NS November 16th, 2009

This post is a departure from my usual fare in that the following is a piece of fiction, the first I’ve written in a very, very long time. I’m not really a fiction writer so please excuse its presumed awfulness. The reason for this departure is because I thought it would be fun to take part in one of Josie’s great Writing Workshops and when I read the list of prompts for this week, the last one (Write about a deep and dark fear) caught my attention. I decided that instead of writing about myself and my own views I’d try my hand at making something up. Be gentle with me, this is (most likely) a one-time experiment.

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Fact: one needs a car to reach the cliffs of Beachy Head on Christmas Day. I know this because I’ve been looking at train and bus schedules for the Eastbourne area all morning and was disappointed to discover that they will not be running a service at all, not even a limited one.

I suppose I should’ve expected this; I mean, what operates on Christmas Day besides the most local of local pubs, where the regulars have practically grown into the seats they’ve claimed as “theirs” and where the tinsel looks like it was purchased shortly after Margaret Thatcher came to power? Oh, sure, a few Pakistani-run newsagents will open, the raised graffiti-strewn shutters a welcome sight to those who forgot to stock up on milk or paracetemol or lottery tickets. The toffee-coloured man with the kind, tired eyes and fingerless black gloves will smile half-heartedly as the pale-skinned and native-tongued shift uneasily when they say “Happy Christmas” very tentatively, with a rising cadence at the end, like a question, unsure if it is polite or offensive to wish a Muslim man a happy holiday that he likely doesn’t celebrate, at least not in the same way.

But see, this is why I want to get out of London. I can’t bear to watch seven-odd million dreary souls faking cheer and joy and peace when, really, they don’t even know how to interact with one another when buying a newspaper and secretly can’t wait to get back home where they can make racist jokes and drink their body weight in booze and be as horrible as they like. Oh, you think most people are beyond this and don’t think these things? You think people are inherently good and it’s only a few rotten apples that give us all a bad name? You think being “PC” is an admirable thing and that if we all just linked arms and sang ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ our eternal souls would be saved by that mythical man in the sky?

Jesus, you’re one of those, aren’t you? One of the gullible, cheery, optimistic, opiated masses who put knitted sweaters on dogs and nod approvingly when you see children sitting silently and perfectly still in cafes and on airplanes and think the epitome of class is a prawn starter with a nice glass of bubbly, enjoyed in an Ikea and Habitat-furnished living room. You probably have track lighting to display the original artwork you brought back from the indigenous Bolivians you met while on your six-month trek across South America and claim to speak a foreign language, though your pronounciation is terrible. I knew there was something about you I didn’t like.

I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you more about why I need to get to Beachy Head then, because you will undoubtedly try to stop me, spew some psychobabble Freudian analysis and tell me to see a doctor and that they make medication for what I’m suffering. Suffering. As if you — any of you — could know the meaning of that word. As if any of you knew what it was like to be completely, utterly useless — a failure. And more than that, a failure at the one thing you were meant to be good at; the one thing you’d been told all your life you were destined for and biologically designed to excel at. No, not screwing and pleasing men, but you’re close. It’s the screwing of men (or one man, rather) that got me in my current predicament but still, that’s not what it is.

No, it’s motherhood I’m talking about. Or, should I say, Motherhood (TM). This sanitised, idealised, patronised, demonised version of what mothers are supposed to do and be and feel; a Mary Poppins-inspired, vicious lie of finger paintings and songs that make messes disappear and children that can be patted on the head and sent up to bed with no screaming, no tears and no fits of rage, by neither child nor parent. No, my kid and my life are not the version I was sold from the time I was old enough to cradle a baby doll and force a bottle between its smiling lips. I glowed when I was repeatedly told, “Aw, look at you. You’ll be a fantastic mummy!” I now hate every person who told me that, who made it seem so easy, who never told me that the plastic doll in my arms wasn’t anything like a real, live baby; that real, live babies would get trapped wind or colic or whatever upsets newborns and that it would make them scream and scream and scream, all night and into the morning, and that after months of this one would likely sit on the floor in a crumpled heap of defeat, sobs wracking a body tensed with rage and exhaustion. And when I say rage, I mean RAGE. You didn’t think it possible to feel rage at an 11-week-old baby? You didn’t think normal people fantasised about bashing their baby’s head or their own against the wall to Stop. The. Crying. For. One. Goddamned. Minute? You didn’t think normal people resisted this urge by digging their fingernails into their palms with such ferocity that the nails all broke off and fell, tinged with blood, to the unswept floor?

I used to be normal. I think I still am, deep down inside, but I don’t know anymore. No one has told me how hard it would be, how soul-destroying and tiresome and lonely. I love my daughter in an abstract, distant way, sort of like the way one loves an idea or appreciates a work of art. But that’s it. There is no heart-melting, goo-goo ga-ga baby love, just crushing responsibility and a sense of mourning for what I used to be and could’ve been.

So you see, this is why I need to get to Beachy Head on Christmas Day. My parents want to take the baby off to some la-di-da family party, stick a pink bow on her bald head and show her off to the cousins and aunts and uncles who haven’t got to meet her yet because I’m “too selfish” and “too nervous” to let them come round for a peek. But I couldn’t let them come round and see the gouges in my palms and the bags under my eyes and the dirty dishes stacked up in the tub, could I? I couldn’t answer the door in the only trousers that fit me and don’t rub against the scar on my stomach where they removed her, the ones covered in milky vomit (hers) and snot from crying with my head between my knees. I couldn’t bear to see their sympathetic looks and clucking reassurances about it all “being okay” and offering faint, non-specific offfers of help but only if they involve cooing over and holding the baby. No one wants to help a single mum with the mopping or the shopping or scrubbing the shit stains out of the toilet, do they? They want to give a bottle or push a pram in the park or make a lovely cup of tea.

No one thinks to ask how I’m feeling or what I need. It’s all baby, all the time now. It started the minute I discovered I was pregnant and hasn’t stopped since. I am no longer Georgina: lover of rock music, maker of the perfect gin and tonic, Jane Austen fan, aspiring writer, former massage therapist at a chic and popular spa with clients who loved her and claimed she had The Touch and with whom she felt connected and grounded and respected. Now I’m just Mother: a vessel, a peabrain, the scourge of society needing handouts to survive. No one sees me for who I am anymore, but what I represent and what I can do for them. I am no one.

This is why the Christmas plan is perfect. Or would be, if I could get there. If public transport was running I could wait until Mum and Dad had pulled away with their precious cargo, their granddaughter, believing they were giving me the gift of several hours’ rest and respite, and then dash to the station, just making the 10.23. I’d sit near the toilets, just in case I needed to be sick, and stare out the window with an unopened copy of Practical Parenting in my lap. I’d be in Eastbourne in time for lunch, though I wouldn’t have any. What would be the point? After strolling through the town for a bit,  I’d get the number 13 bus to the top and feel myself growing lighter and lighter as we ascended upwards, in anticipation of the flying, floating relief I’d find at the summit.

Why don’t I just drive you ask? Yes, I do have a car — a shitty old banger from my youth nicknamed Lola. She used to purr like a kitten but now the growls coming from her bowels are more like that of an aging tiger. She is my oldest friend. Yes, she’s parked right here in front of the flat, actually. But I only use her for pottering around town, I never drive her more than about 5 miles away. I’m terrified of driving on motorways, you see. I get all white-knuckled and knock-kneed and sweaty-browed as I plunge down what I call The Deathway in my tube of terror, feeling as if I’m going to faint with anxiety the entire time. Every time a car brakes in front of me or passes me on the right just a little too closely for my liking, I tense my entire body and wait for the inevitable crash and clang of metal that will rip me from the seat and send me spiralling headfirst out of Lola’s windscreen like a torpedo, like how an American football looks as it sails through the air.

Now, I know it might seem ludicrous to you — you and your lovely job and perfect children and happy faces — to be afraid of dying while driving myself to the spot where I plan to die, but (to use a tiresome cliche) it is what it is. There’s no other way to get to Beachy Head on Christmas Day and that’s that. I’m too embarrassed to admit my fear of driving to anyone but the baby and she certainly doesn’t give a toss. She’s got her own stuff to deal with; namely having a horrendous, incapable mother and a father who walked out in the middle of a ferocious argument in the seventh month of my pregnancy, about how best to assemble the flat-packed cot we’d bought for her. Something about those screws and bolts fitting together and the promise of a solid structure at the end of our hard work spooked him.

Maybe I’ll give it ’til the New Year and see how I feel. If I could only get enough sleep to think straight, perhaps I could come up with an alternate plan. Maybe instead of Beachy Head I’ll take Mum and Dad up on their offer and spend the day in bed. Either way, come Christmas Day, I will sleep. Sleep and the sweet nothingness it brings. That’s all I want.

• Bloggy love , Fiction
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NS November 13th, 2009

I don’t normally discuss my marriage (at least not the bits that aren’t funny) on this site, and I’m not going to go into great detail starting now, but needless to say, it has come to my attention that I haven’t been paying The Noble Husband very much attention lately. We’ve been happier and more content in the last few months than we have been in quite awhile, mainly due to finances not being such a huge issue now that I’m earning and with The Noble Baby’s immediate needs becoming less and less demanding. The resentful bickering that used to plague us when we were broke and looking after a tiny baby plus a moody toddler had dwindled down to the odd argument about whose turn it was to get up early or do the dishes.

However, I am still not getting a full night’s sleep and, truth be told, am getting sort of fed up with it. I think that because our daughter was sleeping through the night by her first birthday, I kind of assumed our son would too. I had steeled myself for a year of night wakings and early morning feeds but now that his birthday has come and gone and he is still consistently waking up 1-2 times a night, anywhere between 1 and 5 a.m. (which isn’t bad, I know; many people have it much worse), I find myself getting grumpier and grumpier about it. I figure I haven’t had a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep since I was about 7 months pregnant, or nearly 16 months ago. Even when I’ve had 7 or 8 hours sleep total, if I was awake for 15 minutes of that while feeding the baby and then woke again when TNC came to our bed (as she does every night now), that 7 or 8 hours has been broken into 2 or 3 chunks of separate sleep cycles. As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, chunks of 2-3 hours of sleep does not a well-rested person make.

So I think my perpetual tiredness, coupled with my recent career decisions and newfound time to myself (I am self-employed and have just put the children in care two days a week so I can pursue my ambitions) have left me feeling that I have to choose between time as a couple in the evening, “me time,”  work and sleep. Often, the latter three win out over the former. Once I’ve gotten the kids to bed, tidied up, had a bit of relaxation time and eaten dinner, I’m ready to either focus on some work or go to sleep. And there’s TNH over on the sofa, trying to talk to me while I keep one eye on my computer and another turning the pages of a book or newspaper, giving half-hearted nods and mmm-hmms as he tries to engage me in conversation or some form of intimacy.

In short, I’ve been neglectful and self-centered and entirely too dismissive of his feelings. I consider our marriage so strong and solid and unshakable that I often shuffle it to the bottom of the priority list when that list is as long as my arm.  If you plant a seed but then forget to water it, it will never grow, just sit buried underneath mounds of wishful thinking. Similarly, gardens that have already grown tend to get strangled with weeds if left untended.

And so this weekend I’m switching off, tuning out, and putting down all of the things that usually distract me and making sure the most important man in my life feels appreciated, loved and cared for. He deserves it;  our marriage deserves it. I just hope I can remember not to let things get so thorny next time.

• Til Death Do Us Part
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NS November 10th, 2009

My interest was piqued by this post I read today, by Sandy at Baby Baby, about ‘shag bands’ and the sexualisation of young girls. As reported by the Times, apparently ‘shag bands’ are these plastic, colour-coded bracelets being worn by children as young as 8 (but mainly by teens), with each colour representing something sexual they’ve done or are expected to do if a member of the opposite sex (usually a boy, since mainly girls wear them) manages to ‘snap’ or break it.

Sandy expressed her dismay at the existence of these bands and used it as an opportunity to discuss the sexualisation of young girls. Though I wasn’t thrilled to hear of these bands and always welcome discourse on how our society sexualises girls and women, I was a bit doubtful that these ‘shag bands’ were the insidious items that they were made out to be in the media so I did a little digging.  A quick Internet search and I found this excellent article on Snopes about the ‘sex bracelets’ and rumours of other playground ‘sex coupons’ that have been around for decades, including the soda or beer can tab and the beer bottle label as items to be traded for carnal knowledge. You can read more about the legends here but the summary of the article is that we’re likely assigning too much significance to playground devices such as these, which are mostly rumour. Even where there is some truth in the meanings attached to the items, it’s more indicative of teenage explorations of desire and the appeal of abdicating responsibility for the sexual decisions they face, not of a sinister plot to actually trade or force sexual favours for trinkets.

So even though I don’t think the bracelets are actually being used in the way they’ve been portrayed,  I agree with Sandy when she says:

Advertising, magazines and television (particularly MTV) are taking away our children’s innocence. Girls are bombarded by airbrushed size zero models with fake breasts. This is not how most women look. This is not healthy.

The cult of celebrity is also damaging how youngsters view the world. There seem to be many children that believe just being on television is a worthy ambition. They want to be famous – no talent required. Even worse, they want to be married to someone famous. Being a footballer’s wife should not be an acceptable career choice.

I too look at how women are portrayed in the media and in advertising and find myself filled with despair. I too worry for the kids aspiring to be famous  for nothing in particular and without any kind of plan for an education or career. But then, at the very end, she says: “On days like this I’m glad I have sons and not daughters.”

Even though I know that Sandy meant no harm when she said it and was  just trying to express her frustration at the situation, I disagree strongly with the sentiment behind this statement. I hear a lot of parents of boys use this line whenever we talk about serious, scary issues that young girls are facing, be it negative body image, sexual objectification and exploitation, the pay gap, gender stereotyping,  rape, domestic violence or discrimination in the workplace. They feel, perhaps understandably, relieved that they won’t have to tackle these issues in the same way that they would as parents of  boys. The thing is, they should be every bit as worried about how to deal with all of the aforementioned problems as the parents of girls. Though framed in a different way perhaps, all of these issues need to be discussed with boys. In fact, I’d say it’s just as important for parents of boys to help them understand and combat these messages as it is for girls.

You see, the bombardment of “airbrushed, size-zero models with fake breasts” in the pages of magazines, on billboards and on tv isn’t aimed solely at girls, nor are they the only ones to see these things and internalise the messages within. Boys see those MTV videos, those beer ads, the covers of all those magazines with the celebrities and the models and their “perfect” proportions and they are getting a message too. It might not be screaming out to them “Lose weight! You’re not pretty enough! You need to be sexy to attract a man!” but something is being projected to them just the same, believe me. They are hearing things like “This is what the ideal woman looks like! Women are nice to look at but they’re a pain in the arse! You’re not a Real Man (TM) unless you notch up as many sexual conquests as possible!  No doesn’t always mean No, especially if she’s dressed sexy! You’re pathetic if you care too much about her feelings or express your own! You must assert your masculinity at all times or risk being labeled a ‘loser’ or a ‘queer’!” amongst many, many others. This is harmful. It’s harmful to young boys’ emotional and mental development and affects the way they view not only their own place in the world and their own sexuality, but that of the girls and women they know (or will know), too.

So not only should parents of boys (myself included in this group) be worried about these issues just as much as parents of girls, we should be talking about how to tackle these problems with the same urgency and seriousness that it holds for our daughters. The sexualisation of girls hurts boys, too, and it will never end until boys (who will eventually become men) become involved in the discussion. Only then can they become part of the solution. In fact, that may be the solution.

Photo credit: exlow’s Flickr photostream, via a Creative Commons license

• Activism , In The News , Objectification , Parenting 101 , School
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NS November 6th, 2009

Apologies in advance to all of you who are on Blogger and/or who use word verification, but I’m not a big fan of having to squint at the little box that pops up after I type out a comment on your site and then try to decipher a bunch of meaningless numbers and letters that are upside down, smashed together or embedded within a busy design that gives me a headache just looking at it. In fact, if I had my way I’d rid the blogosphere of word verification entirely. Fortunately for me, others agree and this blogger even made a nifty button to express my feelings on the matter:

However, word verification does serve one purpose: it sometimes entertains me with its random selection of letters that, together, almost sound like words but aren’t. I’ve taken to noting down ones of late that sound like they could really be found in the dictionary (though perhaps only on Mars or Tolkien’s Middle Earth) and given them definitions. Behold:

Gammi – I imagine this to be an Italian dessert of gelato and jam on an alcohol-soaked biscuit base. That, or a horrendously smelly running shoe. I can’t decide which

Ungive – Well, duh. It’s the opposite of give

Roviati – A group of paparazzi who have been hounded out of their homes by anti-celeb-chasers and are living in the woods down by the river, keeping their skills sharp by taking photos of squirrels and birds as they dart amongst the undergrowth

Outti – The official word for that nub of flesh that sticks out of a pregnant woman’s belly where her navel used to be. Traditionally called an ‘outie’ but with the spelling altered here to make it feel more special and unique, much like parents-to-be do with baby names

Prounch – A pocket (literally) of skin on the abdomen, grown from harvested stem cells which provides a place to keep your valuables when out on the pull without the need to carry a pesky handbag

Butchopa – A mythical place where women are not sexualised for others’ pleasure or profit and aren’t required to be Beauty 2k Compliant to feel good about themselves

Oxisorr – A skin disorder that results from compulsive cleansing and continual application of harsh acne medication

How about you, seen any good ‘words’ lately?

• Banal Breakdown , Bloggy love
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NS November 3rd, 2009

Before I became a mother I had opinions about a lot of things on which I’ve since done an about-face. For example:

• I thought I’d always wear shoes with at least a little bit of a heel and would never, EVER wear flat slip-ons just because they’re more comfortable and convenient

• I thought people who wore trousers anywhere above their hipbones were tragically uncool

• I thought parents were selfish for taking their pushchairs on the bus or train at rush hour and should be relegated to only using public transport at times when the Busy, Important People weren’t around

• I thought babies and children could easily be ‘controlled’ and that any kid who threw a tantrum, screamed or cried incessantly was a brat who needed to be immediately removed from the vicinity of my ears and my precious public space, of which I was utterly convinced I had dibs on over a snot-faced two-year-old

Some of these  naive thoughts were a result of merely being young and inexperienced, but others didn’t even register as being perhaps a tad selfish until I became a parent and gained a new perspective.

I now know that wearing heels while pushing a 35 lb. toddler in a pushchair up a steep hill, in the rain, with the week’s shopping hanging off the handles and a crying baby attached to your front in a sling calls not only for flat shoes, but sturdy, comfortable, weather-resistant, puke-wipable, hard-wearing, sensible stompers.

I now know that moms wear ‘mom jeans’ because the hip-slung look isn’t really compatible with post-baby bellies.

I now know that parents (and kids) have just as many places to be and just as much right to use public transport, dine at a restaurant, have coffee on a Sunday morning, go to the cinema, shop at the mall or have lunch at the pub as those rushing to and from work and those without children.

But if I’d never become a parent, would I have wised up about how unrealistic my expectations of children in public were? Would I have softened my hardened stance as I aged and interacted with my friends’ children? Most likely, yes. Because as much as our society loves to divide us into Us vs. Them (parents vs. non-parents), with neither side being able to fathom what it’s like for those on the opposite side of the fence, it’s much more complex than that.

First of all, there are different attitudes towards children from those who don’t have them. There are the ones who want them but can’t have them for whatever reason (illness, infertility, etc..); those who don’t ever want children of their own but who like children, have children in their lives or are at least kindly tolerant of them; those who will probably have children of their own someday but are perhaps naive about the realities of parenting so may be a bit simplistic or harsh in their views; those who are openly hostile towards children because of their own fears, insecurities and a wealth of negative messages about kids and being a parent that they have internalised over the years; and those who are openly hostile towards children because they truly think they are sub-human monsters not worthy of existence and who would be happy to return to the Victorian motto of “seen and not heard,” with “seen” being a concession to letting the little beasts out of their cages at all.

Of all my friends and acquaintances who are not parents, the vast majority fall into the first three categories. They may not have first-hand experience of parenting but they generally like children, may even have spent a lot of time around them and caring for them, and have absolutely no issues with their presence itself. They may, as I said, be a bit naive to some of the  realities of day-to-day life with small children, but that’s okay. I wouldn’t expect them to know all about it, or even want to. As long as they’re cool with me living my life and my children living theirs and us all mixing it up together and coexisting in public spaces, we’re golden. Any misconceptions or misunderstandings about parenting (or not parenting) between us can be cleared up 99% of the time with a quick conversation or by gently sharing a different viewpoint. Even if we can’t totally understand where the other person is coming from, we can certainly sympathise.

But the “seen and not heard” people, the ones (like many of the commenters on this article) who talk about children needing to be smacked, drugged or threatened into submission; the ones who talk about kids needing muzzles and leashes becasue they are like dogs; the ones who think that if there are not crayons and clowns in the restaurant, kids should not be allowed in; the ones who would slap a crying child in Wal-Mart or shout “Shut the hell up, you little brat!” to a 3-year-old crying in the grocery store checkout line (as I witnessed one day last summer)…these people are not just lacking perspective, they are bloody psychotic. Anyone who would advocate such violence and punitive measures against children just to make them behave the way THEY want them to is not only controlling, hateful, self-absorbed and deluded, but frightening to a degree that it makes me nervous to know they’re out there among us. Thankfully, people who are truly this hateful towards children aren’t great in number.

But the people I really want to talk about are the ones in the penultimate category — the ones who are offended by and sometimes hostile towards children as a result of their own fears, insecurities, defensiveness or having internalised all of the negative messages conveyed to us on a regular basis about children and parenting. Again, even those who fall into this category will be varied and have different reasons for their disdain.

Some may simply be assholes, the kind of people so filled with hate and anger that they enjoy taking it out on those smaller than them or more vulnerable. Let’s face it, kids are pretty easy targets because they’re relatively defenseless against adults with their adult world and their adult rules and their adult size. They’re at our mercy on the bottom rung and they know it, which must be a pretty horrible way to navigate the world. I think we all remember how frustrating and unfair it felt, even as teenagers, to be restricted, disallowed and banned from doing the things we wanted to do because of some arbitrary rule or simply becuase someone bigger and more powerful than us said “Because I said so.” If it’s that frustrating as a 15-year-old, imagine how much more frustrating it must be for a two or three-year-old who doesn’t have the verbal capacity to communicate her concerns in a legitimate way or even keep a handle on her emotions as she reacts to situations she doesn’t understand.

Flaunting one’s control over children as a means of establishing and exerting power for the sole purpose of letting them know their ‘place’ is a type of power-tripping narcissism that I just can’t understand, though it is obvious from the remarks of some child-haters that this is exactly what they expect parents (and any adult a child comes into contact with, for that matter) to do, so as to preserve their “right” to quiet cafes, pavements free of mobility devices for babies and eateries reserved for the exclusive use of those who understand that etiquette requires them to not slurp their soup, shout with joy when dessert comes, or take a walk around the restaurant to check out what others are doing when they become bored.

Many may be (like I was in my early 20s before I had kids), terrified of what children represent and how they might affect our lives, even before we have them or if we never have them at all. Women particularly are prone to fretting about how having children (or even being perceived as wanting to have or being capable of having them) will result in a loss of power and  standing in the professional or academic world, a loss of personal freedom and a loss of our selves. Because to a certain extent, it’s true. We do lose a lot of power when we become mothers. We gain it in other areas, sure, but becoming a mother automatically throws a kink in the patriarchal plan, the hierarchal system we were operating under, where men come first, then women who are able to act and live ‘like men’ and then, languishing somewhere at the bottom of the food chain with unpaid interns and temporary staff, the mothers.

The mothers and their shortened hours and maternity leaves and special requests and general pain-in-the-ass-ness…they’re really only kept on at some places because it’s against the law to fire them when they get pregnant. Even employers who truly value their workers and consider themselves progressive find sweat forming on their upper lips when they see someone of childbearing age and possessing a uterus walk through the doors for an interview. It doesn’t matter if she has children or doesn’t, she is a liability. And childless women know this just as well as those who have reproduced.

I remember looking at this couple with their crying child in an art museum one time, when I was maybe 24, and wondering what the hell they were thinking by bringing him there and how they should’ve gone somewhere more family-friendly for his sake. Automatically, my brain registered the connection I had just made between having children and either being scorned for taking them to places not necessarily geared up specifically for kids, or having to stay home altogether. To me, the choice was pretty clear: have fun and have a life, or have a kid. It didn’t dawn on me that having to choose between those two things is unfair, purposely exclusionary and inherently sexist since women are affected by having and caring for children (in a social sense) much more than men.

My perception of the sacrifices and personal losses of parenthood was confirmed by other things I witnessed and observed. I saw how the only woman at work who had a child was demoted after taking her second maternity leave because she had to leave at 5 on the dot to pick her kids up from daycare. I saw how everyone rolled their eyes as she picked up her bags and logged off of her computer, even though she’d been at her desk since 7.30 compared to our 9am, and had worked through the lunch break that we’d all spent at the pizzeria next door.

I believed that any woman who stayed at home to take care of her children was wasting her education, subjugating herself to her husband and would inevitably become completely boring and obsessed with her children. I had absolutely no idea about anything to do with the physical, emotional, social and financial repurcussions of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, maternity leave, the costs and difficulties of finding quality childcare, or the bonding and primary caregiver role that is so vital to a new baby’s development.

I had no idea how hard it could be to take a child on a simple errand without incident, when it wasn’t nap time, meal time, or rush hour. I had no idea how much pressure parents are under to keep their children well-behaved, well-mannered, quiet, compliant and taking up as little space as possible, and what kind of mental strain that puts both the parents and the children under. I had no idea that one day I would be thinking back to the glares I have shot at chattering children or the way I would sometimes mutter under my breath “Jesus, these women and their pushchairs, they think they own the street,” as two women with prams came my way, and I would be ashamed of how I behaved, would like to find those cheerful but noisy children and those women just struggling to make it through the day with their newborn babies and unwieldy prams and apologise for my asshattery.

It’s clear to me now that I was the one acting petulant and selfish, not those women or those children just going about their lives. But why did I have so much antipathy towards them? Why did I feel a self-righteous sense of anger at the fact that I couldn’t understand or control what they were doing or experiencing?

The real answer, if I’m honest? Fear. Fear of the unknown, of being in that position someday and feeling scrutinized and picked apart and passed over and talked about. Insecure because I wasn’t sure if parethood was something I wanted and if it wasn’t, why was I ever-so-slightly disappointed when a pregnancy test the month before came out negative? And if it was something I wanted, why wasn’t I being struck down with the “biological urge” or “maternal instinct” I’d been told I should be feeling by now? More importantly, if I did decide to become a parent, how much of my ideals and my freedome and how many pieces of my true self would I have to wave goodbye to, as I’d come to believe was inevitable?

For self-proclaimed feminists in particular, this can be a real minefield of conflicting issues. On one hand we’ve been fed this message all our lives that we can do and be anything  and that women are worth more than the domestic drudgery and single-minded devotion to childrearing often associated with marriage and motherhood in times past. In order to reinforce this message, has it become necessary for some women to convince themselves that they are better than mere housewives, more than “just” mothers and that children and parents are the problem, not a society that demeans and undervalues both? Because admitting that motherhood went from overrated to undervalued in 40 years flat isn’t something many of us want to acknowledge. Not many of us want to admit that even though the mainstream women’s movement certainly isn’t to blame for the way mothers and children are treated, it hasn’t done much to help them either.

And there on the other hand are the messages we are constantly bomarded with that say we are the ‘natural’ caregivers, that we have these biological bombs in our wombs that will make us go baby-making-crazy eventually, that we will be bereft and barren and bitter if we don’t become mothers. Even if we actively reject this message, know that it is sexist drivel, some of it inevitably sinks in and makes us doubt our decisions, our bodies and our roles in society. Even if one knows intellectually that a decision to not have children is a perfectly legitimate one, is it any wonder that so many non-parent women feel they have to be on the defensive from those who think them selfish or weird; that perhaps they employ the ol’ “attack before you are attacked” method of self-defense to ward off potential hurts?

Feminists (or feminst-minded women) in particular, I believe, are more prone to feel conflicted about children and motherhood and therefore are perhaps so emphatically resistant to the pigeon-holing as to risk entering into enemy territory, the very ideology that feminism deplores, where oppression and hatred reign supreme. Because — and let me be clear here — hatred of children, or expecting them to behave in a specific, prescripted, pre-approved way, or denigrating mothers by calling them “braindead housewives” or “breeders” is nothing short of oppression.

You won’t (or, at least, shouldn’t) gain any street cred or merit badges amongst the feminist in-crowd if you proudly declare yourself free from the yoke of mothering, or make jokes about muzzling children, or shoot dirty looks to families in cafes where you’re trying to do Important Things like read Salon’s Broadsheet, where even people who bother to read feminist sites say things like:

Fuck her and fuck her brat. I am goddamn sick and tired of screaming, misbehaving children making my time in public places a misery. Kudos to Southwest for having the intestinal fortitude to do the obvious thing: Boot their asses off the damned plane. If I’d been there, I would have given the flight crew a standing ovation.

Because you know what? Participating in child-bashing is participating in the oppression of a vulnerable group. By only “allowing” them into your space (be it political, social or public) through forcing them to adhere to a set of arbitrary standards is no better than the way whites told people of colour in the 50s and 60s that sure, they could be one of them… but only if they agreed to adopt white dress, speech, habits, customs and so on. So long as they were Trying To Fit In, the reigning race would reluctantly allow them to enter their space, but it had to be by their rules.

Even today, as soon as a comb gets tucked into an afro, or a pair of trousers on a black ass are found sagging, or the urban vernacular of a group of dark-skinned folks gets too complicated and labeled ‘threatening’, some white people get ucomfortable and that’s when things can get Ugly. It’s also like the people who claim to be okay with gay couples but then balk and gag when they see two men holding hands or kissing and say: “I respect your right to exist and all but you don’t need to shove it in my face! Keep that crap at home!”

Saying you support a group of people while at the same time defending your right not to have to interact with those people if they don’t fall in line with your expectations is just a superficial veneer of “acceptance” that means jack shit when it comes to real inclusion.

So no, you’re not really a progressive or a feminist or a liberal, all-encompassing sort if you also openly declare your disdain for children. Threatening to enact violence against them or their parents is not funny, it’s not cool and it’s not right. In fact, it’s really fucking hurtful. Not just on a personal level but on the whole, to women.

Instead of ripping on each other for our respective reproductive choices, let’s remember what’s really holding us back and work together to make it so having children or not having children are equally legitimate choices that don’t limit or ostracize us in any way.

Image credit: kayepants, via a Creative Commons license

• Child Hate , Feminist Fury , I Bitch Therefore I Am , Parenting 101
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