My Dear Hard Drive

Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

Recently I read a story of an “unappreciated mother” who complained how she does everything for her kids being a single mom, but the father of the kids get all the glory even though they only see him for a few hours a month. Now, I found it very hard not to gloat, being childless by choice, but I do understand that she didn’t ask for it and she went into it hoping for the best like every parent always does. However… Having a little different point of view to motherhood than most women, I wanted to ask you fence sitters a few questions…

First; If your children never said they loved you, never gave you a voluntary hug, and even at the age of 25 still thought you were kind of silly and stupid, well past their teen years that is, would you still want to be a mother? Don’t you think that even if they didn’t yell at you and call you names, but just didn’t give you respect and love that you think you deserved, but treated you politely enough without putting much emotion into it, wouldn’t you feel robbed? I happen to believe that this is very common, of all the people I know, only one calls their mother to tell her good news or to tell them they feel kind of blue. The rest would rather cut out their tongue than call their mother for support.

Do you think you can avoid problems by raising your kids well? Do you know how old your kids will be at the time when you no longer will be their most important influence in life? Do you realise, that you can’t control every aspect their life after they go to school, and this will bring in bad influence, as well as ideas that you might not agree with. (Religion or the lack there of for example.) The sad fact is, that you will have very little control over your child’s development and choices, a lot less than what you would want to have. The time when you are most inexperienced at raising a kid will be the time that the foundation for the world is laid… They say. Scary, no?

You do realise of course, that no matter how much you might want someone to take care of you when you get old, your kids might not be even in the same country let alone by your bed side?

Thinking of a basically good person, law abiding and who gets along with other people and is a well-rounded individual, imagine the worst kind of a (16-30 year old) person you can think of. Someone idiotic, as you would see them, who you really can’t get along with. Someone who’s values are completely different to yours, who seems to always do things wrong… Say; how they see work: “I only work for money” “I don’t want to work” “I want to be really rich one day”. How they see house work: “I have to get everything clean” “Oh don’t worry, I’ll go back to bed in the evening, there’s simply no point making the bed!” Or how they see other people and their value: “That kid doesn’t have a job, there’s no way I’ll hang out with him.” “I don’t care who I’m friends with, as long as they accept me.” Someone who disagrees with everything you say about religion and morals – which ever way you see them – and now, imagine that person is your kid. And don’t even think it’s not possible to have kid that different from yourself, how much like your parents are you really? And then, what about me for example? Do you still want to be a parent, if this was your kid, or your only kid? (Go as far backward towards the ideal and see how much you think you would not be able to forgive and how close to your ideal the kid should be that you will be able to love the child so that even the child knows you love them, without criticism and bad feelings.)

How about this: When your kids call you, your first thought is: “Do you need money?”

I know you mothers will now say: “I will love them despite all that.” And I agree, you will. I know you will, I would. But you see, no matter HOW MUCH you love them, even if it was so much it hurt and your heart was ready to bust out of your chest, that is unconditional love. Regardless of the fancy reputation unconditional love has, it’s cheap. It’s cheap, because it comes unconditionally, without demands. It’s undeserved. Your kids won’t give a shit of your unconditional love, if you can’t accept them as persons – and sadly, many parents don’t. Kids need acceptance from you, not unconditional love. They know that acceptance comes because you’re proud of them and they did good… That is what your kid is after, not your undying unconditional love. As much as it’s unconditional, it’s granted. It can, and will be taken for granted. If you don’t love your kid unconditionally, then you’re nothing but a shit mom, you get where I’m going with this? Screw the love, can you accept them?

I don’t even go as far as to birth defects, as they horrify us all anyway.

If you can live with the risk, then you might be mom-material… I would be too, if I was guaranteed my kid would be much like me or my husband, but good heavens if they turn out like one of their grand parents! … Or they never grew up past 5 years of age. The trouble with them is that there’s no return policy with them. Maybe there should be though… We could swap them around so that we would get a good parent/child match… I think a lot of parents never think about their children as adults, only as little cuddly thingys that are lovely and squeezable… And they raise them under the assumption there’s “plenty of time” to deal with issues and problems. And a lot of times, mothers carry a lot of guilt for not raising their kids “better” even though the kid was very happy about their life, but the mother thinks it’s not right – let’s say that your kid didn’t want kids of their own, and you thought in order for them to be happy they need a child, and since they don’t want one, it must be your fault… Etc etc.

There’s a few of the more complicated reasons I’m on this side of the fence.

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When I was a kid, I remember fondly that my mother never kept secrets from us, me and my brother. She always sat us down when there was something serious going on, and begun the talk by: “I’m going to tell you something that you should keep to yourself but it’s best you know what’s going on if people start talking about it…” She always let us know that it wasn’t common for kids our age to be informed of such matters, but that she trusted us to know what things we should be discreet about – and we did. I felt appreciated and respected, and safe – I knew nothing bad would happen behind my back.

Most often parents keep secrets from their kids in order to protect them from the world, to save their innocence I suppose. This leads to a lot of misunderstanding in so many different areas of life, that I cannot even begin to phantom what I would be like if I hadn’t been told everything my mom told me. I knew that my great grand father left his wife to go to America, and that my great grand mother started hating men for it. I knew one of my relatives wasn’t a blood relative but adopted. I knew, at the age of 12, that my best friends parents were getting a divorce because her father cheated on her mother and he had decided to move together with the “new woman”. I knew my other good friends father had been cheating on her, and that they were thinking about getting a divorce, and I also knew that my friend got an excessive amount of Barbie -stuff from both parents because they were trying to let her know they both still loved her and that I shouldn’t be jealous of those toys. I also knew, that her mother went into the bedroom of the other woman, told her husband to get his stuff and get his ass home and told the other woman that their affair is now officially over and she’s taking her husband back starting right now. He never went back to the other woman. I felt tremendous pride of my friends mother,  I thought she was a heroine, and her husband the luckiest man in the world.

I knew when my fathers friend killed himself and I knew why. I knew of mental illness in the family. I knew there was one guy in the (extended) family lighting his house on fire every now and then to get insurance money for crying out loud. I knew that there was alcoholics in the family, and I knew my father didn’t drink because he was worried he might become one too. I never drank because I was worried I might not be able to handle booze. My parents helped me to see around corners and to know that things like that HAPPEN all the time, to people we know, and nothing is more abnormal than normality. I learned early on never to judge people, or myself, for their failures or their flaws, or their mistakes, because we all make them. I learned not to be ashamed of my own thoughts and feelings and “weirdness” because if I’m that way, the chances are there’s someone just like me being that weird, and if there’s someone else that weird, it must not be that weird in the first place.

I understood, that even though there are things you might want to be discreet about, those things are never quite as bad as they might seem at first. (Monsters live in the dark.) And I learned that what ever happens, people survive and live through their difficulties, life goes on even thought it looks scary and impossible at times. And even the thought that my parents might get a divorce didn’t really sound that scary any more. Me and my brother sat down with one of our aunties, who we had mutually agreed to be the best choice, and said; “Auntie, if something would happen to our parents, will you take care of us, please?” She said: “Oh dear darlings, of course I will.” I forgot about this, until my auntie brought it up years later, but to us, it was probably enough to know she would be there if we needed her one terrible day.

I don’t know about my brother, but instead of feeling scared by the grown up’s world, I felt informed, and therefore like I was in control of my world, and that if something would happen, I would be heard and my opinion would have been taken into account. I was being treated like a person, with valid points of view. And I felt trusted and respected. And I also felt it was safe for me to grow up into the world, because I knew what to expect from it – no fairy tales, but real life. Not many things would completely blind sight me. That is by far the best thing my mother ever did for me, and sadly, it is a thing that most parents shy away from, have always done.

Thanks mom for being straight with me.

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@Phoena is a childfree woman who is running a website about it. I found her “Childfree bingo” quite thought provoking, as to how people view themselves, their lives and what is important to them. Childfree bingo is a game for people who don’t want to have kids; Every time you hear one of these objections/comments/encouragements, you can tick of a box in your bingo card and so on. I’m not going to play bingo, but to wonder…

Why don’t you have kids?
This question represents a person who hasn’t ever stopped to wonder why they have kids. They are the same people who ask you questions like: “Why don’t you drink?” The answer is simple; Because I thought about it and decided it wasn’t something I want to do. When you return the question in reverse, you get a baffled look that tells you that not only do they have an idea why they chose what they chose, but that they never gave it a second thought, or blather out the same reasons everyone gives for it like a broken record, including, but not limited to “It’s the most natural thing in the world!”

It’s different when they’re your own!

This is the approach of people who think their shit doesn’t smell. It’s our children and their brats. I have no doubt that I would love my kids more than any other kid on the planet, but does it mean I want one? No. I’d still love my dog more, and that’s not fair on a kid.

My/Your child could grow up to cure cancer!

This tells about the mind set that humanity is the most important thing on the planet. It is all about us, no question about it. Sure, it would probably be nice if there was no cancer, but there’ll always be diseases, there’ll be death and misery, in one form or the other. The bottom line is, that if I don’t have a child, there’s no way he will cure cancer, but on the other hand, he won’t go onto a shooting rampage at the local high school either. You can’t tell what your kid is going to do, and if your reason for having one is the odd chance that he might do something really important… You’ll probably get seriously disappointed when your kid is just another average Joe.

You were a kid once, too!

This is a funny one, and I don’t quite understand the rationale behind it. How is the fact that I was a child, and had a very happy childhood at that, is going to persuade me to have one myself? Is it some sort of a pay back time? The price I have to pay for the privilege of having a life? I never asked for this life, so why should I pay for it?

Don’t you want to hear the pitter patter of little feet?

Another funny one… Why would a person who doesn’t really like kids find it tempting to hear their feet… I love the sound of a dog running on a hard surface, because it tells me about the steady pace, drive of the step and the majestic movement of my fieldie, but I’m sure the sound doesn’t awake similar feelings in people who don’t like dogs as much as I do.

Who will take care of you when you are old?

This is the most terrible reason of them all! If your rationale to have children is to have someone to take care of you when you grow old, you really dealt your kid a shit hand! My mom, bless her little cotton socks, has always been telling us to live our lives and not worry about them – meaning it too – and how she can’t wait to get into an old folks home, where she can get up in the morning to have a cup of coffee with the other old people and jaffle on until lunch, that someone else prepared for her, then have a nap and wake up to have another jaffle with the old timers. I know she’ll enjoy it too, she loves good long talks. So my point is… I hope these same people won’t tell anyone that they’re being selfish for not wanting to have kids, because that’s pot calling a kettle black.

Why’d you get married if you didn’t want kids? / The only reason to get married is to have children!

This is a sad one. It tells you that the person sees the opposite sex as nothing but a reproductive organ, like Phoena pointed out on her site. It says that they would not want to be married if they didn’t have kids. They would rather be alone. I bet they fight a lot at home… The other spouse is a nuisance, a necessary evil of child rearing, not a source of happiness and support.

Some day you’ll grow up and change your mind.

This shows nothing but disrespect. Sure, it’s forgivable to say this to a 6-year-old who probably also says that she hates boys, but after she turns 10 it’s just disrespectful.

It’s all worth it!

This is imposing your own values onto another person. Worth it how? You get joy out of it? Your kid will grow up to cure cancer? The humanity will not die out? Maybe I get joy of other things that are less stressful and more to my own liking?

If everyone thought the way you did, the population would die out!

Clearly everyone isn’t thinking my way. Let’s bring this up again when there is a slight danger that the human race is dying out. I’d be willing to bet any amount of money that the world comes to an end before the last human has died, mainly because in either case I won’t have to pay up.

If your mom felt like you do, you wouldn’t be here!

This is again the selfish reproductive instinct talking. It would not matter if I hadn’t been born. Nobody would miss me, I wouldn’t know any different, and it’s just a mindless argument all together. I’m not arrogant enough to think that what ever I have achieved in this world (which is not much) that it would have made a great difference to it. Some people would be sad to think about the world without me, but even so, it’s not THAT big of a loss if you never had it. I could just as easily cry after an imaginary friend and worry about the mother who refused to give her birth. I bet now you say that my life would have a greater meaning if I would have a child, but how is creating another meaningless life giving a meaning to the first one? You know the saying two wrongs doesn’t make one right?

It’s the most important job in the world!

I agree, but I don’t think me not doing it is hurting anyone. However, a lot of people doing this job is hurting a lot of other people by their idiocy and mindset that “mother always knows best” and “mother’s are angels from above”, when in more cases the sentiment along the lines of mothers know squat and mothers are punishments from God is more accurate…

My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me.

My mom said that to me. She said that her life would not have a meaning if she hadn’t had me and my brother. It troubles me a great deal. The amount of grief I’ve given her! If I’m the best thing, I would really hate to think about the worst.

You’re being selfish!

Not having kids is not selfish as it is. It can be quite the opposite. Having children is also selfish, what ever we do is in a way selfish and at least it comes with a reward of a sort. People NEVER do ANYTHING that they don’t get something in return, be it praise, self-worth, sense of achievement, bragging rights, freedom, simple pleasure… In that regard not having children isn’t any more selfish than having them is.

Children are the future!!

And in the future, I’ll be gone. Children will be the future regardless what I do about it. In fact, not having children will be freeing up some time for me to educate other people’s kids in great quantities, maybe sharing some of the insights I have of the world, and mending traumas inflicted upon them by their parents. I can have a greater influence on the future adults by concentrating on my writing that I ever would have if I was just concentrating in getting my own offspring to school in time every morning.

Nothing is better than ‘new baby’ smell!

I do much prefer the ‘new puppy’ smell though. Unfortunately, both of them wear off and that is not a reason for having a baby nor getting a puppy.

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Not having children is one of those things that seem to attract controversy all the time. I personally knew I didn’t want kids fairly early in my life. It may have started as admiration toward my auntie who lived in New York (instead of Isokyrö, Finland, Europe) and didn’t have children because she didn’t want to. I wanted to live in New York and not have children, too. However, as my fondness to New York grew thin and my admiration toward my auntie diminished to more realistic levels, I still didn’t want children. To me it’s something that other people do. There’s a bunch of things that other people do, like go to work every day to do something they hate to stay alive in the life they hate and get drunk when they can’t handle it anymore. Having children is one of those things. It just isn’t something I can really see myself doing. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have a job, like a real job that actually pays you every month (or week like they do here, I’ve been told) and not when someone finds your work worthy. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be drunk. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be a parent. So far, none of those things have felt right.

Sheldon the Wonderhorse said, when commenting on Mad Typist’s blog post about not having children, and I have to quote: “One of my biggest fears about having kids is how much it would cut into my Xbox time. Pathetic, I realize.” Sadly, I see the dilemma. I worry about loosing valuable computing time. And sharing my Barbies with a kid. And not being able to have dogs because all the money would be spent on the kids. I thought that as long as these things seem important in comparison to having children, you really shouldn’t have any.

People should just let us be and butt out!

However, the part where childfree people get up and arms about the “breeders” nosiness and intrusion to their right to not have children, I don’t really get. Sometimes people ask if I’m going to have children. I always tell them how I feel about it. Sometimes people tell me that I will change my mind, and sometimes my mother gives me funny reasons to have children. Often I explain to people why I don’t want children. However, during my 25 years of dedicated “I will not have children”-time I have encountered only one (western) person who simply could not wrap her mind around the idea of me not wanting children. She was 22-year-old German, curiously, and I met her at a friends wedding soon after I got married, which is the reason she inquired about our child situation. I didn’t find it infuriating that she asked, or that she couldn’t understand us not wanting any, I found it utterly amusing, especially as she was so much younger than we were. I LOVE IT when people don’t get me and I get to explain my reasons to them and see how their narrow view of the world gets shaken up. I don’t do it violently, I laugh and joke and giggle when I explain things, I’ve seen it has a lot more chance to sink in than driving a point through with an iron fist demanding some acceptance or what ever. (Goes with the stereotype-post I wrote yesterday, how can you change their minds if you have already decided they won’t change their minds before you even try to explain things.)

Men who want me to breed will be ex’s!

The dating world seems to be a tough place for women who don’t want to have children, too. I’m glad I never realised this while I was still dating, because I had enough problems with men as it was. Adding “he can’t be wanting children” to the list of demands would probably have totally depressed me. Instead I didn’t bring that up until I was asked and I can’t remember anyone asking that on a first date… Or the second… I have never tried to hide it or make an issue out of it. I can’t remember it coming up until things got serious. I remember my mom telling me that no man would want to marry me if I didn’t want children. I thought she must be mad thinking that, and I was a bit insulted because she seemed to think that the only value I could possibly have to a man was my ability to bear children, especially as she had a lot of examples around her of married couples without children. As it turned out, my husband didn’t want children either, and it was never discussed until we got really close, at least that I can remember. It was a non-issue. While we’ve been married, we’ve both taken an imaginary trip to the baby land and came back screaming. In fact, sometimes that I wander off my track at super markets and end up on the baby isle, I feel like running away screaming.

It is not us who should be explaining themselves

I feel that most parents should have stopped to think before breeding. They should have asked the kind of questions like: What will they be able to offer the child? Will they be good role models? Will they provide the children with the kind of security and understanding that a child needs and deserves? And the question you are not even allowed to utter out loud: What kind of genes are you providing to your child? It seems that no amount of inheritary problems should stop a human being from reproducing. Not even if the child is likely be so allergic that any sign of life will suffocate him or her, no, that should not be effecting your decision to be a parent! Every child deserves to be born, and every parent deserves the right to be raising their own biological children. I asked one woman who is not exactly the cover girl of health, that isn’t she worried that the child might inherit her health problems. She replied that her life wasn’t that horrible, she survived. I was left to wonder, that would it have made a difference to her if her parents had known what she was likely to go through and still decided to go ahead with having her, and not only have her naturally, but force her into the world through artificial insamination because one of the health problems included trouble of reproducing. And it left me wonder why no doctor ever questioned her decision to have children, while women who want their tubes tied have to explain and explain and wait until a certain age to get the procedure done. If they are afraid of getting sued, they should draw up a legally binding contract that takes away the possibility to sue afterwards.

There’s always the other side of the coin

While I sit here and judge some parents for having their children, and you might be judging me for not having them, I realise there is always the other side to the story. Luckily these days it is fairly okay not to have children or adopt or do what ever you want really. The only thing that worries me is when those children in question are caught in the middle of the adult selfishness. I can rest easy knowing that what ever I do, I will not hurt my child in any way, and I have provided the best possible protection to my offspring by not having them in the first place. Nothing will hurt their immortal souls. *grin*

And before you head offline, you might want to read this post “You’ll change your mind” by Verbal Remedy.

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As I already told you, I got a new Barbie-doll just in time for New Years Eve. As I liked her so much, she needed the perfect name. As she was a gift from my husband, he had to agree on the name. Now, I have to say, the seriousness of naming a Barbie-doll doesn’t even come close to naming a baby, and we still could not agree on the name until yesterday.

First, I wanted to name her Norah. My husband refused, because, to him the name was a bogan name. (Translation to you non-Aussies, bogan is Aussie for a ‘hick’.) Now I still completely disagree, and even though he told me to ask ‘any Aussie’, I haven’t got the same response to the name. Regardless, Norah was vetoed.

I was rather heart broken, but suggested, as suggested to me by a lovely member of theBdoll.com, Valkyrie. A vampiric name that would easily shorten itself into Val. The hubby vetoed. That was the first name of his mother, who hates her name and uses her second name. As much as I love my mother-in-law, associating her with my favourite, super sexy Barbie-doll didn’t really fly with me either.

For days I tried to fit names after names on her, but then, out of the blue I noticed a cashiers name tag. ‘Rebecca‘ it said. I almost leaned over to kiss her, Rebecca is a fantastic name – not too pretentious, not too common, doesn’t sound like a bloody Disney-character, has a great opportunity to nicknaming and has a lot of character. My husband agreed, Rebecca is a lovely name. So for 2 days my doll was called Rebecca. BUT…

As I finally found a lovely name like that, even the list of baby names on a recent BlogCatalog-conversation that made me want to puke wouldn’t sway me from believing that there could be even more lovely girl names. I overheard a new mother gloat on Saturday night that she’s out for the first time without Olivia. It was very scary she said, but what ever she went on to next was lost with me. Olivia. Now that is a lovely name, isn’t it? My husband disagreed. Even though Olivia was a lovely name, it wasn’t sassy enough for my red headed doll. So he went online to look some real red head names.

We got a short list Agnes, Meg, Megan, Jonet, Gayle, Esther. And now, I’m leaning towards Megan. I am imagining my favourite Ken-doll Alex lovingly call her Nutmeg. That is because she’s a bit nuts and her nickname is Meg. Get it? *looks excitedly towards the reader*.

All that fuss over a doll’s name made me think what a huge responsibility it is for a parent to pick the right name for the child. Some children have the luxury of having a pet name… that they like. My family tried to call me “Riinukka” or worse still, “Riinuli” for years, but finally stopped after I got a temper tantrum every time I heard either of them. It fought against everything I knew about myself. First, it was continued from my already hated first name Riina, which to my musical ear sounds like screaming. Secondly, the thing I liked about my name was that it was a strong name. It was no push-over name, and what do they do, they put the demeaning endings to them, making the name sound like someone who was cuddly and sweet. I may have been shy, but good heavens I was not cuddly. Eventually, I required everyone to call me Riku, which is a guy’s name.

There was another thing I liked about my name. It was unique. I met another Riina when I was 10 years old or something. I was shocked. I hated her from the day I met her, because the bitch had the audacity to use my name. Every day I felt sorry for my class mates who had been named with the current fashion names, and they had to attach the first letter of their last name to make a difference between other class mates. When their mates got tired of using their real name with the letter attachment, they twisted their last names into something like Silli, which means a Herring. No matter how much young Mr. Herring objected to his name, it was way too convenient to call him that, because there was two others with a little more fortunate last names that weren’t easy to twist into funny nicknames.

So, consider this a plea for the children you are about to name. Think about it. Automatically disregard the top 30 most popular names in your country. Don’t name them after the biggest stars, no matter how much you love the starlets. Try to find a name with as little baggage with it as you possibly can. Consider the name of the distant auntie you hate if her name is nice. (I was about to be named Jenny, but my grand mother knew a Jenny she didn’t like. I so wanted to be a Jenny. Maybe I wouldn’t have been half as shy if I didn’t have to be afraid of hearing my name being uttered out loud.) Think and consider. It’s not just your little baby. The little baby will grow bigger, and she or he has to go into the world with that name attatched to him or herself. Use your imagination to find the meanest associations you can think of with the name. If you can’t think of any, maybe the class mates can’t either. Here’s to hoping.

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