(no subject)

[smokingboot]

This has been swimming around in my head since yesterday, when the immensely courteous november_girl asked chums to let her know the limits of their baby-friendliness. It got me thinking about babies and how I feel towards them.



I'm very unlikely to have a child, ever. Seriously, there's nothing in me that wants them. Kittens, puppies, my heart has room for all the beasties of the earth, but babies? No.

It was always this way. Throughout my infancy, I ignored dolls. They bored me, and babies exasperated me. Someone crying because they were tired? Why didn't they just go to sleep then? How stupid was that?

There was also the physical pain of hearing baby shriek. It never was just a scream, babies could hit a point that hurt so badly I just needed to get away. And parents were ghastly selfish too; I recall a nightmare flight home on a plane full of babies and parents. Of course the pressure in the plane was too much for the ears of the little ones, and they hollered and shat and hollered some more. This at least I could understand, they were in pain and no-one could explain why or get rid of it. The parents changed the babies' nappies and the whole plane stank of excrement accompanied by high pitched screams, I was in tears. All I wanted to do was stand in front of each baby and SCREAM incoherently in rage at the pain in my head and the stench all around me, to grab a filthy nappy and rub the faeces all over the faces of the breeding demichimps. It took days for the headache to go away.

This was one of the nastiest physical situations I have ever suffered, and I speak as a woman who has had a naked flame applied to her nipple (Oh NHS, how you have fallen, Daystar!) The two experiences were easily on a par.

So often a happy mum has put her baby in my arms and waited for my melting moment, when I mist over and my eyes soften as I surrender finally saying 'Ooooh. I want one tooooo!' It's never happened, to their mortification. What about sides of the brain and instinctual nurturing, what about chemicals and hormones and oooh Being a Woman? I should care for babies, something deep within should be moving in tenderness cos I'm made that way. It's natural innit?

Afraid not. Nope, no chemicals, no flare ups in the brain, no hormones, no need, no biological clock ticking, no broodiness, no imperative, no interest. I'm a straight white European female human. I'm not an estrogen nexus needing motherhood to provide me with purpose. I'm not saying that this is always the case (having so many brilliant chums who are also great mothers, I would be foolish to make such a claim) but justification is something often refused women except in the great default of motherhood, beloved and approved, society's favoured place for the unfavoured gender. I suspect its potential as a path to false power and pressurised love.

As for babies, well, I am ready to try, as I am with any new acquaintance, but nothing is guaranteed. To me, that being is a person, and they may not like me or vice versa. New in the world, they deserve all the chances they can get. I'll always give what I can, because life is too tough for us not to be kind to one another. But that's as far as it goes.

And incredibly, my breasts are still here, my chin comparatively hairless, my gynie bits all present and correct. XX I am, XX I remain. It gives me possibilities, it doesn't make me goo.

Comments

I love this post!

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this post! I completely understand.

Speaking as someone who has always ignored dolls and always liked babies (at least in the abstract, and increasingly in the tangible) - I know that how I feel about the subject is personal and unique to me. Why on earth should anyone generalise that everyone else must feel this way? It's just silly.

I like babies, and kids, and I want them. But truly, the idea that that's natural to females, or even to humans, is quite absurd. I heartily applaud anyone's right to be child-free by intent, and I wish that they weren't continually prompted to offer some kind of justification or apology for not wanting any damned kids, thanks.

I have some moments of "Oh, please god, take your child out of this cinema/train carriage" but at the same time, children ARE people too. I get irritated by people who want to make the whole world split up into places with (women and)children and Other Places For Grown Ups(who are invariably childfree women and - funnily enough- men with and without kids). I should add that I don't for a moment think that's what you were saying, it's more that I think the things are linked up: women are expected to want children, or to at least pretend to apologise for not wanting them - but if one looks at how the 'possible' or 'pleasant' spaces to be in when you actually HAVE any children shrinks, it's no wonder to me that more women are saying "uhm, not for me." I want to have children, I don't want to be infantalised myself.

I absolutely loathe selfish parents who think their little darlings are being adorable when they're actually being toxic. But I do that splitting up public life into places with kids and places without kids damages children and makes grownups oddly isolated. A lot of the reasons that children are horrendous in public spaces stems from the fact that public spaces aren't comfortable for them, and yet sometimes (the plane is a good example, I suppose) they still have to use them. In my dreams, I imagine a world where public spaces are designed for people with disabilities, young people, and old people as much as able-bodied single people, so that things like changing tables are as easily available as things like loos. Heh, in my *dreams!*
I've begun to realise the extent to which access to somewhere to feed, change, and comfort your infant is a feminist issue of real importance. And you know what else is a feminist issue of real importance? The right to be child-free, and happy with it, and not bloody hassled by any sort of XX expectations. It's nonsense, and I disdain it. As much as I love this post! :)

Re: I love this post!

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

hmm, punctuation fail. "I disdain such nonsense as intensely as I love this post!" was what I meant.

Re: I love this post!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your thoughts!

It's an odd thing that larians pointed out to me in extremely baby friendly southern Spain; there were virtually no kiddy tantrums. The place was beset with children as though the Pied Piper had left Hamelin only to reappear in Granada, dumping all his hostages in the cafes under the mountains. The kids were clearly spoilt to death, and yet, no shrieking, no blubbering, just little people. Is this because they are just universally accepted?

Conversely, the plane really was like a circle of hell hitherto undescribed by Dante. I honestly think airlines could make money with journeys particularly catered to those travelling with infants. 'Babyair!'

Re: I love this post!

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

hell yeah! I mean, there's already PetAir over here! :)

I think there's something in the fact that societies which let their kids be part of public spaces have fewer kiddie nightmares. I've seen it too. Hmmn. This is only anecdotal, but I think that women who have kids and ALSO get to go to real, grownup, interesting places are less likely to speak only about their babies for five years. They're not sequestered, perhaps? Heh, I dunno.

And being an Aunt is, indeed, a wonderful thing. I think having a relationship my aunts has been wonderful, and I love having nephews and nieces. Have you read the Complete Book of Aunts?

The Complete Book of Aunts?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of such a book! It sounds glorious!

I am not sure about Mums becoming more interesting as they bring the kiddie orchestra (even one's a band!) to public places...don't get me wrong, based on Spanish evidence, it does seem to work. But sometimes it turns into a litany of society's crimes against babies:

Why doesn't this restaurant have high chairs? Baby portions? Pram access? A special changing room? Of course she's crying, there aren't enough toys in this baby corner! She just wants to be part of the conversation agagahahghghg there now, see? Oh she's drooling, sort of drooling spitting, oh! Oh, well you've got to laugh haven't you? let me wipe that off your plate...well of course she's screaming, she's teething and it really hurts and she can't tell anyone. Why is everyone leaving? You're looking pale, is that another one of your headaches? You should see a doctor about it. My GP's all right but they don't even put teletubbies on in the waiting rooms....

Nggggggggggggh!

Re: The Complete Book of Aunts?

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

yes, it is utterly delightful. I was moving bookshelves yesterday, re-found my copy, then had to sit down and read it for an hour!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/21/society

and your example of a mother in a public space with her baby is - well - a mother who can't stop talking about her baby. It sounds like a nightmare - I've been very lucky not to encounter any like that - but oh god it certainly happens.

Oddly, my mum, parent of three, nanny before that, and one of the most baby-obsessed people I know, remarks ALL the time on how she can't understand why 'the young' talk about their children all the time. She loves babies and children, but she has no desire to hear about someone else's at every given moment.
Needless to say, she is my role model in this. Plus, I suspect if I only had my child to talk about all the time, I'd get really, really bored.

Re: The Complete Book of Aunts?

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

argh, I must stop posting before I'm done thinking. What I meant to say is, I wonder out loud if mothers (and fathers, if they're the primary caregivers) would be less child-obsessed if it were easier to move around with a child. They'd spend less time complaining if, perhaps, it was easier. And if they could do it more, and therefore weren't stuck at home/in someone else's house, rehearsing their litanies of woe...

Bah, I make no sense. Back to restoration drama for me! But yes, check out the book, it's a delight and lovely present for Aunts You Know :)

Re: The Complete Book of Aunts?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

LOL! You make lots of sense! I'm afraid I have met lots of baby obsessed parents, especially mums. I can understand it to some extent; There must be a magic perilous and proud for the individual, to look down and see a real person emerge out of, well, possibly the most dangerous bowel movement in the world. True alchemy. Who or what will this being be? Sanguine, melancholy, gifted, rebellious? A new story, and one the parent may be living every day for years to come. Oh, I can understand it with my head. But my heart goes out to those mothers who feel themselves going slightly crackers and open their conversations with 'Just for once, can we talk about something that isn't a baby, even mine?'

Catch you after the Restoration:-)

Re: I love this post!

[larians.livejournal.com]

"I've begun to realise the extent to which access to somewhere to feed, change, and comfort your infant is a feminist issue of real importance."

Now you see my friend Bruce, uber dad extrordinaire, would disagree with you here. He complained to me bitterly on a number of occasions about how he had to change his son's nappy in the back of the car because the baby changing fascilities were in the women's toilets.

I would suggest that by describing it has a feminist issue that you are in danger of reinforcing the impression that baby caring duties are a woman's responsibility?

Re: I love this post!

[blackcurrants.livejournal.com]

aha! Happily, as both women and men are feminists, (just as men and women are parents) I think we're on safe ground. :D

See,saying something is a "feminist issue" doesn't mean it only pertains to/affects women. Quite the reverse. Access to contraception and abortion are feminist issues, and while unintended pregnancies primarily affect the women in whose bodies they happen, they affect a hell of a lot of men too. In fact pretty much everything about a patriarchal structure in which "women's work" has been undervalued and under/not paid for hundreds of years hurts men too. Ask a male nurse. Heck, ask a boy who wants to be a ballet dancer. Patriarchal structures of masculinity are no joke, they're properly messed up. And the part where men are expected NOT to care about their kids (or anything) is properly appalling. :)

So yes, "a feminist issue" isn't a "Women's issue" - it's something that feminists are motivated to do something about. it's a feminist issue in that we don't take childcare and children seriously because it's traditionally been 'women's work' and women haven't been treated as adults for all that long in our world (only owning their own property for 150 years, only voting for ninety, etc). Childcare isn't a "Woman thing" but agitating for the better access to people and places to help care for an infant is certainly a feminist issue.
My big brother (and brothers in law) would agree heartily with Bruce. This is one of the moments where male feminists / feminist allies can do a great deal, but making these points known.

Re: I love this post!

[sixtine.livejournal.com]

Happens all the time. It really pisses S off too. Children are a parental issue at worst and a societal issue in reality, not a feminist issue at all.

[squeezypaws.livejournal.com]

Well I am on the other side of the fence but totally respect your right to live child free and not be badgered for it. I still don't know what drives me to do it to be honest, nothing rational, that's for sure :)

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Hello Goddess-like Mum person!

Some people have it, some don't...I just get wound up by the expectation that it must be lurking within me. I am quite good Aunty material, but I can't be doing with this mothering lark!

[load-of-flannel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. See as I rant with you.

I am a man but Ive known several girls who understand you and have no desire to give birth.

One of the oddest things is that giving someone else your child shouldnt really make them want a baby at all. Possibly biologically as a male im likly to actually kill it or something.

I can buy into an inbred instinct over your own offspring, not someone elses. Behaving like its unatural when a female doesnt immeadiately think a baby is wonderful is just plain rude.

And whilst Im here its the way the majority of parents behave like society owes them a living.

I asked very nicely a gentleman to fold up his four wheel drive landrover buggy containing a baby on the bus because he was taking up 8 peoples standing room and blocking the isle. He was more than capable of holding his child. The torrent of abuse that followed was tantamount to what I believe I should have recived if ID announced I was a practising paedophile.

PLanes. The other thing is that the vast majority of children do not need to be on planes. Its ridiculous, now maybe just maybe you need to be on a long haul flight if youve got relatives. However if your going on 'holiday' with a 9 month old you should really have your parenting skills examined if you insist on flying the UK to OZ.

This is coupled with the gratuitous way the government encourages this behaviour and actively penalises couples who dont have children and single people. Have yourself a child get some benefits and tax allowance.... hold on.... Im less of a drain on teh state.... Im not producing any children, nor will I. Wheres my tax rebate?


And you know what else. Its perfectly possible to breast feed in public without actually displaying your breasts in public if you dont want to. I know four or five mothers who do it all the time.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

How typical! You heartless male!

I bet you get wound up when you see my 'baby on board' sign too. Try to get it through your left-hemisphere-using-logical-emotionally-dysfunctional-map reading-non-direction-asking-XY-addled-brain that even if signs like this started with a real purpose, its use now is to remind you of how much more important my car is than all the others on the road cos it has a baby in it, so if you were thinking of crashing into me and creating a blazing inferno, look at that sign and think again!

*Sob*

[load-of-flannel.livejournal.com]

Its true. I am a heartless male.

*grins*

You're so right about those signs...

[load-of-flannel.livejournal.com]

I also truly believe that people who have more than two children are extremly selfish and should absolutely not be congratulated on producing a child.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

See, that just shows how little you understand. Anyone would think factual documentaries like The Brady Bunch and The Waltons would have shown you the emotional health associated with big families.

[ravenrigan.livejournal.com]

Thank Heavens for the menopause! Now I can just explain that it's too late for me, and substitute withering pity for the saccharine gushing of evangelical pro baby sentiment, while neatly avoiding accusations of unnatural womanhood.

NO! I did not want them either. If anyone in my household is going to be expensive, spoilt, demanding and selfish, it's damned well going to be ME!

And Baby on Board Signs? An invitation to clean the gene pool of the drivers DNA for once and for all.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I could still do it, but won't, I recall one irate piece of jailbait giving me a bad time after I gave her a bad time re her child acting up at the flicks.

'You're a woman, you should understand,' she said, 'Only you're too selfish to have a baby.'

Too selfish and too worn out paying taxes so the state can sustain her, I pointed out. We nearly came to blows on the subject.

Babies - Hell no!

[sarahfeeney.livejournal.com]

Was entirely my thought for much of my 20s. I try not to thrust my small tiny offspring at anyone - not least of which I think it is incredibly insensitive cos no-one truly knows why someone is childless. It may be by choice or worse for the person some inability.

I agree totally about people yakking on interminably about their offspring. It riles me intensely. We had a woman at work who did it and I used to cringe inwardly when I worked with her.

I am totally upfront and honest in saying I love my offspring but I really like the 4 days a week I get to interact with grownups and be my own person who carries respect for their abilities rather than the fruit of their ovaries.

Currently I am rather dreading the small going to school and me just being designated as its mother. Goddam it I am human being too and relatively intelligent and able!

So to precis this - I think it is a person's choice. I am horrified by the baby mafia who think a woman is useless for not having a baby. That to my mind is ridiculous! Diversity - its the key and not everyone wants the same things - its like all of us liking milk chocolate when clearly dark is superior :D

Re: Babies - Hell no!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I am with you on diversity. I have no problems with people having kids and loving them, my issues begin with those who feel I should want them or I'm evil/unnatural/in denial, and the whole matter makes my blood boil when parents act in the most selfish ways expecting me to put up with it a) because they're parents and that makes them special and b) because I'm a womb and the deep craving I must have should make me more patient and understanding.

I am fortunate in that my current friends are so smart and understanding. But the baby mafia has definitely irritated me in its time - and I haven't been merciful in reply!

[greatbigshowoff.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this, I was beginning to think I was in a minority of one.

There are babies/children who I like (ok they are rare, but they are present). I suspect I like them because I have got to know them and they are now real people, in spite of being small and mostly incoherent, but then so is Dan Mac.

However I don't like babies and children in general. I see no need to produce any, except possibly because they'd be fascinating to experiment on and I suspect other people wouldn't feel that is healthy. However my biological clock has not rung, or even ticked as far as I can see, so why have one. What if you don't like it? You can't send it back.

But why should this be considered abnormal?

I'd also like a tax rebate if I'm not using 16+ years of education for something I have produced. You can pay it into the pension pot the government will have run out of by the time I'm due to retire.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Oh I like your style!

I too would appreciate that rebate. At the moment, the best thing I could do for my finances would be to get pregnant.

Maybe the plan is that we work hard enough to fund the great explosion of family need, and most of us die of exhaustion before pension time, while the remainder live on a pittance, keeping a few cherished valuables on a mantlepiece...nothing much, just enough for an under age offender to nick when he's ready.

I love contributing to our society.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

*smiles*
Nicely put. I recall sitting at a Wolf Event with you once when Kat came in with her baby and all the women went over and cooed. All the women save for you and me, that is. I remember how bloody awkward it felt, being expected to coo, yet feeling nothing. I also remember being very glad you were there so I wasn't the only one.

no chemicals, no flare ups in the brain, no hormones, no need, no biological clock ticking, no broodiness,

I've never had any of those either, so you're not alone in that.

Before you find that odd and confusing, I am pregnant because I want a child as a lifestyle choice rather than a hormonal need.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

It doesn't sound odd to me at all. I can understand someone having a baby as a lifestyle choice, I am a little uncomfortable with someone having a baby and then blaming that choice on nature loosening their brain cogs, and I have a mahor issue with someone thinking my gender makes me feel the same way too.

I remember reading a random lj once (not one of my friends) where someone was wittering on about how chemicals in her brain would one day make her broody. I was awestruck by the idea of a booze/drugs combo that could change your decision making facility so radically.

Re Kat, alas I barely recall the event let alone the baby - now that's more my kind of cocktail!

Looking forward to your company tomorrow:-)

[sixtine.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, it's one of the few topics I don't have a strong opinion about. I think the creation of life is just an incredible amazing miracle of science. That runs from amoebae up really. The creation of consciousness is even more incredible and the creation of self-awareness, individuality and personality blows my mind. It's simply amazing that your body can put a bunch of elements together in such a way that the end result is a person. How cool is that!

This has been confused by others in the past to think that I believe that we should all reproduce but quite simply, I couldn't care less.

I don't think it's selfish to have more than one, two, three, four, forty children. That's a very logical, clinical approach. I have to say, it's the way I felt throughout my twenties, before I had kids. You know, the drain on society blah, blah, blah. Those kids are the ones who are going to be looking after you in your dotage, paying taxes so that you can draw a pension or languish in some nursing home when you're too frail to wipe your own bum and everyone else you knew is dead. One of those kids will develop a cure for AIDS or cancer or MS, they'll populate Mars, they'll unite the world (yes, I know, they might also annihilate it).

Neither do I think it's selfish to not want children. I got a cat in my early twenties on a whim and spent the next month thinking 'oh, god, I can never go on holiday again' - the commitment mortified me. Kids are a somewhat bigger deal. Why should you want to make that commitment to another person if you don't feel the urge? I still have the cat 14 years later btw - he's my icon.

Quite frankly, what has either got to do with anyone other than the people who make the choice. I find it pretty distasteful that one person would judge another's choice to have or not to have kids. A society relies on all manner of people to survive.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who thinks it's a duty to reproduce but I've met many people who get angry about the expectation they believe society puts on them to do so.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Very interesting thoughts, thanks for this!

No-one's ever told me I 'ought' to reproduce. They just think I should want to. Funnily enough, on blackcurrants has provided a link on her lj to an article in the Daily Mail about the inherent strangeness/wrongness/dodginess of women who don't want babies. I don't read the Mail, but have often been the brunt of that same bafflement bordering on hostility shown towards women who aren't interested. One day I may write a post expressing my thoughts as to why such feeling exists.

I agree with what you say regarding individual choice as the core of a healthy society.

[load-of-flannel.livejournal.com]

"Quite frankly, what has either got to do with anyone other than the people who make the choice."

*thinks*

I'd say the world is a shared resource, it cannot support the Human population properly as it is. So its everything to do with everyone actually. So deciding to have more than a replacment nummber of children does affect me actually.

Nor do I understand why a Single person should pay more tax than someone who reproduces. Am I expected to pay for thefuture doctors and Aids curersw and so forth but the parents are not?

[sixtine.livejournal.com]

I'm not understanding why you think you pay more tax than someone who has children. I'm of the opinion that I pay as much tax as you. Basic rate at 20% and anything over £37,400 at 40%. My personal tax free allowance is the same as yours at £6,475 - you don't get freebies on income tax because you have children. Looking at my P60, I paid the hefty sum of £10,836 in PAYE last tax year. The father of my children paid his PAYE too, independently and calculated in the same way.

Enlighten me (genuine interest, no sarcasm).

I do expect you to pay for the AIDS curers etc but I don't believe you should pay more than parents.

The world is a shared resource in a utopian ideal but in reality it isn't at all. We operate in an inherently selfish world where countries rarely help each other in an altruistic way. The number of children required to sustain a population must vary wildy from country to country. Ironically, and very sadly, in 3rd world countries, they have higher mortality rates so have to have more children to sustain a living. Perhaps they should have fewer children and humanity would then die out in the areas with a hostile environment? That would be natural selection at work. On the flip side, here we can more than look after our population and child mortality is low. Should people in the UK have only the requisite number of children because people on the other side of the world don't have enough resources?

I can see where you're coming from, and I used to believe what you're saying, but I was more idealistic then and I believed in a global resource. In reality, I don't believe the argument hangs together at all.

[larians.livejournal.com]

re taxes and a quick scan of the HR Revenue and customs Website - please note I have no idea of what your personal circumstances are (nor do I wish to) and this is simply what is advertised as being on offer to all parents.

Firstly we ahve the Child Tax credit system that allows parent/s with an income of less than £58000 to claim a tax rebate, on a sliding scale dependent upon income.

Of course there is also child benefit which isn't a tax issue, just cash in hand of £1080 per year for the oldest child and £686 per year for each child there after. From what I have read this isn't means tested in any way and is available to all parents.

Then there is the child trust fund which involes every child being given £250 when born and another £250 when it reaches 7 years old (both amounts doubled if from a low income household) which are basically gifts from the state which the individual can not touch until they are 18, but at which point they can spend on what ever they like.

Personally speaking it is the final one that gets right up my nose (although tax credits for people earning over £50k per year seems questionable). I would fully support it were the money targetted at some sort of training or adult education, but it isn't, it is literally free cash.

[sixtine.livejournal.com]

I forgot the other bit....

What is a replacement number of children?

The obvious answer is 2 of course: 2 parents, 2 offspring. However, there are plenty of people who choose not to have kids, and there are plenty of children who die before they reproduce. That means the number must be more than 2.

I don't know what the average number of children a couple has is now, but I do recall that in the UK by the early 2000s it had dropped to about 1.6 - so definitely space in there for some people to have a generous spattering of offspring. No doubt the current stats are somewhere to be found on ONS. Our population continues to grow not because we are breeding too much but because we live too long.