she’s infertile. But that makes her, by my reckoning, childless.
It’s interesting to me how often women find, when they have problems conceiving and they’re forced to step off the spinning hormonal roundabout for a few minutes … that, uh, having kids really isn’t the big deal after all. Why is it that it’s only when you can’t blindly run off and sprog, that you suddenly decide that maybe CF is a valid choice after all? Why could you not see this before? Why did you not stop to weigh the pros and cons? If only more people would take that step back before just leaping in - the world might be a better place for everyone - kids, parents, and the people who have to deal with the fallout.
My brother has just taken over custody of his 19 year old son’s biggest mistake to date. The government is paying him almost $300 a WEEK in benefits and allowances. It makes me sick.
CFS6, Kat, Feh - Great point about that phrase. This is why it’s so good to have these things up and out for discussion, the viewpoints here are illuminating.
When I read through the article I was thinking “great article!” And then I read the “childfree by misfortune” and thought what?? BUT I decided to ignore because of the rest of the article. But I’m glad you brought it out and highlighted it. Very good point. So much so that I’m revising my estimation of her article from “brilliant” to good. She does make some good points, yes. But that one… has to lose her points.
It’s as if, while she’s batting for being childfree, she’s at pains to point out that she wouldn’t have been childfree if she’d had a choice. It’s like a discordant note, and as Feh says, she’s probably childless rather than childfree.
Kat - I can’t understand why the wanna-be parents don’t take that step back sooner either. They diss childfreedom to death - until they find they can’t have a kid….. then suddenly it’s valid?
Lucky we do not need their validation.
CFS6 - re Clinton - She of all people should know better. But true to form she’s falling back on lazily predicatable tactics. What a crock. And the funniest thing is all those “mommies” hate her guts, having never forgiven her for not “staying home and baking apple-pie”. How ironic.
StrawberryM - “All these breeder subsidies are about breeding the “right” kind of people. Otherwise they’ll be overrun by “others.” There are plenty of people in Europe, just not European people. And that’s what these governments have a problem with.”
Yes. Those same “right kind” of people now need to be bribed… they’ve seen how breeding can severely curtail their lives (as in there’s more to life than kids and having kids means there’s little chance of discovering what this more is) and would rather not breed. It’s a big problem in Europe…and coming soon to North America. Canada has already started upping the “bribe” by making childcare assistance a corner stone of the elections.
@Britgirl: First I want to say that for a while there I was feeling badly because I was the first post and the first thing I did was point out a negative.
But then I felt reassured because others noticed it too, not just me. hehe…
@Kat: I’ve been mulling over your post for the last couple of days. I completely agree with you and hadn’t thought of that before. It’s like, why only is it when a breeder-wannabe is faced with the reality that they will not be getting pregnant is it then “ok” to be childfree? IMO, like you, I consider them to be childless.
@Feh & Strawberry Muffin: You know, I really liked Clinton. She’s making it very difficult for me to continue liking her.
As for the article that Brtigirl blogged about. I’ve been thinking about how if anyone were to tell a parent *anything,* or call them on their bullshit, many get violently adamant. It’s kind of scary. Becoming a parent really does change people … and not always for the better.
Nobody subsidizes me for jack. All the bills that come in? They fall squarely on me. In light of that, I don’t agree with these “awards” given to people simply because they had children. It fosters the idea that they are somehow special because they had them.
They’re not.
Hillari - hear hear!
CFS6 - I didn’t see it as negative at all… in fact I was glad you pointed it out.
Kat - I too have been mulling over that point. And I haven’t come up with an answer. I think they don’t yet realize that being childfree is an informed choice - not a last resort. More education to do.