Get to Work, You Hungover Hedonist!

If you're a childfree person and have had the pleasure of reading my Top 100 Reasons Not to Have Kids (and Remain Childfree), hopefully you've found much validation and vindication in that list. Everyone blabs on and on about why you should have kids, right? Well MY list blabs on and on about why you shouldn't have kids and why you should keep your life just as it is. Let me tell you my friends, as long as that list is, it took me all of about 30 minutes to create. One after another, the reasons to be childfree just tumbled out of me at such a speed that my fingers on the keyboard couldn't keep pace with my thoughts. I got to about number 85 before I even paused.

All of the reasons on that list are true and valid, but some are more clear cut black-and-white than others. For example number 94: "Your boss will appreciate having a reliable employee who works her full hours, calls out sick only rarely, can work overtime if needed, and take on special projects. You might even get a raise, or get promoted."

As a childfree employee, this benefit has been my direct experience many times over. My bosses have always appreciated my reliability and dedication to my job, my promptness, my energy, focus and flexibility to do what it takes to get the job done - even if that means coming in early, staying late or adjusting my schedule in other ways. My work ethic has led to several promotions over the years and now I am a boss. There is no doubt my quality as an employee is directly tied to my childfree lifestyle. Whereas my childed co-workers (and now that I am a boss, my staff) are calling out constantly - either because their kids are sick, or because they have once again caught an illness from their kid, leaving early because of this problem, that crisis, this doctor's appointment, that phone call from the child's school, flitting around the office with stacks of baby pictures wasting everyone's time with boring, long-winded baby stories, I am steadfastly stationed at my desk, taking care of business and getting the job done. While the moms in the office are taking 3 months off for maternity leave, leaving everyone high and dry, and then returning to work (unwillingly, only because they have to) with bags under their eyes and with half the work ethic, energy, focus and attention span they had before, I am reliably here, every work day with the same consistent focus and work ethic I've always had.

Well, apparently there is a vocal mom who takes the complete opposite viewpoint about childfree employees. CF Vixen, with the comment, "You HAVE to blog on this one - this woman is insane!", forwarded me an article by a person named Carol Sarler entitled Why Bosses are Right to Distrust Women who Don't Want Children who takes the viewpoint that childfree working women are self-centered, time-wasting slugs. A warning before you read this: be prepared for your head to explode.

Among other things, this mother asserts that:

1. Women who opt not to have children are weird, cold, calculating, sad and mad.

2. Childfree women are "single-track careerists" who lack "an essential humanity" and accordingly are refused jobs and denied promotions.

3. Mothers are great workers who bring something extra to the job. They are so adept at multi-tasking from all those superhuman feats they accomplish at home, like cooking, dressing and caring for their kids, this makes them extra competent, able and responsible on the job. By contrast, childfree people are staying out late at night (you know, leading that hedonistic, partying lifestyle we are all known to lead) and coming into work late with hangovers.

4. Working mothers who miss time from work RARELY fail to make up the time.

5. While childfree women employees are busy "competing for the attentions of the male executives", conducting office "bitch-fests" and hanging around the office wasting time, the tireless and saintly worker bee mothers are busy doing actual work so that they can keep shoes on their poor children's feet (as opposed to the selfish childfree women who only have to worry about putting shoes on their own feet).

6. Working moms - simply by nature of being mothers - are (here we go again) selfless, compassionate, generous, committed, loyal and hard workers (implying, of course, that childfree women are not) and what employer doesn't want those traits in an employee!?

7. Children make a woman complete and women who choose not to have them should be pitied for their weirdness.

8. Hurray for the employers who have finally caught on to the truth of what wonderful workers moms are and what self-centered, lazy slogs childfree workers are!

Readers, let the comments commence.

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.

Update: The Hotel Replies

Here is the reply hubby got to his e-mail to the hotel:

We are sorry to learn of your disappointment with your recent visit. It is only from our guests’ perspectives that we are able to identify areas where we may make additional improvements.

Please be assured that your comments will be shared with the management team. We truly appreciate you sharing your feedback and hope to have the opportunity to welcome you back to our hotel in the near future.

Thank you for writing.

Hubby Sets the Hotel Straight

My hubby (on his own initiative) sent the hotel where we had the breakfast I wrote about this e-mail:

Greetings,

My wife and I were patrons of your breakfast buffet yesterday morning (5/23) at around 9:00 am. The food and waitstaff service were excellent, but I felt you should know about a service issue with the hostess.

I didn't notice her name (a blond woman, appx. late 20's), but when we arrived and were guided to our table by the hostess, we noticed that it was adjacent to a table with screaming children. We requested that we be seated away from this table, and even though the dining room had not yet begun to fill, she immediately balked at the request, and began what seemed to be an improvised version of 'house procedure' regarding how this would inconvenience the waitstaff, how we don't 'do that', etc. Eventually we were seated, with reluctance away from the disturbance, which was continual and filled the room.

I understand that, in a large dining room, servers have their own 'sections', but I think that a hotel with the reputation of your hotel would be more considerate of its patrons (and potential guests), and I would also submit that, even though the proximity to the amusement park demands that the restaurant be 'family-friendly', the experience of elegance that the hotel tries so hard to provide is ruined by a reluctance to enforce basic consideration among the patrons with young children, or provide a separate dining room for couples. I know this is a delicate issue for management, but during our meal I also noticed children writhing on windowsills, running between tables, etc. My initial impression of the hotel's grandeur is dampened, knowing the experience for civilized adults apparently doesn't differ from that of IHOP or Chuck E. Cheese.

Thank you for your consideration in this.

White Linens and Apes

Because there is simply no end to restaurant sagas, I share with you another installment.

Hubby and me were recently away on a mini-vacation and ended it with a lovely breakfast at a fancy hotel. The hotel was on a sprawling country estate and the dining room was a fancy-shmancy affair with white linen draped tablecloths, fine china and panoramic views of the countryside. (This is an actual photo of the dining room). The place just oozed old school sophistication - not a place any reasonable person would think to bring small children. However, because a major amusement park is located nearby, many hairbrained parents felt it was perfectly acceptable to take their children here for breakfast, instead of to the far more suitable local Denny's.

Upon arriving, the hostess escorted us to a table smack-dab between 2 young families, one of which had a toddler who was in the process of having a full-blown hissy fit; the other table with 3 young children who were climbing on the chairs like out-of-control apes. Realizing that this was going to make for a very unpleasant experience, I asked the hostess if she could please seat us away from the tables with small children. Well, you should have seen the look she gave me. It was a look of total incomprehension, as though I had asked her to board us onto a rocket ship in the center of the dining room and launch us into outer space. It took her about 10 seconds of looking at me blankly before she was able to comprehend my request, at which time she launched into a full-blown explanation of their seating procedures and how, in order to be fair to all the waitresses, they must seat their customers in certain sections, in the order in which the customers arrive.

I told her that is all well and good, but repeated our preference of not being seated near families with small children. I pointed to an empty table across the room that was a good distance away from the kinder-calamities and asked her if we could be seated there. After some more hemming and hawing, a consultation with the dining room manager, and making it obvious to us that we were really putting her out, she finally agreed to seat us there.

Of course it was only a matter of time before more families came into the dining room, filling the formerly-quiet tables around us. At one point during our meal, I looked around the dining room at the goings-on. One family had a child who was talking and singing at the TOP OF HER LUNGS. Not once did either parent instruct her to quiet down. She just kept on talking and singing to the annoyance of everyone except her parents.

At another nearby table with slightly older children, we watched as 2 of the children ran around their table playing tag while the oblivious parents ate their breakfast, never once even looking up from their plates to so much as visually acknowledge their ill behavior. Their third child, a boy who looked to be about 10 years old, had apparently gotten bored at the table, so he proceeded to perch himself upon one of the dining room's windowsills and played with his shoelaces, again, all within the sight of the parents and dining room staff and all without a single disciplinary comment from any of them.

Hubby and me just shook our heads and like two old farts, reminisced about our own upbringings and how in our day we would have never DREAMED of exhibiting such behavior because our parents would have immediately put a stop to it. We were well aware that there were certain behaviors that went along with dining out in restaurants and singing, playing tag and climbing on chairs and windowsills like monkeys was not among them.

This stuff may seem minor, but it truly makes us fear for our future. What is our world going to be like when the coddled products of these lazy, inconsiderate, oblivious and overly-permissive parents are running the world? The thought of this truly sends shivers of fear down our spines.

When are YOU going to have kids?

Thanks to CFVixen for forwarding me a link to the May 14th Ask Amy column in the Chicago Tribune. The entire column was dedicated to snappy comebacks to the "when are you going to have kids?" question.

What do you think of the replies to the article? What are your snappy comebacks?

Pass the Alka Seltzer

Today I thought I would share with you one of the many little day-to-day examples of how people with kids are catered to like kings and queens, while childfree and childless people are given the shaft.

Exhibit A:

Hubby and me are at a casual pizza/Italian restaurant. I am dying for my favorite - an eggplant parmesan sandwich. I notice that they do not have this item on the menu, however, they do have an eggplant parmesan dinner which is basically the same thing, but on a plate with a side of spaghetti, instead of on a roll.

The waitress comes to the table to take our order. I ask her if the cook will make me an eggplant parmesan sandwich, pointing out that while it's not on the menu, they do have eggplant parmesan as a platter so it would be easy to make it into a sandwich. She quickly replies, "Oh, no. Sorry but they will not do subsitutions or special orders of any kind - only exactly what's on the menu." She rolls her eyes, suggesting that she disagrees with the policy, but they are Nazis about it.

Okay, so I am disappointed but if that's their policy, I'll just get something else. So I order a couple slices of pizza and some onion rings.

A short while later, as I am eating my pizza, I overhear our waitress talking with the people 2 tables down. It is a couple with a baby (who looks to be about a year old). The man is asking the waitress for a special meal, presumably for the baby - something soft and relatively flavorless. The waitress doesn't have any suggestions as there is nothing on the menu like that, so the customer starts giving her directions, "okay, listen - this is what I want. Ask the cook to give me some pasta - plain - no sauce and put some chicken on the top, cut up in small pieces." So at this point I am waiting to hear her tell the guy she's sorry but no special orders or substitutions are allowed. Nope. She is listening intently. He continues: "do you have any vegetables you can also serve with it?" The waitress shakes her head no. "You have tomatoes, right?...Have them also put some tomatoes on it and make sure they are chopped up small too."

She nods obediently as she writes all this down and trots off to the kitchen with their special order.

So I look at hubby and say, "another story for the blog."

I debated whether to say something to her about it. I came this.close to confronting her, but we were out on a date night and I was in a great mood. I did not want to spoil my mood with a confrontation. So I decided to handle it this way. I gave her a very small tip and next to the tip I drew an arrow indicating to turn the check over. On the back of the check I wrote a note explaining that the tip was low because she told me "no substitutions or special orders" but readily took one from the customers 2 tables from us.

Obviously the line about the restaurant having a "no substitutions or special orders" policy was a crock of horse doo, since if there was such a policy, she wouldn't have so readily accommodated the other table with their special order. The fact is, she just didn't feel like making an extra trip to the kitchen for me. I wasn't worth the trouble, but our neighbors 2 tables down were. And why? Why else. They have a baby. Roll out the red carpet.

(I swear, stuff like this gives me worse indigestion than a greasy eggplant parm sandwich).