Word Up, Sister!

The breeding fad has been around for too long, and it needs to stop.  You people are doing this for the wrong reasons.  You don’t have children due solely to the urge to love, take care of, and raise a child with dignity and respect.  You are having children for the worst reasons imaginable, and none of you have the presence of mind to think about why you want this baby so badly. (I have found it is usually along the lines of “Gee, honey what would a child of ours look like?  Let’s find out.”)   

Accidental babies.  “Oops, I’m pregnant.  Abortion is murder.  So, I’ll just keep it.”  First of all abortion is NOT murder.  Consider it a man-made tier of natural selection.  It is healthy and necessary.  Think of it as removing a tumor, only with a fetus you don’t have to undergo chemo therapy afterward.  Yes, it is hard to do, but so is raising a child if you aren’t ready or prepared to do so.   Speaking personally here… I am one of the accidental children and it was horrifying.  My mother had me at the tender age of 16.  On several occasions thru life, my mother would get very drunk, and sternly informed me that I was an accident, and that my life was the utter ruin of hers.  She married my drunken father, due to her pregnancy and hasn’t forgiven me since.  I know damn good and well that it isn’t my fault… now.  But these things are traumatizing to hear at age 7 and 9 and 14 and 15.  She’s a good woman, but she was never suited to be a parent.  Women who are not prepared for pregnancy are not prepared for motherhood. Simple fact.  Maternal instincts are a myth.  If you are “suited” to motherhood then you are suited for it.  But don’t hold your breath and hope for the love of poopie diapers and high pitched screaming to overtake you in a wave of ecstacy.  It will never happen.   

Worse yet, some kids are born to women who can’t find stability in any other relationship.  If they are pregnant, they’ll often rationalize it with “at least a baby will love me forever.”  That is an incredible and unfair weight to put upon the shoulders of a newborn baby.  Shame on you!  Get a hamster!  A baby is completely controllable and has no opinions of its own… temporarily.  What will you do when they get older, you have to learn enough social skills to keep up with them?  When you want to live a life, wide in variety and freedom, what will you tell your child?  Remember your parents?  So, do you recall the unfair expectations that they laid upon you during your tender years?  Or perhaps you fondly remember their exceptional neglect due to an interest in other things?  They were put under the same pressures as you, learn from their mistakes.  

Here’s a good one.  “My mother wants me to have kids.”  “My mother wants me to get married… to a man.”  I was raised to have the utmost respect for mothers.  Particularly those who are old enough to be my mother.  However, your mother had her shot at breeding.  She can’t tell you what to wear anymore (and if she can, seek help).  She shouldn’t be telling you when to breed, nor that you even have to in the first place.  That is your decision!  Stand up for yourself.  Be an adult.  You don’t have to have children if you don’t want to.

 Let me break things down for you: Babies are cute sometimes.  This a defense mechanism provided by nature, nothing more.  One baby is just like another.  It is not a precious and individual snowflake.  It’s a yowling larvae sack!   

Giving birth is not a “miracle”.  Pregnancy is a chemical reaction and should be treated as such.  A + B = Fetus.  It was perhaps referred to as a miracle back in the days when people did not realize that sex and pregnancy had anything to do with each other.  Women just brought forth life in those days without obvious cause or warning.  But now a days we are well aware of the cause and effects, yet the “miracle” is spreading like the plague.   Producing offspring will not… I repeat… WILL NOT make your life “all better”.  It won’t make your life “complete”.  It won’t heal your marriage.  It won’t stop your husband from screwing around.  It won’t make you more attractive nor cure your menstrual issues.  And that “passing down the family name crap” lost any meaning centuries ago, and it only ever had meaning to men (the selfish bastards)! It won’t provide you with someone who’ll care for you when you’re old.   It won’t even provide you with a guaranteed Mother’s Day gift every year.  These are lies and myths that you have been spoon fed from birth.  The moment your mother had you she started training you for making babies! Children have been reduced to vanity projects.  Happy to break it to ya, but you can get more love and fulfillment from pet store!  Get a cat or a hobby!  Volunteer at a Woman’s shelter.  Help raise money for Cancer survivors without insurance.  Take some pride in yourself instead of expecting a spit-gargling meat sack to fulfill all of your hopes and dreams with their mere existence.   

Adoption.  Now that is a time worthy endeavor.  There are millions of children that have no one to care for them, with the exception of a government clerk that isn’t really required to “care”.   I have asked people time and time again why they have given birth to children instead of adopting.  I am often given half hearted excuses about there being couples out there that can’t have children and blah blah blah. This is utter bullshit.  There aren’t enough non-breeding couples to house these helpless children.  If there were, enough childless couples, foster care wouldn’t be such a nightmare.  But it is. 

Others who favor childbirth, do so because they feel that a child won’t mean anything to them unless it shares their bloodline.  This line of thinking makes no sense to me.  If this is such a problem, then perhaps you shouldn’t strive for children at all…just a suggestion.  

  My reasoning for advocating adoption is that if you adopt you have to really want it. You have to jump through hoops of fire and fill out paperwork and be completely committed to the pursuit of a child. Instead of, just realizing you’re pregnant one day and hoping that it turns out for the best. Therefore, using a baby as a vain attempt to permanently commemorate a beautiful loving and magical relationship that “mysteriously” breaks up once the child is born and reality officially sets in. No relationships are permanent. Only the effects are. I personally would rather tattoo my boyfriends name on my forehead then have a child with him. The former destroys fewer lives than the latter.

Bottom line.  There is no reason to give birth.  Pure and simple. If you want a baby so badly, you should pursue an avenue that has some dignity.  Adopt a child, they are the ones that really need your love and care.    

  Abortion.  Along with popular belief I am all for it!  I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago (inspiring this little rant) and it said “How can you say there are too many children? That’s like saying there are too many flowers.”  Honetly!  I followed this woman until she parked and then asked her if she pulled dandelions and other weeds from her garden!  What are dandelions?  Unwanted flowers!     So, morale of the rant boils down to; be an adult and don’t breed.  Adopt a child or get a pet.  Educate our young women on the “miracle” with a lot more facts and less biased toward breeding.  Make birth control and condoms available for anyone who is physically able to use it!  Make abortion legal in all 50 states and keep it that way until we actually have some reason to give birth again.  Stop reducing our gender to the role of “baby factory” and have some self respect.  Thank you!

My mother was very young when I was born.  She was so young that returning from maternity leave meant looking for her first job.  As a stout, though, graceful woman she easily acquired a position working with the elderly at a local nursing home.  It was so local, in fact, that she could look out the back window of our apartment and see it quite clearly.  It always seemed to loom at the top of the hill, eyeing us like a watchful parent.  Mom quite quickly began to resent this closeness, but compromised by keeping those particular curtains closed a large portion of the time. 

Working with the elderly is an emotionally and physically tiresome, thankless job, but it is a way for a woman to support herself.  And my mother was glad to have the paycheck, therefore enthusiastic about her job. 

A few days into the job, she was bee bopping down the halls recording blood pressures and temperatures.  Just as she was leaving room 24 she noticed a nicely dressed man striding down the hallway.  The fellow strolled up to her and asked for the whereabouts of his father.  She recognized who the man is talking about, so she picks her jaw up off of the floor and escorts him to the room of Daddy Warbucks. 

Now Daddy Warbucks got his nickname upon arriving at the nursing home several years before.  At this point, my mother hadn’t heard his real name enough to be able to remember it.  So, when we talk about it we just call him Daddy Warbucks.  He was a man of considerable age, but always polite and pleasant with the staff.  He quickly became a favorite resident for many of the women walking the halls, including my mother. 

When they reached the room, my mother found quite a surprise.  Now, she had not yet ever seen a dead body before, but she could tell from across the room that Daddy Warbucks was stone, cold dead.  The man following her, however, seemed to have no inkling that things were off.  He breezed past her and sat in the chair next to poor, dead Daddy Warbucks.

 “How have you been, Papa?  It’s so good to see you!” the man said with a bit of glee in his tone as if no one in the room were dead.  Shocked down to her toes my mother goes to excuse herself, but the visitor called behind her. “Excuse me, Ma’am?  Papa seems to be a bit cold, could you find him a sweater or something.”  Without missing a beat, she hops over to the closet and grabs one of Daddy Warbuck’s favorite sweaters.  Doing everything that she can to act natural, she squirms with the body’s stiff arms and joints to work the sweater into a suitable position, meanwhile talking to him.

 “Gee, Daddy Warbucks, I bet you are really glad to see your son.  How long has it been now?” 

The son noticing his father’s silence pipes up “I know it’s been quite a while, perhaps even a year since I last came to visit.  But you know how life can be.” 

My mother trying to save the moment says, “Oh, but he seems so happy to see you!” 

“Yeah.”  The son seemed comforted with that somehow. 

By the time my mother had securely fastened the sweater on this man, the son seemed to be content with the visit.  He stood up, gave his father a hug, thanked my mother for her hospitality, and casually walked out the door as though he had done a good deed for all of humanity by spending 3 minutes with his father. 

My mother, still a bit befuddled, ran to the nurse’s station hollering “Daddy Warbucks is dead…and I just put a sweater on him…”

Though the direct confrontation with death was a regular part of the job, my mother eventually got the hang of things and as of this day has never changed her chosen profession.