My recent writeup concerning perceived childfree hate on the Internet got me plenty of responses on both sides of the fence, as I figured it would. Let me reiterate that I don't think every CF person is like that. To say that would be as bad a stereotype as assuming all parents are weak-kneed, servile puppets making sure their little darlings are protected from all evil and showered with all they desire. For the record, I believe parents of that sort deserve a smack upside the head, because they're helping to breed a completely sociopathic, narcissistic little jackass, and pissing everybody around them off in doing so.
For example, my great aunt and uncle, through the mindboggling and inept graces of the Illinois adoption system, managed to adopt a boy when I was younger. (My parents, two people who had raised four children quite well, tried multiple times and failed. Go figure.) I vividly remember a party at my house that they attended: I must have been in junior high, and this kid was six or seven, perhaps. I remember him kicking, biting, and punching the other kids, laughing the entire time, so we went to complain. His mother said some feeble thing to him, along the lines of "play nice, you know hitting people is bad."
The kid's reply was "Shut the hell up." (Or something very similar along those lines, quite possibly far more vulgar. Again, my memory fails me on the exact phrase, but I remember it was totally inappropriate.)
His mother and father laughed and remarked to the other adults in attendance how cute he was. I think my preteen jaw hit the freaking dirt. I could not believe this. Were we to have done that, my father would have dragged us by the ears to our bedrooms and given us hour-long time-outs. (Actually, no, it would probably be immediate bedtime with no dinner.) So believe me, I understand where people are coming from, because parents like that are raising the future bullies (at best) or felons (at worst) of our society, and it angers me. But it also angers me when people lump me in with these losers simply because I have a child.
One way to bridge ideological gaps is to try and identify common ground -- the places where moderate CF individuals and responsible parents can come together and agree. So let me start by listing a few of the things that I do believe:
- Children will sometimes be a pain regardless of what a parent does -- this is just a basic fact -- and some people will be annoyed by it.
This is why I am in full support of theaters and restaurants that are "adults only" or have "adults only" areas. In fact, I believe more restaurants should adopt this policy. I totally understand that (most) children are noisy and disruptive more often than (most) adults, and that some folks would rather stay away from them and enjoy a quiet night out; there should be more opportunities for people to do so. But of course, it should not be the responsibility of those without children to seek refuge from them, which is why I also strongly believe...
- Children must be taught how to behave in public.
Part of teaching a child is showing what is acceptable and unacceptable in public. Obviously, they are not going to conform to the Victorian Era ideals of being "little adults," but the point is that they should be on their way toward the goal of being socially responsible adults. And in order to reach that goal...
- Children must be disciplined consistently and strongly.
This one can be difficult, because kids are always testing boundaries. If a kid wants something and the parent won't let him get it, the kid will sometimes have a temper tantrum. This is extremely grating to other people in the area, and extremely embarrassing to the parent in question, and the kid knows it.
The problem is that the best way to deal with these tantrums is to ignore them, so the kid learns that screaming and crying and causing a scene will not lead to a reward. But doing this often gets the parent scattered nasty looks from other folks who just want the kid to be quiet. In some cases, the parent can leave the kid at home with another parent/sibling/guardian and shop alone... but that really just postpones the problem. At some point, the kid will have to learn that lesson, and a public tantrum will be the result.
- But children must never be disciplined through physical force.
The appropriateness and efficacy of spanking has been a debate for decades, but appears to be mostly frowned upon these days. My own parents abandoned it early on in favor of a three-count warning and time-out system, and I'd like to think it worked pretty well. But in any case, if I ever were to see an adult of any kind raise a hand toward a kid, you better believe I'm going to announce loudly and clearly to everyone within earshot what that asshole is doing.
- People who choose not to have children, or dislike being around children, are in no way inferior or less important than those that do.
I think that this is one of the big things that gets so many CF individuals angry. Just because one does not desire to raise a child doesn't mean that person isn't contributing to society in other ways. One might volunteer at a soup kitchen, or run a local farmer's market.
Then there's the argument that raising children is not necessarily a beneficial contribution to society. That's certainly true. I would put somebody who allows their child to end up a complete sociopath at the absolute bottom rung of society, in that they are probably contributing more to the future degradation of society more than most other people on the planet. Those parents who turn up their nose at the CF and sniff sayings like "you're just envious" or "you must be an awful person" are often the same ones who are transferring that overblown ego onto their kids; they are the inferior ones.
- You don't know what it's like to be a parent unless you are one... but that doesn't matter in the slightest.
"You don't understand what it is like to be a parent" is one phrase I've heard a few CF advocates say annoys them. Well, I would argue that this statement is true, but that it doesn't really mean anything. I mean, obviously someone doesn't know what it's like to be a parent unless he or she is one. Likewise, you can make the same argument for being gay, straight, bi, black, white, Asian, Latino, male, female, reptilian -- that list could go on forever. I would suggest that any CF person who is told this little gem simply respond with, "You're right; could you describe it to me?" If the parent has a valid point to make, he or she will elaborate; if it is just being used as a retort, he or she will probably slink away.
- Simultaneously, parenting is in fact a difficult task, and one should not be vilified simply because one chose to undertake it.
The core of this issue comes down to "Should people be given special treatment because they chose to undertake a difficult task?" I have heard many arguments saying that maternal/paternal leave are unfair, because those who choose not to have children don't get those sorts of perks. The counter-argument is usually "well, raising children is a societal duty that parents choose to undertake, so they deserve to be compensated for that effort." Which then provokes the rebuttal of "They made a conscious choice to do that, so if it is difficult they have nobody to blame but themselves," and "Why then don't single people that consciously choose to contribute in other ways to society get rewarded in the same manner?"
I don't have a solution for this. I don't believe parents shouldn't get maternal or paternal leave -- it is obviously important to a child's development. But I understand the other side of the issue as well; what about the contributions of single people? Or, heck, if you don't consider child-rearing a societal boon (which I understand -- only responsible child-rearing is a boon, irresponsible parenting is a detriment), perhaps every person should just be allotted some sort of lifetime cache of leave that they are allowed to use as they see fit, or perhaps Americans should get the six weeks of vacation so often given to Europeans, and if they happen to be spent on child-rearing, so be it. Given the entrenched attitude toward vacation in the United States, though, I can't see that happening any time soon.
There has to be a middle ground where reasonable adults can come together and form solutions diplomatically -- and perhaps even lobby for reasonable, moderate efforts (like the aforementioned restaurant "adults only" areas) that could drown out the cries of "OH MY WIDDLE WOOGUMS" and "SCREW YOU AND YOUR SPROGS". Perhaps I'm being too much of an idealist, but dammit, I still think this sort of problem-solving is possible.