Joe O’Connor: "Trend of couples not having children just plain selfish"

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/19/joe-oconnor-selfishness-behind-growing-trend-for-couples-to-not-have-children/

Here we go again - we are selfish and "who will take care of you in your old age?"

FFS - SO bloody damn sick of that boring old line!!

We're "selfish" because we aren't following the same life script as pahrunts. Since when should I have to follow anybody else's example? I also have a fortune taken out of each of my paychecks to supplement all these welfare moos who want to spend what money they might work for on bullshit, but I'm the one who's selfish. As far as the who will take care of you in your old age line, gimmie a fucking break I work in a damn nursing home and only 3 residents have family that work there, so where are the families of all the other residents? :headbrick

Talk about projecting their fears onto us! First of all, with the number of defectos and tards they're popping out of their busted crotches, many - if not most of these kyds are going to end up as resource-suckers their entire lives anyway.

Also, how much of CF tax money goes towards all these childed causes? Why don't they ever take THAT into consideration?

As for selfish? Nobody is more selfish than a breeder. They only think about what they want initially, but when they end up miserable for their choices, they want to make everyone else feel like the selfish ones.

Who are the ones sucking up resources and consuming more than anyone? Breeders.
Who are the ones using WIC and Welfare more than anyone? Breeders.
Who are the ones dying in rest-homes while their kyds wait to bury them and collect the inheritances? Breeders.
Who are the ones who are the absolute worst hazard to the environment? Breeders.
Who neglect / abuse / kill their kyds when they are no longer wanted? Breeders.

Calling a CF person selfish for their choice is moot; a breeder is just as selfish, if not moreso than us. At least we aren't bringing an entirely new human onto the planet to fulfill OUR selfish wishes.

I fucking hate them. This article is pure stupidity from beginning to end, and it's a wonder it was even published!

ETA: It is often UnChilded people who spend more money and volunteer more time with charitable causes, because they see a need to help others. Breeders are too busy feeling superior to everyone, and caring for their own stupid spawn to give a damn about the rest of the world. They hardly even care about their own children, except for what their children can do for them.

Breeders suck ass - they know it, they just choose to villify us to remove the burden of guilt from their own shoulders.

I hate the implied assumption in that article that all CFers are vain, shallow people who are otherwise lacking emotionally.

Joe O'Connor: FUCK. YOU. I would much rather take volunteering at my local SPCA than a fucking latte and a personal trainer. I DON'T CARE IF I LOOK LIKE A SCHLUB, if it means that I have intellect, hobbies, and the ability to take care of my kitties unconditionally. The measure in my life has always been the things that I've accomplished, and how much I've been able to do the things that I love. So sorry that the traditional birfin' Lifescript wasn't one of those things.

Dinglenozzle.

Joe O'Connor can call me selfish when autardism, mental illness, alchoholism, and Down Syndrome run in his family. He can also call me selfish when he understands child abuse, poverty, hopelessness and how hard it really is to break that cycle. He can call me selfish when his parents obviously didn't give two shits about wether he lived or died. This ass wipe can call me selfish when he gets pregnant and gives birth. Until then I am going to give him a not so nice finger gesture and enjoy my life the way it is. I will now get back to enjoying my pets, liquor and unravaged cooter. I can enjoy having my husband's undivided attention while I'm at it.


To Joe O'Connor: Fuck you with a rusty chainsaw. I don't normally use this emoticon but I think it highly fitting in your case.

Dear Joe O'Connor
It's pretty obvious you hate your life. You know you've made shitty choices and now you regret them. But instead of admitting it, you project your misery onto others. We didn't ask you to fuck without protection.
Please go parent your kids instead of writing shit articles. I mean, since being a paaaarent makes you so unselfish and all.

Hi everyone:

I've been following your board awhile, and enjoyed what I've read, but haven't posted until now. Here in Canada we just got the census results breaking down how families live...and it is now revealed that many more of us live common law than married, and a larger number of us are childfree and live alone. That prompted the National Post's Joe O'Connor to write an editorial in the paper "complaining" that we childfree people are "selfish" for not having kids. But the tone of the article is so over the top, by the time you get to the end of it, you're thinking, "hey, this being selfish/childfree is a great thing!" Tell me what you think:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/19/joe-oconnor-selfishness-behind-growing-trend-for-couples-to-not-have-children/

Some samples:

"Imagine a scenario where, on a Friday night, after running around like a beheaded chicken at work all week you get home, smooch the person you love, grab a glass of wine and enjoy the silence, the blissful quietude of being a committed and adoring couple — without kids.
For harried couples, it is a fantasy we might indulge in with our partner or spouse before our little darlings jolt us back to Planet Parent with their runny noses to wipe, hockey practices to get to and homework assignments to help with. But for a significant number of Canadian couples the daydream is just another day in their no-strings and no-brats life. Canada’s latest batch of 2011 census numbers was released Wednesday and revealed that 44.5% of couples are “without children” compared to 39.2% with children."

“The benefits of not having children are in the driveway, in our closet and stamped on our passports,” Ms. Zeniuk told Postmedia reporter Misty Harris. “Kids are expensive. And the marriage mortality rate is huge, without the added pressure of financing a child through its life.”

“The childless couple lives in a vacuum,” she wrote. “They try to fill their lonely lives with dinner dates, theatre, golf, tennis, swimming, civic affairs and trips all over the world….See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested. She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they had kids, they’d look like the rest of us — tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard."

LOL. Schadenfreude is wonderful, isn't it?

Arielle

Macleans ran an article about the Canadian Census and what Canadian couples look like-- one of the remarks were on how childless couples now outrank couples with children. I was waiting for someone to pick up on that data and write a rant about it.

I can't figure out if the guy is trying to be satirical or if he is just plain stupid. He makes having children look like the worst choice on earth:

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Stupid Breeder
In Canada, a new normal could be on the rise, a great divide where, standing on one side will be the old guard — the haggard, the proud, the poor-looking schleps with their baby strollers and shrieking brats — while on the other will be childless twosomes, sipping their lattes and skipping off to a 10:15 a.m. appointment with their personal trainer.

Then he follow it up with this gem:

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Stupid Breeder
What will it mean, for us, as a nation? What could be lost? And what will become of those trim, fit and fat-free-yogurt loving folks when decrepitude inevitably creeps in; when they age, as we all inevitably do, and the children they chose not to have aren’t around to look after them?

We're selfish because we don't want chyldruuun yet he is not, even though he brought chyld care taker into the world to wipe his ass when he is 90? Please. One of the many, many reasons why I chose not to sprog was because I can save money so that when I retire I can take care of my own ancient ass.

A lot of the comments were blasting him. Hard to find readers that support your opinion piece when it is in opposition to the lifestyle choice 44.5% of your country has made. I miss Canada.

Er...?

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,242882

Maybe these can be merged or something? Dunno how that works.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


“The childless couple lives in a vacuum,” she wrote. “They try to fill their lonely lives with dinner dates, theatre, golf, tennis, swimming, civic affairs and trips all over the world….See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested. She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they had kids, they’d look like the rest of us — tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard."

Oh God! *moans* I am SO empty! My volunteer time in third World country leave an aching gap in the middle of me! Woe is me! How can I live with an interesting career, book time, and the idea for a new degree to embetter my education! I am so hollow and suffering for that! I SO wish to be like the breeeders, tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard! *more moans*

:bawl larious

This man is SO jelous I can smell it in the other side of the Atlantic! larious

And, Arielle, you are Welcome! :1welcome

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

Spewed Forth from the Pie hole of a Bastard Breeder:d

Imagine a scenario where, on a Friday night, after running around like a beheaded chicken at work all week you get home, smooch the person you love, grab a glass of wine and enjoy the silence, the blissful quietude of being a committed and adoring couple — without kids. We don't have to imagine it because it's our lives.

For harried couples, it is a fantasy we might indulge in with our partner or spouse before our little darlings jolt us back to Planet Parent with their runny noses to wipe, hockey practices to get to and homework assignments to help with. I might remind you it's the life you CHOSE and also, early on with your verbiage and general tone you sound incredibly resentful and envious.

But for a significant number of Canadian couples the daydream is just another day in their no-strings and no-brats life. Canada’s latest batch of 2011 census numbers was released Wednesday and revealed that 44.5% of couples are “without children” compared to 39.2% with children. What about the other 15% of couples? Those numbers don't even add up, which makes this statistic suspect.:BS

So, there is that. But there is also this: a Canada where one in five women will not have a child in their lifetime, whether by choice or circumstance. So, are you going to berate childless women too and lump them into the category of those who don't have kids by choice? How many men won't be siring kids? What a cock sucker, this one. "Circumstance" could cover an awful lot of ground too such as they have a terminal illness, genetic defects they don't want to pass down, have chosen to adopt instead, have never married, are in a celibate career like a nun, or any other number of reasons besides the hated they just don't WANT kids.:headbrick

“In a sense we have a reduction of the overall number of children people are having, which is a continuation of something that has been going on since the 1970s,” says Kevin McQuillan, a sociologist at the University of Calgary. “But there is also a turning away by couples from having children, period.” And judging by their own statistics of only 1 in 5, it isn't NEARLY enough!down

Having children used to be the point of being a pair. It was the great aspiration — along with finding love everlasting — a biological impulse to go forth and multiply and, later, once your babies reached a certain age, to cajole them about the merits and benefits of doing their bit to join the ranks of parenthood while giving Mom and Dad some grandkids. I don't think "being a pair" has ever been the original reason people formed coupled unions. Even Adam and Eve were perfectly happy before Eve got cursed and started shitting loaves. They didn't even know about kids until after the apple got eaten. It NEVER crossed my mind to spawn to give anyone grand kids, ever. "Cajoling" older kids to spawn? "love everlasting", "great aspiration?". This man is a walking BINGO card!

No more. Gone are diaper changes and ballet classes, replaced by hot yoga and shopping trips to New York City. Monica Zeniuk belongs to Babes without Babes, an Edmonton social club for child-free women. She and her husband have been married for 18 years. This man just oozes envy with all his stereotypical ideas of the childfree

“The benefits of not having children are in the driveway, in our closet and stamped on our passports,” Ms. Zeniuk told Postmedia reporter Misty Harris. “Kids are expensive. And the marriage mortality rate is huge, without the added pressure of financing a child through its life.” What she forgot to mention was how our kids can break our hearts. Is that suppose to sweeten the pot?

Studies have revealed that there is a mismatch between the messaging we receive about parenting, about how sweet it is — with its inherent emotional rewards — and the reality of the mayhem-ridden slog many moms and dads face when wrangling their brood. Yeah, a boring variation of the bingo, "It's all worth it!"

Gone are diaper changes and ballet classes, replaced by hot yoga and shopping trips to New York City
Indeed, there are more finite calculations involved: Career demands. Timing. Not having a partner, or not having the right partner. Flaky fears about overburdening our already overburdened planet, personal choice and a bunch of other hooey that serve to hide the fact that happy couples that choose not to have kids are, at root, well, let’s see: selfish. I get SO SICK of that "selfish" bingo when breeders are THE MOST SELFISH people on the planet:headbrick

Eppie Lederer, aka Ann Landers, the American doyenne of advice columns, addressed the couples without kids phenomenon a generation ago, penning a piece lovingly entitled: the Musings of a Good Father on a Bad Day.
It features dear old dad, peering out at the world, peering into the lives of a pair of hipsters dancing through life, unburdened by kids.“The childless couple lives in a vacuum,” she wrote. “They try to fill their lonely lives with dinner dates, theatre, golf, tennis, swimming, civic affairs and trips all over the world….Keep kidding yourself that by living the life we choose to live we are trying to fill our lonely lives! WE CAN SPAWN IF WE WANT TO!!!!! I wish they'd come to understand that! There's no medical reason I couldn't squat a loaf now with a little help from a fertility drug or two and I am almost 50. I have NOT "changed my mind!" I have no regrets and do NOT want kids, still! My life isn't lonely, empty, or in need of any "voids" to be filled!

“See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested. She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn’t natural. If they had kids, they’d look like the rest of us — tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard.“In other words: normal.”
No, in those same words; Tired, gray, wrinkled, and haggard. I see nothing desirable or "normal" about that! To me, that sounds like a curse rather than a blessing!

In Canada, a new normal could be on the rise, a great divide where, standing on one side will be the old guard — the haggard, the proud, the poor-looking schleps with their baby strollers and shrieking brats — while on the other will be childless twosomes, sipping their lattes and skipping off to a 10:15 a.m. appointment with their personal trainer.
What will it mean, for us, as a nation? What could be lost? And what will become of those trim, fit and fat-free-yogurt loving folks when decrepitude inevitably creeps in; when they age, as we all inevitably do, and the children they chose not to have aren’t around to look after them? The old, "Who will take care of you in your old age?" bingo. This is perhaps THE MOST selfish reason of all to have children. I don't WANT to disrupt someone's life to "take care" of me! I thought they were supposed to love these kids? No, I'll just let paid health care workers take care of me, JUST LIKE breeders will. Few people take their parents in to care for them in their old age anymore when there are home health agencies, nursing or rehab homes, and modern medicine is helping the elderly continue to live on their own for much longer. I have a 92 y/o grandmother who still lives in her own home and doesn't require anyone to look after her and another, 93, who only recently moved in with my uncle BUT it was a joint decision and she paid to have a small wing added onto their house and has home health care come out 5 days a week.

The old days of "taking care of me when I am old" have pretty much gone by the wayside because the need is no longer there, at least in The United States. I know some people still move back in with their kids,, but it's generally a joint decision and what's best for both in one or more ways, at least in my experience. This is no different from helping out ANY ailing family member which I would gladly do if I was able and in a position to do so as would either of my sisters, KIDS or not. Breeding, FOR ME, doesn't enter into the decision or equation to help out family.

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

Geez. What a tool. eyes2

What logical, thinking person would want to breed after reading the descriptions that these people give of life with children?

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with their runny noses to wipe, hockey practices to get to and homework assignments to help with.

NO thanks.

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join the ranks of parenthood while giving Mom and Dad some grandkids.

Mom and Dad can go f* themselves.

Quote

diaper changes and ballet classes

I get enough feces from my animals and if I want to then I can take up ballet again.

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If they had kids, they’d look like the rest of us — tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard.

Aw, someone sounds JEALOUS!!

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the haggard, the proud, the poor-looking schleps with their baby strollers and shrieking brats

NO. NO. And just, NO!


Oh, and I guess I should feel guilty about being slim and eating fat-free yogurt? Yeah, Mr. O'Connor, you can go F* YOURSELF!

sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken
indecision may or may not be my problem

I suddendly had an epiphany. The article looks like what a zombie would say to make you join the zombie army, too (granted that a zombie had enough, you know, intellect, to do so)

"You too can be green, slimy and decaying! Why should you be alive and healthy and happy when you can join in the Undeath Brotherhood? BRAIN BRAIN BRAAAINNNN" larious

_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

So, he spits the "who'll take care of you when you are old" bingo and then calls us selfish?

Breeder logic at its finest.

Lattes - I prefer a good old fashioned cup of coffee. And lets see, who here has a personal trainer?

He thinks all CF people are rich. And he's jealous. All the more reason to tax us to death.

Oh, got to go, my limo has arrived.

Riiiight. And having kids for the purpose of having someone to take care of you in your old age is so totally not selfish.
Come back and talk to me when you're wasting away in a nursing home wondering why your kids don't visit.

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Indeed, there are more finite calculations involved: Career demands. Timing. Not having a partner, or not having the right partner. Flaky fears about overburdening our already overburdened planet, personal choice and a bunch of other hooey that serve to hide the fact that happy couples that choose not to have kids are, at root, well, let’s see: selfish.

It's hard to know what to say. Overpopulation, the environment, and this whole idea of "personal choice" - all irrelevent hogwash. This guy is truly sad and pathetic. It does almost sound like a sarcastic joke, it's hard to tell anymore with all the extremists and crazies out there that are being given a voice.

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Snark Shark
""You too can be green, slimy and decaying! Why should you be alive and healthy and happy when you can join in the Undeath Brotherhood? BRAIN BRAIN BRAAAINNNN" "

BRAINS! BRAINS!

THE MUSICAL FOOD!

THE MORE YOU EAT,

THE MORE YOU...

GRRR!!!! ARG!!!! RAWR!!!!!

BABY! BABY!

SOUL-EATING GRUBS!

THE MORE YOU HAVE

THE MORE YOU...

GRRR!!!! ARG!!!! RAWR!!!!!



_______________________

“I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her -- a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit -- and prattling away in a baby's voice.”


― Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove


lib'-er-ty: the freedom given to you to make the wrong decision, based on the reasoned belief that you will normally make the right one.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/29/joe-oconnor-canadas-current-baby-blip-wont-save-us-from-skyrocketing-health-care-costs/

Another bs article from Joe Blow the BreederBoy. He's even complaining about more loaves because it's just a breeder blip(?) and he wants chronic breeding to save Canada.

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There is more at play here, though, a deeper societal shift, a reawakening of a yearning to go forth and multiply. It ebbed away in the 1960s when women joined the workforce in ever-greater numbers, the cost of living increased and family photos featuring three or four or more kids became the preserve of the rich and the nanny-supported, or poorer immigrant families bound by custom and kept afloat by social welfare.

“Women were doing more paid work, so they didn’t have time to have children,” Roderic Beaujot, a demographer at the University of Western Ontario, said. “Having children has become more positive.”

And practical. Things like parental leave, $7-a-day daycares in Quebec, RESPs and the Universal Child Care Benefit have softened the economic blow of feeding a growing brood. Another factor is the changing nature of work.

“With the way that technology is advancing, it is increasingly easy to seek out alternative work arrangements like working from home, starting your own online business, and so on,” says Amber Strocel, a Vancouver-based writer/Mommy blogger. “With more flexibility around work-life balance, it becomes easier to have children. The same technology also makes it easier to stay connected with friends and family, which means a better support network.

“That also makes it easier to have children.”

Yes, so if you don't take all the freebies and breed you are SELFISH.

I can't speak on Canadian issues, but here in America, I hope there is a similar trend. Aside from all the other reasons, consider the fact that the college-aged are going into massive debt to pay for school and it will be a good 20 years before they can get their heads above water, unless they get lucky with a high-paying job or win the lottery or something. I mean, we'll have a hard time being approved to purchase a home because of the loans. Adding a kid into the mix ensures lifelong debt. And then you have to send that kid to college...

Post-undergrad loan debt is one of many reasons as to why my sister and I won't have kids.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

Joe Blow Breeder can go fuck himself with a rusty chainsaw.

I read this to my husband last night and he thought it was a parody article. He couldn't believe somebody was making a serious argument with that tripe.

My take away from this article is that deep down he blames white women for being too independent and not reproducing enough to maintain white people numbers.

self·ish   [sel-fish]
adjective
1.
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
2.
characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself: selfish motives.

It's always a good idea to know what a word means before making an argument against the word by using the word.

Nobody should own a cat, felines are what normal people have for a pet.

Then again I doubt that idiot would bother visiting our evil site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I walk the path of life to my own rhythm, my own beat-if you don't like it, step off and find your own damn song!

I feel completely cheated. Articles like this promised me that my CF lifestyle would come with a nice car, an active social life, designer clothing, and plenty of travel. I was expecting every hedonistic indulgence and a perpetually youthful body.

Instead, I'm aging like a mere mortal, I have no taste for orgies, I don't have a car and I rarely get to pop over to Paris for the weekend. In fact, the only thing I can rightfully say I got as a direct consequence of being CF is not having any children.

And for someone who doesn't enjoy being around children, I can say it's been wonderful.