Double Standards and other BS
Now that SO and I have called it quits (see previous blogs), I am contemplating all the bs that society places on steppers, on women, on SINGLE women, and especially SINGLE WOMEN WITH NO CHILDREN.
#1 - If you're not a parent, your time is not as valuable as those of parents.
SO wanted me to spend more time with skids, more time making 45 min round trips to HIS house to see HIS kids. So I asked, "What if I had kids?" He says, "Well, of course, it would be different."
AHEM!!!! I call bs!!! Now, I'm not dense, I understand that a parent's schedule can be more hectic and less flexible than non-parents, BUT...and I hope I speak for all of us child-free women....MY time is just as important and just as valuable as yours! Just because I might have MORE time than you doesn't somehow magically make me required to spend it making sacrifices for ANYONE. I do what I do because I want to do it, not because I have to, not because I'm somehow OBLIGATED to according to SO's wacked out rules for people with no kids.
#2 - You need to love my kids as if they were your own.
More bs. I had nothing to do with birthing them or parenting them for the last several years that have made them into the spoiled, self-entitled children that they are today. How can I possibly love them as if I had dropped them from my crotch and raised them since birth? Ridiculous.
#2a - You need to love my kids because all women love children.
Again with the bs. I generally do like children. The idea of them. Until I see someone's screaming, tantrum-throwing kid or snotty, whiny teenaged princess out and about, then I think....YUCK. But sure, who doesn't coo at an adorable baby in a cute little onesie? BUT, there is no magical mother gene. BM could care less about her kids and pawns them off on whoever is handy at the moment. I read all sorts of BM horror stories here and there is no motherly love in them.
Oh, so many more....
#3 - A woman's life is incomplete and meaningless if she doesn't have children
That one is straight from my mother's mouth. Thanks Mom.
#4 - You married/dated a man/woman with kids, you knew what you were getting into.
I'll steal someone else's reply that I read here....."Do you tell that to someone that was in the Armed Services and lost a leg in battle? Well, you joined the Army, you knew what you were getting into....."
OK I'll stop now, no blog hogging
It is crazy sometimes how
It is crazy sometimes how parents see women without children. I feel the same way you do. I encourage my SO to spend time with HIS son. He always wants me around. Especially on weekends. No! As a childless woman I choose to spend my weekends SLEEPING (because I work hard all week), shopping, traveling, indulging in mani/pedis, etc. Thats my choice and my right, again, i work hard! We can do the family thing every once in a while, but the reality is that sometimes I want my me time. God forbid the kid is prone to tantrums and the like. Why would I trade my weekends with friends for that?
Sure, I knew he had kids when we got together. HE has kids. Just like he knows the lifestyle I've created for myself. I don't try to keep him away from his kids, he shouldn't try to keep me away from the mall.
Contemplating following in
Contemplating following in your footsteps for the last few weeks...
I LOVED what you put up about "knowing what you're getting into...", are you kidding me?!? I was with my DH for 4 years before we married and now we've been married for 2, I never in my wildest dreams thought it would ever get worse than it was in the beginning. I thought to myself, well we've overcome this so then we'll survive anything hahaha...apparently I'm a comedian too! Just because we've overcome certain challenges doesn't mean that new and even more challenging ones don't appear, I fooled myself.
I have no children but I do want them. I'm really really contemplating if I want them with my own husband, another shocking realization that I've made. Quite sad honestly. Non-parents/step-parents are not appreciated, not understood and sympathized with by the bios/skids. As I watch the separation grow between myself, husband and SD13 I feel more free but jealous at the same time, their lives go on happily but I'm on the sidelines watching and trying to live my own life parallel to theirs. It's a nice wake up call being told that you're not needed and being questioned whether or not you'll be a good mother. Sorry but I shouldn't have to suffer for your jaded view on bad relationships, an unplanned pregnancy and how you think all babies and pregnant women are the same (thanks for comparing me/your wife to the psycho you accidentally knocked up), harsh but true!
Sorry for the rant but I hear you sister!
i am a mother, but this shit
i am a mother, but this shit pisses me off, too. especially number 3. if you have to have a child to feel like a whole person, you were missing some key ingredient in the first place. i don't think my childless friends have worthless, meaningless lives. you may feel that way if you want kids and can't have them, but it's still not true. i was a person a long time before my kids were born. i love them to death, but i know i will still be a person when they are all grown and gone. that is utter horseshit and your mom should be ashamed for saying that to you. putting the responsibility of feeling complete on a child is not fair, anyway.
Thank you. I very, very much
Thank you.
I very, very much wanted children but it just was not meant to be. But I am still a whole person.
And I am happy with the life I had. Was it perfect - absolutely not. No one's is.
But my life was far more complete and meaningful than some crack whore who just happened to have reproduced some carbon copies of her worthless self.
I realize i am putting a lot of this in the past tense - I am not dead yet
but I'm pushing 70 so a lot of my life is over.
Thank YOU, oldone. This
Thank YOU, oldone. This seriously made me tear up, because I am really struggling right now with the thought that I may have missed the boat to have kids of my own (I am 35 and in the midst of a major education overhaul and career change).
I hope, when I am your age, I can look back at my life and say "I very, very much wanted children but it just was not meant to be. But I am still a whole person."
i have a bitch cousin who
i have a bitch cousin who would say yes. i had only bd for 13 years. she made a comment one night indicating that she was more feminine and more of a mother than me because she had 3 kids and was a sahm and i had one and worked in a factory. apparently working to take care of my kid made me manly. and since i had only had one, i wasn't a "real" mother. what a stupid bitch. she didn't even want her kids and did not take care of them properly, but she's gonna lord over me because she had more kids than she could handle. one of many reasons i haven't talked to her in 9 years...
she was calling me every damn
she was calling me every damn day wanting me to come over and "help" her because she couldn't handle her kids. got a little pissy if i went to do anything for myself because i could do that and she couldn't with 3 kids. she actually expected me to sacrifice my me time just because she dind't have any. i'm not the one who decided to have a kid every year and a half. i don't have to sit around the house all day, stuck. and i do think she did it to not have to work. lazy as all get out, but money hungry as they come.
i got guilt tripped for years
i got guilt tripped for years for only having one. how she would be all alone in the world, bla bla bla. bullshit. she has cousins and friends, and like you said, i'm not having a bunch of kids just so they can play with each other. nevermind that i was single for a long time. i guess i was supposed to just hook up with whoever for the sake of having another child. :? bd's POS father was in prison for the first 4 years of her life and thru my whole pregnancy. his own mother asked me when bd was about 2 when i was going to have another one. well dumb ass, your idiot son is in prison. are you suggesting i cheat on him?