Why do some people think it’s perfectly acceptable to bring a toddler or baby into an adult-rated movie only to have them cry all the way through? Take that kid outside, please, if for no other reason than to avoid them being traumatized for life!
It’s Whiny Wednesday; time to get it all off your chest. What’s your gripe?
From the Daily Telegraph in the UK:
A prisoner is hoping to become the first man in Britain to father a child from behind bars after officials allowed him to enrol on an artificial insemination program. Scott Hurford is serving a 30-year sentence at HMP Wandsworth in London after he was caught with 250 amphetamine tablets in Thailand in 2005.
But since his incarceration, the 34-year-old has remained in contact with his Thai girlfriend of six years and the couple now hope to have a baby.
I’m very sorry that this man was locked up for dealing drugs to pay off his gambling debt. It’s unfortunate he chose Thailand with it’s stiff drug laws and ended up serving 30 years (although not in a Thai prison, luckily for him.) Maybe this was his first and last offense. Maybe he’s seen the error of his criminal ways. Maybe he’ll rehabilitate and get out in 2035 and be a model father to his 25 year-old offspring.
Then again, maybe he won’t.
If some people really didn’t ought to bring children into the world, I think that this couple qualifies hands down. What do you think?
Not long after we decided that we wouldn’t have children together, my husband and I needed a nice relaxing evening out and headed for the movies. We decided to see Up.
For those of you who missed it, Up is a light, funny Disney/Pixar movie about an old man and a boy scout who tie balloons to a house and float away to find paradise—at least according to the trailers. So, there’s no reason that two grown people should ball like a couple of babies through the entire thing, but that’s what my husband and I did. For those of you who have seen the movie, I’m sure you understand. Turns out this “kid’s” movie is much deeper than that. It’s all about lost opportunities, misunderstandings, and what constitutes a life of adventure.
It’s also about a couple who were never able to have children together. We were blindsided. At that time we were far more vulnerable than we realized having just been through five years of infertility and we just weren’t ready to have our lives paraded in front of us in the form of animated characters.
Sometimes, movies turn a mirror on our lives; sometimes they make us face our demons; and sometimes they show us a life we’re glad we passed up. That year, we chose to see Knocked Up and left feeling resentful. We opted not to see Juno or the ludicrous Baby Mama. Reading books like Jodi Picoult’s 19 Minutes makes me realize what a dicey game raising children can be and reconfirmed that I made a good decision. But Up caught me off guard and for a while it made me think that I could have had a different life and maybe it would have been good.
Which movies or books have made you question or reaffirm your decision to not have children? Leave a comment or hop onto a forum and let us know.
Every week I’ll be posting a Top Ten list, sometimes based on member polls, sometimes my own Top Ten, and sometimes a Letterman-like silly Top Ten, just for fun.
This week, I’m posting my Top 10 best things about not having children. Please hop over to the forums and add your own.
Top 10 best things about not having children:
10. Being able to fit the weekly groceries into two bags as opposed to two grocery carts.
9. Going to bed at 10:00 p.m. and sleep like the dead until morning, without anyone saying, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, there’s a monster under my bed.”
8. Not being able to name one single character from High School Musical, Cars, or Blue’s Clues.
7. Being able to have sex in my own bed without the risk of having to explain to anyone why daddy is giving mommy a funny massage.
6. Having a purse that contains only a cell phone, wallet and Chapstick—no snacks, wet wipes, scissors, diapers, Band-Aids, action figures, pacifiers, or half chewed candies.
5. Having an urge on Saturday night to go to some experimental theatre in LA and not having to worry about finding a babysitter, or rushing home because of a sudden fever.
4. Two weeks away from my 40th birthday and having only one grey hair.
3. Having a lifelong dream of hiking to Mt. Everest Base Camp and knowing that it still has a chance of coming true
2. Understanding that cheese, olives, and a really good bottle of Sauvignon Blanc is a perfectly acceptable dinner
1. Not having to worry about sending a human being out into the world and worrying if they’ll come back in one piece, or if they’ll grow up to be a serial killer, because genes only go so far.
What’s your top ten? Tell us.
After my gripe on this week’s Whiny Wednesday, I came across this post on the excellent Childless By Choice Project blog. It chronicled the backlash of criticism after Slate’s Dear Prudence suggested to a newly married couple that they rethink their decision to not have chidren rather than suggesting how to deal with the people who keep hounding them about their choice.
Say what?
When I recently told my OB/GYN that we had decided not to pursue fertility treatments and to remain childless instead, she told me that it wasn’t too late for me and that her friend had just had a baby at 45. Do people really not hear us when we tell them about the decisions we’ve agonized over? Do they not give us credit for having weighed the options and made the right decision for us, not them, not the future of the human race?
One reader, who has three children said:
Having said all that, people should (or should not) have children because it’s what they want to do, not because of the expectations of others.
People who choose not to have children have just as much right to that choice and the right not to be harassed by anyone, including parents and grandparents.
Amen! But another reader had this to say:
We are past that age where people are expecting us to have children. However, we still get people who think we will regret our decision, so at any age the decision to remain childfree is challenged or not seen as viable.
If we can’t change people’s point-of-view, or their need to express their opinions on how we choose to live our lives, maybe all we can do is go out into the world armed with an arsenal of snarky comebacks. It’s just a suggestion.
Why is that people have no problem asking, “So, why don’t you have kids,” or “How come you don’t like children?” or “Don’t you think not having kids is selfish?”
Imagine if mothers were asked the inverse. “So, why do you have kids?” “How come you like children?” or “Don’t you think having kids is selfish?”
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s your gripe?
Kudos to Alexandra Paul for taking a stand in her Huffington Post article Married, Without Children (February 17, 2010). It takes a lot of courage to tell people you aren’t going to have children, whether by choice or by circumstance. We live in a society that expects women to reproduce and most people still struggle with the idea that someone would decide not follow the road most traveled.
Anyone without children can only imagine the conversations Ms. Paul had with those people who enquired about her reproductive plans. We all have our own horror stories. What’s the most inappropriate thing someone has said to you when you’ve told them that you don’t have or plan to have children?
“Well, you didn’t exactly choose not to have children, did you?”
While no one has actually said this to me yet, I know it’s just a matter of time. As you’re probably well aware, when it comes to the subject of motherhood, and especially non-motherhood, people are generally vocal about their opinions and not always tactful.
In one respect those people would be right. Having children was always my plan for as long as I can remember, but in my teens I chose not to have children by practicing the safe sex tactics that had been drilled into me by sex education programs, friends’ dire warnings, and starling stories in teen magazines—that and a healthy smattering of blind dumb luck. In my 20s I chose a career over motherhood; there was a great big world and a great big me to explore before I settled down into the role of mother. In my 30s I was ready, but a suitable mate wasn’t available and I didn’t have the means or the guts to do it alone. Finally, in my mid 30s, I met Mr. Fabulous and set out to become a mother. But Mother Nature had other plans for me and I apparently wasn’t meant to have a child easily or naturally. So in that respect, it wasn’t that I didn’t choose motherhood, more that motherhood didn’t choose me. But as I once read in one of the many books about trying to conceive, “there’s no such thing as infertility,” and I think that’s true for the majority of women. With enough medical intervention, sufficient high-powered drugs, enough attempts, and sufficient money to do them all, motherhood is an option for almost every woman.
But here’s where I made my choice. I chose not to pump my body full of drugs; I chose not to hire someone to produce a baby for me; and most of all, I chose not to sacrifice my marriage for the sake of an endless quest for motherhood. I made a choice and I’m living, quite happily, with that decision
What choice did you make? Leave a comment or join in on a forum and let us know what you think?
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