Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
Aug 2, 2000 | Read Cathy Young's story Read Carina Chocano's story
It is discriminatory to grant a benefit to one person or group and deny it (or an equivalent) to another person or group. Childburdened workers are often given benefits that are unavailable to childfree workers. The following are examples of what has happened to me and to other NO KIDDING! members:
Parents are often given first dibs on vacation dates so they can be with their families while non-parents are often left the dregs. Parents are often allowed to arrive late, leave early or skip meetings altogether while childfree workers are expected to be there and on time. During meetings, parents are often distracted, and meetings are disrupted, by "crises" at home (such as "Where's the peanut butter?" or "Kim's picking on me!"). Pre-natal doctor's appointments cause expectant mothers to miss a lot of work, even before the baby is born. Non-parents are often told to work overtime, while parents are allowed to go home to their families. Weekend and holiday work, as well as the less desirable shifts, are often assigned to childfrees, as is work that requires travel. Childburdened workers often arrive late, leave early and are absent from work due to the kids, yet they make the same pay as those who put in a full day's work. Flextime is often offered to childburdened workers, while childfree workers are held to a rigid schedule. When the childcare provider (the stranger being paid to raise one's kids) can't take the kid(s), parents often bring kids to work, which is distracting and dangerous. On-site daycare and lactation rooms are something for which everyone pays and few benefit. Health insurance premiums are often not proportional to usage -- in many cases, a childless couple pays as much as a couple with 10 kids. Etc.
All of the above turn parents into a privileged class of employee and citizen.
I've heard some childburdened workers complain that they aren't promoted as quickly as other workers. Well, imagine you decided to take a 50-lap pit stop at the Indy 500. Could you rightfully complain that you didn't win the race? You consciously took six months or eight months or a year off. Everyone else was working and gaining work experience while you were away. And when you come back, time has to be spent to get you up to speed, as well.
Why are we expected to do more because someone else has chosen to do too much?
Many employers (and co-workers) think that childfree workers don't have families. We do have families. We have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, and we have lots of other people who are important in our lives.
All of the above would be less upsetting if the childfree were subsidized as much as those who chose to have children. People shouldn't be bribed to create more consuming polluters, and compensation should be based on qualifications and job performance, not on the number of children one has produced.
-- Jerry Steinberg
Founding Non-Father
NO KIDDING! www.nokidding.bc.ca
(A social club for child-free couples and singles)
I'm 38, single and childless. While I like children and hope to have one in the roughly 10 years I have left, my opinions on this subject tend to lean toward that of those who advocate the child-free movement. Actually it's not the children I have a problem with. It's their parents.
It seems to me that these days, there is a general reproductive and parental irresponsibility that pervades our society. Why is it, exactly, that, in a time when we have a myriad of birth-control methods, we have an explosion of unwanted pregnancies, infanticides and neglected/abused children?
While I may not agree with some of the more fringe ideology of the child-free movement, I do agree that too many adults are neglecting the results of the choice they made in the first place and that all of us are reaping the harvest that many of us never sowed.
-- Juliette Ochieng
While I realize that there are a lot of self-centered people who decided to whine and act militant about the child/childless issue, the response printed was, in my opinion, just as juvenile.
I have two children, but most of my friends are childless by choice, and one even started a NO KIDDING chapter in our town. Why? To meet other people who don't have to be home by 8 p.m. for children's bedtime and who still have time to play as hard as they work.
She's the least militant person I know, and from the people I've met in her group, militant is the last thing I'd call most of them. When I asked her and some ladies in her group what their reasoning for the childless choice was, I got some very interesting and (I feel) sound answers:
One said that she felt her career was so demanding that in order to be the kind of mother a child deserved, she'd have to quit her job. She loves it and doesn't want to quit, so she doesn't want to be unfair to a child.
One had come from an abusive family. She knows that patterns repeat sometimes and she doesn't feel desire to have a child, therefore she's afraid that if she DID she might not be a good mother.
Another stated that there are so many unadopted children in the world, that she didn't want to have any of her own. If and when she decides she'd like to be a mother, she'll adopt or foster.
Many of these childless people actually like and enjoy children, but choose not to have them. They are content to play with the kids of their friends and take on the roles of the doting aunts and uncles.
I think we should all be thankful for the people who are smart enough not to get pregnant if they don't want the responsibility!
-- Dale Caliaro
Dear Ms. Young, what actually made you sick was swallowing that heaping helping of outdated pro-child propaganda. Kids are our future? Right now that future is freeways-turned-parking-lots and no affordable housing. And who relies on Social Security existing at all in 30 years? I sure don't. Labor shortages? Puh-leeze. I'll just be getting my Egg McMuffin from a vending machine.
Our society has romanticized parenthood and made children into household gods. Deciding NOT to have children requires tremendous effort and constant explanation. The anti-child movement is providing support for those who don't want 'em , can't stand 'em and shouldn't have 'em. Yes, it's a selfish movement, but it's also pointing out that parents are at least as selfish -- in their children's names.
-- Kat Daley
Cathy Young calls the child-free movement "sheer narcissism."
No. Sheer narcissism is the belief that your genes are so valuable to the Pool that you can't resist bringing more children onto an overcrowded planet.
Reproduction is the ultimate expression of narcissism.
-- Yolanda D. Seabourne
Get Salon in your mailbox!