Just two posts ago I was talking about when feminists, women you take to be your allies, go proudly proclaiming their hatred of children. Yeah, you don’t want children, right behind you, ok you don’t want to hang with children either, supporting you all the way, but hate? It is a crying shame when you see a feminist playing with bigotry, a feminist trotting out some of the most ridiculously judgemental statements you’ve ever heard, and at the expense of other women no less.
But right away another example popped up. This.
Helen Razer, a feminist journalist in Australia whose work I otherwise like has written an unpleasant little piece here for New Matilda, which is being merrily cheered on by some unpleasant little comments. And I do mean unpleasant -you gotta wonder about your choice of topic when you get a bunch of nods from racists and fat haters. You lay down with dogs..
As you probably know, a supermarket is a favourite location for child haters and mother blamers. Ms Razer, on a recent shopping expedition, has it in for the mother and child shopping there long before the mother rewards her with a moment ripe for moral indignation. Ms Razer doesn’t like the way this particular mother smiles. And she has plenty of irritation left for the baby, who, for being fussy during a shopping trip earns the pet names “Satan’s spawn”, “vile” and “Lucifer” from Razer.
WARNING: There are now some comments which follow this post that contain some seriously ugly misogyny aimed at mothers. As a general rule abusive comments will be deleted from this site, but I’ve kept these here because of their relevance to the topic I’m posting on. They’re perfect examples. Don’t read on if you think you might find such misogyny upsetting.
blue milk 
Well, that’s just awful. Funny, I felt right at home – parenting drive-bys and racist fat-blaming aren’t just for the US any more.
The supermarket is one of the places that I feel hyper-aware of both mine and my children’s behavior. It’s so annoying, since I AM a good mother and they ARE well-behaved kids. I shouldn’t even have to think about it.
Nice work Razer and commenters: classism, age-ism, racism, size-ism – they’re all there in one neat package. It’s the smugness of these people that really get to me – they only point out the ‘failings’ of others to present their own inherent fabulousness. Though what’s so fabulous about by carrots at the supermarket, childless, I’m not sure.
She’s overly wordy as well.
That argument of ‘choice’ drives me spare, especially in the Indigenous Australia context. I remember reading an article a few years ago outlining the cost of fresh food in some community in the NT. $3.20 for a single lettuce – there’s not much choice about what you eat with those kinds of prices. And the idea that poor people should grow their own food but those with money need not – gah! And I’m a gardener.
bluemilk – I’ve got to stop reading your site first thing in the morning. It puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. ..
Dear Ms Razer,
now that you’ve observed the lengths that mothers will go to to shut their kid up in an environment where people like you judge them, perhaps you could do us all a favour and Step Off.
Cheers,
Kate
I am sure it indicates a kind if pathological condition where your deep concern about food and what goes into your body is then extended to include other bodies around you. Helen Razer is projecting her own insecurities about diet and guilt about Western consumer culture on an image she wants to freeze, a moment she sees as distinct and discrete, whereas as anyone knows with children, no moment lasts forever – neither the good nor the bad. This is the kind of objectification of childhood and parenting I particularly detest – the demon mother and the demon child.
I notice Helen Razer mentions no attempt to support the mother with the sad/angry baby. It takes a village, lady. I know when I’m in the supermarket with an angry/sad/demanding child, any kind of sympathetic glance or word of solidarity from another adult can be enough to help my resolve to find positive solutions to my child’s behaviour (or at least ignore it) rather than trying to placate with select items from the dizzying array of wrong stacked to the ceiling in every supermarket. This has nothing to do with whether or not you like kids or want to hang out with them and everything to do with empathy for fellow human beings.
Nice comment on the newmatilda site, Kate.
As if a supermarket should be another place where children and their parents are sneered at and judged – kids and mums make up the majority of shoppers at supermarkets and it is often a site of parent/child battles (not to mention tantrums), but so what? Life happens. A little empathy and maybe even a kind word or glance would make the parent and yourself feel better.
And yes Kris, smug is the ideal word to describe that piece.
That article was hilarious! Go Helen Razner. The rest of us don’t want to hear your fucking spawn shrieking at the top of its lungs in the supermarket, either.
So ….. you think feeding COKE to a baby is OK? Are you completely uneducated about nutrition in regard to infants or does any criticism of alleged ‘parents’ simply induce a sort of farmyard-level, knee-jerk rage in you? i ask because your objections to this article certainly sound like the bellowings of enraged cattle to me. Funny, every single *responsible* parent I know would express the same sentiments as the writer on witnessing a so-called parent feeding Coke to a baby. From your complete lack of concern for the child and your clearly solipsistic desire for the right of parents to act as badly as they wish toward their own children or others without the merest hint of societal criticism, I surmise that you are simply one of those people who think that the simple act of grunting a baby out of your vag makes you above criticism. Newsflash! It doesn’t.
PS. if you got so pissy about the Aussie woman’s peice, this article will hopefully induce a fatal aneurysm:http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1581501,00.html
Enjoy!
Oh the supermarket. I wouldn’t let my kids drink coke or anything like it but if I felt like the whole place was staring at me, and my kid was going off, I might resort to such lengths. Anyone with kids knows the torture of being the main eentertainment of all the other shoppers!! I must say the oldies always give me sympathetic looks or remarks, while it’s younger people (not as young as me, not yet “elderly”) who seem to be quick to judge and glare.
And I use lollies to keep them quiet in the doctor’s waiting room.
Well, it was liberating just to write that!
Alice, sheesh. Do you need some time-out in your room to calm down? Because I gotta tell you – the name-calling, the rage, the irrational spite, the emotional outburst – that’s a tantrum. But you’re in luck, I’m the mother of a two year old and I’m getting the hang of dealing with tantrums and so I’m patient enough to respond to your comment…
Alice, do you consider yourself to be a feminist? If not, then my expectations will be low and I’ll leave it at that.. But if you do think of yourself as a feminist then your repulsive way of referring to birth is fucking misogynist. Not to mention the bovine comparisons, really, come on? You should be able to have a debate with another feminist without stooping to misogyny.
I don’t expect to be congratulated for having a baby, but nor do I expect to be ostracised, or ridiculed for it. Incidentally I hold the same expectations for women who don’t have babies, they don’t need to be congratulated for that outcome, and nor should they be ridiculed. And I defend them when I hear otherwise.
No-one here said that feeding coke to a baby was a good thing to do. But as others here have suggested, perhaps the mother fed her baby Coke to quieten it because she was feeling so uncomfortable about being eyeballed by Ms Razer and Co. Or perhaps she did it to distract the baby, desperate as she may have been to stretch the child out a few more moments in order to finish her tedious shopping trip. Had I seen it I may have had a quiet little eye-roll to myself. You and I don’t think it was the best decision on her part. But you know what? Really, 5 minutes scrutinizing her life and what the fuck do we know? If this is the stupidest decision that woman makes, if this is the worst way she ever cuts corners in her life, then I’m guessing she’s doing a lot better than you and I both.
Judging people’s parenting unless you’re seeing actual abuse is just arrogant, it’s a chance to feel superior at someone else’s expense and don’t kid me that this is about your concern for that child’s welfare, because if you cared about the welfare of children you wouldn’t be thinking it was ok for them to be called satan’s spawn.. and nine times out of ten this condemnation of parenting falls on mothers. Why? Because we feel the god-given right to scrutinise women and their lives, to evaluate and criticise everything a woman does, from how she dresses, what weight she is, to who she sleeps with and how she shops with her child etc. Don’t participate in it Alice, you’re a woman too. See through this bullshit.
Whenever you say you don’t like children in public space you’re also saying you don’t want their mothers in that public space. Because guess who looks after children? Women, by vast majority are the primary care givers in our society. Our patriarchal society is organised that way. Some women love it and are valued for their caring work and some women hate it and are completely marginalised. But telling them they can’t use public space because they happen to be doing the caring work of looking after a child… what gives you the right to limit the lives of women, to tell them that they can’t also use public spaces, that they can’t shop, relax, have a coffee, cool down in the air-conditioning? I might add that poor women very often use public spaces like shopping centres as their ONLY affordable excursion from the home with their children. Hopefully Alice you’ll live to be a wise old woman, and you know what? More than likely, a carer will once again be involved in your life, and it’s likely to be a ‘she’. I hope you value her caring work more than you can value that of parents.
Do other people’s kids annoy me sometimes? Yep, and teenagers, and the elderly, and women my own age, talking loudly on their mobile phones, and men sweating near me, and people’s bad taste in music etc etc. But I deal with it, I live in a society.
Thanks for the link to the article, yes, I think it sucks, but as Charlie Brooker is a comedian known for his satire I’m not going to read too deeply into his article. Except to note one thing – he complains about young children and their parents being in his favourite cafes the whole way through the piece and yet ends with “I hate Jake and I hate his mummy”. Interesting, no mention of Daddy? Why is this? Why do we hate mothers for their children’s existence? Could it be we like soft easy targets like women?
b.g. – I think you and Alice are one and the same so I’m sure my response to Alice will suffice for your superficial thoughts.
I was inspired by this and others to put my thoughts into a post here, if anyone happens to be interested.
No, Moo Milk, I’m not Alice, which you could have verified by checking the IP addresses. Believe it or not, quite a few people think you’re a self-righteous, entitlement-minded, lowing milch-cow. But, if it makes you feel better, I loved her posts.
Do you need some time-out in your room to calm down?
Ah, the Sanctimommy. She squeezes out a few pups, and that entitles her to wag her finger and chide everybody else….except, of course, her own Little Darlings, because it might damage their fwagile self-uh-steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem.
Alice, do you consider yourself to be a feminist?
You know what, you whining entitlement turd? A FEMINIST is someone who advocates for EQUALITY of men and women. Not someone who demands special treatment — nay, reverence!! — because she performed an activity that any goddamned mammal can do. Let me guess, when you whip your tit out in public to feed your two-year-old, you consider that a “revolutionary act,” too.
My type of feminist? Linda Hirshman. Someone who remembers what feminism USED to be, and doesn’t tremble not to bend a knee at the altar of Saint Mommy the Holy Martyr.
I don’t expect to be congratulated for having a baby
*cough* *bullshit* *cough*
but nor do I expect to be ostracised, or ridiculed for it.
No, dear, you’re being ridiculed for thinking that The Village™ — you know, the entity that you think ought to be helping to raise your child? — has the temerity to think that if you’re going to rope them into that job, they’re entitled to make a few snide remarks when you let your brat bellow in public, then do the “Isn’t that ky0000t?!” simper at everyone else. No, it’s NOT cute, and we’re tired of pretending it is.
But as others here have suggested, perhaps the mother fed her baby Coke to quieten [sic] it because she was feeling so uncomfortable about being eyeballed by Ms Razer and Co. Or perhaps she did it to distract the baby, desperate as she may have been to stretch the child out a few more moments in order to finish her tedious shopping trip.
Or maybe she’s a stupid cow who thinks that her brat needs an $800 stroller more than it needs good nutrition.
If this is the stupidest decision that woman makes,
The stroller alone disproves that. But so does the idea that she might actually give her kid a high-fructose corn-syrup pacifier because someone had the temerity to give her a dirty look for letting her Widdle Pweshus give them migraine headaches. The phrase “grow a thicker skin” comes to mind.
then I’m guessing she’s doing a lot better than you and I both.
I doubt it; I’m not teaching a young child lousy eating habits.
Judging people’s parenting unless you’re seeing actual abuse is just arrogant,
Fucking bloody HORSESHIT. So if I see a litter of spawn screaming their lungs out in a restaurant, I’m not entitled to judge the stupid breeders who are blithely letting them do so, despite my having paid for not only good food but a quiet atmosphere? If I see them running around said restaurant and crashing into the legs of waiters carrying trays of hot food, hot liquids, and items that can shatter into flesh-piercing shards, I’m not entitled to judge the lazy-ass moomies and duhddies (no, I don’t let the sperm donors off the hook, either; so much for “sexism”) who let them do that?
Funny, but when I see such subjects hotly discussed in mainstream fora like newspaper-article comment threads, there are as many parents — as opposed to breeders — who agree with me. And a lot of them are grandparents who have had a long, long time to witness the decline of parenting standards in the West. They bothered to raise their kids. They don’t want to have to deal with yours.
it’s a chance to feel superior at someone else’s expense and don’t kid me that this is about your concern for that child’s welfare, because if you cared about the welfare of children you wouldn’t be thinking it was ok for them to be called satan’s spawn..
OK, you got me. I don’t care one fucking bit for the welfare of children, especially when cows like you low at me and expect me to care more about the little shits than I do about adults. Now go write a pissy-moany post about that.
and nine times out of ten this condemnation of parenting falls on mothers.
So get your sperm donors to do more childcare and housework. Or — here’s a radical thought — don’t make babies with men until you’ve figured out that they’re willing to be equal partners, rather than your lords and masters.
Oh, I forgot. How dare I tell you how to live your life, you’re entitled to baaayyyybeeeez, yada yada yada.
Yawn. Bed, made, lie.
Alice, you’re a woman too. See through this bullshit.
Oh, please. See through your own bullshit before you start whining about other people’s.
Whenever you say you don’t like children in public space you’re also saying you don’t want their mothers in that public space.
Right. And all militantly childfree people also hate our mothers, like you said in your last post. Even though quite a few of us, you know, don’t, and actually have great relationships with our mothers. So forgive me for ignoring your attempts to read our minds.
But telling them they can’t use public space because they happen to be doing the caring work of looking after a child…
AGAIN, nobody is telling them they can’t use public space because they have a Pweshus Chyyyyyyyuuuuuulllllld in tow. They are being asked to teach that kid an indoor voice and to not run around. How fucking hard is that, considering that generations upon generations did it?
And don’t tell me that all previous generations were ah-by000000-sive, or the “you were a child once, tooooo!!” breeder bingo. Talk to any teacher who’s left the school system in the last 20 years. They all have horror stories about how child behavior has declined precipitously over that time…and how it used to be that kids punished at school would later be punished at home, but now it’s “How dare you discipline my Little Angel?!”
what gives you the right to limit the lives of women,
Bitch, please. If you think my telling you to teach your kid the basics of proper public behavior is “limiting” your life, you and your ilk (*cough* Cow Ph.D. *cough*) are precisely what’s wrong with the feminist movement.
More than likely, a carer will once again be involved in your life, and it’s likely to be a ’she’. I hope you value her caring work more than you can value that of parents.
What’s next, hon, “My child will be wiping your ass in the nursing home”? I thought all your little darlings were gonna Cure Cancer®!
Do other people’s kids annoy me sometimes? Yep, and teenagers, and the elderly, and women my own age, talking loudly on their mobile phones, and men sweating near me, and people’s bad taste in music etc etc. But I deal with it, I live in a society.
I love this attitude that “society” means “nobody has a right to ask others not to impinge on their personal space or otherwise not behave like an inconsiderate git.” Which is why, among other things, we get people who feel entitled to blare their stereos in their cars and homes no matter what hour of the day it is, people who feel entitled to treat perfect strangers to their lover’s quarrels or every detail of their colonoscopies while on cellphones, and people who feel entitled to drive in the far-left lane at 10 miles an hour under the speed limit.
“I hate Jake and I hate his mummy”. Interesting, no mention of Daddy?
Because, in the case of the latte-sipping “yummy mummies” (barf), Daddy is the walking wallet who spends all his time working so that Mummy and Jakey can have $800 strollers and $600 outfits….and so he can get away from them. Note that Brooker didn’t go to council estates to do his field research…although there’s a shitload of bad parenting going on there too.
Awesome rant!
b.g. – This is a feminist site. I won’t debate or discuss anything with you while you are resorting to being abusive. If you have a point to make and can make it without the abuse, name-calling and misogyny go ahead, otherwise all your future comments will be deleted. I’ll make an exception for your comment above, which can stay as a representative of you. I note that your on-line community has some guidelines about troll behaviour so I’m sure you’re familiar with this idea.
Wow. I never imagined that depth of cruelty and ignorance toward children and parents…just for being on this earth as children and parents. How very disturbing and depressing.
Bluemilk, your response above says exactly what needs to be said to such attacks, from the original article to other comments that have been written–and on a much more thoughtful and intelligent level than that of the attacks themselves. Thanks for such an eloquent defense, as always, of women and children and feminism.
The really dumb thing about that tirade is that buried in it were some valid points. It’s pretty difficult to have your useful points heard if you deliver them wrapped in venom.
today my three year old calmly told the woman sitting opposite me in the train that her name was ‘mini goat’. I so enjoyed the moral opprobrium that I didn’t correct her.
bluemilk, you are brilliant. your posts are brilliant and your responses to such nasty and angry comments are even more brilliant. I love that your blog is a place that is open to everyone equally. It’s always felt like a safe place to come and see things from a different light or perhaps share things from a different perspective. I feel sad that the some commenters are so clearly wounded that they can’t elevate themselves to a more grown-up debate or more civilized expression. We’d be open to hear it. And that’s what we all want, right, to be heard? I know all too well how hard it is to ignore a tantrum. That’s why kids throw them, to get some attention. But hey, I suppose our different ways are what makes the world go round. But does mean & angry make the world progress? Does it help us to be heard? To find connection? Not so much.
Bravo to Bluemilk.
Whoa-Candace at “Not Not That I Don’t Love My Kids” sent me over to read this post. It really is despicable the way people direct hatred and hostility towards women who are simply trying to buy groceries for their family and are suddenly faced with maneuvering a shopping cart while tending to an angry toddler.
A little compassion goes a long way.
[…] woman has probably already forgotten that moment of random kindness, but to me, she makes people who might be trolling through supermarkets scowling and judging my “spawn” fizzle up and disappear right out of my […]
Bit late to the party – but reading that kind of vitriol makes me cringe now especially, because I’m halfway through my own pregnancy and I still don’t really care for children. I used to say that I hated them – I still say they smell funny – but now it’s less hate and just … well, do they do anything other than cry? Jesus, what am I gonna do with my kid if she wails in public like that all the time?
It just kinda seems hopeless. I definitely get where the childfree crowd are coming from, because working in retail, let me tell you – well, no, I’m sure you know. But this new perspective as a prospective parent just makes all the judging, all the crap that gets slung around, look suddenly very intimidating. My friends jokingly tell me “Oh and don’t worry, everything is gonna be your fault anyway, might as well get used to it” and it used to be funny, except now it’s … not …
The bright side, I suppose, is that I can be a very vindictive person, and I am totally not above doing something I know someone would disapprove of just to get a reaction. Yeah, I’d give my kid a pop too if it would a. shut ’em up and b. make that stern-faced onlooker gag and roll their eyes. Nosy buggers.
Sara no H. – I think your perspective is a very interesting one on this debate. I’d be very interested to know how you resolve these tensions as time goes on as a parent.
[…] though it isn’t the writer’s intention, it reminds me of this. I think it is a silencing term. (I’ve discussed this previously here and here and I […]
[…] by blue milk Is there anything cuter than the shrieks a kid make when you hose them? Even you sad sack child haters get to participate in this particular joy of life, cos you get to hose a kid, something you […]
[…] I have seen child hatred bigotry, sometimes loud and proud and sometimes on the down low, from feminists and non-feminists alike, and Harding’s views ain’t it. So yes, I find Harding pretty reasonable. Are children sometimes inconsiderate, some more so than others? Well hey, I hang out in playgrounds on a regular basis and I can attest to seeing the odd bout of inconsiderate behaviour. Do I think there are shitty parents about? Yes, though really, how to compare a noise disturbance in your favourite coffee shop with the much wider problem of shitty parents who neglect and abuse their children. (And who suffers most in the case of shitty parents?) OK. I will hereby issue my official blue milk free pass for judging parents. […]
[…] Razer does not always delight me but she rants good here about that pathetic little piece from Louis Nowra in The Monthly. Last […]
Shit, what a piece of work B.G. is. We have an automated piece of software to process ICR shitwork at my workplace, which just happens to go by the same moniker. This B.G. seems to be just one step down on the intelligence scale.
[…] Got a couple of thoughts though: Jill’s views in her Feministe piece sound quite reasonable but see how highlighting your ‘tolerance’ for certain people (in this case children) always seems to send the exact opposite message to the world. The nastiness that has come out in the comments could be seen as a message to the authors of such opinion pieces – your views sit uncomfortably close to a very conservative agenda; one that includes a complete loathing for social services, advocates family violence, is deeply insensitive to its ableism, and refers to women by animal names. […]
As a childfree woman myself I find it upsetting that this is the kind of connotation we’re getting. I’m not blaming you for writing it, I’m blaming child-haters. I personally do like kids, they’re cute and funny often, but I don’t like parents who do not even ATTEMPT to control their kids. I understand it’s sometimes difficult, kids are kids, sometimes they scream, I get that, and at that time I’m all too happy that I can walk away and I don’t have to listen to it for the rest of the day like the parents possibly do.
When I was younger (20’s) I too thought that I hated kids, until I realized I don’t hate kids, I hate bad parenting. I also realized that hating kids, to me, was a lot about being defensive about the whole “you should have kids” thing. I thought that if I admitted to liking kids, there would be only one more step to wanting one. It wasn’t. Nearly 15 years later I’m still securely childfree, but I can crack a smile to a cute kid without feeling threatened by it. :p
Sebastyne – thanks for sharing your point of view.
For the record, I absolutely abhor people telling other women how they should live their lives, including that they should/must have children. I will always defend your right to be “childfree”.
I’m also childfree, and I will agree with Sebastyne, I don’t hate kids, just bad parenting. Seeing a child and mother (Or father) in the store, doing something adorable, like naming veggies in the produce aisle is enough to make me crack a smile and brighten my day, but I do have a tendency to shoot parents who look like they aren’t paying attention to their children suspicious looks, because while I don’t dislike kids, they make me nervous. At one point, I had a child who must have been about 5 follow me around asking questions while I looked frantically for his parents (Who were nowhere to be found, in fact, I was the only adult for 3 or 4 aisles) I eventually handed him off to a store employee because I had no idea what to do when left unexpectedly responsible for a stranger’s child, or how to find his parent’s because I’d never met them.
Blue Milk, I think you owe B.G. a retort. It was an absolutely brilliant post with well-thought-out points. Sometimes colorful language helps get these points across.
Not responding to B.G.’s points is more immature and childish than anything B.G. said…. but you know… elbows and assholes.
Matt I don’t give a toss what you think, this is a feminist site. By all means have a blog of your own somewhere where you engage with abuse but I don’t here. Constructive and interesting conversation welcome here but I am not your play-thing.
You know, as a feminist woman (yes, I *am* a feminist, despite what the crunchy mothers might think) I am so sick of feminism being hijacked by women who think that motherhood and breastfeeding are revolutionary acts.
These tend also to be the kind of women who complain of feeling “ripped off” by the old-guard feminists because “they said we could have it all”. Um, NO, they didn’t. They made it possible for you to have a *choice*. You made yours. Deal with it.
Matt & pyramidsong:
I am not your enemy. I don’t think you are abnormal/selfish/unfulfilled/shallow/weird/horrible/uncaring for not wanting to have children. I FULLY support your decision to not become parents. I have quite a few friends who also chose not to have children and we get along just fine. I can see that their lives are rich with meaning and value and adventure and love and that they contribute to society.
I stick up for people making the choice not to be parents whenever I hear them being criticised or judged for it. I don’t expect praise for that, I expect all feminists to do the same. I understand that you face hostility around your life choice – I get that.
I also believe that the same force I am bucking against as a feminist mother is very much the same force you are bucking against – the patriarchy reinforces a traditional patriarchal family unit which dictates how the lives of women and men should be lived.. and part of that is that women MUST have children (or they are abnormal and selfish) and that women must parent in a certain way (or they are deviant and immoral) and no relational or friendship group is a family unless it fits the mould of father + mother + children (so, therefore same sex couples can’t be legitimate families, people without children can’t be legitimate families, single mothers with children can’t be legitimate families, queer parents with children can’t be legitimate families etc etc). If you read this website you would see that it is filled with posts about all these things – including defending people who choose not to be parents.
However, I don’t think it is ok to hate a particular group of people (eg. children, mothers, single mothers, teenagers etc). That’s bigotry. Also, mother-blaming is a misogynist act, plain and simple. I think you’re an arsehole for participating in that. You can think otherwise, you have your own websites and forums to discuss all that, but it won’t fly here. I am not interested in opening that up for discussion – there are some fantastic posts where that has been a conversation on feminist sites like Bitch PhD and feministe. Go there if that is what you seek, but this here is my blog and my rules.
ALSO, what won’t fly here is any abuse/trolling. Your forums have the same rules so I expect we can find agreement there. (Matt is trolling so his comment has been removed).
pyramidsong’s ‘(straw)feminist mother’ comment has some potential to be a constructive and interesting conversation. Some of these posts (and their accompanying comments) respond to your strawfeminist mother, pyramidsong –
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/quick-lets-throw-ourselves-under-a-bus/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/how-to-explain-desire/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/can-attachment-parenting-be-saved/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/why-attachment-parenting-needs-feminism/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/not-friends-again/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-free-pass-for-judging-parents/
https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/the-very-bad-mother/
I don’t hate children. I quite like them, generally. And I appreciate your support of the choice to remain childfree (that isn’t sarcasm, I genuinely do). I in turn support your choice to become a mother.
I guess where we fundamentally disagree is that I think parenthood is a lifestyle choice whereas you do not. Neither opinion is necessarily objectively wrong, but they *are* irreconcilable.
Sorry, I also wrote the “pyramidsong” comment. I forgot to not use my actual name. D’oi. I will read those links you provided. I want to understand your point of view, I really do. But at this point I just don’t. I definitely agree that women should stand together. But your feminism and my feminism seem at odds. But dialogue is important.
[…] find the insinuation (which is not altogether uncommon) that the act of lactation is somehow degrading a curious thought. You mothers, you lactating […]
[…] you I’m trying hard not to be bitter about this crap that you once wrote which was so lovingly cited by child-hating bigot-trolls on my blog a couple of years ago. Share this:StumbleUponEmailTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
Finally remembered to come back to this post. I’ve got a second little one now, and my god, yes, the dirty looks at the supermarkets. I’m immune to them by now. I notice them, still – yes, you, sir, giving me that eyeroll because my preschooler asked for a pudding and I am a-okay with bringing home a dessert – but I could give less than a flying fuck about them. I do feel badly on the off days I take them out and they’re just unmanagable, but you know what? We get through it, and then we leave. The people who think we’re somehow encroaching on their lives by staying in line for five more minutes instead of leaving a cart full of groceries can just keep right on feeling all the things; we’re not leaving without that gallon of milk, and really, five minutes of crying and they’re tired of it? Please, people, that’s nothing.
Just to clarify, bluemilk, this is Sara no H. – the gravatar gives it away for sure, but I’m confused as fuck as to why they changed the name I told it to use. Not cool, wordpress, not cool.
(It seems to me that I am super late on this, four years later, but oh well.)
You took Ms. Razer’s article seriously? Wow, lighten up. I enjoyed it more for the way it was written–its playful banter and hyperbolic situations–rather than what it was written about. While children in supermarkets are annoying, we all get on with life and forget about it shortly after, both mother and annoyed supermarket-goer. Angry impatient buggers with roadkill up their anuses are annoying too. Welcome to humanity!
In the end, none of this stuff matters. Just live your life the way you want to live, who cares how someone else thinks about what. We’re all the same smatterings of DNA, and we’re all forced out of someone’s sticky uterus just as we’re all stuffed in a box in the ground. What happens in between seems like a big deal to all of us as individuals, but the universe doesn’t care how you live your tiny blip on earth. You breastfeed? That’s cool, just try not to drip everywhere. You crawl around on the internet and blast people’s faces off for their opinions? Just remember to wipe your mouth.
Everyone needs to take some Klonopin and calm down. Look at the bigger picture–no one honestly CARES how you raise your child, kid hater or not. We all sip on the haterade, and a great big thank you to those guys who make the interwebs–a lot of us are able to stand on our soapboxes and be queens for a day.
A big thumbs up to everyone who is able to enjoy oxygen right now. How cool is it to be alive.
I thought Razer’s article was fine. I’d be disgusted if I saw a mother feeding her 1 year old coke too. I find adults who fill themselves with that swill a little yuck too – their choice, but my right to not like it.
Also, the aisle hogging thing can be really annoying with prams. Just because we have kids doesn’t mean we can get in the way of everyone else.
Razer had a right to mention her own feelings about both those things. It wasn’t a kid hate article or a parenting hate article. It was a ‘people make some not very sensible decisions and can be inconsiderate of others’ article. It just had a parent and child as the inspiration point.
[…] You haven’t lived until your parenting has been judged in a supermarket […]
Vile article and vile comments. I am coming to this v late but confirms some of my suspicions about Helen and her snide patronising take on “mummy bloggers” etc. It depresses me because she is so smart and has things of value to say but on motherhood and children … well, dear god.
I also note that if that mother had instead popped her baby on the boob while walking around the supermarket she may also have received a hateful word from Helen and definitely from her hateful commenters – which is super ironic as she waxes lyrical about slow food and nutrition.
Michelle
Do you have to lump all childless feminists as child-haters? Yes, those exist, but ‘feminists’ and ‘child-haters’ do not necessarily overlap. Some people are just judgmental and crabby whether or not they self-identify as feminists