“I know what’s going on here Amanda. You’re racist to ewoks! And I’m an ewok.” – some dude high on mushrooms
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“The serf worked harder than the others, and was the worst fed and paid (…)” – Wikipedia entry on Serfdom
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Coral and I were in Vancouver this past weekend to attend my cousin Monica’s wedding. It was a great party held way up high on Grouse Mountain.
After the reception, it was time to hop on the boat and return to Victoria for another week of work and life. I wanted to grab a magazine to read to while away the time and a MacLean’s magazine caught my eye.
“A new manifesto argues that parenting is bad for your career, your marriage, your bank book, and your love life.”
That’s all MacLeans could come up with? Shit man, the list is a lot longer than that. Coral said I shouldn’t bother getting the magazine because we already have a child so what’s the point. But I figured it would be full of all sorts of research explaining exactly how bad kids are for society… then with some clever reverse engineering I could at least be aware or best case, combat the “effects” of being a parent.
Turns out there was little of that in the article. The piece was basically a wah-wah-wah from couples trying to justify why they don’t want kids. The poster child for a child free world was introduced as Elaine Lui, aka Laineygossip aka that chick from eTalk Daily. Her argument is; “my life is so fabulous, why would I muck it up with kids?”
I hear ya sista, hope Johnny Handsome in the picture wraps it up each and every time. She says on her blog:
I was interviewed for the piece because, as you know, my womb is frozen like Nicole Kidman’s forehead. By choice. And it’s the choice that’s the crux of it. Because while I applaud and admire you for making the choice to have babies, the same respect is not afforded those who choose not to, and oftentimes they’re made to feel that somehow their lives and their experiences are not as valued or as meaningful as motherhood.
uh, what respect? You should be respected because you chose a life of spontaneous vacations and an overflowing bank account? Don’t worry about it so much. Raising kids is hard, week long all-inclusives in Mexico are awesome… settle down. If you feel like breeders (or minivans as she refers to, I guess people like me… even though I rock a Jeep but whatever, stereotypes are fun, I get it) are giving you a hard time, don’t worry about it. You have perky tits and no crayon marks all over your couch. Her best point is, its the year 2009 and women are free to do whatever they like and society shouldn’t judge. I’d argue, um we’re not. The childless (or child free as they’d liked to be called) make the best aunts and uncles!
From there the article quotes a variety of satirists and PHDers trying to explain why they are happy without kids and debunks the myths that they’ll be unhappy in old age or lonely.
Nothing too new is explained in the article. Kids are expensive and you’ll have a harder time fucking around. For that sacrifice, you can look forward to one day having your kids grow up and disappoint you. (you mean its possible that Madelyn will not live up to my expectation of being a doctor on a spaceship?).
Kids are a lot of work and anyone with one would tell you that… so what does MacLean’s add to the discussion? Well I found a couple points that made me go hmmm.
Number One
The higher a woman’s education the less likely she is to have children. Uh oh, the best women out there are not procreating… Looks like we have a few more seasons of MTV’s “16 and Pregnant” to look forward. Oi that sucks. Your local family doctor is not making any more families, but the Duggers can’t be stopped.
Number Two
Many parents use having kids as an excuse to give up on their own lives and dreams.
whoa…
MacLean’s had no “facts” to back that up, but the line made me pause to ponder. An interesting thought to dwell on and think about. Having kids will sap your money and ladies… its gunna kick your body’s ass to birth a living mammal creature… that we know and can manage, but trying to keep the fire alive and burning AND raise up a productive future tax payer is the real challenge. Can the two be reconciled? I guess I’ll let you know when I write my memoirs as an old man.
I’ll say this, babies are cute as hell and (generally) smell great.
Go with yourself.
The Morning After 