Why do breeders and even some childed get personally offended that we are CF?

I have often wondered this beginning when I first started getting the "When are you going to have a baybee?" bingo, way back when, within months of having gotten married. Even this last time after I got married, when I was over 40 years of age, the week after the ceremony my 7 y/o nephew asked, "Aunt Kim, so when are you and uncle Mike gonna have a baybee?" It is pounded into peoples' heads from birth that when someone gets married, then they automatically have a baybee. I think that is absurd, but as we all know I am in a minority, as are we all who are members here. So, WHY do breeders and even some of the nicer childed people, seem to outright take it personally and become downright defensive regarding OUR personal life choices regarding children? I find this an especially puzzling phenomenon and I would like to understand it.

OUR choice to be childfree does not affect them, their kyds, their famblee, their jobs, their income, or anything that I can think of, yet they seem to get upset, defiant, defensive, and sometimes even hateful, if or when they find out that we are not only childless (which is of course also looked down upon) but it's by choice as well. Why do they even care? Our being CF has no effect on their lives, unlike their breeding does on ours. Yet, they still are resentful towards us because we didn't join the parent trap. Most all of us don't have a problem with parents who are not breeders, since they are responsible, pay their own ways, discipline their kyds, and don't project entitlement attitudes. However, on occasion I still hear commentary from otherwise nice childed people that makes me aware that they value me less as a person, look down upon me, or go so far as to believe that I am somehow a selfish person because I chose not to give birth.

Quite frankly, it can make me feel rather bad when PNB's exude this attitude and I don't understand why that they do it. Does anyone have any ideas? I believe if I could figure out the reason, I could be part of the solution to the problem.

People who are overall happy about their choice to be parents usually take no offense to CFers. It's the one who regret their choices who take issue with us, because they can't commiserate with us and feel we are "escaping" their burden. They don't like that because we invalidate their choices.

Cambion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> People who are overall happy about their choice to
> be parents usually take no offense to CFers. It's
> the one who regret their choices who take issue
> with us, because they can't commiserate with us
> and feel we are "escaping" their burden. They
> don't like that because we invalidate their
> choices.

I was afraid that might be it, but had hoped that it wasn't because what you described is just a nice way of defining jealousy with perhaps a tad of insecurity tossed in. If that's the reason then I may as well resign myself to the fact that there isn't anything I can do as far as a solution goes. This is one of those things that I absolutely can not comprehend. I can understand it somewhat, although it doesn't make any sense to me. I can empathize with someone feeling insecure, but at the same time I can't comprehend feeling insecure about a life choice that a stranger has made which is relatively an unknown and unheard minority group, whose decision to be or live a certain way doesn't personally affect me in the least.

I am trying to think of a good analogy that might be similar enough in concept so that I may better comprehend it because I hate it when I can't understand a behavior that is foreign to me. Even if I still don't really "get it", I like to be able to have a working understanding of the reason behind the behavior. Could it be like homosexual men who live the straight life with a wife, kids, 1.5 story house, white picket fence, etc.....who then goes into preacherhood and bashes gay men in general and condemns them to hell because he is angry that they are living the lifestyle that he only wishes that he could live? That's about the best one that I can come up with, maybe some more will come to me later.

Because misery loves company, Kim. Most breeders look at our fulfilling lives and think, "Why can't that be me?". They sure as fuck won't admit it and keep on bleating the lie "It's soooo woooorrrth it!", though. They're just jealous over the fact that we don't have to worry about shit-filled nappies, vomit-encrusted furniture and carpet, finding free time to pursue hobbies, sleepless nights because Cuntlet is screaming at all hours of the night, ALWAYS having a nasty, grotty home to keep on a daily basis, etc.

The sad part is, most of these breeders KNEW EXACTLY what they were getting themselves into, but went ahead and shat out a flesh loaf anyway. Now they regret it and want to drag everyone (especially the CF) down with them.

Being single and male, I don't get hit with these bingos the way CF women, especially married CF women, do. Having a married brother who was childless for 12 years (now has one son) may have helped deflect any bingos away from me. My parents were never outwardly eager to become grandparents, as they always felt that one's decision to marry and have children was strictly their own. [And my mom passed away in 1995, 3 years after my brother got married.] My dad never cared a whole lot whether or not he became a grandparent, although he likes it now. I do not know if there was any pressure brought to bear on my SIL from her family. She is an only child, brought up in a strict, religious home. Her dad passed away in 2000.

So I guess I should consider myself very lucky compared to what some of you have had to endure from relatives. Furthermore, I can use my CF status to explain why am now retired. My answer to anyone, CF or childed, to the question, "How can you afford to do that?" is this: "No Kids, No Debts!"

Deegee, I am guessing that you do not live in the south, because down here a CF man is at least as rare as a CF woman and badgered incessantly. My husband gets asked on a regular basis when HE is going to become a father. He rarely gives them any personal answer regarding it because when he has, he gets bingo'd to death, is questioned if anything is "wrong" with one of us, or on a few occasions when he has been in a shitty mood and just said, "never", some people have immediately assumed that he was in one of those "sissy marriages", since he wears a ring. One old man wouldn't touch his hand after that and stood back from him, as if he might "catch" something. I know that I occasionally embellish to try and be funny, but I am dead serious about this.

This area and most of the bible belt gets VERY VERY upset if someone is willfully childless, ESPECIALLY a married couple, and they take it personally. They believe that it's going against God and the bible to not want to have kids and that it's a sin to not have kids, if you can. Once they pick you to death and find out that nothing is "wrong" with you, and they have exhausted all of the bingos relating to people who are trying to conceive such as, "Just relax and you will get pregnant", or "You can always adopt", or "Dr so and so does IVF", etc.........., and after awhile of getting the big brush off and sometimes a curt reply to their nosiness, the realization sets in that you are childless BY CHOICE, and they treat you differently. Needless to say, I have become somewhat of a loner in recent years.

I am so glad that you haven't had many problems with the bingos and such. Maybe one day (when I look older) they will let up on me. Then though, they will probably assume I am an empty nester and start asking about my grandbrats and I'll get to relive the whole damned thing. :bawl

Why do you live there, Kim?

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

:eatu

I've had two co-irkers respond this way when I've said that I'm 34 and know what I'm talking about when I say no kids: Well my cousin was/I was 35/38 when she/I had a baby.

I can never quite think of an answer that is biting yet polite, as though my younger age than when these bitches sprogged means I'll change my mind. In fact, now that I think about it, it's the same bingo as "you'll change your mind", just phrased differently.

Kim, I live on Long Island, a suburb of New York City. Furthermore, I worked in NYC/NJ for 23 years and many of my coworkers were CF. Some of them were men who were much older than me (and are still single and CF). Over time, some of my coworkers got married and had kyds. The men have stuck around but some of the women resigned to do the SAHM thing (and took a lot of company-paid benefits, but that is another story).

The NYC area has a very large percentage of single-person households, so being unmarried and CF is hardly unusual. Here on Long Island, the demographics are not the same. However, in my co-op complex, we have mostly elderly couples and single people. Many of the younger people are CF or their kids are grown and live elsewhere. (They often can't afford to live here becasue the cost of living is so high, but that is also another story).

Other than by girlfriends I had in the 1980s and 1990s, I can't recall ever being asked if I wanted to have kyds.

Maybe you should move here, Kim?

This happened to me just recently. I was visiting a friend of mine who now has two kids. He's a PNB. Anyway, we were talking about something and he mentioned it was now harder to do that thing because of the kids. I said that's not a problem I'm going to face because I'm not having any kids. He gave me this look as though I just told him I had robbed an old lady and then said "Whoah, that's a bit rough!" I just shrugged my shoulders and thankfully the conversation took a different route.

Now that I think about it, he was probably thinking that it is everyone's "duty" is to have children and that he had sone his duty and that I was somehow trying to shirk mine - like I was trying to rip off the economy by not producing another consumer.

Anyway, his wife who works part-time later told me that she knows a few friends, women included, that decided not to have kids, and the decision was a personal one, and she didn't think it was inherently wrong of me to chose to be CF.

"I said that's not a problem I'm going to face because I'm not having any kids. He gave me this look as though I just told him I had robbed an old lady and then said "Whoah, that's a bit rough!"

"Anyway, his wife who works part-time later told me that she knows a few friends, women included, that decided not to have kids, and the decision was a personal one, and she didn't think it was inherently wrong of me to chose to be CF."

Geez, don't these examples speak volumes about how brainwashed our culture is? How could it possibly be "inherently wrong" to consider whether you want to raise a child and decide accordingly? And the dude in the example sounds like he's jealous that you Got Away With Not Having Children(TM).

I'd like to say this is a lot worse in hardcore christian environments. It takes it to a whole 'nother level that a lot of you wouldn't be able to understand if you don't come from a heavy christian background. Trust me, I used to be one of these judgmental, asshole born-again types. Not saying all christians are judgemental or jerks, but I certainly was. I would walk through the halls of my high school saying to myself, "He's going to hell, she's going to hell, I heard about him going to a PARTY! He's definitely going to hell!" LOL, I wish I could go back and kick my own ass.

Anyway, in the christian faith, but especially in Mormonism and southern baptist, it is your DUTY to have children, so sayeth the LORD your GOD. Be fruitful and multiply! Spread out into all the world...yadda yadda yadda. So being childfree is an affront to these people's religions, and they've been programmed to think such behavior is hedonistic and selfish. That's not even the worst of it. To these people, once married, a woman's DUTY is to bear children. Why else would you get married? In the Bible, the language they use to describe childless women is "BARREN." It's said in the Bible that God must have cursed some woman because she is without child! It's this attitude that prevails in the church. If you're a childless woman, you are barren, and probably cursed.

If you're a childfree married couple in church, once this news is discovered, they'll coo, "We'll PRAY for you." Gee, thanks. Hey, could you instead pray that we'll NOT have kids? Not that it does anything either way.

Ah, I'm so glad I didn't get caught up in that environment. I was SO CLOSE to being a totally different person, and I'm so happy I'm not that way, I could dance a jig. I think I will, right now. I'm gonna make my giant dog dance with me, since my wife isn't up yet (we love sleeping in on Sunday! HAAAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA).

It's not just the Xtians. When I was at one of my old jobs, there was a guy from Bangladesh working with me. We were talking about how many cats I have, and he said "But what are you going to do with them when you have kids?" I replied (obviously) that I did not want to have kids, and he got this crest-fallen look on his face and said, "In MY country, if a woman cannot have kids, then her life is OVER".

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

:eatu

Oh Kim, I meant to ask you another thing: You recall how I started a thread a few months ago about being an atheist and CF? Which would be a worse "crime" in the Bible Belt, being CF or being an atheist? Being both, would I survive for more than a week in your neck of the woods????

libertyordeath Wrote:

> Anyway, in the christian faith, but especially in
> Mormonism and southern baptist, it is your DUTY to
> have children, so sayeth the LORD your GOD. Be
> fruitful and multiply! Spread out into all the
> world...yadda yadda yadda. So being childfree is
> an affront to these people's religions, and
> they've been programmed to think such behavior is
> hedonistic and selfish. That's not even the worst
> of it. To these people, once married, a woman's
> DUTY is to bear children. Why else would you get
> married? In the Bible, the language they use to
> describe childless women is "BARREN." It's said in
> the Bible that God must have cursed some woman
> because she is without child! It's this attitude
> that prevails in the church. If you're a childless
> woman, you are barren, and probably cursed.

And yet there is Genesis 3:16:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

So...not having kids is a curse, but having kids is a curse. Yummy.

I think it's because everyone has an agenda, and everyone likes other people to subscribe to that agenda. Because breeding is such a highly personalised topic, parents are WAY oversensitive to our rejection of their views. They've created all these mini-Mes, and we're looking at their mini-Mes and saying "ugh no thanks". Most parents take that as a slap in the face.

I think our immovable views frustrate them beyond endurance. The fact that we are perfectly able to have children, but we don't -- that we're slaves to contraception -- that we not only don't want children but neither do we want anything to do with other people's children -- angers them merely because it doesn't support their own choices.

- - - - - - - -
"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

That Biblical stuff can get pretty hairy. I think it's just a reflection of a culture where women were basically worth squat. Unfortunately, two thousand years later some people still think it's all literal truth!

This part of Wisconsin is heavy with born-agains and other religious types, mainly Lutherans and Catholics. I was raised Catholic myself and left the faith about five years ago. Women are just not as good as men, according to Catholic dogma. The only way they can redeem themselves is by reproducing early and often. And baybees are 99 and 44/100ths percent pure goodness (except for that original sin bit). Baybees should always be baptized during Mass, where everyone can see and admire them (and the parunts, too). Cripes...that, and the constant prolife screeching was more than I could deal with. Methodism is so much friendlier to the CF.

Whether people can accept my CF life is ultimately up to them. I've been lucky that no one in my family, or hubby's, has ever pressured us about it. But that might be because there are already a lot of grandkyds. They are neat to visit, but I'm glad when hubby and I are alone in the evening, reading or listening to music, and it's only us--and the cats. What YOU want is most important. If you are happy being CF, that's all you need.

I have a message for everyone from my belly-button:

They say that we, and by "we" I mean US, the BratFree, the CF who do not apologize (but who do wax pedantic at times), expect EVERYONE ELSE to NOT reproduce. Let me say that I think I speak for the majority here, that is FOR SURE not the case. We are painfully aware that MOST folks are going to reproduce at some point. The rest, about how we wish that there were some minimum standards, psychological, social, etc. other than physical, and how we wish people would actually step up to the plate and be the responsible adults they ought to be when they cause another life, are just details.

I say this because I see this bingo over and over, and it rests on the assumption that we as a group subscribe to this parameter.

(Dude.)

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

:eatu

I started to do the "quote/reply" to the first comment, since I could relate or had a response, but after I read all of your comments it was impossible to just pick one! I can relate to, agee with, understand, or appreciate every single comment made on this subject thus far. Poofy, I live in south central Kentucky (but have also lived in like-minded baybee rabid places in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina). Deegee, I suppose it's a trade off of sorts to not acually move somewhere like Long Island, because even though I would probably like it for various reasons, I honestly like the geographical location where I now live and for some other reasons I will likely stay put in Kentucky. So, I suppose I will just have to deal with some of the crap in order to enjoy the good stuff. I guess I just need something to complain about, lol.

libertyordeath, I TOO was raised up in that nonsense and held some of those same views as you, but something in the back of my mind knew it was wrong and I ALWAYS questioned every single thing, which the church elders didn't like. I was at that Baptist church from the earliest of memories every time the door opened, literally,as my mother was the church organist. I "escaped" at age 17, for the most part, although they basically stalked me to come back for quite some time, to no avail. I saw those pasty faced baybee making women on a daily basis, watched struggling(financially) famblees with 5 or 6 kyds SQUEAL with delight and announce to the WHOLE church when they had been "blessed by God" AGAIN with another "miracle pregnancy", even though they were 40+ years of age. As you know, back in the 70's, being knocked up at that age was very risky, and something was ALWAYS wrong with the kyd too. I remember thinking that they were IDIOTS even when I was at the age of 10-12.

Deegee, publically announcing CF AND atheism would fly over this town like a lead balloon. On a related note, being that it was something other than Christianity, a 30 something woman (who claimed she was childLESS, btw) had garnered a bit of local sympathy when her husband died suddenly. She is rather liakable, so of course they decided among themseleves that she would meet a good Christian man and finally have a baybee, they blamed her childLESS status on her deceased husband. THEN, she filed a request for a new business she wanted to open in the downtown area, but she had to describe the nature of the business which was an "Alternative bookstore" that would carry books/tapes on various spiritualities, alternative medicine, some herbs and natural remedies, and religious materials INCLUDING Wiccan. Her application was DENIED among a bunch of ridiculous gossip and carryings on and now, she is considered a "Witch" and by some, a Devil worshipper. So, I am reasonably certain that Atheism wouldn't do very well here either.

The only thing I can surmise then, and what most of you have said has confirmed my suspicians, they get personally offended because The Bible says, "Go forth and multiply". Since all of the barren women mentioned in The Bible go on to bear the "fruit of their wombs", except one I think, and they made great sacrifices and promises to God for the curse of barreness to be lifted, that must further re-enforce these fundie's beliefs that to be CF by choice is a sin and that the women who choose it must therefore be evil. I hate that's they way they feel, but I would hate it even more if I allowed myself to crumble under societal pressure and pop out a baybee. I am SO glad that I have the common sense and intellect to see this for what it is which of course is blindly following something written by near pre-historic males, translated by MEN(meaning mere humans, not "divinely inspired" persons) who were paid by and under the rule of King James, and where so many parts of it are MISSING, incomplete, contradictory, and don't even make any sense.

Kim, I hope you realize that my question "why do you live there" was not rhetorical, nor was it meant to be inflammatory. I am really interested in what reason you would have to live in a place where you are so idealogically (sp?) out-of-place. I'm thinking there must be something else there that really appeals to you, and I was wondering what it was.

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

:eatu

poofy_puff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kim, I hope you realize that my question "why do
> you live there" was not rhetorical, nor was it
> meant to be inflammatory. I am really interested
> in what reason you would have to live in a place
> where you are so idealogically (sp?) out-of-place.
> I'm thinking there must be something else there
> that really appeals to you, and I was wondering
> what it was.


I like the geographical location, the weather, and I have familial and business ties to this area which are inter-related on both sides. The cost of living is less expensive, I found a dirt cheap fixer upper house (that I love) that is isolated on acreage and shielded by a small mountainous region and ancient trees/woods which I probably couldn't afford in other better known areas, and it allows me privacy and plenty of space for my future cat sanctuary/cat compound. I no longer work with the public, face to face, so that cuts down TREMENDOUSLY on what I have to personally deal with regarding breederism, in comparison to years past. It has been the same in every place I ever have lived or worked, regarding baybee rabies, including larger cities like Atlanta. Although I have visited Northern areas, I have never had the desire to live in that area and from what I have seen and heard, they have plenty of fundies and baybee rabid people up there as well, only perhaps of a different sort than with the bible belt zealots, although probably at least as bad.

I do not believe that the "grass is greener" anywhere else, although like in Deegee's case there may be isolated areas where breedersim is not prevalent, but Long Island doesn't have houses that I can afford with acreage for my cats and isn't my personal "cup of tea" as far as a permanent residence. Breeders are trying (and in some cases have succeeded, like that recent case in Florida) to infiltrate RETIREMENT communities. The fact that Bratfree has members from all over the world leads me to believe that it is no better in other countries either. Our own FEDERAL breederific tax plans, welfare, kiddie policies/benefits, etc...... as well as the breederific theme of major corporations advertisments, tells me that breederism is a national epidemic and not likely to get anything but worse.

Therefore, since I believe that it's shitty everywhere regarding our breederific society, I suppose I have chosen to pick a place that I like the best geographicically and I avoid breedrific situations whenever possible. Anyway, that's why I put up with the bible thumper bullshit, but like I said, I avoid it at all costs. Many of these tales/stories that I share happened LONG ago when I was too young to be vocal (translation:belligerent) or before I was aware that there wasn't something "wrong" with me. Some happened in and through the past 15 years when I was living in an urban area in the capital city of the state of Alabama, so this isn't just unique to southern rural living. Sorry so long, but I have trouble with short explanations.

kidlesskim Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> it allows me privacy and plenty of space for my
> future cat sanctuary/cat compound.

Maybe we could work together on that someday. That is how the Best Friends Animal Society was formed. THEY are out in the middle of Backward-Conservative-Fundamentalist-Quiverfull-Nowhere too.

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

:eatu

poofy_puff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> kidlesskim Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
>
> > it allows me privacy and plenty of space for my
> > future cat sanctuary/cat compound.
>
> Maybe we could work together on that someday.
> That is how the Best Friends Animal Society was
> formed. THEY are out in the middle of
> Backward-Conservative-Fundamentalist-Quiverfull-No
> where too.

I didn't realize that. I plan on buying up the land around me, but at this point it isn't for sale right now because the IDIOT hillbillies who own it think it will suddenly be worth TONS of money because we are having an interstate being built through the edges of town. My husband's great grandfather is one of the original owners of record, after it was of course stolen from the Indians, and he had this land on top of this WHOLE fucking mountain zoned as "historical farmland" YEARS before I was born, specifically so it wouldn't turn commercial EVEN WITH eminent domain. Even the government can't get ahold of it, not easily anyway. So, it is really only worth what individuals who are interested in it for residential, farm, and animal related ventures, are willing to pay, which up to this pont is not very much, not to me anyway in comparison to otherwise comparable land.

In about 2-3 years, when the sorry, lazy, welfare, breederific hillbillies living below us on the mountain realize that they won't become like Jed Clampett, they will probably sell out for a half filled crack pipe, a pint of moonshine, and a BBQ 'possum.

Best Friends owns about 3000 or 5000 acres and they lease another 30,000 acres around them from the Bureau of Land Management as a buffer zone. You should check out their website.

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

:eatu

We still wuv u MWR!

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

:eatu