Bitching (without backpedaling)

Written by a mom - and NO backpedaling - 50 Reasons to Not Have a Baby. (Thanks, CFVixen, for the forward).

The Scoop on Pregnancy (and Childfree Pre-Thanksgiving Thankfulness)

CFVixen sends me the best stuff (thank you CFVixen!). This article had me laughing out loud. It's called Top 10 Things They Should Warn You About Before You Get Pregnant. If you are childfree, you should definitely read the article and relish in thankfulness and joy of knowing you will be spared this awful fate. Here's the secret stuff pregnant go through that nobody warns them about:

1. Growing a beard.

2. Constipation

3. Bad gas

4. Drooling

5. Belching

6. Overgrown pubic hair

7. Excess vaginal discharge

8. Vaginal pain (i.e. "lightening crotch")

9. Incontinence

10. Vaginal lips growing in size

AND if you read the readers' comments below the article, you will also learn that there are a slew of additional wonderful symptoms of pregnancy including but not limited to: stuffy nose, snoring, hemorrhoids, leg cramps, runny nose, skin tags, liver spots, nipple clogging, acne, itchy skin, backaches, body aches and pains, pregnancy mask, unusual body smells, nosebleeds, splotchy skin, clogged ears and sinuses, acid indigestion and acid reflux, limp hair, exhaustion, yeast infections, varicose veins, itchy nipples, hyper-salivation, swollen eyeballs and more!

Thanksgiving is coming! Let's all give thanks for being childfreeeeee!

The Shape of a Mother

Here's a pro-mommy web site that has an interesting slant. It's mission is to expose the reality of mothers' bodies (i.e. stretch marks, tummy blubber, sagging boobs, overweight, etc.) so that other mommies (who are suffering with the same disfigurements) can see that said disfigurements are normal. The web site author's dream is to create a site where post-baby bodies can be celebrated and "cherished" because they've "done so much for the human race".

So how it works is that moms with stretch marks, sagging breasts, etc. send the author naked photos of themselves (and accompanying stories of the body issues they're dealing with due to having children) which are then posted on the web site so that other moms with the same disfigurements can see them and feel comforted that they are not alone in having these body issues. Sagging breasts, tummy blubber, overweight and stretch marks are normal and beautiful.

Although not meant to be, this odd little website is a reinforcement to childfreedom, graphically demonstrating two of The Top 100 Reasons Not to Have Kids (and Remain Childfree):

18. You will have the time and energy to exercise regularly and take care of your health and appearance.

30. You will be better able to retain your youthfulness and sex appeal
because your body will not be ravaged by childbearing and a crappy diet.

While not a childfree site by any means, The Shape of a Mother web site does a service to all women (mothers and non-mothers alike) by showing what pregnancy and childbirth really do to women's bodies. Honest depictions of the ravages of childbearing are hard to come by in a culture which glorifies and glamorizes pregnancy and motherhood. Turn on the television or look in any women's or celebrity magazine and these are the types of unrealistic fantasy images you will see of pregnant and post-pregnant bodies:

And then we have the reality of real women's pregnant and post-pregnant bodies - women like your friends and family members who do not have the luxury of air brushing, stylists, personal trainers, plastic surgery and dieticians:

So thank you, The Shape of a Mother, for reminding me of one of the many blessings of being childfree. You didn't mean to do it, but you just provided me with a big dose of gratefulness for the life (and body) I have chosen.

On Looking Stylish (and Pregnant)

I don't know if this is a normal symptom of being middle aged, but I have no patience for fashion trends anymore. I find myself increasingly irritated every season by the atrocious, unflattering crap that is peddled as the latest must-have fashion. Before I go further, I want to apologize upfront because I am going to slam some popular fashions - and you may wear one or both of these (perhaps even proudly) - so don't take it personally, okay? To each his own - I am sure if you saw what occupies my closet, you'd find plenty to slam as well. Disclaimer over.

My fashion disgust started with capri pants which, my mother told me, were called pedal-pushers and clam-diggers back they first came into fashion several decades ago. Well, since we all the know the fashion industry is often short on creativity and would rather recycle the same silly things over and over again rather than be creative and invent something new, to my horror capri pants came back into style about 8-10 years ago and every spring since then they have come back again and again, filling pants racks in every store, giving women from coast to coast the look of tree stumps for legs. Capri pants are long overdue for a slow, painful death because in my estimation, they are floods, plain and simple. This is the song kids used to sing when I was in junior high to anyone whose pant legs rode even a quarter inch above their shoe laces:

The flood is over, the land is dry

Why do you wear your pants so high?

Maybe I was traumatized by this song and my hatred of capri pants is a symptom of PTSD. In any event...

When my man, Tim Gunn (of Project Runway), universally condemned capri pants as unflattering on practically every woman, I shouted HURRAY from the rooftops. Thank God I am not alone and somebody feels about them as I do! Yet, to my dismay, they just will not DIE. They still fill most of the pant racks at every store in the spring and summer and woe to the woman (i.e. me) who would like to buy a full-length pant. Happy hunting.

The latest horror show is the babydoll top (a.k.a. maternity smock) trend. It came into style last spring and I was horrified to discover just the other day that the trend has resurfaced like an unkillable cockroach, infesting 90% of the square footage dedicated to women's tops in every clothing store.

Here is my beef about the maternity top trend: why would any woman who is not pregnant, want to look pregnant? Being pregnant = being BIG and round, right? Most women do not want to look big and round, yet the babydoll/maternity top (a style which provides women with a big and round silhouette) is back with a vengeance this spring, which tells me the trend must be selling pretty well. This despite the fact that I have yet to see a woman (aside from 6 feet tall, 100 pound runway models) who don't look about 20 pounds heavier in this style of top. I have been utterly perplexed by the ongoing popularity of this trend.

That is until I put my Childfreedom thinking cap on (the one with the little propellers) and thought about this a little more deeply. Could there be a psychological explanation for this seemingly inexplicable consumer behavior? Perhaps there exists a subconscious desire in most women to be pregnant and this fuels their desire for the babydoll/maternity top. Where would such a subconsious desire come from? Well, let's see: pregnant women are fawned over, celebrated, told they are radiant, beautiful, glowing, miraculous and showered with gifts. All the popular celebrity and women's magazines are chock full of photo spreads of beautiful, sexy, pregnant celebrities in stylish maternity clothes. Pregnancy = beauty, virtue and accomplishment in our culture and now, even sexiness. What woman doesn't want to be beautiful, virtuous, accomplished and sexy?

You've undoubtedly heard the saying that art is an expression of culture. Well, this is my theory for today: the maternity top trend is an outward expression of the pregnancy obsession that has our culture in its death grip.

Perhaps I am overanalyzing. I do tend to do that sometimes and after all, fashion isn't generally that deep. But this theory makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than the idea that women just want to look fatter.

Bashing the Baby Bump

Is it just me, or is the media frenzy surrounding celebrity "baby bumps" extremely annoying and tiresome? I like to follow celebrity news like every other mindless American but this is ridiculous. Let me ask you, friends...do YOU care which celebrities are pregnant? Does the sight of a female celebrity frolicking in a loose fitting smock send you racing to the entertainment tabloids? When a celebrity's baby is born, do you hustle to the t.v. and hungrily flip channels to see the first footage of the precious little imp?

I personally don't know anyone who gives two hoots about celebrity pregnancies and yet if you are to believe the entertainment television shows, tabloids, blogs and web sites, knocked up celebs are on the top of everyone's MUST KNOW list (but then again, so is the latest on Britney Spears' trainwreck life and I can't figure that out either).

I've given this some thought and the only thing I can think of that may be remotely interesting about celeb's pregnancy is watching previously rail-thin, concentration camp-looking bodies expand into enormity and seeing how they cope with it. Will they get stretch marks and saggy boobs like normal women (probably not, thanks to cosmetic surgery and personal trainers)? This just shows you how hungry Americans are for mindless entertainment because the plain fact is that there just ain't nothin' exceptional or interesting about getting impregnanted and having babies. As I have said before, it's just so ordinary.

Sadly, media frenzy does not end with the birth of the baby. We are bombarded with the nail-bitingly, edge-of-your-seat excitement of Brangelina taking their brood to the playground. WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK? How empty must a person's life be to find a photo of Brad Pitt pushing his kid on a swing entertaining?

No, I just don't get it, and I guess that's a good thing because if I did get it, that would make a pretty sad statment about me.