#childlessness

[theereina]

The only child I have the capacity to take care of is my inner child. I do not currently want children, and I may never want children. My wounds are too deep. The amount of healing I need may take a lifetime, and I refuse to put any child through that.

Children deserve happiness without conditions. My health, both mental and physical, are conditions I WILL NOT subject any children to endure.

To the children I will probably never have, this comes from a place of love and selflessness. I just hope the world can understand.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

A brand new JD Vance recording dropped Tuesday, and spoiler alert: The guy is still really weird! Previous releases from Donald Trump’s running mate include: the one where he demeaned people without children and said the Democratic Party is run by a bunch of “"childless cat ladies"; the one where he said there should be a “federal response” to stop women from traveling freely throughout the United States in search of health care; and the one where he said pregnancies that result from rape are “inconvenient.” The Ohio senator’s latest track, resurfaced by Heartland Signal, is from a speech Vance gave during a Center for Christian Virtue forum in 2021. In the audio, Vance attacks American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten for not having children.

[...] “Randi Weingarten, who's the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country, she doesn’t have a single child,” Vance complained. “If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.”

In a 2021 speech given to Center for Christian Virtue, JD Vance launched unhinged attacks against AFT President Randi Weingarten for not having kids.

Keep this weirdo away from 1600 by voting for the Harris/Walz ticket!

See Also:

HuffPost: JD Vance Blasts Teachers Union Head For Not Having 'A Single Child' In Resurfaced Clip

[haggishlyhagging]

In the West, feminists who oppose technological reproduction are likewise accused of "no sympathy for the infertile." . . . To encourage technological reproduction in the name of sympathy for the infertile is to sentimentalize medical violation. As journalist Ann Pappert has written, "I am a feminist, a journalist who writes frequently on medical and health issues, and a woman with a fertility problem. Like many other infertile women, I initially looked upon reproductive technology as a beneficial option for infertile women, but after spending a year researching and writing on these technologies I have come to regard them as a highly destructive science that not only offers little benefit to women, but causes great harm."

Pappert is one of the increasing number of women with an infertility condition who are speaking out against reproductive technologies. She notes that technological reproduction puts a huge burden on women, greater than the original burden of infertility, because now women have even less of a chance to say no to childbearing. Women feel pressured to try technological reproduction simply because it exists. Concerned relatives and friends ask the inevitable question, "Have you tried IVF?" If not, then obviously she has not done all she can, and in Western patriarchal society, she must do all she can to remedy this supposedly unnatural condition of childlessness.

-Janice G. Raymond, Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle Over Women’s Freedom

[writeitbetterthanueverfeltit]

I spend my days wondering

If you’d have a smile like he does

How can I learn to grieve,

Something that never was.

Would your eyes sparkle,

Just like the ones I love.

Without you could I have

Everything I’ve dreamed of

I often think about it,

The person you would be

But I will never know

It’s something that I’ll never see.

You’ve never been here,

But somehow I miss you.

I live with this pain

Find a way to get through.

I dream of your face,

One that I’ll never know,

I’ve never held you

But I can’t let you go.

[sbrown82]

"The reasons many women cite for not wanting kids are, to be sure, frequently circumstantial: a rapidly downward-spiraling climate, lack of a societal safety net for motherhood, the erosion of reproductive rights. But the majority of Generation Z and millennial respondents who are choosing not to have kids, according to a recent Pew Research Center Survey, report that they “just don’t want to.” 

[artabellaluna]

I overwhelmed my brain this morning.

I’m 46 and feel like I’m just now beginning to tackle my art weaknesses. Happy that I’m doing something about it but also sad that it took me this long to do something about it.

Today, I told my husband that I’m setting my chores to the side and treating myself to a mani/pedi, lunch, and then a few hours of uninterrupted drawing time at a coffeehouse or the library.

***

I just realized why I waited so long to work on my weaknesses. Immersing myself in my art has helped me to fully accept being childless and to have peace of mind. I’ve been on the fence for years about wanting kids, and finally decided to not have any. (Husband and I have had the conversation many times, and he’s very supportive of my decision - He’s had to remind me of that many times because I kept feeling selfishness and guilt.) However, it took awhile to fully accept the decision. I would feel guilt and sadness when seeing friends’ newborns or their young children.

I picked up drawing again late last year after not drawing for about 2 years. This time, something was different - I was ready to wrangle in my perfectionism and make the creative process fun again. Coming to the realization how happy drawing has made me feel and all the positive benefits from it, I owe it to myself to keep going and to become a better artist.

My art - and two cats - are my children. I will gladly be the fun and cool aunt anytime.

This helped so much to write it out. If you’ve made it to the end, thank you for reading.

[doom-ocean]

Hey, that's feminism for ya! You reap what you sow. Also, can't really complain about people criticizing you when you put your life on the internet for the whole world to see.

[theotherstars]

(via On Seasons of Silence) Life has many seasons. Seasons of joy, grief, hardship, and comfort. God uses every season for our good, and though we cannot see the complete picture of what He is doing may we seek every opportunity to search for a way to witness God working all things together as He works in our waiting. 

[cyarskaren52]

[lazyworksinprogress]

"Neither Begetting nor What Are Children For? says anything about the family form in which a child, once chosen, will be raised, but most readers will assume they mean biological reproduction within a nuclear family. Absent are adoption, aunties, “alloparents,” professional domestic laborers, plus any of the other ways that kin is made, to say nothing of wayward lives, “polymaternalism,” “mothering without mothers,” and other queer, communal, blended, found, nontraditional families. These are never part of the binary choice. Yet the nuclear family is as much a modern artifact of the Global North as the drop in general fertility itself. And if you are a parent, you will perhaps understand why the expectation that children be raised in isolation from a supporting community and kin structure—that two parents raise all the children they have, all by themselves—corresponds neatly with a historical decline in the numbers of children that parents choose to have."

[cyarsk5230]

Kamala Harris: she is Indian, she is black, and she's OWNING Trump 🔥

[amidthechaoss]

I don't want kids because I don't have the patience, and based on my experiences with the kids around me, they're great—but not 24/7. Yet sometimes, I have this pick-ism that leads me to think that maybe my kid would be different, maybe they'd be less annoying. 😂 The human ego really knows how to lie!

-the delusion

[gordontheengineswifenirmal]

This is soooo true. I loved after both parents, and 3 of four grandparents. I also helped deal with me ex’s family, the ex, n and several friends. I still do sometimes. Do I feel inferior because I didn’t pop out offspring? Hell no. I’m incredibly fulfilled. I went thru literal hell for me family. I sacrificed everything - including a home and 95% of me own belongings to make sure me mum was safe. I had to fight to keep the family from falling apart or killing each other. Even Joe, I tutor a friend who has learning issues. I try to give to good advice n guidance to others. That’s me contribution to the world, n I’m proud of it.

I had the uterus out in 2023, and no regrets. It was literally making me so sick, it was killing me. I had utis that wouldn’t stop no matter what antibiotics they gave me. Pain got worse with each period, I had no appetite n was growing intensely weak. I honestly didn’t know if I’d make it to see me birthday in November.

I’ve never had kids. I never wanted to have pregnant, I don’t have an issue with the idea of kids existing, but I like most kept at a distance. I don’t wish to deal with their attitudes, their behaviour, their parents. Keep them clothed, keep the screamers, vomitters, pissers, shitters, let’s-treat-older-folks-like shite, they-move-for-us, we-can-pda types the hell far away from me. I don’t go for entitled, privileged brats.

[letterstomyfuturedaughterr]

8/14/24 Summertime Sadness

Hey Kiddo,

I'm back after a long and fun summer of living it up. Italian dinner parties, showering Tia Escely and her little one on the way, TAYLOR SWIFT IN GERMANY, camping in Denmark with Omi, going to the ocean despite the cold water temps, surprising Aunt Rachel for her engagement party, weddings, weekly homegrown tomatoes, slowing down, friends. It's been a packed summer. I went into it with the mindset of saying no to very little, being spontaneous, living my best DINK life hot girl brat summer (these are cool things we used to say in Summer 2024, and by 'we' I mean the youths).

It's mid August now. The pace of life is slowing down, weather is getting warmer and drier as we prepare for San Diego summer part 2 and chillier weather teases the rest of the country. Yes, I am already thinking about pumpkins and decorating for my favorite transition season. These weeks where we're no longer in the fixed summer nor the mutable fall have always been the hardest for me. There's so much to look forward to in these -ber months, and at the same time we're saying goodbye to strong sun and pool days and tourist season. I'm ready and I'm not.

This looming motherhood feels similar. I'm ready and I'm not.

It's such a truly bizarre thing to intentionally choose parenthood. Especially when your life is really great, you're super happy and finally have a handle on life. I can see why young people adopt the fuck-around-and-find-out-method. It's so wildly different to do it now, older, and by choice. It's also so strange to hold space for the women in my life who have these same thoughts and have decided not to fuck with those beautiful things. I get it. It seems weird to want to do it. But I do genuinely want to.

I can say 'I want to have a baby' or 'I want to raise a little human with Michael'. It's been harder to see, or even say, 'I want to be a mom'. I'm scared to say that out loud, it feels too powerful of a statement. There's so few examples of motherhood the way I want to do it, and lots of examples of how I don't want to do it. It's felt hard to trust that I can be that example, I can lead that. But I've never done it before how can I??

So here we are, in this weird in between in between. It's like 7th grade, the middle of middle. Firmly decided on yes, starting to try, definitely okay if it takes a little bit of time, terrified it could be a one and done situation. Ready. Not ready at all. I wonder if that's parenthood period.

Writing to you helps. I've been writing these posts for almost a year. I started in October 2023, and I've fallen short of my goal of once a week. That said, I'm really feeling drawn back. I always feel like I have so much to say but so little to write. I need to work on seeing myself in this format. I'm going to try to be more consistent.

I've been reading the book Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day by Kaitlin B. Curtice and she writes "When I dream and imagine the world to come, I do it because I believe that those who came before brought me to this moment and those who come after me will take us beyond it". I feel this deeply in my bones, the hope for a better world that will come with you. The big moments are where I feel ready. It's the in bewtween that feel more scary. But that is where life lies, in the grey. The in between. The post summer not quite yet fall. The end of August.

Love always,