Curiosity strikes - other voluntary childless people here?

Scots Taffer on 13/7/2009 at 09:56

Hey, Vas threw a bunch of winkies and stuff in all of her posts, surely that's qualifier enough for subtle passive aggression, eh? I sold her short, I apologise. That was subtle. (For the record, she was the first one to bring up how her English might be clouding the discussion we were having)

Anyway, I was actually kidding when I wrote that (using what I thought was a fairly easily understood gag since there was already a discussion around what seems to be a subculture re: all this over in Finland but apologies if you skim read this whole thread before spewing out your p.o.v.) but seeing as you want to throw down, okay, your post is a crock of shit.

From over here that perceived air of arrogance is nonexistent (unless you're only reading AR's posts and going into a red mist rage) and those assumptions you're throwing around aren't shared by very many people in this thread. To me this is looking more and more like Finland has created a truly bizarre subculture where any implication of people living a happy life with children makes them guilty in your eyes of everything you suggest and more by being bloody self-righteous enough to even suggest that you could be missing out on something.

Guess what, you could be and you'll never know.

But then you're right too, a life without a kid could easily be very fulfilling (or even more so) for a whole different set of reasons. That said, I ain't arrogant enough to suggest that just by saying so makes you a baby-hating elitist who looks down on people who procreate purely because of biological and evolutionary instinct.

So again, we're back to the same old fucking story: if we can agree that stereotypes on both sides are bad and that trotting out these trite fucking examples of extremes on either end only allows one some vague sense of moral superiority over the other, why are you still fucking posting?

Unless you are one of those extremes, of course.

Ohshi

Vasquez on 13/7/2009 at 10:05

Scots, it really seems my English is very bad, since I honestly don't understand why you keep pulling that stereotype-thing out of your ass in almost every post. Do you go blind when you read bold text, or what is it?

Anyways, I'm gonna use bold again, because now I got it how to crystallize this so maybe people will understand:

Quote Posted by dethtoll

But the Hardcore Childfree people- the sorts who come up with words like "breeder"- are among the most unlikeable, arrogant, selfish, childish people on the planet. They're bigger dickholes than ancaps, and of course there's a lot of overlap.

Breeders are the parent version of "hardcore childfree".

I don't like "hardcore childfree" either (that's why I stopped going to a certain north-american/canadian childfree forums, so it's not just "a Finn thing").

Edit. And why am I still posting? Could it be because I was suddenly labeled some sort of fanatic hardcore, because I mentioned "breeder bingo" (which in itself is truly a joking word, in a way it is funny how so many childfree people from different backgrounds etc. keep hearing the same clichés - like "you don't know what you're missing!" ;) )

Fingernail on 13/7/2009 at 10:10

Quote:

Some examples from real life:
- [snide]Oh, so you just want to party and live selfishly, of course it would be nice if we aaaalll could do that![/snide]
- But everyone wants kids! Which end has gone wrong with you, up or down?
- You're not a real woman/man!
- You will end up all alone (sometimes with "and you deserve it!")
- When are you gonna put down that old mutt and start having babies like a normal person?
- I hope you will have "an accident".
- Oh, so you're one of those child-haters!
etc.

But these are just awful, unthinking people. The problem comes when you couch it in terminology like "childfree" and "breeders" and force the world into this "us vs them" mentality. And then you allow exceptions - "not all parents are like that..." - presumably to demonstrate that your worldview is not so closed as it would otherwise appear. This all surely smacks of defining one's position on something in relation to an imagined majority position - which is troublesome to begin with, because you can bet that groups of breeders don't meet up and talk about how selfish the childfree are.

Instead you become the special minority, a privileged group that is different to, perhaps better than, the perceived all-encompassing society. And unfortunately this works against you, because as I'm doing right now, if not taking up the opposite position, I'm taking the position that you have too much of a "position" on this. Which, by dealing with it in the terms of the "childfree" group you have set forth, reinforces the idea that you are some victimised, persecuted group - an idea that mol perceives this thread as exemplifying. I'm just trying to devalue your arguments, silence dissent, right?

I don't give a shit that anyone doesn't want kids. My uncle and aunt won't have kids now, they're probably just about too old. Is anyone going to ask them about it? I doubt it. It's none of anyone's business. And I honestly can't imagine anyone they or I know persecuting them on it in the manner you've described.

EDIT: at least, this would certainly go for the hardcore childfree you describe, that you now distance yourself from.

Scots Taffer on 13/7/2009 at 10:15

Quote Posted by Fingernail

This all surely smacks of defining one's position on something in relation to an imagined majority position - which is troublesome to begin with, because you can bet that groups of breeders don't meet up and talk about how selfish the childfree are.
...
Which, by dealing with it in the terms of the "childfree" group you have set forth, reinforces the idea that you are some victimised, persecuted group - an idea that mol perceives this thread as exemplifying. I'm just trying to devalue your arguments, silence dissent, right?

This.

Morte on 13/7/2009 at 10:16

Quote Posted by Kolya

You knew all along it's the internet, where coarse exaggeration and one-sided arguments are all part of the game, right? At least I like to think that none of us is that stupid as we sometimes appear here.... But looking at the way some of you reacted to AR, maybe you did not.

Even on the internet there comes a point where the gibbering retard shouting BITCH FAGGOT QUEER YOU GAYWAD WICCAN FEMINIST SISSIES IS WHY WE'LL BE OVERRUN BY CHINESE MUSLIM UNTERMENSCHEN GO SMOKE A TAILPIPE so he can go 'lol serious business' becomes so fucking noxious a slapping is in order.

Which isn't to say 'Breeder Bingo' is anything less than ridiculous, of course. It's a term that belongs in a livejournal community - preferably gated and chained shut from the outside - in posts marked with current mood: feeling SO special, right next to fursecution. So you did or didn't choose to have kids. Big fucking deal. Noone gets worked up about this except assholes.

Vasquez on 13/7/2009 at 10:19

Quote Posted by Fingernail

For fucks sake, I have told I have very close, dear friends who have children. Breeders are the exception, not the nice, sensible parents. But along the way of decades of childfree life it's not uncommon to run into the so-called breeders.
And if a childfree person is expected always to "rise above" the insulting comments, why is it that so many people with kids get so huffed over this thread?

Have I really come across as trying to be "better" because of my choice? If so, I apologise and start taking English lessons.

Quote Posted by Fingernail

And I honestly can't imagine anyone they or I know persecuting them on it in the manner you've described.

I have never met an eskimo, so surely they don't exist.

Morte on 13/7/2009 at 10:40

Quote Posted by Vasquez

For fucks sake, I have told I have very close, dear friends who have children. Breeders are the exception, not the nice, sensible parents.

"I have lots of friends who are gay. It's only the prancing, in your face ones that are faggots."

"I have lots of friends who are black. It's only the inner-city gangbangers who are niggers."

And yes, clearly there's different social power relationships at play in those examples.

But still, when you use words like 'breeder' you are drawing a very sharp distinction between people, and every goddamn person that either has, or wants to have children is going to hear themselves being lumped into that derogatory category, and everything you say after that is going to be colored by the fact that you're on different sides in the us-them dynamic. It might suck, but it's how crowd dynamics work.

mol on 13/7/2009 at 10:43

Scots, I don't think you really try to understand what's being said. Doesn't seem that way, seeing how hard you're bending over backwards to not getting it. At least not getting what I said.

As far as interpreting the tone of this whole thread, that's neither here nor there. It's all over the place anyway, so let's let that slide, and I shouldn't have said anything about that in my comment - it's irrelevant to the subject.

My point was just this:

Having kids is all right.
Not having kids is all right.

Neither position is inherently better of provides, by default, a richer, more fulfilling life. They're simply different. As lives tend to be.

That's a crock of shit? Alright, then, at least I know where you stand.

Quote:

To me this is looking more and more like Finland has created a truly bizarre subculture where any implication of people living a happy life with children makes them guilty in your eyes of everything you suggest and more by being bloody self-righteous enough to even suggest that you could be missing out on something.

Guess what, you could be and you'll never know.

There you are again categorising people.

You know, had you read what I wrote, you'd have noticed I said "Without kids, you will lose potentially great moments in life", and continued with "but those aren't any more unique moments than those that people with kids may miss out on due to the different lifestyle that comes with kids."

Different lives, different life experiences, both could be missing out on something.

And of course in reality, neither side really is. There's no defined number of Achievements & Experiences in life that can be reached, so that at the end we could compare them to see who's life was fuller. "Oh, see you didn't do A, you missed out on B." Ridiculous.

I'm not on any kind of a fucking mission here as a speaker for people without children, and I don't identify myself with such, nor belong to any such a social group, so don't try to stamp my ass with any kind of a label. I couldn't care less about how people decide to live their lives, with or without kids. It's not my life, not my choise, nothing do do with me.

If anything, I was trying to balance out the views here.

Scots Taffer on 13/7/2009 at 10:44

Morte, call me a lot of things but I ain't a homophobe, I want to make sweet love to you :mad:

mol, your post is a crock of shit because of your opening statement not any of the rational statements you make after the fact and again, if you could read, you'd see that's all I addressed in my post.

It's exactly like Morte is saying: I don't hate black people, some of my friends are black but ...

You walk in and say:

Quote:

This thread has a sense of veiled arrogance and an air of moral superiority in it, towards those who, for whatever reason, choose not to have kids.

Anything that comes after that has got to be viewed through a fairly narrow lens. It was as balanced as a one legged prostitute. So fucking deal with it.

Fingernail on 13/7/2009 at 10:49

Quote Posted by Vasquez

But this is my point, you talk about "breeders" as if they're an actual group of people as recognisable, definable and organised as the "childfree" apparently are. It would be like me making a club of my really clever friends and referring to all the stupid people in society* as the "dumbos". Most people are fairly capable, but it's the "dumbos" who always ruin stuff. Always drag society down. You know exactly who they are, you see them flocking to furniture shops to buy cheap tasteless sofas.

For what it's worth, I'd never heard either of these terms (except breeder/breeding being something rather unsavoury in terms of homosexual intercourse) before this thread cropped up.

* that's right, a nebulous, arbitrary group of people we perceive as the opposite of ourselves. Since we know who we are, anybody who is not us has the potential to be a "dumbo". Forunately most people don't rub us up the wrong way, but the ones that do - dumbos for certain!