Category Archives: People
Parenting Fails: Blow Your Horn
A few nights back, at something like 10pm, someone started blaring their horn outside my townhome unit complex. It wasn’t just an occasional beep, he was keeping his hand on the horn for long periods, releasing, doing a few quick honks, and doing it again. The whole time, the sound kept moving. He was circling the block. This went on for something like 10 minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore and ran outside. I caught the guy circling and waved him down. He actually had the nerve to look at me like I was the problem.
I yelled at the asshole (for one thing, I was pissed, but I also wanted to make sure the neighbors heard, for my own safety, ) and asked him just how retarded he was (some people will criticize this as ablest, but in this circumstance, I didn’t much care,) and told him I’d call the cops. He shouted something like “Dunt git yo-sef mest up!” and “Call da cops!” but when I waved my phone, he sped off, leaving the area with another blast of his horn, like a douche. It was dark and I didn’t want to get too close to the car, so I couldn’t get a good description of it let alone a license plate, else I really would have called the cops. He was being an intentional nuisance, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he was drunk too.
The driver was a male, either an older teen or something in the young 20’s, I’d guess, and clearly was not raised right. This is our current generation, ladies and gentlemen. These are the kind of losers today’s “parents” are raising.
Drive-By Thoughts: What Feminism DOESN’T Mean
No, contrary to popular belief (of mothers,) feminism does NOT mean worshiping the mother-goddess or giving women who breed special privilege above everyone else. It just doesn’t! You do not get to just call yourself feminist, then declare everyone who doesn’t let you have your way at all times anti-feminist. Feminism means equality, not special treatment just for you/whatever group you happen to belong to. Deal with it.
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Mother’s Day Debt?
I love my mom, but not so much Mother’s Day attitudes that some people (not my mom) exhibit.
I’m sure that The American Coalition of Labor Reparations only means it as a Mother’s Day joke with their own website, but some people really do seem to have the attitude that offspring, as well as the world at large, really do literally owe mothers. It’s an attitude that’s never more apparent than on Mother’s Day. From a tradition that sprang from one church that was only about appreciating mothers in the congregation, following the death of one Sunday School teacher, (although there were earlier incarnations,) the day has become a widely recognized commercial monstrosity. It’s certainly a popular time for the most stuck up and entitled of mothers to make themselves out to be noble martyrs and saints, not only deserving of special recognition, but owed it. (Macaroni cards no longer cut it for everyone, it seems.)
Just about every year, there’s an article somewhere about how much moms, specifically stay-at-home moms are owed by society, financially. I couldn’t disagree with them more. These articles often go on about how man “jobs” a SAHM mom does: making dinner means being a chef, driving kids to school means being a chauffeur, placing band-aids and kissing boo-boos means being a nurse, etc (I wish I was making this up.) Funny, I do most of those same things at my home and take care of my dog, but no one calls it a job when I attend to my own basic responsibilities that come with my lifestyle. I certainly don’t call myself a mechanic and look around for someone to pay me when I change the oil in my own car. And as a mother’s kids and home are her responsibility, she’s simply doing for free herself what she could otherwise pay others for. It’s the parents’ own responsibility.
I always think this salary for SAHMs thing and their claims of holding various jobs must be some kind of ego-boost for not having an actual job, especially as working moms, who do all the same things while contributing to the family income, are often excluded (as are SAHMD’s interestingly, although their numbers are few.) As for being paid to be a SAHM, rarely does anyone suggest where the usually outrageous salary (calculated from the jobs a SAHM claims for perfuming menial tasks) is supposed to come from. I argue that SAHMs are already paid by their working partner in the form of the working partner paying the SAHM’s half of all bills.
I recently read a blog post written by an angry mom who got her panties in a twist because she overheard a stranger, who was not a mother, talk about enjoyable things she had planned for herself on Mother’s Day. Apparently, women who aren’t moms shouldn’t ever be given gifts or taken to dinner by their partners. The moms commenting were just as absurd. ‘A non-mother doesn’t deserve (they actually used the word “deserve,” indicating that they believe they, as moms, really do deserve material reward for breeding,) a spa visit – not on Mother’s Day!’ I challenged the group to explain how they were, in any way, affected by what anyone else does with their day. This question was not answered, the respondents choosing instead to whine about sleepless nights, a favorite complaint (as if no one else has them.)
Even though I do try to give my mom a friendly call on Mother’s Day, and usually manage to remember to send her something nice, I don’t think that I owe her any special praise or thanks or extravagant gifts for having me. I certainly don’t owe her financially, as the ACLR’s Labor (yes, that kind) reparations form satirically (I’m assuming it’s only meant as satire, as it suggest I not only owe mom a wage for every hour of labor, but also for me being born with an “innie” belly-button.) suggests. When I called my mother for mother’s day, she and I had a good laugh when the ‘what I owe’ calculator determined that I “owed” her at least $322, a figure reduced by 80% (down to $64) for calling her on Mother’s Day.
As I’ve written before, it was not my choice to be born. No one chooses to be born. Birth, existence, is forced upon us by our parents who did so either for their own reasons, or if not that, simple failure in prevention. Yes, I recognize everything my mom went through with pregnancy, labor, and birth. It all sounds most unpleasant, I think, although other’s call it “beautiful” for some reason. But anyway that was all her choice, not mine. I don’t think I owe anyone just because they went through something unpleasant which I did nothing myself to cause. I’m not responsible for the actions of other people, especially actions that took place before I was born.
Moreover, as I’ve written before, I certainly do not consider myself to be benefited by being born. Sure, I get to be alive, which is usually tolerable and sometimes actually even enjoyable, but that also means that I will suffer and will inevitably die. Few people seem to consider before breeding that when they “give the gift of life,” they’re also indirectly giving death. Indeed, all the hard word that I must give in my life, all the pain that I will suffer, and my eventual end are all indirectly the fault of the people who forced me to exist in the first place in pursuit something that they wanted. And I’m supposed to be grateful for that?
As for taking care of me as a child, I don’t think that I really owe my parents for that either. They owed me. As I said, I didn’t ask to be born. Every need that I had I needed because of my parents. It was their responsibility to provide for those needs as it was their fault I had needs to be met. It was their compensation to me for forcing me to be. I could well argue that this is a debt they continue owe to me for the rest of my life, as I continue to have material needs, but I don’t actually regard the situation in that way in practice. All I owed my parents for were things that were above and beyond, and I do thank and repay such things accordingly.
More than owing their own children, I argue that moms (and dads) owe society as well. After all, breeding drastically increases a person’s carbon footprint, not only because of necessary lifestyle changes that must come with having children, but those children will leave their own footprint, as will their children, and so on. The same is true for resource-consumption. In an already heavily overpopulated, polluted, and resource-starved world, that’s a pretty big deal. Then, from an economic viewpoint, families with children are more likely than those without to be a bigger drain on government spending as the government spends a great deal on children and parents in many ways (WIC, welfare, child tax credit, public schools, various public assistance programs, etc,) and this, when totaled, may be more than that family contributes in taxes. This is especially true in the case of SAHMS, despite articles insisting that they deserve a salary. I argue that they’re more likely to be an economic drain as they aren’t paying taxes (unless they’re only SAHMs for a short time or work from home,) but will benefit from those people who do so. Maybe the real question is, what do moms (and fathers as well, parents in general) owe the rest of the world?
(Note: The exceptions to all of this are people who foster and/or adopt.)
I gave my mom a call to say “Happy Mother’s Day.” (I haven’t quite picked out a gift for her yet.) But I don’t do this because I feel that I owe her anything just for being my mom – I don’t. I do it because, apart from being my mom, she’s a generally nice person and someone who I, as an adult, like to consider a friend. She’s pretty awesome as a person.
And, since I’m such a great daughter, I won’t even mention what she owes me for birthing me. 
Childfreemobile
Like my new car? I do. It’s two years older than I am an in practically new condition. It drives fantastic, and it’s clean. The thing about it is, it only seats two. How much more obviously childfree can I be?
Not a “family car”
How Selfishly Childfree And Immorally Atheist People Car Shop
I got a new car last week. I wasn’t exactly planning on buying a car that day, but I did. I was actually just browsing lots with my boyfriend, trying to figure out how we could help some friends of ours out who had found themselves in a sticky situation. Our friends are a family of three (the child is my “god(less)son,”) who, unfortunately, were having a bit of trouble. They had only one car, a two-seater, which didn’t fit their seating needs. Recently, this car was damaged beyond drivability in an accident, which wasn’t my friend’s fault. They had no budget to fix the car or buy a new one. And not having a car is a big deal for anyone.
So, my boyfriend and I browsed lots. Eventually, we stumbled upon a bright red 1986 Nissan 300ZX in excellent condition with only 78K miles. It had apparently been in a garage and under a tarp since the year that I was born. The body was in near perfect shape, the interior was luxurious, and it was beautiful under the bonnet too. We took it for a test drive immediately and it was just a dream. The asking price was out of the range of my friends, but very affordable for myself. It was a little hard to find financing for a car so old, as it was difficult for companies to ascertain its value, but I eventually got it and drove the car home that very night. Score.
As for my friends, well, I no longer needed my 2005 Chevy Aveo. It wasn’t a great car by any means, and wouldn’t be even if it was in perfect condition, which it was not, I admit. But it ran fine and safe and easily seated five and had deceptively ample boot space for groceries. My friends joked about donning robes and starting a cult around me after I agreed to gift the Aveo to them for free.
I think we always have a soft spot for our first car. I’ll remember my Aveo fondly. It has served me well, allowing me the freedom to leave post, have fun, go shopping, move, and get to work. And, despite some unfortunate neglect, it has never let me down. And now that humble Aveo has moved on to aid someone else. So a car that a friend of mine once sold me to help me out when I was a young, lonely soldier in need of transportation but unable to get financing (due to having no credit history at the time,) is now faithfully serving someone else in need.
Goodbye, my “Brave Little Toaster.”
It’s times like this I wish I was still doing my 365 Good Deeds Challenge series. (I only quit that because some days I stayed home and didn’t really go anywhere or do anything.) This deed has to be worth at least a few, I figure. What was that about atheists having no reason to be good without god and childfree people being selfish? Fuck you, stereotypes.
ANYWAY, I’m not writing talk myself up. Truth be told, I’ve been meaning to replace my Aveo with something better for some time now anyway, but couldn’t justify spending the money when my Aveo still ran just fine. This was just a nice excuse for me. And I did find something better. Much better, in fact. And I’m glad that I did.
1986 Nissan 300ZX. My boyfriend and I are both fans of BBC’s Top Gear, so my boyfriend jokingly calls my new car “the pornographer’s car.” As long as he doesn’t throw my T-tops into a ravine, we’re good. We’ve also joked that it was a time-traveling car, as it is in new condition over two decades after its creation.
My “new” car is actually older than I am (the “88” in my user name isn’t some Nazi reference, as a few dumb trolls have suggested. It’s the year of my birth.) However, it’s in just marvelous condition, inside and out. I do believe the dealer (something I’m reluctant to ever do) when he said that the previous owner had been storing the vehicle safely in a garage for years before finally trading it in for a Corvette. The only thing I can think to do with the 300ZX is replace the muffler, which isn’t actually a problem as it is.
My boyfriend and I were already admiring the 300ZX when the dealer came out to greet us. He didn’t even try to direct us towards “family cars,” despite us being obviously a couple. Not once did the dealer even mention children. There must be something about us that just screams “childfree.” Or, more probably, the dealer simply didn’t want to talk us out of a car we were already interested in.
Whereas a car that only seats two is a problem for a couple with a child, as was the case with the friends that I mentioned earlier, it’s just perfect for a childfree family. My boyfriend and I didn’t really need 14 seats between three vehicles for just us and a dog, which is what we had before. Losing three seats isn’t a problem for us.
The 300ZX is nice! I got the non-turbo model, but it’s still quite fast. Judging by the condition, I doubt many horses have escaped over the years. I love the nearly flawless red paint on a sexy body, and the locking T-tops on the roof are very nice. The interior is lovely, with cloth seats with lumbar support on the driver’s side, and a leather dashboard with an orange-lit instrument panel. I feel like I’m driving a James Bond car. Or maybe it’s Night-Rider, as the voice of “Bitching Betty” helpfully informs me when I leave my lights on, like an idiot. Unlike my old Aveo, my 300ZX has an alarm, central locking, power windows, cruise control, and speakers that are actually work very well. Happily, it costs even less to insure than my Aveo did, even with full coverage.
The only downsides for me are going to be getting used to driving a manual, and getting used to having a long bonnet. I might also need a pedal extender for the clutch as I’m a bit short. These are very minor things, which I will get over. All in all, it’s a fantastic car, and a definite step up from my previous car. This is the best car that I’ve ever driven. I’m very excited to have it. My boyfriend, who drives an 05 Pontiac GTO, tells me he’s slightly jealous. I’m a bit proud of that.
That’s the nice thing about being childfree. I can just go out and buy a car, and pay it off quickly. Being childfree doesn’t mean that I’m rich, I’m certainly not. But I don’t have the financial burden of children. More than that, I can buy whatever car that I want and can afford, with little concern for seating or storage space, which is something I would have to think about had I a larger family. Additionally, I can do this without much worry that the interior will be ruined in the same manner that my young self mindlessly ruined my parents’ cars, which I regret very much in hindsight. I can have nice things. I can have fun things.
I’m not bragging. If it sounds that way, I can’t really help it as there’s not really any other way to tell this story. It’s just that buying the car has made me think about being childfree a little more. See, some people who don’t understand what being childfree is all about, and see it as merely the absence of children, don’t get what there is to talk about when it comes to the topic. “What does it matter? Who cares?” (Although, a significant number of people DO appear to care, hence the bingos and unkind stereotypes.)
This car situation between my friends and myself is an excellent example of why it matters. Childfree means more than simply not having children around, it means having a completely different lifestyle, and different options, because there are no children to consider. Being childfree has allowed me to purchase a car that I just love, which I probably would have never even been able to consider were I a mother, for a number of reasons. And being childfree helped put me in a position of being able to lend help to others in this particular situation. At my current income, if I had a child, I couldn’t have afforded to buy the car that I did. I certainly couldn’t have afforded to just give my old one away for free. Similarly, being parents made my old Aveo far more valuable to my friends than it ever was for me, even with its faults.
I would never say that I am better than anyone else for being childfree. I’m not. But being childfree is certainly better for me, personally, which is something that I’ve always known. I will remember this story the next time someone accuses me of being “selfish” or “immoral” for being childfree and an atheist, respectively. And when someone tells me I don’t know what I’m missing for not having children, I’ll laugh as I drive away in my shiny, red sports car.
Live the life you want to live and be happy. If you’re able to, help the people you can help, not because you think a god is watching and not because you expect reciprocation later, but because it’s the right thing to do. Fuck stereotypes. I know I’m not selfish or immoral, and I don’t need this, or any other story, to prove it. Haters gonna hate.
Now all I have to do is learn how to drive a manual…
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Choosing Pets Over Kids?
Last month, Theresa Cisneros of The Mom Blog asked her readers, Why are people choosing pets over kids? The post in which she asks the question seems to be in response to a survey conducted by human and pet supplement company called Flexcin International, Inc., which found that 54% of respondents admitted that pets were a better fit for their lives than human children would be, with only 46% claiming the opposite. I’m immediately inclined to be skeptical of the survey, until I can see the methods by which it was conducted. If it was polling people with pets, specifically the kind likely to care enough to give their kids supplements, I would think they’d be more likely to get a pet-friendly answer by such people than they would the general public.
But never-mind that, it doesn’t really much matter. What does matter, it the question posed by Cisneros’ post:
Readers, I’d like to hear what you think about this subject.
Tell Me: Have you ever considered (permanently) opting for pets over kids?
She walks herself!
False dichotomy. You’ll never get a real answer until you ask the right question. I’m childfree and have one dog, but I did NOT choose pets over kids any more than I choose driving a sports car over being slapped in the face. That is, the two things have little to nothing to do with each other. Sure, I prefer one over the other, but that doesn’t mean that I chose one over the other.
I like dogs. Even if I had kids (which I never want) I’d still have dogs. Many people who do have kids also have pets. It’s not like people can only have one or the other. On the other hand, even if, for some reason, I had decided to never have pets, I still wouldn’t want kids. It’s not like I’m required to have either.
I like pets. They bring me a lot of joy and enrich my life. They’re a lot of work too, if the owner is responsible. If I had kids, it would likely negatively impact my ability to adequately care for my dog, as well as diminish that dog’s quality of life. It would be unfair to my dog to bring children into my family, which, again, I would never want to do anyway.
I don’t much care for children. Pets or no, children would be nothing but an unpleasant burden to me. I shudder to think of how much I would miss out on in life if I ever became a mother. Short visits from the children of my friends is about all that I can tolerate. It’s not that I “can’t handle” parenthood, it’s that it’s totally undesirable to me. There are lots of things that I could handle, if I had to, but would rather just avoid entirely. I can’t imagine wanting to ruin my life (and having kids would ruin my life,) and contribute to the continued destruction of our already overpopulated world, by breeding like some unneutered stray animal (overpopulation is not just a problem for cats and dogs!).
I chose to have something great for me. I chose not to have something horrible for me. But to say that I chose pets over kids is ridiculous
