I took a risk this weekend. I veered off course from the lighter side of OS and ventured to comment on DktrShe's post about breast-feeding in public. Bad idea. Now, here is an even worse idea. I am going to blog more about it.

What I really took offense to was not DktrShe's post.  Her discussion of an injustice to a woman who got fired for taking an unscheduled break at work to pump her breasts was spot on.  In my comments there I stated, and I will repeat the sentiment here, no one, male or female, should get fired for having to take an unscheduled break to attend to a physical need like breast pumping, having to pee or change your tampon.  That, quite frankly, is a no duh.  

Rather what I took offense to were the snipes in the comments directed at me, and people who do not have children in general, that referred to us as "The Childless"and "The Wrathful Child-Free" because we aren't prepared to lay prostrate at the feet of women who choose to propagate.  To those who hiss "childless!" I say bite me. Choosing to have children doesn't make you a saint.  You need more than afterbirth to qualify as a martyr. (Oh, do keep your hissing to yourself.)

When I was eight years old, I made the decision that I would never have children. I knew then, with three younger sisters, that I had no maternal instincts towards human children. None whatsoever. I have never wavered from that stance. It had nothing to do with the way I was raised. My sisters Parrish and Helen have five kids between them. My sister Terese and her girlfriend Elizabeth are enthusiastically going through the process to have kids of their own. Potential sperm donors email me for an application. People in my family reproduce and like it. I, on the other hand, do not.

When I was 16, I got pregnant. It did not once, not even for a nanosecond, occur to me that I would see the pregnancy through. Between that time and my 35th birthday, I was to get pregnant three more times. I was to see none of them through. (If you are going to get pro-life on me, this is your invitation to leave. Your morals are your own, not mine.) I did not get pregnant because I was lazy, sloppy, drunk, stupid, or not using birth control. I have used nearly every kind of birth control available on the market. When I was 16, I started on the pill. I took it for 2 weeks and wound up in the ER with blood clots, and was it not for my doctor's keen ability, I would not be here to snark at you today. I managed to get pregnant off a diaphragm, a cervical cap, and the sponge.  

When I met my husband, we had been together two weeks when I announced that I was getting a tubal ligation. I needed him to understand that being with me, no matter how fabulous it might seem, was never, under any circumstances going to involve children. My previous beau of 7 years had never been able to digest this information and it was one of the key reasons we eventually parted ways. On the 35th anniversary of the day of my birth, I went under anesthesia and had my tubes cauterized, forever sealing the deal.

Let's pause for a moment of clarity. I am sterilized because I do not want children. This does not mean that I am a child hater. I adore my nieces and nephew. I think my friends' children are great. I thought Dakota Fanning was the cutest little girl I had ever seen. However, I do not want, unless it is dire, to be put in a situation where I have to raise them. I don't do diapers.  I don't do temper tantrums, unless I'm throwing them. I laugh uproariously at my sisters having to deal with puberty and teenage angst again with their daughters.

I helped babysit my eldest two nieces when my sister was separated from her husband and living at home. I did not enjoy it at all - particularly the one episode when I found the youngest, Chaconne, wandering my mother's pied-a-terre, which smelled overwhelmingly of shit, covered in glistening yellow oil. I screamed for my Tia Consuelo (my family's housekeeper of over 40 years) like a banshee. I was heaving over the stairs and having none of cleaning the child. Thank God Tia has no sense of smell. Had I been on my own the child would have stayed that way until her mother got home.  (It was later determined that Chaconne had opened an bottle of Neutrogena bath oil and smeared it all over herself after having taken the world's worst smelling shit.) By the time my youngest sister had her first daughter, Zayla, I defiantly announced that Tante, as the children call me, would never be babysitting again.

Now that most of the children are older, I quite enjoy their company. They are bright, articulate, and several of them have their Tante's snarky sense of humor. My youngest nephew who screams "NO!" whenever I come into the room (bright child), and whom I call Token as he is the only male in two generations, will appreciate me when he is old enough to be ready to come out of the closet.

So, back to my point.  I am childless and without maternal instincts. However, I do not think this is such a bad thing. I could have been a teenage mother. I could have dropped out of high school and raised a child I resented, rather than stay in school and eventually get a master's degree. I could have had four children by my early 30's and been both a resentful and an inadequate parent four times over. Eegaads! I could have been 1/2 of Nadia Suleman.  Mind you, I'd be the half that didn't want to look like Angelina Jolie.  But, no. Instead, I decided to take another course of action. I decided to be childless.  (Oh do stop hissing! You sound like a snake with a lisp.)

Now I will admit it, I do not always like everyone's children. Actually, that is not accurate. It is usually not the child I do not like, but rather  it is the parents. When I am in Target and there is a child screaming at the top of its lungs "Mommy, mommy, mommy I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnntttttttt it!" and the mother is debating between baked and fried Doritos and ignoring the child, I do not want to hit the kid, I want to hit the mother. I am the woman you will hear about on the news someday and will be called The Target Mother Slapper. When a child says something rude to me, I don't blame the child.  It isn't the child's fault that their parents didn't have the sense to raise them any better. I blame the parents. Children mirror their parents. 

Last month my husband and I were on a plane in a configuration that I can only describe as my own worst nightmare. Small plane, four seats across. Dave has the window and I have the aisle 'cause I am claustrophobic. Immediately to my left is the couple with the newborn - and I mean umbilical cord still bandaged newborn. To my left and one row behind is a mother with her 3-year-old daughter. Directly behind us are the woman's nanny and the 5-year-old son. This is a recipe for turning a 2 1/2 hour flight into a Quentin Tarantino film. We are not even ready to taxi and the mother has tuned out the 3-year-old asking "Mommy why aren't we flying? Why? Why? Why Mommy why?" in favor of her novel while her son kicks the back of Dave's seat. The woman actually smirked at me when I shot her my "You're just lucky I'm worried there's an Air Marshall on this plane" look.  The way I was raised, I would have been instructed to ask the nice man  in front of me if he wouldn't mind if I kicked his seat for 2 hours straight. And then to thank him when he said "No, please do not."

My husband and I both work hard for a living. We both have 60-80 hours weeks sometimes. Therefore, when we take a night off to go out for dinner or to watch a movie, we are looking forward to each other's company or the company of other adults. All of our friends know that dinner parties at our house are preferred to be childfree affairs. We intentionally go to movies at the 21 and over theatre when we can. I do not want idle chatter, cell phones, or children wailing to interfere with my movie experience. We go to restaurants that cater to adults. We are looking for an adult night out and time off. It's my $50, $100, $200 to spend on a meal and I'm not going to have a passel of children screaming wildly while I'm sucking down my Fettuccini Carbonara at $18  a plate, spoil my meal.

For me, eating out is a sacred experience.  If I wanted your "adorable" child to run between tables screaming and giggling while I am eating dinner, I would go to Chuck E. Cheese. I went to a dinner party once where the parents ignored the child who was running in circles around the living room screaming at a decibel level that would make Mariah Carey hoarse. In my youth an adult arm would have come flying out and cut you off mid-lap around the room. It didn't happen that night, and really not many of today's parents would stop their child from doing it. Parents don't think of their children's behaviour as rude or inappropriate.  They either don't see/hear it, or they think it is cute because their precious child is expressing themselves.

A few months ago someone wrote a post about how he and his wife took their newborn infant to see the Harry Potter film.  The night before he and his wife had left their child with a sitter and gone to seen the film.  However, the next day their jones for all things Hogwarts was so intense that they needed to see the film again, and this time took their infant.  Seriously.  Can you really tell me that this isn't the act of a set of selfish people concerned with their own desires above those of their child? Forget annoying the shit out of me when you get up and run out of the theatre with a screaming infant.  What the fuck are you thinking?  Oh, that's right.  You are thinking about your needs.  Not your kid's.  Not the other movie goers'.  Nope, just yours. (Really, enough with the hissing.  Speaking Parseltongue isn't any more popular here than it is in Little Whinging.)

Now back to the taboo subject that sent me off on this here rant. If I wanted to watch you breast feed I would ask. It is not sexual with me. Your tits do not turn me on nor do they offend me. I'm not modest by nature and I don't expect you to be. However, personally I find breast-feeding creepy and most certainly it is not appetizing. That's my opinion, and frankly, I'm entitled to it. I am not saying that women who are breast-feeding or have infants should be shut-ins. Let's be clear and  do not misquote me on this point at the PTA meeting. However, I do think that they should show a little discretion and better planning. If you cannot go out for dinner without starving your child to death, perhaps you should look at your priorities. What is more important? Your need for the never-ending-pastabowl and bread sticks or your child's need for sustenance? My mother taught me not to belch after my meal, not to put my elbows on the table or whip my tits out while others were eating. If you do decide to be selfish and bless the rest of us with your presence and that of your infant at dinner in a restaurant, retire to the Ladies' Room or somewhere else to feed them. That is all I am asking.  (Are you still hissing or is there something stuck in your throat? Do I need to call 911?)

When I remark to you, your friends, or anonymous strangers on a blog, that I don't find sharing your moment of maternal bonding with you as entertaining, blissful, or endearing as you might, don't come back at me with the snarled word "childless.” It is not an insult. It is a decision and a choice, just like your decision to breed. You don't hear me snarling "breeder!" or "udder cow"  in retort. 

The reality is we are not a tribal society.  We don't really believe it takes a village to raise children.  We'd like to think that we're that open to each other's input or suggestions about how to raise our children or how our children should behave, but we're not as Beth Mann found out recently.  In a number of situations it comes down to an"us" vs "them" mentality.  When those of us who do not have children venture to suggest that we don't like the way a child or a mother is behaving we're met with the ubiquitous, and snottily intoned, question "Do you have children?" or the world "childless" is snarled in our general direction.

What I truly find so offensive about the hissed word "childless" is that it is bandied about by women as if it were "whore", "hussy,” "scarlet woman.”   As if my decision not be a bad parent and not to emotionally starve, neglect, or abuse a child makes me a bad person. The difference between me and the woman breastfeeding at the table next to me, or letting her child scream unattended through a restaurant, is that I am willing to acknowledge my selfishness and not confuse it with martyrdom.