Is your blood pressure rising? Are you feeling dizzy? Is your heart palpatating? Are you irritable and yelling? Is your family walking on eggshells around you because you are a ticking time bomb?
If your answer is yes, you must be a MOM, so do yourself a favor and take a "Mommy Time Out". Practice deep breathing! Get yourself a "family stress box" (???) Get one of those squeezie stress balls to squeeze! Stick your IPod on and listen to some relaxing music. Journal your feelings! Get better about predicting those "nightmare moments" (i.e. mornings with your kids) and do a better job preparing for them! Work off the stress by exercising (but you'll have to do it WITH your kids, since you have no time to yourself).
There are a couple good things about this piece. First, the women discuss many of the negative stereotypes childfree women must endure, such as the assumptions that we are selfish, cold, heartless people who do not know our own minds (you know - we'll change our minds later about having kids). They also discuss the assumptions that all women should aspire to be moms, that motherhood is the one true path to adulthood, maturity, fulfilment and a purposeful life and agree that these assumptions are incorrect, and that there are many ways women can lead satisfying and fulfilling lives apart from having children.
Then there are the downsides:
1. I wish the message was conveyed that not only can childfreedom be equally as fulfilling as motherhood, but many childfree women feel it is more fulfilling and this is an important reason many women opt out of motherhood.
2. It is incorrect to say that all childfree women have doubts and second thoughts about their choice. Childfree women are no more unsure or doubtful about their life choice than mothers. In fact, while moms are flooding the internet with "I hate being a mom" and "I regret having kids" posts and discussions, one would be hard-pressed to find any "I hate being childfree" or "I regret not having kids" posts on the web. So which group is the unsure and regretful one? And why is it always assumed that the childfree woman is racked with doubt? Just another false stereotype about childfree women.
And do we really need the lonely, stark photos of empty playground swings accompanied by a shift in music from upbeat to creepy and forboding at the very moment the issue of childfree doubt arises? (reinforcing the message that childfree women might be making a big mistake).
3. While the negative stereotypes about childfree women were mentioned, such as selfishness, I wish the piece took the next step and discussed the truth about childfree women: that they are in fact often better able to live a more selfless and giving life thanks to the freedoms they are afforded by foregoing childrearing - more time to devote to their spouses, families and other personal relationships, more time to be involved in their communities, more time for volunteer and charity work, etc.
4. Ms. Brokaw's comment at the end of the piece about there being many ways a woman can relate to children without having to be a mom was well-meaning, but reinforces the stereotype that all women are maternal and have a need to express that instinct. In fact, while many childfree women (including me) consider themselves maternal and express that part of themselves in a variety of ways, there are also many childfree women who have chosen not to have kids preciselybecause they recognize that they are not maternal - and hurray for them for recognizing this! There are far too many non-maternal women who have no business being mothers, who go ahead and have children anyway because "it's just what you do" - and the children pay the price. Additionally, while many childfree women enjoy being around kids or working in careers which place them around children, there are plenty of childfree women who donot enjoy kids and have no interest in caretaking jobs such as social worker, teacher, nurse, doctor and so on. Not all women have a need to have children as an important part of their lives. However, I suspect this viewpoint (as well as the others I listed here) might be a bit too much for the Today Show's audience to digest.
Well, looks like The Today Show is at it again - pedaling their pronatalist viewpoints. This time, Matt Lauer is giving the third degree to a young man, Toby Byrum, who has formalized his decision not to have children by having a vasectomy.
Watch Matt throw some of the tired old "bingoes" out to the happily childfree guy: "What about passing on your last name?" "What if you change your mind?" "Did you bank sperm as an escape hatch?" (the assumption, of course, being that Toby surely doesn't know his own mind and that his decision is a questionable one).
Of course, The Today Show wouldn't be The Today Show without an "expert" therapist chiming in with advice and warnings for the poor, confused souls who may be considering such a dubious life choice - insultingly suggesting they receive therapy to uproot the causes of their desire to not have children. Could it be anxiety? Baggage or emotional wounds from childhood? Suggesting, of course, that the young man's choice is pathological and we need to make sure he really knows his mind and is making his decision for sound reasons and not because he's psychologically fucked up.
What I would like to see - just once - are prospective PARENTS given the same third degree as happily childfree folks. When is somebody going to question the prospective PARENT about his reasons for wanting kids? When is somebody going to ask him if he has really thought his decision through carefully, and whether he has really considered all the ramifications of his life-altering decision? When is somebody going to question his potential regrets and what "escape hatches" he might employ if he later discovers he made the wrong choice and hates being a parent? After all, unlike a childfree person who can always adopt or become a foster parent down the road if he changes his mind, parenthood is irreversible, not to mention the fact that plenty of people are not happy being parents (although parenthood-glorifying venues like The Today Show would love us to believe otherwise). In fact, The Today Show itself has run more than one spot on research showing parents are less happy and have lower levels of marital satisfaction than the childfree and yet they continue to put well-adjusted, intelligent people like Toby Byrum on the defensive for an obviously well-thought out decision that brings fulfillment and happiness to his life.
To his credit, Toby handled himself GREAT - and as a fellow happily childfree person - he makes me proud for the way he represented the childfree so intelligently and thoughtfully on that silly show. Thankfully he steered completely clear of the self-depricating and apologetic statements we've come to expect from childfree folks on the hot seat ("I'm too selfish to have kids", "I wouldn't make a good parent", "I admire people who have kids - parenthood is the best job in the world - I am just not cut out for it").
AND once again, The Today Show has disappointed me with their narrow-minded lack of imagination when it comes to any life choice outside that espoused by their target middle-American mommy homemaker audience.
Here's a question for you - and I think I know what your answer will be: If you knew of a restaurant that had a "Screaming Children Will not be Tolerated" sign on their door, would you be more or less likely to patronize that restaurant?
Kudos to Old Salty's Restaurant in Carolina Beach, North Carolina for enforcing a No Screaming Kids policy. Have a kid who is carrying on and screaming bloody murder? You're out the door. Can't control your kids and don't care how they are disrupting the dining experience of other patrons? Hit the road, Jack. Don't have the common decency or consideration to take your kid outside if he is throwing a full-blown tantrum? Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Of course, no matter how reasonable and sensible something is, there's always someone who will take offense. Watch this clip from the Today Show and witness a mom getting her panties in a twist over Old Salty's policy. How dare someone require her to control her child! How dare someone prevent her kid from annoying and ruining the meal of everyone in the restaurant! How dare someone not kiss up families! This is America! It's all about babies - and mommies -and families and look at us - we are the circus and we have come to town!!!
I say kudos to proprietor Brenda for having the guts to put her foot down and say enough is enough. I hope more restaurants will follow her lead. In fact, why stop at a No Screaming Kids policy? How about a Kid-Free Dining Section? Let the families with kids have their own rubber-walled dining room where the kids can stand on the tables, eat without utencils, smear food on each other and have screaming matches while the parents pin awards on them for being exceptionally expressive. Let the rest of us dine in peace.
The Today Show likes to talk about families, and babies, and pregnancy and parenting A LOT. They spend lots of air time promoting and glorifying parenthood - just one of the thousands of voices in the deafening chorus of media pronatalists singing the praises of having children and providing endless support and encouragement for people who choose that lifestyle. I challenge you to find one 30-minute slot on The Today Show in which you will not be subjected to a piece on motherhood, or babies, or parenting techniques, or infertility treatments, or mid-life mothering, or debates over innoculations, or child discipline, or child health issues and the list goes on adfinitum. The pro-parenthood propoganda never stops...
EXCEPT when it comes to the Octomom. I guess even the parenthood-obsessed Today Show has to draw a line somewhere. Watch the above clip and listen to Dr. Almighty Snyderman (a Today Show regular) cast her judgment on Nadya Suleman, Suleman's doctors and our culture's obsession with multiple births and bad parenting, a.k.a. "bad parent porn."
I agree with Dr. Almighty, but here's the rub: The Today Show is one of the very outlets that relentlessly feeds our culture's breeding obsession, and fuels the attention-seeking, baby-obsessed psychosis of human breeding machines like Nadya Suleman. This in turn ramps up the demand for unethical doctors who will do whatever they can to service women like Octomom, yet now The Today Show stands in judgement of the very monster it helped to create.
The Today Show may cast all the stones it likes, but today I am casting some stones right back at it.
