"I'll never have what I want because I never want what I have" - Carrie Fisher.I get this - it's very me.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I stop and get nostalgic about all the what ifs and sliding doors in my life. Thinking maybe I could have been happier/better/content. Maybe I could have gotten married and had a little family and now I would be the fit forty something yummy mummy jogging through Coogee in my designer active wear pushing my designer stroller with my designer baby! Then I walk past a kid throwing themselves on the ground and chucking an overly public tantrum and it snaps me back to reality and reminds me how grateful I am to be where I am and with the life choices that I have made.
I know every person who has ever been a parent thinks it is the be all and end all and they can seriously make us conscientiously childless folk feel like shit! You act like your time is so much more valuable and that everything you do is so much more important because you managed to procreate. REALLY!!
Beautiful advice someone told me about recently. They asked a mother "What am I missing out on by not having children?". The mother shrugged and wisely answered "Well you are missing out on the having. Just like those that have are missing out on the not having."
And thank you Wendy Squires for this article and saying everything I want to but better.
Yes ! This !
ReplyDeleteThere's way too much social pressure on women to have kids. Those with kids are capable of looking down at childless women with extraordinary condescension . Or the - "you don't know because you haven't had children" argument gets trotted out . I don't need to have children to feel compassion, yearn for better for the environment , the disadvantaged etc.
As far as I can see a lot of the damage to our ecosystem & to income equality has been done by those who have kids. Clearly it hasn't made them better human beings .
When I look at someone with children - i see someone who can't go to the movies whenever they like , who can't meet their friends for dinner without a babysitter or parents covering for them , who can't swim whenever they like, who can't go overseas without diabolical planning , who has to thrilled at watching shit kids TV & put up with vomit , tantrums , mess & constant demands . It probably gets better after the age of 15 but then you have noxious teenagers who think they know it all .
There's too much sacrifice & I already gave up a decade being a carer , I don't have another to spare .
What a vast genralisation this is, and grossly unfair. As a parent, I most certainly never look down on childless couples or individuals, nor do I consider my time any more valuable than theirs, or that 'everything I do is so much more important" - what a ridiculous statement.
ReplyDeleteI have many friends, and relatives who are childless by choice or otherwise, and I am able to maintain happy, healthy relationships with all of them - (probably because they don't share your sentiments).
Being a parent does mean that you sometimes don't get to be as spontaneous as you'd sometimes like to be, but I still do EVERYTHING that I enjoy, including all of the above... I have two wonderful teenagers, who are anything but noxious, and a younger child. I also have a great Career.
You point out everything you can to denigrate the privilege of parenthood as though you seek revenge against all those who have made different life choices to you.
The only question I have is, if you are "so grateful to be where you are, with the life choices you have made" why do you feel the need to post a public blog embellishing untruths about the way "every person who has ever been a parent" acts? What a narrow minded, bitter view you have.
I suggest you get yourself some of that designer active wear with all that spare cash you must have because you have no kids, go jogging through Coogee, and stop embarrassing yourself by a public demonstration of... what is they call it?... oh that's right... a tantrum.
Interesting! Everyone is entitled to an opinion and it seems I have managed to find both ends of the spectrum.
ReplyDeleteMy blog, my opinion. Don't like it, don't read it!
But hey - it made you think. Thank you anonymous for your wordy tantrum.
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DeleteOh do fuck off.
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