Welcome to Litsy!

This was one of the best books I've read this year, and the best book I've ever read on the topic of being childfree. #2025Book32

Whenever I see some IVF mom coming past with one of those triple-strollers, I'm forced to jump out of the way because there's no room on the sidewalk and they stop for nobody. Then I allow myself a sigh of relief. I'm relieved because I'm not them. Lost the battle for the sidewalk, won the war for myself.

They pick and probe and when confronted with facts and reason they attack: we're selfish, immature, afraid of commitment, irresponsible and apparently pretty horrible people. We're not, and our reasons are just as valid as yours. You have kids because they make you happy. We don't because that makes us happy.

We look at yours and we know why.

We all know one or two inveterate breeders. In my case she's at the office. This mother of three is taking fertility treatment now because she wants twins. That is, two more kids on top of the three she has. Is it some kind of weird challenge? Did a relative just pop out twins? Has she always dreamed of it, is that the problem? These people seem to define themselves by how many kids they can produce. Is it an ego thing? Competiveness?...

Yes, I was a child once, as you keep reminding me, and an adolescent and a youth, and THAT qualifies me to comment on what they do.

I have my own idea of what my future should look like and it does not include a chalk-chewer growing into a moody adolescent then a disappointing adult.

It needs to become more socially acceptable to be childfree and proud. There's absolutely no excuse anymore for the breeders to pour scorn.

One blogger commented that a lot of women get angry when she tells them she's not especially sad that she happens to be infertile. She has come to terms with it. My problem is that THEY haven't. What gives them the right to be angry at her? Should she be miserable all the time because she can't have kids? Is infertility a sin she has to atone for? For some reason people think they are “allowed“ to get hysterical when they hear you are childfree...

“Well what about all the poor people who can't have kids?“
Jesus spare us, please.
This is nothing but pure intimidation. They're making it personal and trying to paint you to anyone who might be listening as heartless and insensitive. How will your procreating help the childless? There is no connection at all. Herein lies your trump card. If people want to adopt there is no shortage of orphans. Or maybe there is, but providing an orphan...

British comedian Rosin Conaty points out the double standard when it comes to dogs and children. A proudly childfree woman herself, she muses in her act on how people try to talk you out of having a pet, but not a child: you'll have to walk it, to feed it, to pick up its poop, we're told. Tell them you're thinking of having a kid though and nobody has the courage to point out that it too needs feeding, and craps itself and will demand from you...

Not so the tragedy that struck a zoo in Cincinatti only weeks earlier, for which I DO blame the parents. There, a three-year-old climbed into the gorilla pen and was seized by a large silverback. Fearful that the ape's rough play might injure or kill the boy, the park called in armed gamekeepers. Sadly, they missed and shot the gorilla. Gorillas are endangered, children are not. The gorilla's name was Harambe; nobody remembers the boy's.

Take down that damn Baby on Board sticker. Yeah we get it --it's supposed to warn other drivers in general and give a heads up to emergency rescue in an accident but, be honest with yourselves: just having it makes you think you're entitled to drive too fast, cut people off, park anywhere, refuse to give way and generally bully everyone around on the road, while they all have to suck it up because precious child is strapped in the back.

Restaurants that have instituted childfree policies, such as banning kids under a certain age, or banning them at certain times in the evening, have even reported an uptick in business. They've lost the noisy families, but it turns out those noisy families were driving away all the other customers, who have now returned in droves. So please, keep your kids at home while I'm eating out.

There has been increasing call for childfree restaurants and spaces in public. They've got an increasing backlash too, mostly from the Monster Mums Club, who just love to bitch and whine when they hear other people have no time for their sproglodytes.
On the popular website debate.org, the proposition that there should be childfree restaurants garnered a 95% approval rating. The problem is if you happen to meet one of those 5 percent against...

We wouldn't bring our dogs into a restaurant, so you shouldn't bring your kids in. Simple as that. People even have the nerve to bring them to beachside pubs late on a Saturday afternoon. If there's one place I should be able to get away from children, it is a BAR, people. What kind of parent are you anyway?

Studies have shown that career criminals score very low on self-restraint. They just can't stop hurting someone, grabbing something, going for that cheap, short-term buzz or looking for a quick payoff or gratification. By allowing little Ulysses to 'explore' the environment, make as much noise as he likes and break stuff, you're conditioning him for a life of crime. Perhaps those expensive home tutors and fancy wooden Euro-toys will ensure...

Though I can't tell you how to raise them, I am telling you how to present your snot-shovelers to the rest of us, because that affects us too. You probably can't avoid taking them out of the house entirely (if only), but you can at least make some effort to control them once outside.

(continued)...God forbid it falls down, which is when the wailing inevitably begins. The whole procession stops all those busy people out there getting up those stairs to lunch, the toilet, an appointment, or just wherever we want to go, until THEY'RE done. The whole world does not have to wait for you and your children. Teach them to use stairs at home, the same way you'd teach them potty. Or at least I'd hope that's where you'd do it. In...

At the lower end of the scale, parents can be found giving their children lessons in walking or in climbing stairs, blocking the thoroughfare for everyone else. I am at my most furious when trapped behind a mother and father with a child between them, one holding each hand as they slowly try to coax it upstairs in a mall or theater or a public square. The little crib-crapper smiles, drools, and staggers on unsteady stumps and...

Keep your tykes on a short leash. I do not mean figuratively. I applaud parents who use an actual leash, both for the child's safety and the public good. Your little angel is not an angel to the rest of us. Leash him up. And if you could muzzle him while you're at it that would be good too.

If you can't keep your little gluten-free trike jockey out of everyone's face then you need to be schooled. Dog owners would be berated for letting their mutts run amok and so should the owners of small children. Little Julius is not 'exploring' or 'experiencing freedom.' You have a yard for that.

If you can't control your kids out in public then they really shouldn't be out in public.

He was a quiet kid, so I guess he wasn't that bad, but children look best to me when they are not only quiet, but completely still and preferably asleep. Okay they look best to me when they're not in the room at all, but not moving comes a close second.

Even getting out of your sprigged-up dwelling can be a chore. Parents have to fill and lug around a ridiculously large and colorful bag of diapers, pacifiers, wipes, milk and Christ knows what else everywhere they go: getting kids to put on their shoes, stop crying, put down that toy, finish that meal and just get into the car is like coaxing a captured rhinoceros.

Indeed the noise the parents must make to control these little cyclones often equals or exceeds that of the children themselves and reinforces the cacophony that surrounds the very young in everything they do.

Even Santorini-- the pearl of the Cyclades-- boasts one childfree resort. I would have thought the entire island is childfree. There's literally nothing there for a kid to do unless they like good food and chillout lounges with dazzling sunsets. That such a place should be infested enough with carpet trolls that it needs to make a safe space for adults is a dark sign of the times indeed.

Bringing into my home a little monster who looks unattractive, cannot walk, feed or toilet itself and needs constant reassurance and encouragement just to perform basic tasks of survival is not my cup of tea. It might be yours, but I'm busy working, writing and traveling and not furthering an imaginary dynasty.

After all, we would never ask them why they had children-- that would actually be very rude. It would also be a stupid question. They had kids because they wanted them. I would hope that the obvious answer why not to have them is the same-- because we don't want them, but that's apparently too much of a mental leap for most people.

This is how the Cult of Children tells us we're different, we're wrong, and we're somehow anathema to their values. They don't want to live and let live-- they want to assimilate and brainwash like pod people. If they find someone they cannot bring into the fold, the response is to marginalize, vilify and ostracize. If you don't like kids there must be something wrong with you. But there are perfectly rational reasons for not wanting your own...

'You were a child once.' Thanks for the lesson in biology. Yes, I was a child. Know what? Though in some ways I enjoyed my childhood, in many others I didn't like being a child. I wanted to be an adult and have adult freedom. Yes, I was a child once and I'm done with it. It's behind me. It's so far behind me that I do not wish to reintroduce it into my world. I don't like the company of children any more than I'd want to be a child again.

The idea that children are the ultimate and defining responsibility is a very narrow interpretation indeed. There is plenty more an adult can do with her mind other than run around picking up toys off the floor and teaching a small person with an oversized head how to sit on a plastic dog bowl or walk in a straight line. That's great for those who adore kids, but to people like me it's simply not how I'd like to exercise my grey matter.

If you don't have kids, who are you being selfish towards? You cannot be 'selfish' to a non-existent, hypothetical booger-jockey who is not even a twinkle in your eye. It's not possible for someone to be 'selfish' in a bubble. There has to be another person who is disadvantaged by their lack of selflessness.

When you ask someone like me if we want kids and we say we don't that ought to be the end of it. You don't pursue or press or probe. That's my answer, my answer is my word and my word is final. You'll just have to suck it up.

(continued) What they've done is invalidate your choice by effectively saying you're not qualified to choose and taking the decision not to have kids from you and placing it squarely in the hands of their own group, who are then free to pass judgement: you are not one of us and you shall not procreate. Thanks, but I'd already come to that conclusion on my own.

'Well then you'd better not have kids then, if you dislike them so much!' That's the insidious concession they always give, that the punishment for not wanting kids is not to have any. You're now clearly not fit to be a parent (because you don't want one) so you are 'sentenced' to a life without children. Bravo. In this way the cult has not accepted your argument, though they may make a magnanimous show of conceding.

Then it crosses into confrontation. 'Don't you even like kids?' That's the danger signal. Because that's clearly the problem but in the presence of the cultists you never, never expose disbelief in the cult. That's when they really start to push back. But the truth is I don't like kids. I find them loud, dirty, annoying, and generally unpleasant company. Yes, I know you're offended, but some people don't like dogs, or foreigners (which is far...

Take someone who doesn't want kids and is actively planning for a future without and make them have kids because they might change their minds after the fact. Why take someone like me, who really does not enjoy the company of children and condemn him to a life in their company? Kids whose fathers don't want them don't turn out so great. Prisons are full of them. It's not just a gamble with my future, but that of child and of society.

Like any cult you only find out what the negative aspects are once you've been in a while. And like all cults they thrive on a degree of exclusion: those who don't want in must have some dire moral failing that disqualifies them anyway.

(continued) It is the very definition of the cliche, a labor of love: It's your dream to have a child and you're putting in the work. The failure rate for small businesses is about a third in the first 2 years and half in the first 5. The failure rate for special forces applicants is around 90%. That's a lot of lifelong dreams down the toilet whereas apart from an unlucky few, parenthood is fairly guaranteed for almost anyone ready for it, and...

The fact is you want children, you love them and so you put up with the hard work and inconvenience. If that's your goal it's worth the sacrifice. I get it. But it is not the same as getting up every day and going to a job you hate, with a mean boss, unforgiving customers and bullying colleagues, just to make ends meet. We cannot choose to forego that part of life if we want to eat.

They even have surveys where they ask kids what they think of current events: a quick Google search of 'children asked...' yields a page of titles such as, Children asked who God is, what they think of abortion, and what love means. I don't care what charming little answers they come up with because their opinions are irrelevant. They don't have fully matured minds yet. Next you'll be giving them the vote.

We're all told how wonderful babies are, what a “miracle“ they are-- as if any mammal cannot perform the “feat“ of natural reproduction.

Now, why are you so offended by that? Is it because people like me are different from you? I don't see the problem. Is it because you expect the world to accommodate you and your kids? You can't be that naive. Is it because you secretly regret having them? Oh, but I thought children were such a joy. That's it, isn't it? You resent me because I don't have to march to the beat of some pint-sized dictator's drumbeat.

I don't like them crying and I don't particularly want to hear them laughing either. I don't like them playing, the sound of their voices talking; I don't like to see them running in libraries or supermarket aisles; staggering about erratically in public places, arms flailing and eyes lolling; I don't like to see them fast asleep and drooling in a pushchair. I do not like your children. I cross the street when I see you coming with them.

Let's start by clearing the air. I don't like your kids. I don't like any kids. When people hear this they assume they can win us over, that their little angel is a cut above the rest and besides, even parents don't always like other people's kids, because they can be annoying even to those who love their own kids, right? So you think well, that might be true for children in general, but surely not YOURS. Sorry, I don't like YOUR kids.

At over forty I can comfortably announce I do not want children. I can be sure of it. If it were twenty years ago the wise aunt could roll her eyes and say, “You'll change your mind one day, dear.“ I have not. Moreover I have crafted a life and world around myself that is mostly devoid of the company of youngsters and I feel I am missing out on exactly nothing.

Victorian discipline held children should be seen and not heard. I prefer neither.

As I entered the front door, a young mother arrived with her brood in tow. I graciously let them go first--it's what we do where I come from--and though I dispute the idea that young parents should have right of way just because, I have long recognized it is far easier just to let them do what the hell they want. They will anyway. That's what the “Baby on Board“ stickers are for after all, isn't it? We're not fooled.