Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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As a parent of two sons, I must say that I agree with you.  You seem like a very mature young woman who knows what she wants and what she doesn't want.  Maybe if everytime men and women had penis/vagina intercourse they would ask themselves "do I want to become a parent?", 99% would probably say "NO!."
My sons are smart and loving individuals, but if I had a chance to live my life again, I would not have children.  It is a thankless job.  The stress and worry (the fucking homework) and just plain being trapped and exhausted.  I wasn't parented very well myself so that may be why I feel this way, but I feel it.  
I felt an incredible amount of pressure from society to have children.  I also felt like I wouldn't be respected a person if I wasn't a mother.  This is my own mental stuff that I have to deal with.  But I think parenthood is encouraged by our capitalistic society because having kids means you have to buy more shit.  Houses, toys, sporting gear, school supplies, the list goes on and on.  But our society really doesn't want children.  Laws regarding animal abuse seem to be more strict and enforced than laws regarding child abuse.  There is no national health system to provide adequate and affordable medical care for children.  Education is the first program to get cut when the teabaggers start whinning.  
Our earth is dying and we just keep poplulating it (I know I'm a guilty contributor too).  Maybe emphasizing masturbation and pleasure for women might slow this down a little.  I mean if women had to orgasm in order to get pregnant, the population might be 7 maybe 8?

I totally agree! I have resented that women are expected to have children as some sort of right of passage since I was a freshman in college. I have also resented the fact that men can have children but it doesn't hinder them from having a stunning career. I built my life around the prospect of having children with the man I loved (for the man I loved) and that ended up being all for nothing since we got divorced anyway. Sigh.
Now I am 27 and I still have no desire to have children or enter into a marriage relationship again. I don't want to do what our culture says is normal and my friends probably think this is just a "phase" I'm going through as a result of my divorce. Maybe they are right, but the lack of desire to have children and my inability to understand why people have children have been there since I was 18.
I love my lifestlye the way it is. I take 3 hour naps after work sometimes. I soak in a bath in utter silence by candle light. I take off for the weekend on a whim. I have cocktails on a Tuesday with my friends. Whenever I want. Cause I feel like it! I couldn't do that stuff with a kid. I can't imagine some person being totally dependent on me; I would resent them no matter how much I loved them. I am a teacher and I love kids, but I know that having my own is not right for me.

I think a lot of people get married and/or have children because that's supposed to be the next step in their life. Just look at the Hollywood portrayal of what is expected of women. We're suppose to fall in love, get married, then breed. 
I don't think following the exact setup is necessary. I've never been someone who's comfortable letting other people tell me what to do or what kind of person I should be. I also grew up as the first grandchild, which means I had a hand in raising all 10 of my other cousins and little brother. I've watched plenty of children after that. My favorite part of being around kids is when they go home with mommy and daddy.
I don't know what I'd do if I could never take a break from a child. As a woman, I know most men will expect me to do all the "hard" work of raising a family. I know there are some men who are different, but honestly I don't want to take a chance of winding up like all those exhausted new moms I see every day. Their husbands never look half as tired as they do.
I think people should really plan for children instead of going,"Why not?" or being irresponsible about birth control. At least that's what I'm going to do. The consequences of not being ready or not thinking it through are too intense.

I thoroughly agree. Thank you for putting my feelings in better words than I. 

I'm saving this link, so I can refer people to it when they (rudely) ask why on earth I don't want a cute precious bundle of my own. 

All in all, I've been pretty happy as a mother but I've always advised my friends not to listen to the pressure from others to have kids. Pregnancy, infancy, and toddlers? Meh. But interacting with a child while he/she grows up is pretty cool. Of course, I was never an exhausted mom for long. The most important rule that my hubby and children have learned is not to mess with Heylin's sleep requirements. My life might be just as fulfilling if I never had children or if I had waited to have children or if I had fewer children. But my life is what it is and I'm fairly happy with it. Does that mean that everyone has to be like me? I hope not, I was very young when I had my first child. Does that mean I feel that people who choose not to have children are morally inferior to me? If anything, I think they are showing good judgement. I've worked briefly for a pediatric clinic and was so thankful that I didn't have to deal with the kids too much (I was working front office) although the parents drove me crazy as well. I also hated being in a Wal-Mart at some ungodly hour where some idiot mother is dragging her screaming kid around (it's midnight, maybe your child should be, sleeping?).

So this mom had it all wrong. My kids would have been cleaning the kitchen. Oh, no Heylin, not the 4 year old. Oh, hell yes. And the husband with the headphones in would have gotten a fucking pot thrown at his head. Mr. Heylin is allowed to wear headphones when he is cleaning the house or doing yardwork, actually he can wear them whenever he wants, but my hubby realizes that he lives in this house too and does a lot around here. Who the hell lets a four year old eat 2 bites of dinner and then makes them popcorn? My son (older than 4, btw) tried that shit today. Didn't really eat dinner, then had the balls to complain that we had no food in the house. Guess what we told him? Oh, well, should have eaten more of your dinner. Not bragging but today hubby cooked dinner, daughter made brownies, and I cleaned the kitchen. Son and daughter set and cleared off table. Before you think that my son had it better than my daughter in regards to chores, she was fine without his help, there was more of the bowl for her to have. My kids were doing chores like that since they were 3. Yes, my house would be a lot cleaner without them, but that whiny bitch in the blog has it all wrong, the problem isn't the fact that she has children (although I'm thinking she should have been childless), the problem is that she's not acting like an adult.

Heylin that's brilliant! If I had kids I would joke about using child labour but I so would :) Kids should leave home with all the home making and maintainance skills they need as second nature, just like washing in the morning or brushing your teeth. How hard is it to pop your dirty clothes in a washing machine and press a button :) 3 year olds are never gonna be doing ironing, but a 15 year old boy can. He can cook too, especially if he started pouring his cereal and milk at 3. My friends daughter did that at 3. Though one time she walked into the kitchen and the cereal and milk were all over the floor and her daughter  was pretending to swim in it :)  I'd love moments like that if I had kids. 

I completely commend your choice. I respect people who take a good look at their lives, their patience level, their desires and goals and realize that parenting children is not a good choice for them, and then do their best to make sure it doesn't happen. I think if more people did this there's be far fewer children in this world. Couple that with effective and comprehensive sexuality and contraception education, and we'd come closer to a world with no unplanned pregnancies and unwanted children.

But why do you justify your position by tearing down a frustrated, overwhelmed mother? I get that your choice NOT to be a mother goes against what society tells us every woman should want, so I understand why you would highlight the downsides of motherhood to explain your own choice,  But why the lack of compassion as well?

 So, if you choose a challenging responsibility at your place of employment, do you not deserve a commendation for handling it? what about for handling it well? what about continuing to handle it, even if it turned out to be FAR more challenging than anyone told you it would be, or you could have forseen it would be? You chose to do it, so you should just STFU regardless of what goes down? Don't whine if it goes bad, and don't brag if it goes well? How would that be for morale? Maybe it's fair, but is it compassionate? Is it the measure of the kind of people we want to be?

Because let me tell you, when it comes to parenting there are lots of people who DON'T do it, whether chosen or not. Parents whose children are neglected and abused. Parents who make all the easy choices and end up in disaster and couldn't care less.  Any parent who is NOT one of these parents should receive some compassion and commendation for a hard job done well -- even IF they sometimes whined about it. Because hell, as you pointed out above, who doesn't whine sometimes?

And then there are people who thought they were making one choice, and ended up with an entirely different situation. I sit here, a single mother of three, completely bemused at how I ended up here. I gave birth to none of these full-genetic siblings, I'm allowed to adopt none of them, and yet I parent all three of them nearly full-time completely alone while working (I work from home). And while the first two were planned by me and my partner, she conceived the third one without me, after we'd started the process to divorce, and then began abdicating her responsiblities... leaving me to catch the baby for the sake of all three children. I did not CHOOSE to be a single mother of three, though I accept full responsibility for the multitude of actions and choices that led me here.  And you bet I whine. Because sometimes that's the last choice I can make: I can pick up the phone, or sit at the computer, and vent until I'm calm again, or I can slap my children. I will commend ANY parent who, in that situation, chooses to "bitch and moan".

On a bad day, when my son has spilled the last of the milk but we need some for breakfast the next morning, or I forgot to get snack for my daughter's first grade class the next day, and thus have to take all three kids -- crabby attitudes, snotty noses and all (because this is a BAD day, so of course the kids are crabby and snotty) -- with me to the store at a time when we should be at home reading stories and brushing teeth; and we're wending our noisy, cranky, then tantrummy way through the store, my hair falling out of its bedraggled braid, my shirt sticky with unidentified substances, my face unbearably weary, as I try to run this errand as quickly as possible with three loudly complaining drag-parachutes slowing me down, there will be people who will smile at me compassionately. There will be people who will ignore us, or to whom we do not even register. And there will be people who will sneer, who will mutter judgements as they pass, who will criticize, who will think they know my story. From reading this post, I think you would be one of the latter, and I'm saddened by this, because up until now I have enjoyed your writing.

Again, I admire your decision. I hope it's an easy decision to hold to for as long as that's your path. I also hope that you will have (or have more than you have expressed here) some compassion for people who made different choices and ended up on different paths, EVEN IF they bitch and moan about it. (Now if they ask YOU to fix it, then that's an entirely different story)

Jake-Yes, my kids do chores. My daughter can even cook simple meals (although cooking isn't one of her duties). My son also helps me in the kitchen when I make breakfast. I'm simply too lazy to do everything around the house. Besides there's a wonderful synergy when everyone in the household is working towards the common goal of getting a bit of cleaning done so we can all relax. However when I was teaching a 3 year old to clear the table or sweep the floor, the goal isn't perfection. I would need to go behind them to actually clean things but they got the hang of it. My kids actually have it pretty easy with chores, some of my friends have their children vacuuming, dusting the house, and getting dinner started before coming home from work. And in my above example I should clarify that my son could have had a brownie but turned his nose up at it (brownie batter is a different story). Having spilt milk all over the floor is not a happy moment for a parent. It might be one of those laugh about it later things, but at the time, especially if money is tight, wasted food is not a welcome sight. But yes, my kids know the basics of house cleaning. Next up will be teaching them about how to use tools and do basic car stuff.
Kasini-You're a wonderful mom. I definitely resonate with your adventures in taking your little ones to the store for those last minute items. That is very different than the parents I've seen wandering around Wal-Mart at all hours of the night. Parents like you (and me) have a purpose when we drag our kids into the store too late (or early) in the morning, we're not just killing time. I always loved seeing parents who were appropriately dressed for cold weather and were dragging a tiny baby out in nothing but a diaper. Really? There were absolutely no clothes to put on a 6 month old child when it's 30 degrees outside? Or the ones who are enjoying a coke when it's 100 degrees outside but tells her thirsty child that she can't have a sip of the coke. This was in a Wal-Mart where at the time, the vending machines sold 20 oz bottles for 75 cents and 12 oz cans for 50. Sam's choice was even cheaper, she could have gotten herself a can of coke and her kid a bottle of water for the same price as her coke. The whiny blogger mom was different, from reading her post it sounds like her problem is not getting her husband involved. That's just my 2 cents but I've seen that as well. Women who bitch that their husbands never help but bitch even more when they do.  With regards to the snack, did you forget it or did your child happen to not mention it until the night before? You must have little ones at home, the snotty nose stage seems to last until about first grade (yeah, to the non moms, a child's nose is literally a snot machine from about ages 2-6, it's when their immune systems get their first major workout) so bless you for being such a wonderful mom and bless those children for having you.
I am definitely not going to win any mother of the year awards, btw. I lack patience for the most part and am kind of selfish and lazy. But, my kids seem to be turning out okay and I'm not so selfish that I don't share my icy cold drinks on a hot day.