Like It Is

Hit. Nail. On. Head.

Hah! Need I say more?

Going Green By Sterilization

Props to mel for finding this article and sharing it. I saw it in a Google alert, went over to her blog to check out more. I’m always more interested in what a childfree blogger says about an article before I read the article (is that weird?) but anyway I really liked m’s review and comment. Check it out for yourself. And so I went over to read the actual article myself in The Daily Mail.

As mel rightly points out the comments are colourful. Particularly those that liken the women to out and out nutters in need of a psychiatrist. For a list of the choice comments, check out the article – or better still m’s blog. Of course the nay-sayers weren’t the only comments…. thankfully. But the point that interested me was how it seems that while everyone (seemingly) has jumped on the “green” bandwagon, doing all those nice green things to save the planet, the thought of any woman deciding not to have kids to save that same planet brings reactions of near revulsion from some.

In one of the comments, there’s no pretending at all…. “human life is much more important than the planet!!”

It’s probably not surprising that the usual suspects come out in force criticising the women for not wanting children, period. You’d think that saving the planet would be a worthier “cause” than most, but no. It’s better to have lots of kids – hey they can be eco-warriors and they can save the planet! Super! And by the way, did we childfree want the human race to die out?? Are we crazy?

Saving the planet wasn’t my reason for being childfree, but at least I can be sure that I’m doing less damage to the planet – using less resources. I’m able to live downtown, so I don’t need a car. Less pollution I can live downtown because I don’t have kids and don’t need a house and the predictable car to travel from the ‘burbs. We use far less resources overall than a family of, say three kids and two adults. Yet no-one questions those who want no only one child but two or more. In fact, having more is encouraged. Of course, our tax goes to supporting breeding anyway.

I think there may be many who are simply in denial that more kids = people on the planet = more use of scarce resources. They may try and justify it by the fantasy of raising “eco-warriors” – knowing they have no control over that whatsoever in the end.

But once again, we see childfree women vilified… doesn’t matter why you don’t want kids…as far as the childed world is concerned, if you’re a woman you should want kids, and nothing should be more important.

Green? Saving the planet? Scratch the surface… you just might find they aren’t so green after all. And that the one’s who actually do walk the talk are in fact – the childfree.

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And Childfree men count too!

 Here are some of my faves of the posts by childfree women bloggers on November 15th. Enjoy them all – they are all thought provoking and well worth a read. And it goes without saying that everyone’s comments here on Like It Is were – as always – equally thought provoking. Thank You all.

By Neda:  A Purple Letter Day 

By m: Are the childfree invisible in our society?   – Interesting examination of BlogHer – and much more detailed than mine.

By Angry Grrl  Childfree women blog and be counted

By   Escape Brooklyn Top 10 reasons I don’t want kids

By Dani: Invisible and Childfree

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This is going to be a short one (yes, I know, I’ve said that before) But this time I’m serious. Over the past week there are have been some pretty powerful posts and comments. I haven’t yet read the “mother of all rebuttals” from NFPworks as was promised, but I’m sure it will make interesting reading… or not.

I think there is a lot more to say on both the posts Childfree and Invisible and Childfree – Do We Count and I hope you’ll continue to add your voices to them. Denise from Blogher visited and left a comment. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say it’s almost the same response given before but recycled. You can read it for yourself and my comment. Personally, I wasn’t particularly impressed. Feel free to add your response.

There are two things I want to attempt to do this week rather than a completely brand new topic. One is to get around to reading the posts from other bloggers on the topic of Childfree folk and their visibility last week. The other is to include some of the links on Like It Is. I think many of the blogs should be profiled and that’s what I hope to do, so that others can “discover” them.

I want to end, however on a note from a comment made by Childfreee, on Childfree… And Invisible which I think, sadly, is only too true.

Here it is:

“Most of society simply cannot wrap it’s mind around the concept of a woman choosing NOT to have children. Why should BlogHer be any different? In our culture (as in most cultures) womanhood is squarely equated with motherhood and far beyond any other endeavors in life, motherhood defines a woman. Even the most educated people (who should know better) are rendered speechless in the face of a woman who proudly announces she is childfree. Just the word “childfree” throws them for a loop. Children are something a person could want to be FREE OF? Huh?

It’s going to take a long time for the childfree lifestyle to be accepted and embraced but hopefully with more women and men like us out there blogging and spreading the word, our lifestyle will not inspire speechlessness, but rather interest and acceptance.”

To my mind, BlogHer really is no different and it probably shouldn’t be a surprise to us that they are no different. When you think of it, WE should not be asking them for “representation” on a site that is said to be for “women bloggers” (and mind you, that term is beginning to irritate me more every day). They should be coming to US. They should be striving to be different, but as we know, they do not.

Several of you have made that same point.

I leave it to you to comment on both Denise from Blogher’s comment on my post below and Childfree’s.

Until the next post.

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Here’s your chance to stick your hand in the air literally or figuratively – and shout a resounding “Damn right we do!”

Since I already wrote my post on why Childfree women should be represented anywhere women are represented – so that includes BlogHer and other “women only” blogging sites – this isn’t going to be a long post. It’s more of a follow up to my post Childfree…and Invisible? an in support of the Purple Women Count campaign. I hope you’ll continue to add to the conversations, link and post – if you’re childfree – and frankly even if you’re not childfree, but a supporter of a childfree woman for example. And please, there is no “on the way to - or from – childfree” here. Sorry. Fence-sitters are counted though.

As I said in my original post, my experience of BlogHer has been far from stellar. I find their weak response to our request for representation even as the suggested rather innocuous Women Without Children frankly risible. In fact I’m less interested than ever in so-called “women-only” blogging sites. But since we are on that subject Childfree (or Child-free) women should not have to ask to be represented – anywhere. It’s clear for anyone who cares to look that we are here, we are here to stay and we ain’t going away. Our contributions to society are innumerable, both in the workplace and outside it, and we are in every single sphere of life.

There are women who have children. And those of us who don’t, because we choose not to. We don’t want to be shunted away into some “Family” bucket, neither do we necessarily want to stuck out there as an example.

We want what’s fair and reasonable and that is Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve come across many articles that purport to understand the “childfree movement” what childfree people think, and why they think it. Oddly the writers of these articles are usually childed, pro-parent and quite ignorant and intolerant of any view that doesn’t dovetail with their accepted one – that reproducing is always good, all the time.

Take this post for instance, which I came across in a recent Google Alert:

Childfree - Selfishness Incarnate or Saavy Living? (Note – I deliberately kept the bad spelling mistake in the link - there are others dotted liberally in the nfpworks article).

The article is so illogical that it actually gave me a bit of a headache reading it. Thankfully, the more than savvy commentators brought some sense of sanity to the article.

It’s hard to believe that someone can really believe the stuff the sheer idiocy that nfpworks purports. Even if none of it makes sense. Here are some “highlights”

…”Quite literally, their[the childfree movement] whole mission is to throw (jettison is probably a better word) the baby out with the bath water!”

What baby?? How can we throw out a baby when we don’t have them? Read the rest of this entry »

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Are childfree women invisible? It often seems so. When we read each others blogs, participate in childfree discussions, take part in childfree forums, we know that we exist and that we identify with many things in common with other childfree people.

To be clear, when I am talking about childfree here, I mean a decision has been taken not to reproduce or have kids, in spite of society’s pressure and those who made the decision are content with that decision. I mean people who, despite the unrelenting societal pressure happily embrace life as full of unending opportunities to grow and expand their lives. To be clear I am not referring to people who are childless (as in wishing they could have children, or waiting to have children, many of whom are now calling themselves “childfree” – and grieving that state.

I’ve been thinking about this topic since an email discussion between Teri of Purple Women and Friends and myself. It was to do with the absence of a “childfree” category on BlogHer, a blog which, which, while it claims to be for Women Who Blog, has no category for Childfree women… whether they blog or not. Of course, there are categories for Mommies and Family, Feminism & Gender, Sex and Relationships and a whole host of other categories.

When approached by a childfree blogger to consider adding a Women Without Children category (since we don’t consider it fair to hide ourselves in F&G, S&F or even Life) they were politely but firmly rebuffed. I recall that the reason was that a separate category:

“Wasn’t planned because the demand, though important, is small.” And,

“We simply can’t offer every niche/category a blogger asks for…”

My response to Teri was, among other things, that: Read the rest of this entry »

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As much as people wring their hands about the environment, global warming and the diminishing resources of the earth, as long as the consequences of population growth go largely ignored it’s a bit of a waste of time. It seems rather odd to me that while politicians (and many others) herald the devastating effects of population growth they at the same see no problem with introducing and in many cases augmenting incentives to women to have more children and larger families, and in effect penalize women who opt to remain childfree.

Tax breaks, family friendly workplace benefits, tax credits and more exist for people to have (larger) families.

Name one – just one – incentive for people who remain childfree. Because I can’t think of any.

Of course, because birthrates are apparently falling in several countries, particularly Europe, people can easily silence their conscience – after all, aren’t they breeding to “keep the economy safe?” Well at least that’s what the government tells them anyway.That’s their story and their sticking to it… as the saying goes. Besides they need breeding to go up because their premise is that it translates directly into future support for the aging population. But isn’t there a flaw in that argument? Read the rest of this entry »

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