Curiosity strikes - other voluntary childless people here?

Fingernail on 13/7/2009 at 17:56

Well, aside from it being used to suggest the existence of a community of people, it's also a rather politically constructed word, if you will.

What's wrong with "childless"? Of course, what's wrong about it is that the word "less" implies that you're missing out on something. But the word "free" implies you're actually better off than normal, you're literally free from the constraints of children. Smoke-free. Cancer-free. Hunger-free.

Home-less, Job-less, Use-less. Imagine the boost unemployed people would get if they were JOBFREE. Fuck working, man, I'm JOBFREE.

It's a cunning bit of branding, is all. "Voluntarily childless" on the other hand implies a certain level of self-sacrifice. Taking the hard path by choice. Maybe this kind of word-construction comes down to one's take on English, but I guess "childfree" was coined by an English speaker.

The problem is that the word "parent" has no particularly positive or negative connotations, everyone knows there are good parents and bad parents. Obviously there are certain times when the WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE A PARENT line comes out, but even then, it's not to imply that being a parent is a great thing necessarily, just that it is a further life experience which can change your perspective on things. WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE OLDER, WAIT UNTIL YOU'VE BEEN ON THE DOLE. IF YOU'D SEEN WHAT I'VE SEEN. People are always trumpeting their experience over others, it's up to you who you listen to.

Instead you [or at least, some people] call the instrusive/militant/whatever parents "breeders" which is a term far worse than "childless" (which by the way I haven't really heard anyone use - people here, if they even mention it, just say "he/she/they don't have any children"). "Breeders" implies an unthinking animal instinct, a life centered around a single biological purpose. Perhaps some are, but at least it is something. Centering one's life around NOT being a parent seems rather sad. I'm not saying that's what you do, but you make it sound as if there are probably people out there who do.

But then, I don't know why this should be new. This is the internet. It turns out people centre their lives around practically everything from chakats to the coming apocalypse.

DDL on 13/7/2009 at 18:03

I'm amazed anyone gives enough of a shit to take offence at 'childfree' or 'breeders'. Those are incredibly innocuous terms.

Is this like, chronically thin-skin hour or something?

Honestly, 'breeders' sounds kinda homely and cosy to me, and 'childfree' sounds pretty neutral.

Muzman on 13/7/2009 at 18:07

Any time one of my old chums would get up the duff (or vicariously so) we'd all point and shriek "Breeders!"
It may be a goth thing.

Tocky on 13/7/2009 at 18:27

Quote Posted by DDL

Honestly I don't much care. I just get the feeling people who can call anything in this thread thinly veiled when it's all been open and honest see a boogeyman where there aint one. I imagine this:

So you old skallywag, when you gonna spit out a minime?

LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BREEDER I'M A PROUD CHILD FREE AND I MUST RUN WITH THE WIND BUT FIRST I MUST JOIN A SUPPORT GROUP TO HELP ME GET OVER YOUR INSENSITIVE COMMENT.

Yeah. I think I'll just go get a coke. Um... you know saying breeder puts you in the man hating lesbian group right? I mean, that is what they say you kno... I'm just going to start running now.

Muzman on 13/7/2009 at 18:32

Quote Posted by Tocky

Um... you know saying breeder puts you in the man hating lesbian group...

I saw them open for Black And Blue Man Group once. They were great. The headliners not so much. A bit listless to be frank.

Thirith on 13/7/2009 at 18:33

Quote Posted by Tocky

Honestly I don't much care. I just get the feeling people who can call anything in this thread thinly veiled when it's all been open and honest see a boogeyman where there aint one.

Oh, trust me - there are people who think something is wrong with you if you don't have children. There are people who give you shit for it, often in a passive-aggressive "we're just joking" way. Are there people who are hypersensitive to anything that might be a slur on their childlessness (for whatever reason)? Definitely. But especially for women there are people out there who aren't very veiled in their "you don't want children? you're not really a woman then" crap.

Vasquez on 13/7/2009 at 18:38

Quote Posted by Thirith

This may very well be a native-speaker vs. non-native-speaker thing, but "child-free" does carry at least a hint of "(and proud of it)".

Oh, I didn't realise that, thanks for clearing it up for me :) Explains a lot ;)

Morte on 13/7/2009 at 19:52

Quote Posted by Vasquez

I don't think I've ever met a gay person who preaches his/her heterosexual friends what they're missing, when they choose to fuck only the opposite sex ;)

I'm wasn't saying people nagging people who don't have kids aren't asses, or that you're wrong to be annoyed at them; I was making a point about rhetoric.

When someone trots out 'faggot' they've lost everyone who doesn't think referring to people in that way is acceptable. I doesn't matter if they then proceed to claim that they're cool with gay guys in general, they were just talking about those eight guys blowing nine other guys that followed them around all day - so gay they had an extra dick to go in an ear, and they made slurping noises too.

'Breeder' is linguistically about as hostile. The moment you have to qualify it to exclude your audience - and you'll have to unless you're preaching to the choir, because it sounds like it's referring to anyone with kids - you've basically already lost, if your goal is to bring people around to your point of view. They're already alienated.

It's a lovely word for seething in a community full of like minded people, but it also works just as well for isolating that community from the rest of the population.

Fingernail on 13/7/2009 at 20:47

Quote Posted by DDL

by the way if you thought I was taking offence at anything consider yourself CORRECTED

I was just looking at the construction of the words. In the case of childfree at least, it's a very conscious effort - after all, there is no such word, it should properly be rendered "child-free" or even just "child free". But it's been put together to signify something.

[smug]For something that pupports to be free it seems to weigh rather heavily around its proponents necks snort snort[/smug]

DDL on 13/7/2009 at 21:21

I thought it was just laziness, like taxfree or dutyfree.

...I'm guessing it's a largely american term?

(or that I'm still successfully leading a sheltered life) :angel: