Anyone else feel aggrieved by the Child-free movement?

[beatie]

Mostly my feelings have surfaced in response to this article

in The Observer and the responses of support it provoked the following week. (Can't find them online but they are the usual)

I?m pretty sick of smug journalists writing articles about being child-free and how they feel so hard done by because the rest of society is having children. I?m as sick of their articles vilifying parents as I am sick of reading articles about parenting.

Must there be such a polarisation of child-free Vs parents within society? Can the two camps not co-exist and appreciate what all have to offer society?

And what about some of the terminology that is used by the Child-free, by men and women?. Some of it smacks of misogyny. Child-rearers? Breeders? What vile phrases for women to use against their fellow womankind.

I don?t give two hoots if women make a choice not to have children but I mind very much that they have a problem with those who do. Whilst their act of not having children is no more selfish than my desire to have children, they do show themselves up to being selfish people when they start complaining about their taxes being spent on things which benefit children - like education, nursery places maternity benefits etc? Are they that small-minded not to realise that we ALL pay taxes into a pot from which we do not take out an even amount? I don?t begrudge paying for day centres for the mentally ill, drug rehabilitation units, incapacity benefit, unemployment benefits, new roads, regeneration projects (the list could go on) or many things which I rarely use or hope never to use. Why are parents being singled out?

Have they forgotten that sometime in the past, someone?s taxes paid for their maternity ward, their children?s library, their education?

One the one hand they complain that they come last in the queue to be allowed to take holidays during school holiday time whilst on the other hand gloat that they can take several long-haul (term-time) holidays per year (in fact cite this as a huge plus reason not to have children)

I wholeheartedly agree that ALL employees (not just parents) should be entitled to flexible working and should be able to establish a good work/life balance but often it is non-parents who set the precedence for working excessive hours over and above what is contracted. Also, why moan to us? Parents and parenting groups have spent decades fighting for flexible working rights (it?s not like we even really have it - only the right to request it). If other groups want it, then they can fight for it too.

Pre-children I worked in two different places of work which offered flexi-time to all. My BIL has no children and is allowed to take a 3 month sabbatical every two years (he uses it to travel). Another friend of mine is child-free and she has been allowed to compact her hours into 4 days. Such flexible jobs do exist for non-parents. And there are plenty of part-time jobs out there? many, many part time jobs. They are typically low paid and lowly rewarded but nothing is stopping non-parents from applying for these jobs.

Do child-free women really want a return to the 1960s attitude towards women of childbearing age? How would it benefit them if ALL women had to leave their careers and work-places as soon as they have a baby? It would most probably send the feminism backwards, leaving these child-free women working in an even more male-dominated workplace, perhaps having to put up with sexist comments from the men wondering when the said child-free woman was going to leave and have babies.

Grrrr - can you tell I get a bit hot under the collar about this?!

But tbh, there's a lot of moral superiority out there in all sorts of groups of people. Why single out parents?

I think parents do have a greater social licence to moral superiority. It's considered OK to go on, and on, and ON about how 'you see things differently when you're a parent'.

Which means that if you have not managed this ticket to a higher plane via reproduction, you do rather feel that you are grubbing around in a somewhat inferior manner.

But many people do feel things differently when they are a parent. What's wrong with saying that? Why should that be taken as an attack on people who haven't reproduced?

Many people see things differently once they've been to India, or run the marathon, or been sent to prison (Jonathan Aitken?) or had some other spectacularly life-changing experience. No-one expects them to shut up about the fact that they see things differently to the way they did before.

I do think this woman knows some ghastly mums though. I really don't know anyone like this.

Motherinferior: here here!

I do think those other people are expected to have some sense of when to shut up, actually. I also think that there is a difference between 'my perspective on the world is different' and 'I am a better person now'.

Plenty of people without kids do like kids; they have no problem with paying taxes for childcare and education; they are happy to live in a world with children. They just don't see why they should be found wanting, morally, by not having reproduced. And please believe me, that goes on - a lot.

I think the nastiest exchange I ever had, prechildren, was when I was in a group of people with and without kids and I commented on how nice this mix was - because I liked children, and I liked being around them - to someone who said ?oh, but it?s when all of you have children that you really need extra people like you around to help out?, or words to that effect. As in ?your value is only as childcare support?.

If this journalist had stayed clear from derogatory phrases like Child-rearers and breeders, I'd have had a bit more sympathy for her. But, she has associated herself with some of the people and groups out there who seem to positively hate the very existence of children and parents (ever been to the "No Kidding" website?)

Caligula - I'm married to a teacher and eventually stopped accompanying him to social events if there were not going to be any non-teaching partners present. Teachers spend a lot of time talking about teaching and some teachers can be quite smug too (in the nicest possible way) but, there's no backlash movement being created against teachers? So I agree, why single parents out? Why lump all parents together? And why pick on mothers specifically(again!) My DH is a greater baby-bore than me and feels much more morally superior due to his new found status. His child-free male friends and siblings don't seem to let it bother them though

I thought it amusing that the journalist knows all Bugaboos and Land Rover pushchairs. Pre-baby I had no knowledge of baby equipment. I think she spends too long drooling over the celebrity baby features in Heat magazine

But people with children deserve preferential treatment at work, because they are also doing the incredibly important and vital to society job of rearing children.

Vess

you are joking, aren't you?

Flexible working could be extended to all carers - including those with elderly parents in need of care (just not pets). That should make things seem universal, because even if we don't all have children, we all get old. Although maybe there will still be whingers - like 'why can't she stick her Alzheimer's mother in a home and stop taking emergency time off when the old biddy wanders off - and stop ME going on my skiing holiday', that sort of thing.

My best friend doesn't have children. (By choice). She worked in nursing, so shift work and said it really bugged her the way that colleagues with children would expect her to work Christmas so they could be off with their children. Her point being just because she has no children, doesn't mean she doesn't have a family. Interesting point.
I also heard debate on Women's Hour recently about employers who let women leave early to look after sick children, but not for example to look after a sick parent (no difference?)

I suppose my point is - do whatever you like - and hopefully the employers will be fair in their treatment of all.

In general I'm all for a whinge-free society !

There'll always be whingers.

Like tax and death.

I don;t have children, and have personally never encountered any smug mums.

I think being a mum must be really hard, but truth be told when sometimes I do find it hard when my life is devalued by people who have children. Like when I was finishing my degree, working and having a tough time with people being mean about me I was really really upset and talking to a friend about it on the phone. Her response that I didn't undrstand stress because i had no kids hurt my feelings. I know its hard to be a mum, but that does not mean that sometimes I don't have a rough stressful time. Maybe I am naive.

At work everyone is really good about weekends etc. I get one in three off and have never been asked to swap or anything.

Smurfgirl, that does kinda sound like a smug mum!!

I don't even think that's smug mum syndrome though; I think it just sounds like an excuse not to engage with a friend's problems.

blimey - having engaged in this and posted on journos and parenting generally i thought i ought to read the original offending article - it's so staggeringly crap i don't know where to begin. i'm more offended / bothered by the fact that such poorly written pathetically researched stuff gets printed than by the actual content. was the editor asleep or what?

My brother and SIL are evangelically child-free. I'm upset that they haven't even seen Elijah yet after everything we went through. I suspect though that after all the years of fantastic holidays and child-free living one or both of them will regret not having had their own or not being bothered to see their nephews.

Good post Beatie and I agree with every word! I do tend to read these sort of articles and think that these women probably have some sort of issue with their own childlessness as otherwise surely they wouldn't be so bothered by it all?

The argument that workers without children might need time off for their pets and sick parents is ridiculous. People with children also have pets and sick parents to deal with on top of their kids of course and have the same rights/non-rights when it comes to this. Of course people with children should not automatically be entitled to time off over Christmas, but it is also true that schools and nurseries are closed at this time, so mum or dad often HAVE to have time off. In our household we take every second year off. And complaining about flexi-time or leaving early? Well, I am sure most parents would want nothing more than childless people joining us in demanding shorter and more flexible hours at work, meetings held during the day etc etc........

Am I a smug mum? Yes, I am. Not in your-face smug though. I talk very little about my children to my childless friends or at work. But secretely I think I have found the meaning of my life and a love that childless people will never experience.

fairymum - I like your last comment. I suspect I probably was a bit smug when dd1 was little, but as the two of them grow older (5 and 3 now) I increasingly hide it, I realise now that I'm not the first to discover this children lark, that I can't find the right language to explain it in any case, and that not everyone is interested, and that some may be offended. So I keep all that wonder to myself now and smile inside. The other side of the coin is the way I am with new mums - a very dear friend of mine is a few years behind me, as it were - she has one ds who is 15 months, and she's still positively beaming and lets everyone know how much she adores being a mum. I don;t think she's smug, I just think she's still in the early throes of love and I think it's wonderful to see.

Have to say that dh works for The Guardian and Observer! We get Observer pretty much every Sun, and have to say I only read OFM this week so missed offending article. Won't dig it out, as it sounds as if will infuriate me, and of course I will hold dh personally responsible!!
Have sent him link to this thread though... maybe he'll pass it onto Lucy Siegle.....!!
Beatie, you may make it into print...........

AndiF - you should read it. Some of the comments from readers, in support of Lucy Siegle, were what got me the most fired up.

Or maybe not. Like I said, it seemed to send my blood pressure soaring. I would not want to be responsible for yours soaring too

Don't worry Beatie, would make a change from heartburn, leg cramps.....

Smurfgirl, I've been childless and stressed too. The difference when you have children is that whereas you can take an exam again, leave your job, leave your boyfriend, etc. to resolve those crises, you can't leave your children (well a few people do but that's unusual). For the first time in your life you just have to ride it, put up with it, work out ways to cope.

It's a similar responsibility to looking after ageing parents but NOT the same as having a sabbatical to go on holiday or needing time off to pursue a hobby.