To the women who choose not to have kids, I have one thing to say: thank you.
You probably don’t hear it enough. In fact, you probably don’t hear it at all. What you do hear is an array of pro-childbearing responses, such as, “You’ll change your mind someday,” or, “Doesn’t your mother want grandkids?” or, “You’ll never find a husband if you never want to have kids.” All things considered, “thank you” is probably on the opposite end of what you hear.
But seriously: thank you. Thank you for recognizing that childrearing isn’t for you and being true to who you are. It doesn’t mean you hate kids. It just means that raising one is not part of your path in life.
Thank you for not succumbing to the societal pressures. I’ve known far too many parents who had kids because that’s what was expected of them. Working in childcare, you see more of this type than you wish to see. The resentment is almost palpable. They love their children — at least, they have no choice but to love their children — but every single movement seems to scream, “I wasn’t meant for this.” I’ve known too many people who grew up with at least one parent who harbored that resentment, who let that resentment dictate how they parented. I’ve seen how that influenced the way these former children are now as adults, or even as parents themselves.
Thank you for not trying to compromise who you are in an effort to keep a partner around. Thank you for being honest and open and refusing to apologize for who you are. Everyone has different values. Everyone wants something different in life. It takes a lot of guts and confidence to say, “This is what I want in life. It’s not the orthodox way, but it’s my way.”
Thank you for not trying to silence that feeling in your gut as a means to validate your life. There are too many people in this world who cannot figure out their path — or have stumbled while walking down said path — and decided that maybe having a child could provide that meaning and definition instead. You understand that down this path lies vicarious living and hurt emotions and you recognize that there are so many other ways to find love and meaning and joy in your life.
Raising children is a difficult, onerous, frustrating, and disappointing gig. It’s tough enough for those who want it. It is a rewarding and loving gig as well, but it’s not something one should go into while focusing only on reward and love and societal acceptance. In this day and age, with a booming population in almost every country, it makes no sense to pressure every person to have a baby. But we’re sticklers to tradition, ritualistic to a fault.
So thank you. It’s not easy to stand firm with your belief. Honestly, truly, and genuinely: thank you.
Tag Archives: Family
TWTIRTW: The Destruction of Family and Other “Liberating Legacies” we can Thank Feminist Social Engineering for
My oh, my. It’s that time of the week again. That time where I snuggle up with a freshly ignited bra, a nice, lukewarm glass of man tears and bitch rant comfortably from my perch atop a pile of castrated victims. Because I’m a feminist and that’s definitely how I do.
So let’s do this, IllimitableMan, who will henceforth be known as Illi. The first time I scanned this article, I thought it was a satire.
Illi believes that feminism has created all sorts of problems for people. Because if there’s one thing we know is selfish, it’s asking to be treated like an equal citizen. Selfish, selfish bitches. Just to be clear, I’m not going to try to change Illi’s mind. This is me, exercising my right of free speech, dissecting this article and proving it to be the sexist, chauvinistic garble trash that it is. I am going to enjoy it. So anyone planning to comment to tell me it’s a waste of my time is invited to not waste theirs.
Feminism has caused a rift between the sexes, between the age-old union of man and woman, the yin and yang that makes two peas in a pod, men and women have been culturally emancipated from each other in a social engineering effort for them to “not need each other” or very specifically, so that women specifically “don’t need no man!” and can become “a strong independent woman” (read: LONELY) which certainly begs the question, how did this come to be?
How dare you, Illi? Do you not know that same-sex relationship exist or are you so bigoted that you don’t recognize their legitimacy? It’s an important distinction because if you’re just a bigot I can move on… “A strong independent woman’ (read: LONELY)” Oh dear god. You are a trip. Strong independent women have the courage to picky, to not be flattered by every advance, to not believe they are incomplete without a man. Men and women don’t need each other, they have each other… As an option. This understanding of sex and relationships is so myopic and antiquated.
This paradigm was socially engineered via the efforts of an ideology known as feminism, it was an ideology that sold women the lie that men were inherently evil beings who were oppressive in nature, and by demonizing men told women they needed to give up their femininity and take on more masculine traits in order to meet men on a level playing field under some perverse pretense of “equality.” A divide and conquer technique used to pit the genders against each other, if you will.
If that’s what you believe feminists were doing by fighting for the right to vote, you’re more ignorant than I originally thought. I agree that men shouldn’t be demonized as a feature of feminism, but guess what- denying people their right to vote, get equal pay for equal work and make decisions about their own bodies is pretty fucking evil. That may be where women are getting that idea from…
We always hear about the “positives of feminism” some real, (civil rights) some imagined (women commonly adopting boisterous and narcissistic self-entitled behaviour? not so much) of course the negatives are something the incredibly biased leftist media neglect to mention or even explore (they give you only one perspective, the so-called “strengths”, but neglect to mention its weaknesses you see), so for once, let’s look at just some of the plethora of negative elements in society which we can attribute as either directly caused by feminism, or correlated with but not caused by feminism. Oh boy, don’t we sure have a lot to talk about?!
Oh boy, indeed, Illi. Oh boy, indeed.
1. Single Parenthood.
(READ: Single parent households are almost always headed by women [1]), this is because women tend to unilaterally get custody in the majority of cases due to a biased family court system, another reason for single parenthood is because women can have babies without the consent of the “sperm donor”, eg: she lies to a man that she is on contraception when she is not, when he leaves his sperm inside her post coitus she lets it fertilise inside her and has a baby without the fathers knowledge or consent (reasoning: because she’s broody and wants a child) by the time she carries the baby to term, the man is out of the picture and is completely unaware that his genetic material has been used to create human life.
I think Illi believes this is much more of a problem then it actually is. The majority of single mothers did not become single mothers because they swore their lives to a secret society of sperm thieves. There’s no conspiracy to have your babies without your consent. Just because it happened on like one episode of Law and Order does not make it a trend.
Single parenthood is bad, one parent is not as good as two for multiple reasons: it leads to lower resource availability, there’s a lower chance of valuable skill sets being made available to the immediate family because there’s only one parent with one set of skills, rather than two parents with two sets of skills and of course then there’s the big one, the primary socialisation of a child – only one gender influence on the child’s development. Atypically in modern western society this manifests as a feminist-feminine influence with no to minimal hegemonic masculine influence on the childs developmental process whatsoever, the resulting lack of developmental diversity holds the child back and gives it a far from optimum start in life to fulfill the apex of its hypothetical potential.
Ok well, normally I try to right these articles from an authorly perspective. My anger and ridicule are almost academic in that I am speaking from a place of feminine empowerment, not necessarily as myself. But here, I gotta add a personal note.
Fuck you.
Single parenthood is bad? Really? You can blanket that statement over the entire country and it’s scientifically viable? No. How about “the way our society is structured, life is generally more difficult for children of single parent homes”? Yes, sure. But that is not the mother’s fault. The idea that a woman should have to raise a child with a man just so his “skills” and “resources” can influence the child’s life? Freaking idiotic.
On the note of a lack of resources and the welfare state reliance which encapsulates the majority of those whom can be considered single parents, children raised in single parent households are more likely to be in poverty (as there’s only one adult who can bring in money. [2]) The poverty has a knock-on effect and increases the likelihood the child will commit a crime and spend time in jail [3], it also decreases the likelihood a child will reach university level and attain a bachelor’s degree, as at the high school level it has been observed they begin to fall behind. [4]
Hmmm… Yes, we should blame this on women? What? No!?! This is a societal problem, not something you can blame on a parent for being single.
This trend is even more resounding in the case of young boys, women cannot teach boys masculinity and what it is to live in the male condition because they simply do not experience it for themselves and by the inherent nature of their own experience, have an opposing frame of reference. A woman can analyse and deduce masculinity from the outside and try to rationalise its nature based upon her observations, but this knowledge is inferior to that which comes from the condition of being male itself, from a man.
A woman cannot teach boys methodologies which men rely upon in their interactions in handling women, they cannot teach them to think like men, they are far more adverse in nature and thus have a tendency to wrap their boys up in cotton wool rather than foster his biological disposition to acquire strength via the tests and tribulations that are available to challenge and strengthen the fortitude and mettle of a young boy, this is strength an adult woman will expect him to have when he is an adult man if she is to choose him as a suitable mate and if he doesn’t “man up” and “grow some balls” his female peers will be asking when they all reach adulthood “where did all the good men go?” This but a mere manifestation of the scam which exposes the feminist idea of gender equality as a complete sham in actual practice.
The type of knowledge that boys need specifically from their fathers is that of which a man of significant value would impart onto his young son in various rites of passages such as: pep talks, trips together through hunting, sports and other male-to-male bonding experiences, experiences which fortify the bonds of father to son friendship and mentorship which young boys NEED to flourish and actualise the best versions of themselves.
Denying boys their fathers is inherently setting them up to fail with odds which do not favour them from the get go as the sheer multitude of knowledge they need to acquire which cannot be taught by their mothers must then be learnt through a psychologically painful, arduous and often humiliating process of trial and error, leaving only the toughest boys to survive and quite literally fight for their masculinity.
Do you need proof of these assertions because you’re cynical of such inherently conducive logic? Allow me to oblige: In single parent households where there is the absence of an father there is a statistically significant increase in rates of suicide, drug abuse and alcohol abuse in young men [5], single parenthood lowers the educational attainment of boys and fosters promotes higher dropout rates (girls are outperforming boys in education at all levels, but especially university level now) [6], it also increases the prevalence of behavioural disorders that can manifest in boys and increases the likelihood that the boy will commit rape. [7]
Ok, 1. Look up the word cynical. You’re not using it correctly. 2. Those statistics do not prove what you’re saying. Those statistics could be attributed to the feelings of abandonment a child feels when their father leaves, the grief from losing a father, or the angst that can grow from never knowing him. 3. Girls outperform boys because of gendered expectations in the classroom and social forces that overwhelmingly tell boys being smart isn’t cool.
2. Institutional and social sexism (men must self-censor, women need not.)
The ridicule of men is overt and widely accepted in the media, at work, on the street etc. Women are allowed to make blanket generalisations which are often offensively directed at men (usually delivered in a delightfully catty, condescending manner) and nobody bats an eyelid at this overt display of sexism. Yet you tell a 50-year-old woman she’s quite old (a fact) and you’ve caused great offense which needs social correction that usually goes by something along the lines of: ”You never ask a lady her age!” (so apparently the pre-requisite to receive the title of “lady” is simply to be old? anyhow, I digress) It appears that apparently women are so special that many of them can’t handle being old when they get old. Inversely a woman can say you’re a Neanderthal whose brain lives in his cock and nobody will bat an eyelid, a statement far more explicit than asking a woman her age or identifying that she is not young, behold that delectable double standard!
I agree there’s a double standard, but feminism has been all about a single standard among the sexes since before men were- like the 1920s. have you considered it’s men who create this double standard, not women? That maybe we don’t want to be the delicate flowers whose age has to be a secret because we are only valuable to society between 13-30?
3. Men are safe to criticise and challenge, women are not.
Following on from the previous point, women are not allowed to be criticised anymore as apparently we must place an incredibly high amount of priority on what one could only consider inane sensibilities which manifest from one’s personal insecurities, criticism is about feedback and improvement but women on the feminist bandwagon tend to illogically rationalise anything negative sounding as oppressive and thus shut down completely, resorting to fallacies, shaming tactics and sticking their fingers in their ears to maintain their belief system (quite reminiscent of religious extremists really, isn’t it?)
For example, most fat women cannot handle being told they’re fat, that they need to lose weight and being given advice on how to lose their weight, more than likely the woman in question will be offended you’ve acknowledged she has an unhealthy BMI and she’ll either shut down on you, or if she’s american, possibly join one of these perverse fat acceptance movements. Ugly women (not necessarily fat, just ugly) would rather be told that they’re beautiful rather than be told they’re not beautiful and being advised to work on their physicality to help it become the best of what is genetically attainable for them.
Okay it’s becoming clear that this isn’t academic and you’re actually just a jerk. As if you can define what ugly is, Illi. I have no words for this hateful, ugly garbage.
In this paradigm where the feminine whims and sensibilities dictate the confines of what essentially constitutes a gynocentric society, society (including lots of clueless men) thus begin to talk more and more bullshit to placate the fragile and delicate egos of western women, rather than be honest and help them to work on improving themselves via the distillation of some tough love also known as, truth.
Yes, women- why are you not okay with this man calling you ugly and telling you how to improve yourself?
Every time I see an ugly man I immediately give him a list of ways he can take the face god gave him and make him conform to a societally constructed definition of beauty. Every time.
Such is the way of life in places like Eastern Europe where feminism is less pronounced due to the ideology being prevented from spreading there until post-1991 (due to the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain), the ideology has only recently spread there as Eastern European states have joined the EU and opened up their borders to Western European (which are all feminist welfare states) however, I digress again.
Oh my god
4. Children from single parent households are worse behaved.
Children are no longer punished by schools or their parents, resulting in unruly behaviour and audacious little scrotes saying things like “what you gonna do then? you can’t hit me!” in a provocatively taunting manner, this factor is exacerbated by single parent households as the lack of a strong masculine presence often leads to a lack of self-discipline, substance abuse and all other kinds of shit which end up in poor behaviour [8] (referenced earlier, but fuck it, have another reference.)
Guys, Professor Illi here with breaking news: children are no longer punished. Anywhere. Only dudes can save our children from this lack of discipline. No mention of the fact that in single parent households, TV can become a surrogate babysitter when the parent has to work more than those in two-parent houses. No mention of the fact that most TV and media conglomerates are controlled by men.
You can similarly apply this concept to women (and I know that’s a controversial statement to make, but I don’t care.) Women test men for dominance like children test adults for dominance, if she thinks you cannot and will definitely not use your physicality as part of the contest for dominance then she will fear little from a man castrated of any iota of imposing physical dominance and use this fearlessness abusively, it’s not just about using violence, but more so the implied threat of violence, the deterrent – if you appear non-hostile as a man then to a woman, due to absence of fear, you are immediately respected less on both a superficial and psychological level. There’s a reason the high school jocks always got all the poon and respect, they were big, which subconsciously implies the ability to kick ass/protect/put her in her place when she’s being irrational and insufferable.
Listen, you misogynistic jackass, gloves are off. There is a big difference between evolutionary coding that makes protectors more attractive and being attracted to the threat of violence.
To put a more mainstream glazing on this because some of you out there with ridiculously poor logic will try to construct a strawman of me as encouraging domestic violence and thus all my reasoning null and moot, it is typical that a woman will respect a tall muscular man much more than even a muscular short man, simply because the size and the potential for that size to be used for protection/violence demands respect and it’s this implication of violence which women find inherently masculine in nature and by extension of being masculine, attractive. We can see this most profoundly in mainstream science via woman’s dating preferences, where they are mercilessly biased towards preferring and dating tall men.[9]
Pre-feminism it was socially acceptable to slap or hit a woman or child who was acting out to put them back into line, all of a sudden post-feminism this became a taboo, a most heinous crime. People don’t seem to differentiate between hitting someone because they’re unreasonable and just mindlessly trying to kill them with your bare hands. It seems in a feminist society that a smack and kicking the crap out of someone until they suffer injuries to their internal organs are synonymous acts of atrociousness, they cry “violence is bad, you shouldn’t ever use violence!” “you should never hit a woman!” “I don’t believe in hitting children!”
The reality is, not all violence is bad, it can be instrumental in reinforcing positive and constructive behaviours as long as, like anything, it is not exploited to the point of extremity or systematic abuse. Research has found that smacking small children, as long as they know you are smacking them because you care and want to correct their behaviour, does not do any harm. [10]
Nope, you are wrong. You are wrong, wrong, wrong. Negative reinforcements have proven to be ineffective in the long-term. Also if you need your girlfriend/wife/child to fear you so much that you hit them- you’re probably not worth their respect. Scratch that. You’re not.
Obviously, no such similar research has been done on the romantic relationships between men and women as even the lightest slap from (a man to a woman, but ironically, not from a woman to a man) is considered domestic abuse and thus it is deemed far too politically incorrect to study such phenomena, it would never get the funding in a modern feminist state, but I put forth and postulate that you’d find similar results in cases with male to female interactions, if you want to back it up with real-life observations try asking the baby boomers or the baby boomer parents their opinions and experiences on it (assuming the people in question are willing to discuss such things.)
Yeah, that’s because it is domestic abuse- from either gender. Male hits female, it’s wrong and illegal. Female hits male, it’s wrong and illegal. If you want to make any argument to the contrary, you don’t understand the terrible, life-destroying repercussions of domestic abuse.
5. Violence/Aggression and any such component associated with masculinity is portrayed as negative in all absolutism.
Apparently these things can never be productive, instrumental or beneficial and they’re always unintelligent, uncontrolled and unproductive. Apparently violence cannot be intelligent or purposeful. Violence can be used instrumentally to discipline people, the military use it and they produce great, self-disciplined strong characters, men. Society used to use the same kind of discipline to a lesser extent, just look at how poorly disciplined most kids are now (go outside and observe if need be) to see what an absence of violence based discipline has resulted in.
Yes, those disciplined, strong characters WHO OFTEN COME BACK FROM WAR WITH SERIOUS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES.
Kids aren’t more rude today than they were, it’s just different. What is mildly shocking now, may have been shocking 50 years ago, but what was mildly shocking then may not be shocking at all now! Times change. The fact that violence against other humans is wrong doesn’t.
6. Safety and comfortability are valued over liberty, risk and hard work.
This means a sizeable number of people are getting lazy and unproductive (welfare state dependency) and the authorities are able to keep tabs on an ever-increasing population size (police state – CCTV – NSA etc) This is an effective change from masculine moral values to feminine ones in terms of how state government is run. Women make up the majority of the electorate and thus have a bigger say in dictating social policy and who makes it. Feminism is not the only cause of the ever-increasing emergence of what appears to be a police state in western nations, terrorism and 9/11 have been used as scapegoats to justify such impingement on ones personal freedoms, however although not the sole reason it is safe to say that the legacy feminism has left is certainly a significant reason, if not a facilitator of today’s emerging western police states.
Is this a mother fucking joke? Did he really just say women have more electorate power than men? It’s like you’ve never been outside before… Maybe if you took a break from blaming EVERYTHING on feminists, you might understand the issues here are so much more complex than ‘blame,’ or ‘us vs. them’.
7. Wages have lowered in real terms since women entered the workforce.
I won’t say a lot here as the title speaks for itself, however look at this rather sensually telling graph compiled by research done by CNN Money:
Wage rates in America declined in real terms since 1968, not so ironically, coinciding with the eruption of the feminist movement. Where one wage used to be enough to feed an entire family, now often enough at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale two wages are needed. [11]
That has a lot more to do with inflation than feminism, but you’re looking for a scapegoat so I’ll just keep movin.
8. People are more unhappy than they used to be due to the destruction of the family unit and the loneliness it spawns.
More and more people are living alone and dying alone. There are more houses now with 1 person living in them than ever before, we’re becoming more disconnected as a society as more and more family lines cease to continue their lineage, instead falling into disarray due to the ease of divorce and an overly sexualized society which promotes promiscuity over commitment in order to sell products – it’s essentially an implosion of moralistic self-destruction which attacks societies collectives baser instincts in order to “rape them” for profit. [12]
And this is the fault of feminism…. Riiiiight…
9. The casual normalisation of “Hyper Promiscuity.”
People are casually fucking others without any real pair bonding and then opting to settle down when they’re much older out of fear of impending loneliness and forced solitude or choosing not to start a family at all. The mating culture for people of most ages is simply to use people and fuck them, forming no real pair bonds or emotional connections. Some people attempt relationships but the strength of these relationships is adversely affected by the external temptation which is hook-up culture, say when a relationship is going through a turbulent time, the opportunities offered by hook-up culture can seduce a spouse, leading to adultery, the eventual divulgence of said adultery to the other party involved and then typically an end to said relationship.
Hook-up culture is a direct consequence of the “sexual revolution” which feminism sparked, ignited and proclaims so loudly to be proud of. The notion that female promiscuity should be untamed and socially acceptable conduct, this can still be seen even today with feminisms efforts to normalise female promiscuity via campaigns such as being ”anti-slut shaming” sure, because encouraging promiscuity is not only putting one at sexual risk via the prevalence of sexual disease, but is psychologically unappealing to a man looking to seriously build and create something with a woman for the long-term, thus damaging her own long-term chances at attaining happiness with a suitable suitor. Oh the self-inflicting irony.
Wait, so does Illi think only women are sexually promiscuous or just that only their promiscuity has consequences? I thought you didn’t like double standards, Illi!
Now it is done. I have burnt Illi’s article to the ground and salted the earth. I’m sure someone will come to his aid in the comments, but for now my bra is singeing my sweater made of welfare checks so I best be off.
What I Will Never Have
On most blogs about feminism there are at least a few posts about how the writer’s views on femininity were influenced by their mother. I haven’t written about my mom’s effect on my own views in part because I don’t remember ever talking about it with her. But also, I have always felt like I missed out any sort of sacred transference of woman-knowledge by going through adolescence without a mom.
She wasn’t alive for my first boyfriend or period, or my prom or my graduation- so I didn’t get to ask the big questions or hear the big answers. When she was alive, femininity was really the last thing on our minds. I spent my childhood watching my mother die. While losing anyone is difficult, the loss of a mother can be catastrophic for young girls. I just wrote a paper about the psychological effects and it’s so, so, depressing. For girls, so much of growing up is done in relation to their mother- being like or unlike her, learning from her, having another woman to empathize with. But growing up without a mother is different from losing one.
Grief destroys an adolescent’s ability to function normally. You become different from your peers in a private, painful way. You’re not even biologically/psychologically prepared to fully understand death. You are forced to deal with the permanence of death at an age when you are woefully unprepared for it. You get a taste of the life you’ll have together and then it’s all taken away.
Reading my mom’s journals, I have gotten a glimpse into the relationship between her and my late grandmother. They got to fight, she got hate her mom for her teen years, she got to be told her skirt was too short and punished when she was caught smoking…
But what I really think about when I think of what I will never have, I think of this picture. You can see my grandmother help my mother button her wedding dress, but what you can’t see is the years of squabbling that didn’t matter, the judgments they had passed on each other, the trust that had developed while my grandmother was teaching her how to be a woman.
This stolen moment is something I will never have, but the love just beyond the lens- the bond between mother and daughter- that I will have forever.
Somebody else wrote about that dumb article…
The Philosophy That Will Ruin A Marriage
If you read blogs or go on Facebook or even watch the news, you’ve probably heard about the post written by Seth Adam Smith, Marriage Isn’t For You. In the post, Mr. Smith writes thoughtfully and sincerely about his brief (1-1/2 year) marriage and the advice his father gave him about what marriage is for:
…You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.”
Hmph.
Having been married for 24 years, I have a little more experience than the author about what makes a marriage work — and not just my marriage, but the marriages of the people around me. And one thing I know for sure — if you spend your life and your marriage trying to make someone else happy before you yourself are happy, you are doomed to fail. It’s one thing to compromise, but it’s a whole other thing to put someone else’s needs and desires before yours on a daily basis, diminishing yourself in the process.
And about the raising kids thing — of course it’s important to choose a partner with whom you would want to have children. But something must come before that — you must be in love. When I fell in love with my husband, I didn’t dissect the way he was raised and decide if the parenting skills he learned while growing up would fit with my ideal image of a father — had I done that, we might never have married. Not that he was raised poorly — quite the contrary, he and his brothers and sister are all successful, admirable people who are clearly products of good parenting.
But here’s the catch — he was raised very differently than I was. And yet together, we were — and still are — a good parenting team.
However, the biggest thing that bothers me is this notion that marriage isn’t for you, it’s for the person you married.
Hmph.
Marriage isn’t for the person you marry. Marriage is for… the marriage. Marrying is deciding that the two of you, together, are more important than either of you alone. Marriage is a partnership, not a sacrifice to the altar of someone else’s joy. Marriage is a long-term commitment to going at it as a team, not a long-term commitment to ensuring someone else feels good all the time. There will be days when marriage will be so out of balance that you’ll believe you’re sucking the life out of your spouse, or that they’re draining you of all substance. That’s ok. That’s what marriage does. And that’s what marriage is.
I would tell my children — if they asked — to marry because you love someone who loves you back. Marry because you can’t imagine being without this person. But most of all, marry because this person makes you happy. If someone is making you happy, chances are you’re doing the same for them. But never, ever give up your own happiness on a regular basis to ensure someone else’s.
That will ruin a marriage.
The Philosophy That Will Ruin A Marriage | Sharon Greenthal.
The Feminine Mystake 