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?!

Just read that article in full again - I only saw the response in last week's Observer and the readers' letters. An interesting point buried in there is the environmental impact of families - thousands of disposable nappies, 4x4s (not guilty of that last one though). Although there are many single people who only eat takeaways and ready meals covered in plastic packaging, and collect plastic bags as they shop away.

That would have been a useful article in itself backed up with lots of research and statistics. She should concentrate on that.

BUT IME it's families who are most environmentally aware as they want their children to have a reasonable future! Presumably the state of the planet in 60 years time is irrelevant if you're childless!!!!! .................

right, pass this on to your DH - instead of having a 'what's in your basket' feature in Observer Food Monthly, they should have an Eco magazine with a 'what's in your bin' feature. And start with the journalists.

I guess it won't get the ad revenue will it?

MIL - It would be interesting to know if people do behave with a greater environmentally conscience when they have children. I don't believe it myself though.

My 2 BILs are childless and single and nearing 40. They cycle everywhere, shop locally, don't use chemical cleaning products, write to the council about the mess of Tesco plastic bags littering the area etc...

I have friends with children who don't seem to give a sh*t about anyone else but their own cosy family. They've got the 4X4 - probably use more disposable products than they used to, don't have time to take any notice of what is going on in the world.

My parents, OTOH, (bless them ,roll eyes.) are n their late 50s, struggled financially to bring two children up during the 70s and are now enjoying their golden age. Long haul holidays, my mum is the queen of chemicals and air freshners, unethical shopping practices, drive to the corner shop etc... etc...

So, the fact that they have grandchildren on the earth doesn't seem to make them behave more ethically towards the planet.

My DH and I acted as green before children as we do post-children. We now get more annoyed about other people not doing so, but we haven't radically changed as people.

I don't like this argument that only people with children can care about the planet because I don't see the evidence of it.

You are joking aren't you andif? If only children = environmental awareness, the sales of 4x4s would certainly drop.

i think it's insulting to assume that only people with no kids don't care about our planet - it's the ultimate 'what's in it for me?' arguement.

beatie, I don't think my guilty conscience has changed, but unfortunately my activity level is as pathetic as it used to be before having a child. I know I contribute a lot of waste by using disposable nappies (we would have had to use a laundry service as there's no room for drying nappies as well as clothes in our bedroom). And we have a car now, though we use it very rarely. I guess I try to compensate by buying loose fruit and veg (even in in the supermarket), recycling what I can (they don't collect plastic yet where we are), getting secondhand toys and clothes from family. And I buy very few clothes or products for myself. It's not enough. I'd be shocked into more action if the media highlighted the problem though (rather than writing easy opinion pieces like this one).

What is the problem with 4x4's? My hubby has one as a company vehicle as he works for landrover. The mpg is better than some of the family sized cars on the road, especially the old ones. People who are always going on about how bad they are should look into it a bit more closely and then think about the manufacturing industry in this country they are putting at risk. Owning a car at all is bad for the environment, and I bet most MN's have one. An awful lot use them for the school run also, something we will never do.

Sure you don't want to take the 4X4 quetsion elsewhere?

I'd love to answer your question, based on my personal opinions, but I won't do it here.

Guardian story on Land Rover 4x4s

sorry, it DOES deserve a thread of its own.

Actually the Observer mag DOES run an eco-column...written by the same journalist you've been slagging off so cheerily.

Actually - I think that's where a lot of us are in agreement with the said journalist. We don't think that the parenting-world does have an environmental superiority - or they don't have a right to pretend that they do.

That's interesting that it is the same woman. I like her eco-column.

The article started well but then it went into opinion piece cliche about celebs, etc. Most of this thread has been about that part of it and the encouragement she got in letters from skivers who whinged about not getting the same rights to flexible working. As if it's time off. I noticed her eco column last week - it's not a big section though.

beatie would you read the first paragraph differently knowing her interest in eco matters?

I don't think that refusing to define yourself by the way you sell your labour is 'skiving', actually. I think the problem is the overall concept of work that most people adhere to, and from which parents are sometimes offered exemptions that aren't offered to other people.

MI - did you get my email?

Oh dear, no I didn't...

Yes but how exactly was her article helping to contribute to uniting all workers in wanting flexibility and work-life balance for all, rather than just parents? I don't think this article was a particularly constructive contribution to that debate.

will try again

Hatsoff I noticed that about the Emily Wilson column today too. very strange.

Basically there are selfish people with kids and selfish people without kids, but I first heard of the so-called Child Free thing a few months ago when I read an article (I think in the Telegraph) written by a single childless middleaged woman who said she always makes a point of parking in child spaces at the supermarket because she doesn't see why people with children should get better treatment than her.
Bit mad, no?

"beatie would you read the first paragraph differently knowing her interest in eco matters?"

No, I guessed that she did have an interest in eco-matters since Katharine Hamnets comment had touched a raw nerve.

I think that flexible working rights should be available to different types of carers, as I've said before, but you can't equate caring responsibilities (shirking them would be illegal anyway) and hobbies. I can't find the examples on the website but some letters were just slagging off parents for needing to take time off around school holidays. Before I had children I never resented any parents for taking time off in school holidays - I was lucky that I could take holidays in May and September when it was a lot cheaper.