To be concerned about trad/Conservative Influencers

[sleighbells00]

Does anyone feel concerned by the trad/conservative influencers targeting young people with these sorts of messages? I came across this video on YouTube, basically about how motherhood should not be a choice but that all women should fulfill this role. I love being a mother but I would hate for a young girl/woman to stumble across this and feel that her only path in life revolves around having children, women should live the lives that bring them happiness and fulfillment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7mqAp-tDI&t=55s&pp=ygUQY2xhc3NpY2FsbHkgYWJieQ%3D%3D

https://twitter.com/chelseahandler/status/1683146826684448768?s=20

Just a little example of the misogyny childfree women expirience.
Read the comments. They are vile and horrible.

And childless/childfree and single women are still looked down on, called selfish etc.

To be fair twitter is a cess pit that is full of toxicity and hatred - whatever the issue.

🙄
It’s still a good example of how people view childfree women.
You can try and minimize or deny if you want, I just wanted to show to those who claim no one cares if a woman is childfree or how mothers are shamed (they really aren’t).

My own values are very much child/family centred and anyone, male or female who chooses not to have children (ie their lack of children is not because they weren’t able to find the right partner, experience infertility or are exclusively same sex attracted) has values 180 degrees from mine. I don’t get it. I don’t think it’s a positive choice. I certainly don’t think it’s one worth celebrating.

However, I am far too busy worrying about my children’s future to give it much concern. I wonder where all these people get the mental space to bother judging it.

Uncles and Aunts and older cousins, family friends, teachers, can make a significant contribution to a child's upbringing, so I for one would never write off someone without their own children as not contributing or not interested in the next generation.

For most people who don’t have kids, it’s not something chosen, it’s just how things ended up.

That is an very odd and sad view.
Each their own and all that of course.

I have seen this kind of misogyny on this feminist(!) board before, there were people (perhaps you) who said mothers are inherently worth more than childless women. It was so crazy, that had I not seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.

That been said, I don’t really undestand what people with these views do in feminist spaces, surely you belong in some sites dedicated to patriarchy and misogyny.

This just is untrue.

children are not a random accessory, or insignificant pet, they are literally the future. when you are elderly you better hope that mothers have done a good job, and that you have a generation of competent and kind doctors and carers to look after you.... where do people think that useful citizens come from - apple trees?

it is in everyone's best interest to support mothers and the job they are doing, and if you are a childless person giving mothers hassle, you quite frankly are a selfish idiot.

If you followed any of these debates before the Internet you would not find anything new in them. The same stuff has been going on for a very long time, and, yes, it is deeply exhausting. Usually it's some group which views women as a resource that they should govern, and if they say more children should be produced then they use the stick (scolding, guilt, shame ridicule of those who refuse to have more) to try to affect things, while if they want fewer children to be produced, they use a different stick to try to get that to happen.

I have in mind the stick-and-carrot metaphor, because we are never offered carrots. Not by governments, not by MRAs, not by religious groups. No proposal to financially support young families, no proposals to make it easier for women to combine paid work and children, and, most importantly, no demand that men do anything differently in their lives at all. It's as if women were home appliances to be turned on or off, and seen as malfunctioning if that doesn't work.

Some years ago I read a survey of Italian young men which found that the vast majority didn't know how a washing machine worked. The same day I read an article about the low birth rates in Italy, and the connection seemed worthwhile to consider: Only one group is expected to be responsible for the production of the next generation, not to inconvenience anyone else while doing so, and willing to do that on bread and board basis if that's what her partner is like.

just to throw something else out there : I do think we are incredibly lucky - try being a single or low earning mum in virtually every single other country accross the entire world .. when you look at it like that, this state does SO much for us.

Recently i'm finding that 'relative gratitude' is a much more comfortable and producive place to exist

Totally an issue. God knows what this baby-conservatives will be like when they are older. As views more often than not move right wards with age (yes, of course there are exceptions), they will likely get even worse.

Just raise your kids to see these reactionary twerps for just that.

You obviously aren’t a “single or low warning mum yourself”. It’s nonsense to compare Britain to the “third world”. Doing so only creates a de facto justification of austerity welfare-cutting neoliberalism. Compare Britain intend to it Northern European peers. When you do you will see that Britain is lagging behind on almost all key quality of life metrics. Those are due to the ongoing use of flawed conservative economic and social policies. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but these kind of attitudes are those often held by the “useful idiots” the right win elections though before funnelling yet more publish cash to their buddies.

Magnificent post.

Indeed. It’s quite characteristic of fascist regimes traditionally to advocate the sort of views as those in the vid.

Amongst everyone I know who don’t have kids, it’s all either lesbian/gay people, people with infertility, women who wasted their fertile years on men who fobbed them off with being “not ready yet”, or people who didn’t meet the the right person.

Regarding actually ‘choosing’ not to have children it’s not necessarily because they don’t want kids either- I know one woman whose brother had a hereditary condition and chose not to have children because she doesn’t want to go through what her mum went through, and someone else who has a hereditary mental illness that they’d be likely to pass on and would stop them being able to be a reliable parent.

Out of everyone I know without kids, the exception, definitely not the rule, is I do know a couple who decided in their twenties they weren’t going to have kids. I never really understood their rationale when them explained it, above them thinking it would be too much hassle and responsibility, and to my eyes, it seemed they wanted to infinitely extend their adolescence. Up to them really. I hoped at the time they wouldn’t regret it later.

I know as many people who have chosen not to have kids and don’t conform to any of the “types” you know.

Does that make in one all?

I know quite a lot of people who say they chose not to have children to fend off intrusive questions about their infertility and which treatments they have had.

@GodessOfThunder what other reasons do people actively choose not to have kids? Actively choosing not to have kids is different from, say, making an active choice to become a nun which precludes parenthood as a side-effect.

The people I know who don’t have them don’t have to state “reasons”.

I agree.

I sometimes think about all my ancestors before me, all the hardships they endured and hard work they put into raising the next generation, all the knowledge they gained that they passed on. I feel that I have something of a duty to pass it on myself.

Are they in the pub with you now?

Surely you have conversations with people about the things that are important to them and they’ve discussed these things with you, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to claim that they don’t fall into the same reasons as the people I know.

I actually was a single mum through my entire pregnancy and birth, through the first year. I was extrwmely thankful that I was supported by the state. This state enabled me to provide healthcare, feed, house and keep my baby warm (I did make unconventional low cost choices, living in a carvan).

Having lived in east Africa, I count my blessings.

As I say, having gratitude I find, is a healthier and more responsible attitude. I've been 'frothing at the unjust' and it definitely didn't help me or my life.

When I'm working again, I will pro actively work to make things better in whatever way I can.

To be honest I am starting to find the ranting 'everything is shit' attitude a bit teenage

This is just silly.

No one has kids to wipe elderly people asses.
They have them because they, selfishly, want them. Perhapst to wipe their ass when they get old, but not to take care of other’s.

And also, where are the fathers in your comments.
Are they not raising/ responsible?
Also if I have to ’support’ mothers and hope they do a good job (or any job at alö raising these kids) do you mean I can blame mothers for all the shit-head people in the world?

Take yourself off of the pedestal you put yourself on.

And to the other commenter.
I know many people who have chosen to be childfree, even - gasp - single.
Why do people on feminist board think all women only want to be mothers and wives. It’s getting weird and backwards in here.

To be honest I am starting to find the ranting 'everything is shit' attitude a bit teenage

I agree. The pessimistic, nihilistic misanthropy and misogyny in this sub-group does feel like “Urgh mum, the world is shit and everything’s your fault!”. Particularly if they choose to express it on a mothers/parents’ forum.

If people think we are so worthless as a species that the human species might as well stop reproducing now and die out, you have to wonder what they are sticking around for - using up energy and resources, staining the Earth with their carbon footprint, etc.