Shout out to all the non-breeders!

UPDATE: I've been 'researching' this and they're not called non-breeders. They prefer Childfree. Just needed to preface this with a pc disclaimer :P

I'm not really sure if 'non-breeder' is the correct term for people who make an emancipation proclamation for themselves to never have kids. I've never put much thought into or read much from people who make said proclamation but I had heard of their existence before now. Last night I was perusing this Blogger site for some interesting bloggers to follow. I found my friend, Rickie's poetry blog and followed that. Found some other blog and blindly followed that as well, then I found a blog called You Are Not Special. If you know me at all, you know this title is very attractive to me, so I clicked it and started to read. I only had time to read her latest blog entry which was titled "Breeder Bingo" and it was friggin' hilarious! I loved it! She basically runs you through all the FAQ's she gets assaulted with regarding her choice not to breed. She had me cracking up laughing at statements like "just because I didn't shart a baby out my vag-hole" etc etc.... As I read this deliciously talented comedic writer, I found myself a bit envious... for one, she is a more gooder writter then me is, but also she so perfectly described how she feels about being a non-breeder that even if she didn't impress me with her good writtingship and excellent sense of perfect humor I completely understood and even related to her decisions, despite being already 'locked-in' to motherhood.

Its funny I ventured into her blog when I did. It was a stark contrast to yet another blog by yet another woman I had accidentally stumbled into just the day before. This other blogger was a breeder (like me) but also a bible-thumper (very much NOT like me) and her blog was called "Something Femininity" or some crap. Now, I don't have a problem with femininity... shit, I'm just as feminine as the next guy *scratches ass* but I was extremely insulted and offended (YES! even I get offended sometimes) by this 20-something year old twit and her antiquated, backlash ideas of what being feminine is. The title of her latest entry was "More Feminist Hypocrisy". She proclaimed that 'feminists' are CONSTANTLY haranguing her with insults and criticisms about her dutifully following God's code of conduct regarding femininity, which is, of course, (in a nut-job-shell) to serve her husband by home-schooling his offspring. This 20-something (I have to mention her age because, I mean, come on, at 20-something years old you've got it all figured out amirite?!) felt feminism devalues women who choose to stay home and care for their children. Furthermore, feminists unjustly over-glorify the woman who chooses career-life over wifery and mom-dom. I respectfully submitted a comment telling her she has no clue what feminism is if she truly believes what she wrote. I told her she is misguided by the misogyny filters that misinterpret feminism to dissuade the masses from seeing women as equals to men. Any REAL feminist would support a woman's choice to do whatever the hell she wants with her life. I was really disappointed but not surprised to find that she had her comments filter on so that she could 'approve' any comments before they got posted (fucking pussy!) so I figured she wouldn't post what I had to say. I figured this because the other 5 comments before mine were all from women who inflated her ego with putrid affirmations and bullshit lies about their own experiences of being supposedly mocked for being stay-at-home mothers.

A few hours later, much to my surprise she actually DID post my comment, but not without making a rebuttal of her own. In her rebuttal to me she, this 20-something, proceeds to give me a little lesson about feminism. Apparently, I am the one who fails to look into the heart of feminism and I'm obviously basing my assessment of feminism on a few cultural 'fringe' feminists. My initial reaction to that is FUCK YOU!! I AM a fucking feminist OKAY!! I was raised by a feminist. I'm also nearly twice your fucking age, asshole! I think those reasons alone qualify me as a higher authority of what 'the heart of feminism' is! You've been sexually mature for what? a whole five years!!?? WTF do you fucking know beyond your home-schooled brats and your biblical oppressions?! Nothing! That's what! So, of course, I left another comment, and of course, she didn't publish the 2nd one. Again, I was respectful enough in telling her that if she truly was being harrassed about her "decision to be a home-schoolin', bible teachin', feminine feelin wife and mother" by women claiming to be feminists then I have to either call bullshit on her or bullshit on these women and their feminist affiliations. The real truth of the matter is, she was delusional. I know this because I have suffered delusional self-righteousness syndrome, myself. I was... right around her age, in fact when it flared up the worst. It took a little over a decade or so of drudging through motherhood and wifedom to shake it off. I finally become humble enough to learn from others and the things that are different about them.

Just because someone chooses to be different from you does not mean they are 'mocking' you or putting you down for choosing to go a different route. I don't think you have to be a feminist, or even all that smart, to figure out that a woman speaking from a true feminist platform would not put a woman down for choosing to dedicate her life to raising her children. And you know what? Some women like to crack jokes about women who choose to "change shitty diapers and clean up toddler vomit" for a living. So the fuck what?! Why do you care?! Changing shitty diapers and cleaning up toddler vomit FUCKING SUCKS!!! And this oughta kick you in the pants... I don't really do it all that much. My husband is my stay-at-home-shit-cleaner-upper... I crack a whip and he changes that shit! DAMN STRAIGHT!! (just kidding honey) The puking does suck the worse though. Holy shit, my five year old, Zain, had some kind of digestive problem or something when he was about 3-ish. The doc gave him some meds and it went away (I'm a terrible mother, I don't pay attention to the names of stuff) Man that kid would puke something awful and he was so fucking stupid about it!! Obviously, I wouldn't actually yell at my 3 year old sick baby for puking all over the god damn fucking carpet, AGAIN!! when there's a god damn fucking puke bucket RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR HEAD, but noooo... your dumb ass is gonna push the bucket aside and puke in a BRAND NEW spot on the BRAND NEW rug!! I would be lying if I said it wasn't a struggle to keep from screaming this at the top of my lungs at him. I would also be lying if I said I didn't mumble those exact words under the sounds of his heeving. Poor kid :(

Anyway, my point is... some women are blessed.... hell, I'll even go so far as to say God Blessed with the gift of not being afflicted by the dreadful genetic trait of wanting a 'cute wittle behbeh' that most other women (and men) are afflicted with, myself included. Being a parent is hard and it does suck (sometimes) and my husband and I tell our kids just how much they suck (insert another sometimes disclaimer) all the time. Of course we do it in a joking manner so we don't completely fuck them up, but we also tell them when it feels good being a parent and when they make us proud. So it's nicely balanced. My kids are AWESOME for it too, if I may be one of those annoyingly proud parents! They're not conceited, they're considerate of others, they don't think the world rotates around them, and most of all they love me just the way I am, not just because I'm their mom. You're really missing out if you don't approach parenthood this way.

As I sit here, though, I do have to ask myself a few questions. Why am I so 'offended' by the dim-witted breeder's blog yet so impressed with the sharp-witted non-breeder? I'm a breeder. Shouldn't I be more impressed with the breeder over the non-breeder? The answers to those questions come very quickly to my mind. The non-breeder confirms what I pretty much already knew.... my choice to be a 'breeder' is exactly that... MY choice! No one and nothing else's. Its not some requirement in validating my existence or femininity. If that's what validates your existence, fine, I don't give a crap. I don't think you're doing your kids any favors by being that way, though. I believe my kids would appreciate knowing I chose to breed them despite having to make many sacrifices to do so.

Speaking of sacrifices, I was reading an article on Mother Jones the other day that said (copy/pasted) scientists at Oregon State estimated that, under current conditions, each American child adds 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the average mother's lifetime carbon legacy, nearly six times the carbon footprint of a childless American woman. Oopsy, I've shart 3 babies out my vag-hole now. My carbon footprint, much like my gaping vag-hole, is about the size of the Grand canyon. (The rumble of my queefs tops out at 6.8 on the richter scale, srsly!) I'm worth 18 times more pollution on this precious earth than a non-breeder... that's rather depressing.... Ah well, what're ya gonna do? I drive a small car, recycle my plastics, and keep the a/c down to 79... is that gd'enuff? :shrugs:

Also, one last thing before I close out this entry.... I was reading that hot topics board on that mommy website yesterday and some chick posted a thread titled "Hopechest". Certain that upon opening it I would find a wall-of-text rant about what a ridiculous and disgusting tradition this is, I blinked in shock and horror as I read what was actually being said. I'll paraphrase what I read "I want to teach my daughter to validate her existence with a man and a baby (and maybe even some big fake titties, someday... one can only hope) so I got her a hopechest but I'm out of ideas of what to fill it with. I know I want to put my great Aunt Ina's wedding dress in there, ummm some baby booties, and duhhh maybe some cake recipes and umm well, I don't know what else LOL, what do you guys suggest?" It took every fiber of my being to not post the following reply: "Here's my list of what you should put in there.... a bottle of scotch, a bag of weed, a shit-ton of rubbers (ribbed for her pleasure, of course), and a cheat sheet for her college entrance exam." But, I didn't... I know, I'm lame, but my inner-troll wasn't very hungry at that time... maybe some other time. Speaking of hungry... I need a snack! Where's my bitch when I need him?! >:(

ttfn