Job Description For Parents. Childfree Women (or Men) Need Not Apply
10 10 2007I saw this in the Toronto No Kidding Forum. It wasn’t linked so I asked for the email thought you’d enjoy reading it.
It’s very humorous (it did make me laugh) but it’s not completely tongue in cheek…
It’s at least a good chunk of the reason I decided to be childfree since I had no great longing to have kids. But had I great longings to have kids I think I’d still have looked at my parenting colleagues and seen what I still see.
I’ve no doubt parenthood is hard and thankless. It’s no walk in the park. I took a good look at what I saw around me with my childed colleagues and, un-beknownst to them, they helped me make up my mind not to test the concept. The other day someone suggested to me that once I successfully achieved my lofty goals (which I will) I would then feel like having kids. I said, “Hell, no.” I ain’t having kids. I couldn’t even be bothered to feel annoyed.
Parenthood (regardless of what others say – including that uterus) IS optional. Not everyone should do it.
But when is parenting ever presented for what it really is? The good as well as the not so good? The whole shebang, as we often say. Hardly ever.
So my question to you is – would you apply for this job? I hear there are no shortage of openings.
Parenting Job Description
POSITION :
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop
JOB DESCRIPTION :
Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an,
often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.
Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed.
Extensive courier duties also required.
RESPONSIBILITIES
The rest of your life.
Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5.
Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from
the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.
Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, and embarrassed the next.
Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.
Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.
POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION:
None.
Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly
retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :
None required, unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.
WAGES AND COMPENSATION :
Get this! You pay them!
Offering frequent raises and bonuses.
A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent.
When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.
BENEFITS :
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered;
this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.
Technorati Tags: childfree
And of course we may have to add something like: “Must be able to stop those under you from reaching beyond their grasp, while at the same time knowing their limitations at every stage of their lives” and “be held fully accountable for your charge’s mistakes”.
Boy, 6, Tries To Drive To Applebee’s
I also saw this on the Toronto No Kidding Yahoo list and laughed while I read it. Very funny stuff! My favorite line: “On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.“
A couple of years ago one of my relatives forwarded this drivel to everyone he knew. He was one of those “dump your wife and kids, run off with a younger chick and move several states away” type of guys, so it really just made me roll my eyes.
It’s bad enough for a parent to feel all superior and self-congratulatory when they are actually living with and (hopefully) some-what raising their kids, but for them to still feel superior and self-congratulatory when they just dump their kids and have little to do with them anymore? Disgusting.
Errr… pass.
For those who don’t know, I sign my entries here because I have known since I was 6 years old (only cause I have no memories younger than that age) that I did not want children. I remember being in school, from elementary to high school, not wanting children at all. Not wanting to be a parent. I say this because the topic would come up. Even in high school my friends would say they wanted a baby when they got married. It was a concept, a want/desire, that I simply did *not* get and couldn’t understand. I remember being in jr. high and my cousin and I were playing with our dolls. She wanted to breast feed hers, as if it was her baby. I tried. I just … couldn’t. I remember saying, “Look, this is not my kid.” When I’d play Barbies with a friend down the street, she would always have her Barbie maried to Ken and PREGNANT. I remember one play time specifically saying, “Uh.. my Barbie lives in an apartment in the middle of downtown L.A. and she’s got a date tonight - AND IT’S NOT WITH KEN!” And she was a successful career woman and drove a sports car and surfed on the beach on the weekends. (I lived in southern california - Long Beach) at the time.
I always felt weird, different. That maybe someday the maternal instinct would kick in and then maybe I’d want a kid. I thought that maybe if I just went ahead and had a baby that maternal instincts would kick in. I’ve written here before about the time when I was 19 that I finally put my foot down (to myself! That was freeing!) that I simply did not want children and wasn’t going to have them just because everyone said I should.
So like, I’ve seen a similar “job description” for parent/parenthood before and for some reason… I never really found it funny. Not knocking you, Britgirl.
I say this because it’s like, “Uhm. Yeah. Did you people (parents) not understand this?” To me it’s like a “Hello? duh!” type thing. I dunno, maybe I just have no sense of humour in topics like this. 
hehehe….
@Phoena - You reminded me of this story. I was trying the online dating thing and in my profile I SPECIFICALLY stated, “No fathers, please. That means if you have children, don’t bother to email me.” So I had one guy email me and like a fool I believed that he doesn’t have kids cause he contacted me anyway. We’re at a restaurant and he asked me all proudly, “What’s your proudest accomplishment?” Me, I answered my college degree. Him? Get this, he said, “My daughter. ” I looked at him. He apologized then said that he found my profile so interesting and he really wanted to meet me and felt that if I could just get to know him it wouldn’t matter that he had a kid and infact, HE didn’t have custody but his ex-wife did. I didn’t say anything and then flatly said, “first of all, you can’t say your daughter is your proudest accomplishment, that gets determined when she becomes a productive member of society (apparently she was a very young kid) and secondly, sorry, I’m NOT interested in children. At all.” Can you believe he called me again and when I didn’t return his phone call he left me a nasty message on my voice mail about how I was some sort of child hater, etc. and all the bingoes that go along with that?
@Chris W: One of my favorite movie quotes from “Talladega Nights” is said by one of the kids in the movie, “This applebee’s food is CRAZY delicious!” hehe.. I thought of that when I read the news article. BTW, did you see the atrocious comments? “applebee’s should give that kid free food for life” “put him in a commercial”, etc. Disgusting. They want to REWARD that behviour. >:|
I’m laughing here because I can totally relate to CF Since Six’s comments about the online dating thing. My profile was the same … but I couldn’t believe the number of guys with kids that contacted me! It was as if they were saying “well, I know YOU don’t want kids, but you’ll LOVE mine!!” And yes, I’ve also had the heated online chats with guys who accuse me of being a child hater! So what if I am? All The more reason NOT to introduce me to your precious baby!
WTF!! I don’t want any of my own, so why the hell would I want to deal with yours, who are nothing to me?? Sorry if I’m not inclined to sign up as your baggage handler and unpaid babysitter!
And if his daughter was his greatest accomplishment - so, you got your end away and made a baby? I’d have told him what a sad f**k that makes him, and how I only date people that are INTERESTING.
Interesting views and perspectives. I wouldn’t have called it “drivel” myself, although I had I received it as an email I would have had my laugh and deleted it.
I see my advantage as being - yes I know all that and thankfully avoided the it all. What really intrigued me and what no-one’s really addressed - is that parenting is hardly ever presented as something to avoid, quite the reverse. Perhaps it should be. It’s stressful and yet almost without exception people are encouraged to go into it with no thought for the reality or if they are capable. Simply because “they think it’s the thing to do”.
If this were a job app. no one in their right mind would apply. But if they do sign up they they shouldn’t moan about it. If parents survive this, no wonder they’re subsumed in their children. They have to have something to show for the years of serving them. And as for “unlimited opportunities for personal growth? I wouldn’t have used the word “unlimited” myself. Free hugs just don’t cut it.
Britgirl said:
When I read this I thought of “Misery loves company.” If people who are already parents deterred others away from parenthood, they’d be alone with no one else with whom to comiserate!
What I don’t understand is, how could some people (I won’t say all because I’m sure some did) not see how difficult it is to be a parent? I suppose it’s a lack of being situationally aware.
I agree, free hugs don’t cut it either. I get hugs (and more) from my boyfriend. Personally, I don’t see a snotty, sticky, LOUD “hug” appealing. I’m sure some parents don’t mind, but they tolerate it cause it’s their kid.
CFS6 - I know parents who are like the walking dead since they had their child. They didn’t seem to know what had hit them. I think that aided and abetted by the media people buy into the what is no more than social coercion, as Penny Christensen has so aptly called it. Even though there is clear evidence that perhaps having kids isn’t the best they ignore it - and then say how hard it is. Well, duh!
Ya know, I HATE job interviews, so I’ll stick to the job I currently have, thanks.