Time Magazine CF Cover Story

I haven't read it yet, but here's Salon coverage: LINK

Will definitely be picking it up when I go to the store later...

Despite the increasing numbers of Americans opting out of having kids, parenting is still largely taken as the default path of adulthood, and those who go down a different road are still often regarded with skepticism and disdain. So it’s better than great that a mainstream, doctor’s-waiting-room magazine like Time has devoted such considerable space to destigmatizing the childfree.

It is gratifying to see the CF movement gaining traction, or at least more positive attention. I do wish there was less defensiveness and emphasis on "more time for ME", even in those articles that aren't breeder-pleasing. There are plenty of good reasons to not have kids aside from the "more for me" aspect, like not wanting to pass on health issues, not wanting to contribute to overpopulation, etc. Is honestly discussing things like that still taboo at this point, even in this oversharing, personal-blogging, Fartbook-happy world?

wink

I plan to buy this issue too.

One of the Salon critiques is that the Time article focuses mostly on women, the men's take on this was kind of left out.

It looks like an interesting article regardless.

Wait till it gets more publicity online too - the Breeders will flip! It will be a Bingo Tournament!

MUAHAHAHAHA! I can't wait! Boy are they gonna get their granny panties twisted up in their vaginabuttholes over THIS!

Have you seen the breeder outrage on Facebook. I'm laughing like crazy with all the breeder/wannabreeds.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151519192261491&set=a.470156966490.256744.10606591490&type=1&theater

Carry an issue around with you and show it to bingo-ers: "Yes, it is a real life choice!"

The wannabreeders are crying.

May be the saddest little childless I've seen in quite some time actually.

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Melanie Notkin [the author] is the national bestselling author of Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids

:smn

_______________________________________________________
"Pro life childfree" is just another way of saying parent minus 9 months.

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thursdaynext
The wannabreeders are crying.

May be the saddest little childless I've seen in quite some time actually.

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Melanie Notkin [the author] is the national bestselling author of Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids

:smn

Wait, so now our mere EXISTENCE victimizes the poor widdle wannabreeders?

The way she talks, you'd think there weren't whole Internet communities ready, willing, and able to rub her poor, lonely udders. The sorriest part about her is that she doesn't take any responsibility for her "circumstantial infertility" - it's those meanie childfree, or useless men, or skydaddy, but SURELY not her, oh no d

ETA - "infertility" got twenty-one Time cover stories between 1978 and 2011, including the 2002 "Babies vs Career." "Childfree" got this one. In terms of article counts, "infertility" got 248 between July 1974 and July 2013, while "childfree" got 1. By which I mean, Ms. Notkin can DIAF. All the numbers are from search.time.com btw.

Personally I don't define being childfree or anything to do with it as a "movement". Like parenthood, I consider it a lifestyle choice and I'd like for it to be a socially accepted one. I'd also like for parents to not be singled out and rewarded for having sired kids like with government incentives such as the numerous tax breaks which are reserved for parents only. In addition, I'd like to see an end to special concessions and privileges in the workplace which aren't offered to the unchilded, among many other societal perks including, but not limited to, preferred housing allowances for single moms, WIC-SNAP, and Medicaid predominantly offered to "families". If only one myth could be dismantled I'd like for it to be the one regarding childed people can in NO WAY be considered, "green", regardless of how many cloth diapers they use or if they spend a lifetime of loading up their kids into gas guzzling S-Moo-V's and heading down to their local toxin spewing recycling centers with a bunch of Pepsi cans and news papers.

Few cover stories are more enraging than those of an inpig Moo with a gaggle of kids bleating on about how "green" her famblee is. Just by sluicing ONE kid, she is less "green" than an unchilded person who drives a gas guzzler, litters, and doesn't recycle. An entire life of rinsing out Mountain Dew cans for the recycling center can't cancel out the damage to the environment caused by adding just one more to the population, but of course they generally add two or more to the mix that doubles and triples their lack of being "green".down

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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!

I’d like to say a word or two about the cover. This is TIME magazine. It’s supposed to be ICONIC. But this cover, as many others in recent years, is just fluff. Actually, the only thing I can think of to say is “It’s nice”. “Nice” is an interesting adjective. When you can only describe something with the word “nice”, it means it’s really rather bland. While their last year’s “Are you MOM enough?” cover was highly provocative in that it featured a blond hottie mom breastfeeding a he-brat almost old enough to be having sex (the way kids are these days, it wouldn’t surprise me – according to Guinness World Records, world’s youngest dad Karl Corr was only 7 when his daughter was born), this cover is merely pleasant to the eye and so nondescript that if it didn’t say “CHILDFREE” right there on the cover in big fat bolded black block letters, I doubt anyone would have guessed that the couple in the picture was in fact CF. It also reinforces the stereotype that the childfree are hedonistic, rolling in cash and spending all their free time vacationing in exotic locations. What is the percentage of CF couples who can actually afford to live like that? Projecting this image of the CF is dangerous because it inspires jealousy and teaches the moral majority that it’s OK to abuse us. The cover photo is really a portrait of the “average” (and there’s really nothing “average” about us) CF couple as seen through the eyes of the general population who is largely ignorant about the childfree lifestyle, and therefore I find this image offensive. How about featuring photos of real-life childfree couples instead of posing some models on a beach?

I emailed the TIME cover to my husband with the comment, "Hey Time, where's my beach vacation?" I think it's funny the childed assume the CF have all this extra cash for luxuries. I shop the bargain stores. We don't get vacations, and both drive 10-year-old vehicles.

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thursdaynext
The wannabreeders are crying.

May be the saddest little childless I've seen in quite some time actually.

What pathetic people.

This one really gets me:

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HuffPo
Joanna, a single 38-year-old attorney who left the partner track to move into the less demanding (and lower paying) role of legal marketing in order to attract men who did not find her profession competitive with theirs, is frustrated.

She expects me to feel bad for her? Women like her are the reason this country is still so fucking sexist.

She GAVE UP HER CAREER PATH because a bunch of dickness, misogynistic troglodytes felt threatened by a supposedly smart woman? She didn't even do it for a jerk she was actually with. She did it to GET a jerk. What the fuck.

This is why it's 2013 and people still get away with treating women like chattel. Because dumbasses like this ASK to be treated like chattel. She's so desperate to shit loaves that she voluntarily demoted herself to attract the attention of some drooling Og Dik Worx.

This is the thing that always gets me about the breeder mentality. They don't even think of themselves as people -- or others, for that matter.

She is basically BEGGING to be devalued and objectified as a woman by validating these sexist morons and giving up her dreams so she can be with one, and she wants me to pity her?

Fuck not given.

Thanks for making it worse for the rest of us, you stupid wanna-moo.

:bedmadelie

Lilin_unite, I agree with everything you said! hankyou

Then she has the nerve to say this:

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The women of Generation X expected we'd have the social, economic and political equality our mothers did not have, but naturally, the husband and children then did.

This video is broken up with commercials... but interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/08/02/nr-intv-childless-life.cnn#/video/living/2012/05/14/bts-childlesschoice.cnn

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lilin_unite

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thursdaynext
The wannabreeders are crying.

May be the saddest little childless I've seen in quite some time actually.

What pathetic people.

This one really gets me:

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HuffPo
Joanna, a single 38-year-old attorney who left the partner track to move into the less demanding (and lower paying) role of legal marketing in order to attract men who did not find her profession competitive with theirs, is frustrated.

She expects me to feel bad for her? Women like her are the reason this country is still so fucking sexist.

She GAVE UP HER CAREER PATH because a bunch of dickness, misogynistic troglodytes felt threatened by a supposedly smart woman? She didn't even do it for a jerk she was actually with. She did it to GET a jerk. What the fuck.

This is why it's 2013 and people still get away with treating women like chattel. Because dumbasses like this ASK to be treated like chattel. She's so desperate to shit loaves that she voluntarily demoted herself to attract the attention of some drooling Og Dik Worx.

This is the thing that always gets me about the breeder mentality. They don't even think of themselves as people -- or others, for that matter.

She is basically BEGGING to be devalued and objectified as a woman by validating these sexist morons and giving up her dreams so she can be with one, and she wants me to pity her?

Fuck not given.

Thanks for making it worse for the rest of us, you stupid wanna-moo.

:bedmadelie

Thanks for pointing this out! I seethed when I read that this woman felt she had to give things up to get a guy. What a maroon! This will be me....NEVER!

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voodoodarling
It also reinforces the stereotype that the childfree are hedonistic, rolling in cash and spending all their free time vacationing in exotic locations. What is the percentage of CF couples who can actually afford to live like that? Projecting this image of the CF is dangerous because it inspires jealousy and teaches the moral majority that it’s OK to abuse us. The cover photo is really a portrait of the “average” (and there’s really nothing “average” about us) CF couple as seen through the eyes of the general population who is largely ignorant about the childfree lifestyle, and therefore I find this image offensive. How about featuring photos of real-life childfree couples instead of posing some models on a beach?

They used to just call them DINKS. Nothing new here.

I don't consider being childfree a lifestyle, really, or a movement. It's just a normal state of being for some of us. I only want to be treated equally and not to have a big deal made of it. Making the idea of being childfree popular or trendy is a nightmare, many will call themselves CF or just want to be because it is cool. Then they will find out they really are not cf. It's already happening with parents wanting (and being allowed) to be part of childfree groups.

The articles always pigeonhole us and the stereotype has nothing to do with me or many of the childfree people I know.

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blondie
They used to just call them DINKS. Nothing new here.

I don't consider being childfree a lifestyle, really, or a movement. It's just a normal state of being for some of us. I only want to be treated equally and not to have a big deal made of it. Making the idea of being childfree popular or trendy is a nightmare, many will call themselves CF or just want to be because it is cool. Then they will find out they really are not cf. It's already happening with parents wanting (and being allowed) to be part of childfree groups.

The articles always pigeonhole us and the stereotype has nothing to do with me or many of the childfree people I know.

I agree with a lot of this, but I think that in some ways, it is or can be a movement, because of the part I bolded right there.

Childfree people are routinely discriminated against both by the government and in their personal health care. This has very real consequences in their lives. And for that reason, I think there is reason to call at least some factions of the CF a "movement." There's real issues that need to be addressed.

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lilin_unite

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blondie
They used to just call them DINKS. Nothing new here.

I don't consider being childfree a lifestyle, really, or a movement. It's just a normal state of being for some of us. I only want to be treated equally and not to have a big deal made of it. Making the idea of being childfree popular or trendy is a nightmare, many will call themselves CF or just want to be because it is cool. Then they will find out they really are not cf. It's already happening with parents wanting (and being allowed) to be part of childfree groups.

The articles always pigeonhole us and the stereotype has nothing to do with me or many of the childfree people I know.

I agree with a lot of this, but I think that in some ways, it is or can be a movement, because of the part I bolded right there.

Childfree people are routinely discriminated against both by the government and in their personal health care. This has very real consequences in their lives. And for that reason, I think there is reason to call at least some factions of the CF a "movement." There's real issues that need to be addressed.

That's the movement I see developing. We're a movement like LGBT is a movement - not because we want to convert people to our ideas (as said, for most of us it was just something we knew), but because we are discriminated against and that will only change if we band together and demand change. Also, maybe people who are now going against their natural inclinations will see that there's another way if more people hear of us.

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yurble

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lilin_unite

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blondie
They used to just call them DINKS. Nothing new here.

I don't consider being childfree a lifestyle, really, or a movement. It's just a normal state of being for some of us. I only want to be treated equally and not to have a big deal made of it. Making the idea of being childfree popular or trendy is a nightmare, many will call themselves CF or just want to be because it is cool. Then they will find out they really are not cf. It's already happening with parents wanting (and being allowed) to be part of childfree groups.

The articles always pigeonhole us and the stereotype has nothing to do with me or many of the childfree people I know.

I agree with a lot of this, but I think that in some ways, it is or can be a movement, because of the part I bolded right there.

Childfree people are routinely discriminated against both by the government and in their personal health care. This has very real consequences in their lives. And for that reason, I think there is reason to call at least some factions of the CF a "movement." There's real issues that need to be addressed.

That's the movement I see developing. We're a movement like LGBT is a movement - not because we want to convert people to our ideas (as said, for most of us it was just something we knew), but because we are discriminated against and that will only change if we band together and demand change. Also, maybe people who are now going against their natural inclinations will see that there's another way if more people hear of us.

I think the stereotypes will end up continuing, not because the childfree movement isn't getting a bit more coverage out there in the media, it's that those that are being interviewed are people who "have nothing against children", they just don't want any of their own. They see it as just that they're not wanting to come home every day to a screaming brat, but the ones they see out and about are "soooooo cyuteee" or that their sister/SIL's spawn are "sooooo cyuuuteee".

I think this causes a few issues:

1. It does drive the stigma that childfree are selfish in the moo mind because these interviews would make moo believe that we're the EXACT same as them (finding these disguisting things cyyuuutteee), just that we want our freedom from having a 24 hour spawn or we're self-conscious about how our bodies would get all fucked up from shitting out a loaf.

2. Since all these interviewed childfree people are stating that they have nothing with children, those of us (which is most everyone here, I believe) that don't want anything to do with sproglina and sprogger jr. are evil child-hating sad excuses for human beings.

3. With the view being that children are loved by moo and childfree, based on these interviews and stories, this drives the moo-logic that women are wombs first and foremost, and human beings second (or third/fourth/....).

These interviewees that are spouting off their love of children just to save face to the moo community are doing everyone a great disservice. There is nothing that these tabloid childfree interviewees are doing except to feed the false stereotypes that do not fit real CF people. This most likely isn't their intent (I hope not), but it just leads to moos thinking the bingos might eventually work on us (you'll change your mind/you just don't know the luuurve a chyld brings/its different when it's your own).

Coverage should be more universal, not focused on saving face or breeder-pleasing, and our opinions need to be respected. Out of alot of CF articles out there on the net, communities like BratFree (of from what I can tell, there aren't many), who don't try to be everyone's pat on the back and actually stand up for who we are and what we believe in, are seen as some kind of radical extreme group of the childfree. Our opinion isn't wrong. It shouldn't be viewed as radical because we go against the lifescript and we don't want anything to do with spawn.

Additionally, the cover showing a beach-relaxing CF couple isn't the norm, but it is one of the perks of being CF. Perks should be enjoyed and celebrated, but I do agree this might have not been the best image to put on the cover. However, we have so many wonderful perks being CF. We are able to spend time building up a deep connection with our spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend. We get to have real love and companionship with them. Our pursuits aren't driven by servitude of the loaf and other loaflings, but by what we want in our lives and what we find as important. Who's to say what someone else should find important in their life? Our life is our own. We're adults and with that comes an advanced mind which can decide things for itself. Moos dictating what we should and should not think just shows that they're dying for control of something since they've royally fucked up their life with shitlings. They're gasping for breath for anything that could make them feel better about their decision. Let them wallow in their own filthy lifescript. We can all go lounge on the beach or go hiking through beautiful landscapes, pursue art or music or career. We can build a solid relationship, not cornerstoned by spawn but by a real connection with that other person or whatever we decide. CF men and women truly have it all! No wonder the moos and duhs are jealous. Their apex of existence began and ended with the shat loaf(ves). Our apex of existence can be anywhere we want it to be, but it won't begin and end with a carbon copy of ourselves. This one choice we make for ourselves yields us a wealth of other choices moos and duhs don't get. These are the things that should be celebrated with being CF.

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lilin_unite
She GAVE UP HER CAREER PATH because a bunch of dickness, misogynistic troglodytes felt threatened by a supposedly smart woman? She didn't even do it for a jerk she was actually with. She did it to GET a jerk. What the fuck.

This is why it's 2013 and people still get away with treating women like chattel. Because dumbasses like this ASK to be treated like chattel. She's so desperate to shit loaves that she voluntarily demoted herself to attract the attention of some drooling Og Dik Worx.

The only kind of man she will find now is one who confirms the sexism she has internalized. Your choices and actions project an image which attracts some people and repels others. If you want to attract the kind of men who see you as equal, you don't act as if you are less than equal. By preemptively declaring her willingness to settle, she's assured that she will have to.

It's women like this who continue to accept these sexist arrangements that make it more difficult for the rest of us to be seen seriously in the workforce. One moment it's all "rawr, I am a woman, hear me roar" and the next "I need a mayyyun" and then whining on a moo forum about how daddy never changes the kid's diaper and won't let her take a night off. If you enable sexism, it's your own damn fault when you suffer the effects of it. You don't get my sympathy because you're perpetuating the issue.

I have no patience or pity for women like this, and it's one of the reasons that there are so few women that I like. I meet very few sexist men in my daily life (I'm sure they are out there, but not where I am) but a lot of sexist women. I have no idea why they think that is necessary to get a man, or why they have to have a man.

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icyveinedcfguy
These interviewees that are spouting off their love of children just to save face to the moo community are doing everyone a great disservice. There is nothing that these tabloid childfree interviewees are doing except to feed the false stereotypes that do not fit real CF people. This most likely isn't their intent (I hope not), but it just leads to moos thinking the bingos might eventually work on us (you'll change your mind/you just don't know the luuurve a chyld brings/its different when it's your own).

I completely agree that people who spout their love of children on media are doing the rest of us a disservice with their desperate attempts to distance themselves from the stereotype. They don't recognize that the stereotype needs to be destroyed, and it is up to the individual whether she or he enjoys being around kids or not, and neither preference makes a person evil, subhuman or selfish. A CF person who was confident wouldn't feel the need to express an opinion one way or the other without prompting, because liking children or not liking them isn't central to being CF, not wanting to be a parent is.

I've said before that they remind me of some of the women in the women's movement in the 70s who were so afraid of being mistaken for lesbians that they pushed lesbians out of the movement. When you deny people who share your views but who appear less acceptable to the mainstream, you've internalized the bias (be it sexism, racism pronatalism).

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yurble

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lilin_unite
She GAVE UP HER CAREER PATH because a bunch of dickness, misogynistic troglodytes felt threatened by a supposedly smart woman? She didn't even do it for a jerk she was actually with. She did it to GET a jerk. What the fuck.

This is why it's 2013 and people still get away with treating women like chattel. Because dumbasses like this ASK to be treated like chattel. She's so desperate to shit loaves that she voluntarily demoted herself to attract the attention of some drooling Og Dik Worx.

The only kind of man she will find now is one who confirms the sexism she has internalized. Your choices and actions project an image which attracts some people and repels others. If you want to attract the kind of men who see you as equal, you don't act as if you are less than equal. By preemptively declaring her willingness to settle, she's assured that she will have to.

It's women like this who continue to accept these sexist arrangements that make it more difficult for the rest of us to be seen seriously in the workforce. One moment it's all "rawr, I am a woman, hear me roar" and the next "I need a mayyyun" and then whining on a moo forum about how daddy never changes the kid's diaper and won't let her take a night off. If you enable sexism, it's your own damn fault when you suffer the effects of it. You don't get my sympathy because you're perpetuating the issue.

I have no patience or pity for women like this, and it's one of the reasons that there are so few women that I like. I meet very few sexist men in my daily life (I'm sure they are out there, but not where I am) but a lot of sexist women. I have no idea why they think that is necessary to get a man, or why they have to have a man.

Exactly. They treat themselves like commodities and then wonder why everyone else does as well. Meanwhile, I'm in a mad dash to get my career together before I turn 30, because thanks to bints like this, employers are distrustful of childless women in their 30's. They think they're just a ticking time bomb who will suddenly become a dead weight once the strip turns pink. Thanks a bunch.

I have no patience for it either -- this whining and pity-begging when women demote themselves like that. It's why I refer to myself as "a modified first wave feminist."

A lot of "feminists" in 2013 seem to think feminism is treating yourself in a subhuman, conformist way, and then being allowed to complain when others do the same. Moaning and whining about being treated like a lower class when they're doing things like dropping their careers to make themselves less threatening to sexist men.

Rights and responsibility are inextricably tied to each other. If you don't want to accept the latter, you have no business asking for the former.

I also get really tired of this "gotta find a man" thing. So many women just can't deal with being in their own company.

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lilin_unite
I have no patience for it either -- this whining and pity-begging when women demote themselves like that. It's why I refer to myself as "a modified first wave feminist."

I'd be curious in knowing where you depart from first wave feminism, if you don't mind sharing (perhaps in another thread). So few women that I meet want to be seen as feminists, which makes it difficult to have a conversation on the subject.

Those that do want the label of feminism actually mean femoonism (all they care about are breast-feeding anywhere they like and increasing the number of perks that moos get) or the advertiser's vision of feminism wherein any choice made by a woman is feminist because a woman made it (these are the kinds who want all the rights and none of the responsibility).

I've been following the reaction of this on a couple of websites and thought I'd share some choice moo-quotes from the comments section.

Moo One Bleats:
I truly think they just don't know what they are missing. I was one that never had the burning desire to give up my time and freedom for a snotty little kid. Now I'm a co sleeping breastfeeding ap mom that cannot imagine life without this love. It's amazing!!!

Moo Two:
That childless couple may look happy, but I don't know if I believe they know TRUE happiness without the love of children in their life. It's like comparing apples to oranges. A different kind of happiness. Are they less stressed, oh I"M SURE. But happier?

Moo Three Lows:
Their lives are so lonely that they have to spend their money on beaches and fancy vacations to fill it with something meaningful. I don't envy them at all.

:headbrick

I would like to talk more about feminism too! I was successfully sheltered from the fact that feminism has made any strides at all, my mormon mother reveled in the defeat of ERA, and did her best to keep me from knowing I had rights until well into high school.
Even after I left home I didn't study feminism, I just ran off with my rights as a fully adult HUMAN and didn't think much of it besides to bristle at the sexism and discrimination that is still found everywhere.
My husband said to me, "You're like some weird throwback to first wave feminism, we're in the third wave now, maybe you should study the issue!"
At which I bristled that he seemed to be informing me of MY position!
I still don't understand it much, but I can see how moomies are co-opting feminism to mean something else, and I'm sure not in board with their definition. I don't see how my search for equal treatment makes me a weird throwback.
I have had to concede a few things within my relationship because I seem to have picked a very large manly man, and I am small with fibromyalgia and progressively unable to open my own jars and other idiotic little symbols of powerlessness. But I will still hurt myself to make a public point that I am JUST as capable as any other neanderthal.
I was disadvantaged by my upbringing, and I don't understand these "waves" at all and just what _I_ should give up reaching for because society has "moved past" whatever "wave" I am stuck in.

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Presto
I would like to talk more about feminism too!

Continued here.