Childfree-by-Choice Mother’s Day Haters: Pipe Down a Sec
Well, the big day has come and gone. Believe it or not, the cats got me NOTHING. And that’s okay, because for me, Mother’s Day has always been about my mom. Until this year, I’ve never even considered it in terms of what it means to me as a forever-non-mother or a potential-future-mother. But now that this day has ruffled so many feathers in the Childfree community, I feel the need to add my two cents.
But what about ME?!
There are Childfree-by-choice women who complain about being invisible on Mother’s Day. I’m just not sure I understand this. Do they feel slighted on February 1st because they’re not groundhogs? And don’t you want to be invisible on Mother’s Day? Part of this whole lifestyle is not being required to wear homemade macaroni necklaces or fawn over cards featuring stick figures and/or blobs of varying heights holding hands.
Still others feel that anyone who contributes to mothering of any sort should be celebrated on this day – that includes nannies, teachers, volunteers, aunts or uncles, or close family friends. So essentially… everyone.
In short, there are a whole lot of non-mothers wanting to be celebrated on a day that’s quite clearly earmarked for those who have gone through the exquisite discomfort of birthing and/or raising kids. Doesn’t being overly inclusive in the definition of “mothering” defeat the entire point of setting aside a day to thank the woman who has (in most cases) done a whole hell of a lot for you? This idea that everyone should be celebrated equally, regardless of contribution level, has led to very stupid customs. Like giving every kid a first place trophy so the one who practiced his butt off and kicked the game winning shot is equally revered as the kid eating grass and pulling the legs off crickets in the goal box (that was me, by the way).
Hallmark holidays
If there’s a specific day honoring someone, it’s generally for a reason. And that reason is usually Hallmark’s quarterly earnings. But Hallmark doesn’t choose these pseudo-holidays out of thin air. They tend to pick groups of people who have to put up with so much crap the other 364 days out of the year, that the rest of society is guilted into agreeing that they should be shown some appreciation. And yes, it may be annoying that you need to purchase a vase of lilies on National Administrative Assistants Day (a passive aggressive move! Nobody likes lilies!), but would you rather trade spots with them and be on the receiving end? I don’t say that to be demeaning to admins – my point is merely that they have to put up with a lot of sh*t that the rest of us truly couldn’t handle, and many of them do it with a smile.
Why do we concern ourselves so much with what we are not?
If you’re happy and at peace with your decision not to have kids (yet, or ever), then every day should be a celebration of you. Be glad that you don’t have to clean up the disaster of kitchen left behind by kids making breakfast in bed for Mom on this day. If that’s not enough, and you feel the need to have a special day designated, then pick one. Celebrate Non-Mothers and Non-Fathers days with your spouses or friends. But doesn’t it seem a little silly to try and usurp or undermine Mother’s Day? And please don’t let Hallmark grab hold of that Non-Parents idea, I’m already being bankrupted with these cards.
I do realize there are many women out there who want very badly to be mothers, and for various reasons, cannot. There are also Childfree-by-choice people who have already lost their mom. Or had an exceptionally crappy childhood. Or have found yourself in a mothering role without any of the appreciation (stepmoms, etc.). You all get a free pass to hate Mother’s Day. But the rest of us…
Let’s quit worrying about what this day says about US, and focus on our own moms.
I get all the rage over the glorification of motherhood, our child-centric society, etc. I really do. But pick another day to do battle (believe me, it’ll still be raging next week). Because if you have an awesome Mom, it’s a bit of a slap in the face to her to make this day about YOU instead.
On that note, I’d like to say a few words of thanks to ole’ Claudia. It couldn’t have been easy dealing with us three. There were days you found Matt fully dressed in the toilet.
Days that held some pretty brutal fashion standoffs with me.
Days of dealing with Ken’s marked displeasure at having to share your attention with this drooling goblin you placed in his lap (otherwise known as me).
In fact, the more I look into the whole parenting thing through this blog, the more I can’t believe you kept that insane ship afloat so many years. And it’s not over – I know I’m still scaring the crap out of you on a weekly basis with my ever-changing life plans, but you deal with it, happily. And as far as I know, haven’t felt an overwhelming sense of regret at our existence. So for that – thanks Mom, and Happy Mother’s Day from your favorite (albeit only) daughter.
Childfree Wedding Etiquette
Wedding season is officially upon us, and you know what that means. Drunk uncles trying to dance with your friends, the bartender saying clever things like “you again?” when you order another top-shelf cosmo, doing the Y.M.C.A. against your will and better judgment, waiting for grandparents to go to bed so the DJ can play “On a Boat”. Sounds like a child-friendly scene, right?
[insert record scratch]
This subject is a bit of a sticky wicket. Because although today’s weddings have mostly evolved (devolved?) into a variation of the above scene, they started out much differently. Weddings used to be thought of simply as a celebration of two families coming together, and last I checked, there’s sometimes kids in those. Traditional ceremonies include them in important roles like carrying an empty ring pillow to the groom (everyone knows that losing the actual rings is the best man’s job) and dumping a full basket of rose petals at the top of the aisle, failing to scatter a single one along the way.
So how did this notion of specifically dis-inviting children to weddings become such a hot topic?
Somewhere along the way, “wedding” became code for “most expensive and overplanned event of your life.” Terrifying shows like Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress have fed the mania machine. After watching a few episodes, the thought creeps in that perhaps you too should be vigilant about the font and paperstock weight of your placecards. That you too should plan to start your ceremony at exactly 5:17, position the photographer at a 43 degree angle to catch the light just right, pay hundreds of dollars so your spraypaint foundation glows but doesn’t shine in the sunset. And if some toddler should start yapping about Elmo at the top of his lungs, ruining your perfect moment? Well, it’s easy to see how a complete psychological break might be on the way.
Does this mean all weddings should be childfree? Or maybe just that the bride-and-groomzillas should calm down? Each couple’s situation is different, but one thing’s for sure – everyone should be aware of a little child-related wedding etiquette.
Here’s some for everyone involved:
Bride and groom, no one understands the value of an adults-only party better than me.
But if those closest to you have kids, is it really that big of a deal to you that your wedding be childfree? Keep in mind that people are uber-sensitive about perceived slights to their offspring, and family rifts have started and carried on for decades for far more trivial offenses. You’ve got enough to worry about without making additional problems for yourself. Seriously. You’re about to officially enter into someone else’s family – if the kids in question are on that side of the family, think long and hard about whether this is how you want to make your entrance.
All that being said, when you’ve got twenty-five grand or more hanging on the biggest day of your life (for some people), it’s your prerogative. If it’s not going to cause drama, or you just don’t care enough, knock your socks off. It’s your damn day, as they say. You (or your parents) are the ones footing the bill, you should have control over who’s there. A nice “Adult Reception” on the invites should do the trick. If someone doesn’t like it, they need not attend.
If you’ve got the cash to do it, a nice compromise is offering to hire a few babysitters to corral the kids into a separate room at the venue or leave them back at the hotel.
Parents, I’m going to implore you to use a little common sense.
Are you part of the immediate family? If not, do the bride and groom love children, enough to want them there? Are your kids well-behaved, would you want them at your own wedding (no seriously, would you?)? Do you have any babysitting resources you can call upon so you don’t even have to worry about this, and can just have an awesome night or weekend livin’ it up childfree?
Look carefully at the invitation and wedding website – are there any clues that there shouldn’t be children there? If the invite is addressed to just you and your spouse instead of the [insert name] Family, consider doing some research – talk to someone close to the bride and groom and see if you can get a feel for what’s acceptable. If you’re still in doubt and can’t leave the kids behind, ask the bride. If you’re too much of a chicken to ask, at least have the decency to note it on the reply card so she’s not scrambling on the day-of for additional seats and kids’ meals. It also gives her a chance to call you and end your friendship prior to the wedding.
If you’re getting haughty and thinking things like babysitters are expensive…well yes, they are. You knew that when you had kids. You also knew you’d have to make sacrifices. And if the bride and groom don’t want kids at their wedding and you can’t afford to leave them behind, then not going to this wedding is going to be one of those sacrifices.
There it is – a few simple words of etiquette from someone entirely unqualified to discuss etiquette.
Have I sufficiently angered both sides of this argument? Probably. But hopefully I’ve helped avert at least one major wedding meltdown here. If you’d like to help me prevent even more, help a sista out and use the little share buttons at the bottom of this post.
Oh wait – some of you are probably wondering whether we had kids at our wedding!
Though we were nearing thirty, almost none of our friends had kids yet – the one set that did, left them with the grandparents because they were fully committed to getting schnockered. So the only kids in attendance were the five nieces/nephews on Drew’s side (as briefly corralled in the photo below) – Ava was our flowergirl and Ian was our ringbearer. Both performed their duties in an entirely satisfactory manner, one with perhaps slightly more enthusiasm than the other.
You know, I don’t even remember whether they were well-behaved (I’m sure they were), because I remember very little in general of that evening. I know my mom bribed another table to get answers to our Liz & Drew Trivia game and then ran away before paying up. I know someone laid a careful trail of Swedish fish from our candy buffet in the ballroom all the way out the front door of the venue. I know we had a mystery puker outside the hotel and an even more mysterious incident inside.
But that’s about all I got. Because you’re busy as hell and it flies by you in the blink of an eye. So if you think you’re even going to have time to worry about kids being there, you probably won’t. And people, that’s coming from ME!
Why yes, that IS Drew crying in the photo above and wiping his eyes on the vows he wrote on a napkin that morning!
PS, how awkward do Drew and I look posing with children?
Taking Money Out of the Should-I-Have-a-Baby Equation
I had a chat with my friend Jen recently about the cost of raising kids, and something she said has been stuck in my mind ever since. I told her that money was probably the #1 or #2 reason we might not have kids (depending on where you rank a lack of desire to actually have them). She seemed surprised by this, and suggested that I take money out of the equation entirely and focus solely on deciding whether or not we want kids first.
To be clear, Jen’s not naïve and would never suggest that people who can’t afford kids should have them. She said it knowing that Drew and I could technically afford them and we should first decide if we want them and straighten out the finances later. In theory, this isn’t a bad idea. It narrows the scope of what seems to be an impossibly large decision into a more manageable chunk. The problem is, I’m not sure how useful this revelation is to me when taken out of an important context.
Imagine if I’d hemmed and hawed for ages and then came to Drew, squared my shoulders and said, “Yes. I’m ready. I’m ready for my beautiful new Astin Martin, let’s head to the dealership right now!” Could we afford an Astin Martin if we REALLY wanted one? I guess so. But I must say, I’ve never understood this concept of whether or not you’re able to afford something. If you spend your very last dime to get it, and it makes your life financially uncomfortable to do so, is it really “affordable” for you?
Whenever the importance of money comes up (particularly when pitted against non-monetary items of value like family), people are fond of saying that it can’t buy happiness. This is perhaps true, but I must humbly submit that
a LACK of money can buy UNhappiness
And I don’t mean an emotional tailspin because you can’t have your pink glitter Roberto Cavalli slingbacks. Depleted funds may mean you’re unable to buy a $600 Christmas plane ticket to see your family, send a pop of yellow tulips to a sick friend, take that advanced pastry dough class, get the creative writing Ph.D. you’ve always dreamed of, find those Elvis Costello tickets for your husband’s birthday, play Scrabble on the spin board
There are people who do it, and do it fabulously. My friend Leah quit her job over a year ago and has been traveling the world with her boyfriend Ben, surviving on little more than her wits and wintergreen Tic-Tacs. Having the time of her life. [you can check out her blog at www.TwoWithoutAClue.com]
But I’m not Leah. Money is important to me, and a lack of it scares me. My parents were somewhat poor when my brother Ken surprised them with his existence. I have no idea what inspired them to have two more after that (especially knowing they might turn out like Ken – good grief!), but they did, and we grew up on something of a shoestring budget. I’m not saying we didn’t have what needed – and more, particularly in the later years (they generously paid our college educations, gave us safe cars, etc.) – but we certainly weren’t sporting Juicy Couture velour jogging suits in our youth.
So when I started babysitting at 12 and then took my first “real” job at Burger King at 15 (photos from this time period are conveniently missing), my mom made sure I put 50% of it in the bank, every payday. That stayed with me. My parents have plenty of money now, and so do I, but it’s hard to break that mode of save, save, save if that’s what you grew up with. The thought of living paycheck to paycheck makes me downright nauseous. And that’s essentially what we’d be doing if we had two kids and still lived in Southern California.
But I’m all about trying anything to make this decision and feel good about it. So I took Jen’s suggestion seriously and asked myself – would we want kids if we were independently wealthy? I don’t know. Maybe? Even the seemingly non-monetary things I worry about (not having enough “me” time, my house being a wreck, etc.) actually melt away when you toss a trusty Mary Poppins figure into the mix. But in the end, I’m not sure I’ve really answered the question. I don’t seem to be capable of making even a hypothetical decision in a vacuum, ignoring certain circumstances. We wouldn’t have a nanny, and I wouldn’t have any regular sanity breaks.
So is this exercise pointless? Not necessarily. I think it works nicely for those who are excessively worried about money, but would come up with an enthusiastic YES! to kids when it’s taken out of the equation. Unfortunately, my answer was still a resounding …
MAYBE.
How about you guys? How much does money factor into your decision?
PS, many of you reading this may think, if you’re so concerned with money, why don’t you get a REAL job, you blogger bum! And to that I say…touché.
Why Do I Have to Coo at Your Baby When You Won’t Pet My Cat?
For those without kids, is there anything scarier in this world than someone showing up at work, mid-maternity leave, to show off the new baby? I’ll admit, when I heard those stroller wheels clacking down the halls at my old work, I did a legger to the bathroom more than once. Take Your Kids to Work Day and Halloween (when my company hosted Trick-or-Treating through the cubicle aisles) often found me cowering under my desk, or feigning extreme urgency – rushing off to fictitious meetings or picking up a non-ringing phone to engage in an I-can’t-be-bothered-now argument.
I suffer a certain level of guilt over this and often wonder how would it feel if I were in their shoes and someone did this to me? But oh wait – I sort of already know. Because people ignore the fact that my cats exist all the time. Am I miffed? No. Some people aren’t pet people. If they’re not interested, they’re not interested – why would I ever want them to pretend to be? Especially if the cats are just sleeping or eating, which comprises about 99.9% of their day. But if Jacques wants to join us in a game of flip cup…
…or tries to steal a sip of someone’s Merlot…
…or Olivia attempts a desperate escape up the screen door…
…well, then I’d probably expect our guest to pay them some attention.
Similarly, if someone’s baby is wearing some cute Kate Spade flats or spouting stock tips like the e-Trade baby, I’m likely to take notice. But if the baby – which, by the way, looks remarkably like every other baby I’ve ever seen – is just passed out or drooling on itself…why is it necessary to shower them with compliments? Is the self-esteem of the baby in jeopardy?
No, I don’t think so. In fact, their understanding of compliments is probably equal to that of a cat’s. So it’s for the parents’ benefit – they want their babies to be noticed. And for those of us without kids, pets are our babies. So why is it acceptable to act as if someone’s pets don’t exist, but if you try the same with a baby, your heart must be made entirely of coal?
Think about it – if you run into a friend walking their German Shepherd on the Strand and neglect to pat its head, your friend is likely to continue their walk without a second thought. But ignore a baby in a stroller when you run into a Mommied acquaintance? You may as well be cast as the villain in the next Batman movie, so vile are you.
I’m not asking for equal treatment of pets and babies. Good grief, that would be insane.
Can you imagine if the Pet People started sending birth announcements when we adopt a new furball – touting pounds, ounces and breed? Or registering at Petsmart and asking our girlfriends to throw us a party with a three-tiered litterbox cake? Or dressing our Chihuahuas in little Ralph Lauren velour track suits?
No! Let the babies have that, all of that. All I ask is that we not be vilified for choosing to focus our attention on the mother (whom we likely haven’t seen in a while and can actually hold a conversation with) instead of cooing at a baby who has no idea who we are and will never remember the incident anyways. And in return, I promise to continue not caring when someone ignores the cats, to not fish for compliments about their lustrous coats and lengthy whiskers, and to not insist that people gather them up in a cuddly embrace.
Deal? Probably not, but a girl’s gotta try.
Mixed Baby Signals
A few strange things have happened over the past week that have further complicated this already-complicated-enough decision, and I can’t help feeling that my brain is playing tricks on me. Quite frankly, Brain, that’s rude.
Strange Thing #1: Inadvertently Sucked Into a Vortex of Nick Jr. Television
Drew’s sister and two nephews recently stayed overnight at our place and left the t.v. on the Nickelodeon channel. When I turned it on the next morning, Clifford the Big Red Dog was teaching his friends a little lesson about why lying is bad. I could not turn it off. The looming threat of having to watch more than 30 seconds of a Barney video had always seemed to me one of the more horrendous aspects of having kids. But Clifford and his rag-tag team of neighborhood strays had lulled me into some sort of trance. I felt downright peaceful.
Strange Thing #2: Seduced by Charming Nursery Curtains with Baby Owls
I went to my friend Megan’s baby shower yesterday, and before all the requisite cooing over bottle sanitizers began, I took a peek at her nursery. It was painted in a soothing soft green – perhaps designed to make me feel as though I’d slipped into a nice bucket of mint chocolate chip? – and everything about it seemed fuzzy and nap-inducing. In an effort to force the issue, I walked over to the crib and tried to imagine leaning over a sleeping mini-Me&Drew. Despite how creepy this all sounds to me (and no doubt you) as I’m now writing it, at the time, being in that nursery felt strangely, surprisingly…calm.
Strange Thing #3: A Baby Nightmare (it’s okay – I’m awake now)
Now, lest you pro-baby people get too excited and think this means I’m on the verge of full-blown Baby Rabies, I must tell you that both these events were directly followed by a rather scary anti-baby dream. And I’ll apologize in advance – I know how dreadfully boring it is to hear about other people’s dreams.
In the dream, I realized I’d given birth to a baby not too long ago. The baby, however, was nowhere to be found. I thought, “Hmm….what happened to that baby thing?” Then, “Oh, someone must be taking care of it.” Then, “Should I find out if someone, is, in fact, taking care of it?” Then, “No, that sounds boring.” Then, “I hope they just keep it, whoever has it.” Then, “Oh my God, did I really just have a baby? I hope not. I hope this is a dream. I hope I wake up soon. Is this a nightmare? Someone wake me up!”
WTF
What am I supposed to do with this information, Brain? Which of these experiences actually mean something? From which of these opposing reactions am I supposed to cull some answers?
Maybe There ARE No Answers Here
After all, each of these can be easily explained away:
Perhaps Clifford the Big Red Dog’s people have just smartly figured out how to hypnotize their small viewers into an all-consuming trance, so their parents can actually get some housework done, brush their teeth, whatever. Or maybe just I’m stressed out, and grown-up television has become too intense and trashy to provide me with any sense of comfort or release.- Perhaps I found the nursery soothing because I have a thing for mobiles comprised of fluffy lambs, or enjoyed the thought of taking a bath in a whale-shaped tub promising “A Whale of a Good Time”. Or, just as likely, maybe I slipped into a brief diabetic coma from the three mimosas, heaping slice of a Susie Cakes’ vanilla and strawberry concoction, and this lovely owl cookie. [Okay, yes, I’m the hillbilly that ate my party favor while still at the party.]
- And as for the dream, well, isn’t the common belief now that dreams are nothing more than random neurological misfirings? And that Taco Bell Dorito taco just before bedtime couldn’t have helped.
Ah, what am I doing? Looking for answers where there are none right now? Reading too much into every little thought?
Does any of this actually mean something?
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I recently flew the cubicle coop to embark on a half-cocked 1-year adventure in writing. I’m also interning at a literary agency in Los Angeles. An intern at 30 – my parents are so proud! I’m married to a man with a fabulous head of hair and a brood of young nieces and nephews I’ll be alienating as soon as they learn to read and find this blog. We live in Southern California, which is-Continue
