Like It Is

Continuing with the links of my previously written articles on the bingoes childfree people (particularly, but not exclusively women) regularly put up with from their childed counterparts. I had almost forgotten how many of these there actually are. I’d have liked to say “were” but sadly they are alive and kicking. I am beginning to wonder if calling them “bingoes” actually takes away from the actual impact of what are in fact nosy intrusive and ignorant questioning.

And while many of these are put to the child-free by strangers, often family members have no hesitation about asking their own and piling on the pressure – as you’ll see in some of the ones to come later on. They should know better, and should be a source of support. Not always. As I sit here compiling these, I’m scratching my head and asking myself how many childed people are questioned on their re-productive choices by childfree people? How much energy do we waste answering these pointed and private questions that people have no business asking us?

Leave aside the fact that many people with children really should be questioned as to why –because it’s plain to see they have no business being parents.

On the bright side there’s always the opportunity to educate - that’s why it’s so important, particularly if you are just considering that, actually you do have a choice here, to not only be aware of these childfree bingoes, but to be prepared with your own thoughts and response. It’s very easy to be caught off guard with one or more of these bingoes - they almost always get thrown at you when you’re not prepared for it.

Add your comments - not that I need to tell you - and don’t forget you never know who they may be helping.

Childfree? But Raising Children Is the Most Important Job In The World!

Childfree? But Weren’t You Once A Child?

Childfree? But Women Are Programmed To Want Children…

Childfree? But You Both Have Good Jobs

Childfree? Don’t You Want To Leave Your Genes Behind?

Technorati Tags: childfree people, child-free

Lisa has once again inspired an idea for my next post.

As we know all too well, childfree men and women (especially women) get “bingoed” almost as soon as they declare that they are childfree or that they don’t want children, or that they’ve chosen not to have children. We get asked the most intrusive, often insulting questions by childed people – questions that I for one would never even think of asking anyone, let alone people I don’t know. For some reason people think that unless you crave children, you have no ability to think or act for yourself.

I’ve always maintained that my reproductive choice is none of anyone’s business. But in 2006, just after I began writing this blog and over the course of a few months I decided to write my thoughts of just what I thought of the nosy questions and those that posed them. The result was a series of posts that, even with the strides we’ve made today, are still all too common (as Aussie CF clearly showed in her recent comment).

In all there are about 12 articles and they’re all in the Archives. I’ll post the rest as and when this week, but if you want to read them earlier just check the Archives or the Sitemap under “Childfree”. Here are some of them. Since we have a whole set of new readers, it’s worth revisiting the articles. Hopefully, they will provide you with insights and more importantly preparation when you come face to face with a bingo – which you will.

The last link is one about Childfree Support. if you don’t know a lot of childfree people you can feel very isoloated and alone. So check out the tips you can use for support and add your own to share with readers.

Childfree? Aren’t you being selfish?

Childfree? You Must Be So Unfulfilled

Childfree? But How Can You Not Want Kids?

Childfree? But What Will You Do With Your Life If You Don’t Have Children?

And childfree support…

Childfree? Support Is At Hand

Technorati Tags: childfree, Childfree

I was going to do a blog about the current crop protruding tummies sported by “celeb moms” but I changed my mind. I actually changed it when I read Lisa’s comment and the resulting comments on trying to decide where one falls on the childfree continuum when deciding whether or not they want to stay childfree. I’m also doing it because I’ve noticed as people discover this blog and they are considering being childfree they can see that being childfree is a valid choice. As always, my posts are always enhanced and enriched by your comments and views.

Lisa’s question is a good reminder that some people are actually discovering that not having children, being childfree is not only possible, but that it is a great choice, and for the vast majority of childfree people, not an afterthought. It’s a choice that is worth considering, but with our pro-natal society it’s a choice that’s never ever presented to the vast majority of men and women.

So, most people do follow the well trodden path of “get married, have kids…” because they’ve never realized there is any other way. Having children is dressed up to be the be-all and end-all of a woman’s life. Women who don’t have children are pitied and even now in the 21^st century, women who say that they choose not to have children or that they don’t want children are scorned and ridiculed. Meanwhile what are the reasons given for having children?

You know them all… and you know there are more.

It’s what you do, isn’t it?

Who will look after you when you’re sick or old?

It proves you’re a woman… or it proves you’re a responsible grown-up man…

It’s fulfilling the maternal instinct…

All women want children Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree

The Times says this book comes from a “progressive” corner of the U.S. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that one. Being childfree is still to be frowned upon (no matter how they try to hide it) But suddenly, single-motherhood has become “hip” and “progressive.” Why is this? Because it proclaims the “new breed of single mother?” And by default, fatherless kids?

Let’s set aside the whole scenario of artificial insemination, because that isn’t really news any more. What is more disturbing is the flippancy of it all. Not having a man around isn’t a big deal if you can’t find one. Priority one is to have a child.

But wait -  to conceive you have to have the sperm of course… so you make sure that the vital stats are all there.

At 28, she (Sloan) was ready to have children, but her partner put off having them. After eight years, they split up. “Women don’t understand the concept of a time limit. I think some in their forties haven’t got to grips with that. There’s a kind of wilful denial, which is what I was engaged in. I didn’t anticipate that relationship to end,” she says. “I certainly ended up paying for my arrogance.”

Scott was conceived two days before Sloan’s 42nd birthday – it was her 13th attempt at pregnancy. She had tried to inseminate herself with sperm from a donor eight times and there are vivid descriptions of her disappearing up the stairs at her Republican mother’s house with a Fed-Ex parcel to go to her room and “baste” (from “turkey baster”). Scott was conceived in stirrups in a doctor’s surgery. His father is a tall, handsome, green-eyed actor (“Favourite colour: blue. Favourite pets: dogs”). Twelve vials of green eyes’ semen are still sitting refrigerated in liquid nitrogen.

Sloan doesn’t think the child having a father is important, when it comes to wanting and having a baby citing the number of babies had by accident by married people. Huh?

She says that the married parents were nice to her…. because “they could understand what it’s like wanting a child” She says (and you can almost see it coming) that it was the “childless” women her age who were hostile, because, she says they felt “threatened and angry because it’s bursting the bubble..”

Bubble?! I think she needs to get out of her bubble, although it’s doubtful she will.

I know some single parents. Very good parents. Not one of them would call single parenthood a walk in the park or what they would have chosen for themselves. On the contrary they tell me it’s hard, hard, hard.

Sloan doesn’t seem to think her child might actually want or need to have a father. In fact she doesn’t appear to think of the child at all. After all, it’s her and her want of a child that is important. And no, adoption won’t do as far as she’s concerned. She wants the experience of being pregnant.  Men are of no consequence… that is perhaps until the sperm donor is needed for his wallet later on as Andy Bathie, a 37-year-old fire-fighter, who donated sperm to a lesbian couple five years ago and is now being made to pay child support is finding out.

Pity the poor kids of these women.

Childfree, selfish? Right.

Read the sorry story here: No Man’s Land.

Technorati Tags: childfree

Must be something in the air, because it’s definitely men’s week this week on Like It Is!

I found the inspiration for this post on in my daily Google Alert. It’s increasingly fascinating what pops up under Childfree these days… all kinds of decidedly not childfree stuff. But, no matter. It’s given me a reason to post (not that I need one). For the record, I did pootle over to Have Children or remain childfree and I tried to leave a comment, but once again, as it’s the un-user-friendly Blogger platform it’s a right old Pain In The Backside. A PITA as Chris W would say.

I have no time to fight with Bloggers comment unfriendliness, so it’s back to here – where I have no such worries and can be a lot more…er shall we say… verbal?

Anyway here is the scoop:

Men – if you’re delaying or prevaricating about having kids you now have a new name. It’s called kiddult. That’s according to the post entitled “What if you want kids and your partner doesn’t?”

Is this deja vu or what? See links at the bottom for a refresher (or a first time read).

After reading the post – and, as I always say go have a read for yourself – this was going to be my comment:

Start comment: “I think it’s rather offensive (not to talk of being untrue and dangerous)to conclude that because a man is reluctant to have children he doesn’t want to “grow up.” Many men simply do not want kids. They may not know how to express this, because of course, it isn’t the “done thing” to say you don’t want them and you like your life as it is. It also is very difficult for many men who do not want to parent to simply come out and say so in the face of the pressure of a partner who is so desperate to re-produce that it overrides any rational thought.

And as a poster said, having kids does not make you an adult - male or female, nor does it make you responsible. Being responsible as adult does not require kids. At all. That is just a myth (which many unfortunates believe) to pressure men into parenting when they do not want to or are not ready to. It is a very outdated myth, a stupid myth and, I might add as damaging as saying to a woman that she needs to have children to be “a woman” or “for her life to have meaning, or to be of value.” That is total rubbish, but it’s what is sold to us, women and men alike.”

End comment.

I thought the following quote in the post was quite ironic. If Mark aware that his career is taking off, and sees that that career might possibly be the engine to finance upcoming house renovation, how then can he be a “kidadult” and irresponsible? Because he isn’t on “kid drive”?? “And isn’t he quite right to fear giving up what he enjoys about his life now?”

Or does his maturity not count unless he is fathering kids?? That isn’t the bit that hit me though… Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: childfree

Every so often I come across a gem of a post that validates things that as childfree people we already know, say, but hardly ever hear admitted. Thanks to blogs people are getting up the courage to confess their thoughts in a way that in their circles they could never ever do.

Thanks to Bella Online (great childfree forum well worth checking out) I found this post called

True Dad Confessions – Let’s hear it for the boys!

Dads saying what they really feel about becoming a parent. This is a must read! None of it is really a surprise to me. What does surprise me are the number of people who don’t think about the consequences of having children until it is too late or until they are forced upon them.

We’ve been fortunate to hear from the men’s point of view on this blog from time to time, but outside this blog their voices (and their wishes) are often drowned out and sidelined by the juggernaut of “I must have a baby no matter what…” voices of the wanna-be childed, women who feel they simply must have a child to justify their reason for being or who simply don’t think of any alternative.

At the end of the day though the men, for a variety of reasons, allowed themselves to be talked into having children. Now they are stuck with them. Read what they say.

There are so many nuggets here that I really can’t pick any particular one. But here are some quotes from the post that will have you nodding your heads…go and check them all out here.

Here’s one…

“I wish i’d never let her talk me into having kids. I didn’t really want them. And now that we do, we can’t go back to the way things were. Things were perfect before. Don’t get me wrong. I do love them and would do anything for them. Its just that life was so much better before. We’re living paycheck-to-paycheck since she quit work to be a sahm and we never get to do anything fun. Its just kids, kids, kids. I’d switch places with my childless buddies any day…”

And another…

“I stay late at work just to postpone coming home to a screeching wife and kid. I don’t know which one is worse. I have no freedom, I can’t go back to college, I can’t travel. I feel as though I’m wearing a ball and chain. If I could have one wish it would be to go back and get a vasectomy before I met my wife…”

And another…

“Having children ruined my life as well as hers. Why do women feel so obligated to have children even though they really don’t want them 24/7?”

Why indeed? I do feel for the men. But I fully agree with one Bella Online forum commentator DV who said, “I know that’s how life with a child is like, because I thought of the consequences beforehand.”

Very true. My husband and I sat down and thought through all the potential impacts to our lives and we came up with a good many of what the men in the True Dad Confessions are expressing. I wonder how many these marriages are going to survive. The ironic thing is that these men would probably have been happier childfree and might even have been childfree if given a choice.

At the end of the day though, they did make a choice and now they have to live with the painful consequences. Not a life I’d like to live.

When will the truth be told… that having children can and often does ruin a marriage? For the men there’s a very simple, accident proof passport to life on your terms… if you know you don’t want children get a vasectomy before you get married and be sure your partner knows you’ve had one.

Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree

Happy New Year! If you’ve had it wished you several times already then good. You can never really say it enough. The beginning of a new year is a time of hope and expectation for us all. The New Year is also a time to review commitments and set new goals. Don’t forget to set yours especially if one of them is to contribute to a childfreeblog!

There are two main things I want to do in this post. First, an update on Like It Is.

I’m quite pleased at how successful Like It Is has become as a place to discuss observations, experiences and life in general when it comes to being Childfree. While staying true to being my personal thoughts and opinions on any topic that catches my attention – and some that are brought to my attention – with readers comments it’s become more than just one person’s view of things.The comments, conversations and different perspectives contributed here all combine to prove that we are all different, but we are united by one thing. That we are childfree by choice and we’re happy about it. As others have found us they’ve been impressed by the range of topics, the depth and the quality of the childfree discussion to be found here. Well done everyone.

When I started Like Is I was able to post about three times a week. With working full time, that has always been a challenge. This year I am taking on some new exciting new commitments (which I may reveal at a later date) that are going to impact my blogging frequency. So, my commitment will be to post once a week – more if I am able to. I’ll still be reading and responding to your comments. And of course, if you find any stories, links etc about childfree issues (including your own) that you think I’d be interested in, please continue to email these to me.

When it comes to the childfree voice being heard there’s still a lot more to be done. In fact, we haven’t even started.

Which brings me to my second point. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: childfree

If you haven’t read AlphaGirl’s response to The Search For Common Ground, then go and read it. It’s worth it.

I must say this same partial quote on the childfree blog:

“Parents deserve our respect, support and understanding. Sometimes they just need a “wider berth” to get through the difficult years with younger children. Have patience!…..”

was the very one that jumped out at me and hit a nerve. Hence my response on the blog, though I went into less detail than AlphaGirl. And I also know and respect the blog author.

I enjoyed AlphaGirl’s response hugely because it touches on only some of the things that seemingly are oblivious to many childed. Note the terms under which she will give parents “wider berth.” Well said AG. Respect has to be earned. It isn’t a given, simply because one has given birth or produced offspring And let’s not forget what we, as childfree people still put up with daily.

I thought it deserved a mention here. The wonder of childfree blogs! And Happy New Year!

You Have To Be Kidding, Right? by Alpha Girl.