close encounters
Jul. 16th, 2005 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoan(In which I shall say absolutely nothing whatsoever about the new Harry Potter book, because I don't give a shit. ;) )
I should be napping now, as Isaac is, but my brain's too busy. I did lie down for about 20 minutes but just tossed and turned. Then Isaac woke up, having only napped a little over an hour, so I went in and got him back to sleep, but I think I'm just giving up on my own nap at this point. The whole lying there trying to rest while your brain is going a mile a minute thing is just too annoying.
Well, I made it to two years and one month without having my parenting skills criticized by a stranger on the street. But today it happened.
We were at a yard sale with my mom, and Isaac took a string of beads that they were selling (which we later paid for ;) ) and started walking off down the sidewalk while mom and I were still looking at the stuff for sale. I called after him, "Isaac, don't go too far please" and then called his name a couple more times, but he kept going. He was maybe 20-30 feet away from me at this point. I said humorously to myself, "Well, he's outta here." And then this other woman, who was standing there perusing the books for sale, said something like, "Well, you could go grab his arm, if you were interested in actually parenting your child."
Then she started to walk farther into the yard sale and I yelled at her, "ExCUSE me, are you trying to tell me how to parent my child?" to which she fairly predictably replied, "Well, someone has to." So I said "and how many children have you raised?" and she said "you don't have to have kids to blah blah," whereupon I, also fairly predictably (and unimaginatively), said "fuck you" and she said "nice language around your kid" and I said "I'd rather have him hear 'fuck' than the crap you're spewing at me." (Isaac was, by the way, pretty much oblivious to all of this anyway. Although I will admit it was definitely not the first time he's heard me say 'fuck.')
Then some more stuff was said that I don't actually remember because I was too angry, and then my mom pulled me away (not literally). We went a little ways down the street and I stopped to help Isaac put his beads around his neck, and then the woman went past us again saying "*cough*breeder*cough*" and I said "*cough*bitch*cough*" and she again said "nice language" and I said "yeah, what I said before" and she snorted.
Then I yelled after her, "You're welcome to babysit any time!" Which I guess didn't come out quite the way I meant it. ;) In my head it meant, "You should try spending some actual time with an actual child before you go passing judgment," but the way it came out, it probably sounded more like "I would like to foist my child off on you so I can go out partying." Oh well.
I should point out, by the way, that Isaac had really not gone far at ALL, and my eye was on him at all times, and I do of course have an internal "sensor" of how far I'll comfortably let him go before I run after him. And I know my child. I knew he wasn't going to run into the street or go with a stranger or even (probably) get very far away before he turned around and came back to me. But you know, that's not even the fucking point, because the fucking point is, when you're in that other woman's position, you don't KNOW any of that, so it's not your fucking BUSINESS to pass judgment.
(Edit I forgot to add, that even if/when I do decide that Isaac has gone far enough -- I do not "grab his arm" as this asshole was suggesting. More likely, I hustle over so that I'm just a few feet behind him, and then I let him continue to wander, but with closer supervision (i.e., me following him). Or if he sees me and stops to look, I might say, "come on, let's go back over there." I do not GRAB my child's arm unless there's immediate danger, like a car bearing down on him or something.)
The thing is, I have no beef with the childfree folks in general. Hell, I wish MORE people (especially women) had the self-awareness and guts to say openly, "I don't want kids and will not have them," rather than cave to societal pressure that says, "of course everyone wants kids." But the problem with the childfree "movement" is that so many of its practitioners get so fucking self-righteous about it; they lose sight of the fact that they have made a PERSONAL choice. It's like they go directly from "I don't want kids" to "people who have kids are brainless idiots" with no stops in between. You made a choice and that's fine, but that doesn't mean that those of us who made a different choice are wrong.
And I really find it extremely fucking ironic that so damn many childfree people feel free to criticize the parenting choices/styles of us "breeders." (And by "extremely fucking ironic" I mean "extremely fucking offensive.") Listen, if you choose not to become a violinist that's fine, but you don't go up onto the symphony stage and criticize the violinists' technique, because you don't fucking know. And don't even try to tell me that you held a violin and scraped the bow over the strings (i.e., babysat) once or twice and that gives you the right to speak knowledgeably about it, because guess what, it doesn't.
Meaning absolutely no offense to anyone here who has no children but has babysat -- you don't know what it's like to parent. You know what it's like to babysit, and that's great, and maybe that gives you some inkling of what parenting is like, but you don't KNOW. And furthermore, even if you do have a child? That STILL doesn't give you the right to tell me how to parent my child! Unless you see me beating the crap out of him or shoving cocaine up his nose, BUTT THE FUCK OUT.
End rant. Thank you, drive through.
I should be napping now, as Isaac is, but my brain's too busy. I did lie down for about 20 minutes but just tossed and turned. Then Isaac woke up, having only napped a little over an hour, so I went in and got him back to sleep, but I think I'm just giving up on my own nap at this point. The whole lying there trying to rest while your brain is going a mile a minute thing is just too annoying.
Well, I made it to two years and one month without having my parenting skills criticized by a stranger on the street. But today it happened.
We were at a yard sale with my mom, and Isaac took a string of beads that they were selling (which we later paid for ;) ) and started walking off down the sidewalk while mom and I were still looking at the stuff for sale. I called after him, "Isaac, don't go too far please" and then called his name a couple more times, but he kept going. He was maybe 20-30 feet away from me at this point. I said humorously to myself, "Well, he's outta here." And then this other woman, who was standing there perusing the books for sale, said something like, "Well, you could go grab his arm, if you were interested in actually parenting your child."
Then she started to walk farther into the yard sale and I yelled at her, "ExCUSE me, are you trying to tell me how to parent my child?" to which she fairly predictably replied, "Well, someone has to." So I said "and how many children have you raised?" and she said "you don't have to have kids to blah blah," whereupon I, also fairly predictably (and unimaginatively), said "fuck you" and she said "nice language around your kid" and I said "I'd rather have him hear 'fuck' than the crap you're spewing at me." (Isaac was, by the way, pretty much oblivious to all of this anyway. Although I will admit it was definitely not the first time he's heard me say 'fuck.')
Then some more stuff was said that I don't actually remember because I was too angry, and then my mom pulled me away (not literally). We went a little ways down the street and I stopped to help Isaac put his beads around his neck, and then the woman went past us again saying "*cough*breeder*cough*" and I said "*cough*bitch*cough*" and she again said "nice language" and I said "yeah, what I said before" and she snorted.
Then I yelled after her, "You're welcome to babysit any time!" Which I guess didn't come out quite the way I meant it. ;) In my head it meant, "You should try spending some actual time with an actual child before you go passing judgment," but the way it came out, it probably sounded more like "I would like to foist my child off on you so I can go out partying." Oh well.
I should point out, by the way, that Isaac had really not gone far at ALL, and my eye was on him at all times, and I do of course have an internal "sensor" of how far I'll comfortably let him go before I run after him. And I know my child. I knew he wasn't going to run into the street or go with a stranger or even (probably) get very far away before he turned around and came back to me. But you know, that's not even the fucking point, because the fucking point is, when you're in that other woman's position, you don't KNOW any of that, so it's not your fucking BUSINESS to pass judgment.
(Edit I forgot to add, that even if/when I do decide that Isaac has gone far enough -- I do not "grab his arm" as this asshole was suggesting. More likely, I hustle over so that I'm just a few feet behind him, and then I let him continue to wander, but with closer supervision (i.e., me following him). Or if he sees me and stops to look, I might say, "come on, let's go back over there." I do not GRAB my child's arm unless there's immediate danger, like a car bearing down on him or something.)
The thing is, I have no beef with the childfree folks in general. Hell, I wish MORE people (especially women) had the self-awareness and guts to say openly, "I don't want kids and will not have them," rather than cave to societal pressure that says, "of course everyone wants kids." But the problem with the childfree "movement" is that so many of its practitioners get so fucking self-righteous about it; they lose sight of the fact that they have made a PERSONAL choice. It's like they go directly from "I don't want kids" to "people who have kids are brainless idiots" with no stops in between. You made a choice and that's fine, but that doesn't mean that those of us who made a different choice are wrong.
And I really find it extremely fucking ironic that so damn many childfree people feel free to criticize the parenting choices/styles of us "breeders." (And by "extremely fucking ironic" I mean "extremely fucking offensive.") Listen, if you choose not to become a violinist that's fine, but you don't go up onto the symphony stage and criticize the violinists' technique, because you don't fucking know. And don't even try to tell me that you held a violin and scraped the bow over the strings (i.e., babysat) once or twice and that gives you the right to speak knowledgeably about it, because guess what, it doesn't.
Meaning absolutely no offense to anyone here who has no children but has babysat -- you don't know what it's like to parent. You know what it's like to babysit, and that's great, and maybe that gives you some inkling of what parenting is like, but you don't KNOW. And furthermore, even if you do have a child? That STILL doesn't give you the right to tell me how to parent my child! Unless you see me beating the crap out of him or shoving cocaine up his nose, BUTT THE FUCK OUT.
End rant. Thank you, drive through.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 08:41 pm (UTC)As a child-free person, I admit to having used the derogatory term "breeder" myself. However, I use it specifically to describe the type of people who irresponsibly pump out lots of babies and don't make any effort to raise them halfway decently, and don't respect the process of having a kid for the major responsibility that it is. I wish there were more parents like you in the world. Kinda wish mine were among them. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 09:51 pm (UTC)*hugs you*
no subject
Date: 2005-07-17 01:14 pm (UTC)Do you think what you said applies to film critics?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 01:59 pm (UTC)My kids are grown and gee, they survived that, and I survived it and you know what? They're both pretty nifty people even though I didn't tie them to my side or slap duct tape over their mouths.