We're Child-free, Not Childless (article/commentary)

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2008/8/20/were-child-free-not-childless.html

I ran across this article the other day and thought it was a basic informative type article that was written by a childfree editor of US News. I saw nothing particularly controversial, abrasive, or accusatory about it, but rather it was just one writer's opinion. Then I glanced through some of the reader comments and was appalled and taken aback at some of the downright RUDE and OBNOXIOUS comments. These people clearly hate the childfree and I found some of their comments to be aggressive and hate filled. For the life of me, I can't understand WHY so many people give a damn if other people voluntarilty reproduce or not, but they do and many take it personally. You can click on the link above for the entire article and all 38 comments, but I am going to list excerpts from some of the comments that I found especially offensive.


Well, childless does mean without children. The way you are stating it, you're making it sound as though children are a burden and people wish to be free of them...Wow. It almost sounds as though you have a contempt for humanity. Also, you better hope we start accepting more immigrants and they in turn have more children. Favorite programs that you support, such as Medicare and Social Security, depend upon having more people paying in than people taking out..."

"... There seems to be much more non-heterosexual behavior than there was. Many young men/women may never have enough interaction to date, have sex, marry(maybe in that order, maybe not). Many are children of divorce so they are afraid to committ. After all the pill was well established 30 years ago so you can reasonably say that significant decreased levels of childlessness correspond to decreased levels of procreational sex" (blame it on gay people, divorce, the pill? Why can't it be that some people JUST don't want kyds?)

"...You are ridiculous. Your obvious insecurity with your childlessness and resultant defensiveness come through in every line of your seemingly elitist rant. I use the term "seemingly" because a lack of understanding of the common meaning of words and a hysterical attachment of personal baggage to the use of those words are hardly representative of behavior by genuine intellectual elites.
This comes from a humble, male public school teacher who is so bored with the self-proclaimed elites of the media, male or female, who need to go back to some English Language basics and read something more than each other. Your incestuous intellectuality is so provincial..."


d "...You dishonor your parents, and all your ancestors, by placing in jeopardy the legacy of generations whose culmination you are--and whose final end will be in you because you selfishly denied them the opportunity to continue their existence through the DNA they bequeathed to you. You are the worst kind of spendthrift wastrel, squandering not merely an inheritance of money, but an inheritance of all that you ancestors meant and all that they accomplished. Ultimately, on earth we are nothing more than what life we live behind. You have chosen to live nothing behind, and you have betrayed all who gave you breath....

...The economic value of women who bear and raise children is literally incalculable, is absolutely essential to the continuation of human life...

Friedan claimed that it was the housewife who was the "parasite," but in fact it is the non-child-bearing-and-rearing woman who is a parasite, feeding upon the millennia of human development and evolution while doing her best to bring it to a complete stop.

...Those who follow her extinguish themselves, and endanger the rest of us. They are stupid, destructive and dangerous, worse than morons playing with matches in a field of hay that surrounds the wooden house in which we all live...."

They're threatened by it because it's different from what they know. I also suspect that a large number of them secretly regret having children themselves, so when they see someone who has the life that they want they go off the deep end.

That "humble male public school teacher" needs to learn that using big words just for the sake of sounding intelligent only serves to make him look like a middle schooler who just learned how to use a thesarus.

They're jealous and can only wish they had a childfree life.

This again.

If you keep buyin' them, they'll JUST KEEP MAKIN' THEM!

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Yeah.

People have kids because they don't want to die out.

Is that the whole reason???

Guess we're no better than prehistoric animals fighting to stay alive.

Meh. Articles like this remind me of one immutable truth:

"Living well is the best revenge."

They can call me anything they want. I'll check my email eventually...after I go on a last-minute vacation to Europe, during the school year, during which I drink to excess and hook-up with whomever I meet, in a sexual and non-sexual way....

Ah, sweet freedom.


The only thing I do is bribe the neighborhood kid to feed the cats and clean their shitter.

"Ultimately, on earth we are nothing more than what life we live behind. You have chosen to live nothing behind, and you have betrayed all who gave you breath...."

So all my volunteering at animal and human shelters will mean jack squat if I don't have The Holy Chyldren?

I want a picture of this simpering moron to use as target practice.

I agree that the breeders are jealous. They get so hostile and take offense to any little statement right away as if it's a personal attack on them. And the name-calling usually starts, too. I wonder if they teach that skill to their kids?

People insecure with their choices, or unhappy people, are usually the ones to behave like this.

I also love how PISSED OFF they get when somebody calls me "Childless" and I correct them that it's, "Childfree."

I am more than just what I leave behind when I die.

It is selfish and insecure to make a such a statement, pertaining to that is all humans are.

Holy shit, if passing on one's DNA is all that matters, then Brahms and Beethoven made no worthwhile contributions to humanity. Un-f'ing-believable...:cen Methinks the breeders protest too much. You're damned right they are envious!