Shoes On The Cat
Info, links, and laughs for the happily* childfree!
*That's redundant, right?
The childfree only want equality and respect from the rest of the world. We want our choice recognized as legitimate and mature. We want others to recognize how, when they demand that we justify our choice, something they would never dream of asking a parent or parent-to-be, they implicitly malign our choice. The childfree are not less-than, without, missing, lacking, or vacant. We are mature adults who've put a lot of time and energy into a decision; it's not something we've taken lightly.
While most of us don't mind paying taxes for the rest of the country's children to go to school, we do get upset, no, angry, at being expected to pick up the slack for tax credits given to parents, and at paying for "family" insurance, on-site child-care, and maternity leave benefits at work, in addition to taking on all the extra work at the office (for no extra pay) while moms and dads take yet another early day to watch the sprogs at soccer/tee-ball/piano/ballet/etc. with nary an offer to reciprocate should we want to leave early someday. We are tired of watching parents come and go from work as they please while we have to be there on time, all day, every day. We are tired of companies that only give flex-time to parents when we could use it too. Why does having a child equal all these goodies? We hear from parents that "raising kids is expensive!" Ummm...yeah, so is maintaining a 50-foot yacht, what's your point? Oh, you say you don't have a 50-foot yacht because you can't afford it? Maybe you should have applied that sort of logic to your procreation inclinations and not just your nautical ones. The childfree actually hear "We should earn more than you, our expenses are greater!" Excuse me? So, if I decide to take up collecting Faberge eggs, my employer should pay me more, because my life-style choice caused my expenses to sky-rocket?
This leads us to the pervasive, unspoken truth: parents regard what they do, and therefore themselves, as superior to us. The idea that having and raising children is the best thing you can do, the greatest benefit to society, has never been challenged. As Elinor Burkett said in Baby Boon:
"But at what level and to what extent is reproduction a social good? Is expecting non-parents to pick up the slack at the office so that parents working to fulfill themselves can attend school plays, for example, intrinsic to the social good? Does supporting the future necessitate subsidizing the private college educations of the children of wealthy families? Is our growing support for parents, which skews taxation toward a significant childless minority and services away from them, really reflective of our collective concern for the future, or is it a sop to those who have kids? What does it mean that we're devising policies that force the poor to take responsibility for themselves and their decisions while establishing programs to relieve the relatively affluent of the consequences of theirs?"
Ten Commandments of Workplace Etiquette in Family-Friendly America
1. Thou shalt volunteer to work late so that mothers can leave at 2:00 P.M. to watch their sons play soccer, for a mother's time is more valuable than thine.
2. Thou shalt never complain when important meetings are broken up at 2:30 by phone calls from children reporting in after school lest thou be considered indifferent to the importance of parental bonding.
3. Thou shalt take thy vacations when no one else wants time off so parents can take theirs during summer, over Christmas, or on any other school or "family" holiday.
4. Thou shalt not apply the phrase "equal pay for equal work" to thy company's benefits plan, althought it offers mothers and fathers thousands of dollars in perks thou can't use.
5. Thou shalt willingly do two jobs for the price of one while mothers are on six-month maternity and paternity leaves.
6. Thou shalt never ask for a long leave to write a book, travel, or fulfill thy heart's desire because no desire other than children could possibly be worth thy company's inconvenience.
7. Thou shalt volunteer to take frequent business trips to places like Abilene, Kansas, or Cleveland, Ohio, so that parents can spend their evenings watching ER after they put the kids to bed.
8. Thou shalt promote thy "family-friendly" company as a firm that cherishes women because everyone knows that women equals mothers.
9. Thou shalt never utter the words " but that's not my problem" when a parent rushes out the door during the final negotiations of a corporate merger, explaining that he has promised to take the children to the movies.
10. Thou shalt smile graciously when thy coworker brings her three-year-old to the office and allows him to turn the papers on thy desk into airplanes.
-P.J. O'Rourke