The Breeders

I make no secrets of the fact that I am not akin to children. I was never one to slap my slogan on a button and parade it around. However, this topic has come to light so much recently that I feel I need to address it.




I know you're all thinking, "Well Priscilla, you were a kid once too." You're absolutely right! I was a kid who had a lovely childhood filled with comic books and R rated movies. I didn't have many friends because I will admit, I was a bit strange. I very much enjoyed being a loner. All I wanted to do was write stories about monsters and dogs. My mother was an only child so I never had any cousins or other children my age around. Both my siblings are more than a decade older than me and they never really treated me like a kid in the first place. I essentially grew up without any other children around me and I was perfectly content with it.




Come high school, it seemed babies just began popping out everywhere. The small town I grew up in has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. I wanted out of my small town so badly I refused to do anything that would prevent that. My strict Catholic mother never gave me the unwanted pregnancy talk; it just wasn't necessary. Most of my high school graduating class were squeezing out babies or were already moms by the time I was moving away to go to college. Thank goodness I dodged that bullet.




It's not that I hate children, they're just not for me. I have several friends (Chad, Dorothy, Ruth, Vince) with beautiful children who I know will grow to be pillars of the community. I'm very happy for them and enjoy being "Crazy Aunt Priscilla." My patience tends to run thin and that makes a terrible recipe for parenthood. I also enjoy traveling and that is nearly impossible to do with children. There's no way I would have been able to do half the things I've gotten to experience in my life had I been stuck at home with babies.

I decided I would give it ten years to see if that motherly instinct they refer to on Oprah would kick in. I told myself I would be open to the idea of bearing children within my ten year period. Well, my ten years have come & gone and I feel more strongly now than ever about being childless. I feel like I am at a point in my life where I have figured out where I want my career to go. For the first time, I feel like I can see clearly. I have so many ideas and goals and I feel really focused. I have worked so hard, I refuse to throw it all away for someone else.

The unfortunate thing about getting older is that your marital status and family planning decisions are constantly under scrutiny. On one occasion, an acquaintance was gushing about how she couldn't wait to have babies. She then asked me when I would have my own. I politely explained that it was not in my cards. Her response was, "Well, one day you'll meet someone and you'll want to have his babies." Not only is this remark completely degrading as a woman, but it also disregards my long term relationship. I feel like I am regularly defending my decisions to everyone except my family. Almost a year ago, I had a discussion with my family to tell them how I felt. My confession was not news to them and they fully support my decision not to have kids.




The whole point of this post is to discuss the behavior of breeders and the disrespect they impose on non-breeders. I'm not saying ALL breeders are guilty of poor behavior, but I've recently encountered some horrible ones. While working in my office last week, a recent breeder decided to parade her new offspring around the building to collect as many "oohs and ahhhs" as possible. The breeder then enters our office (the most unfriendly breeder office in the building) and begins jibber jabbering about said offspring. She then announces that she is going to change her baby on the table in our small dining corner where our lunch is kept. My office mate gives a firm, "DO NOT do that!" The breeder instead plops the baby on the floor in front of the mini fridge a mere inches from my frozen meal cooking in the microwave. She's changing away while the offspring is screaming for bloody murder. I then muster up my best death stare and say, "You're fucking disgusting." She raps it up and is out the door to another office. Later I notice the dirty discarded diaper is sitting in the trash can by the dining corner! Please tell me where someone gets the audacity to pull such shenanigans. I do not understand how someone can have no respect for anyone else.

I realize being a parent is fun, exciting, life changing, blah, blah, blah. Do you realize that those emotions only affect you as a parent. The rest of mankind is unfazed by your new bundle of joy. It appears to me that the second one becomes a parent all courtesy to the rest of the society is out the door. Example #2 of bad breeders: I was perusing the clearance aisle at Target recently and there's a woman fumbling with 75% off 2011 nutcrackers. Her whole cart is blocking the aisle so no one can pass and her toddler sitting in the cart is screaming at the top of her lungs. She is apparently demanding something that's totally inaudible, meanwhile the mother continues to browse as if the child does not exist. I understand you may be accustomed to this behavior, but it is not acceptable. Just because you can tune your kid out doesn't mean I can.




Don't get me started on the breastfeeding issue. I saw a poll today that asked if you thought public breastfeeding was OK. The results were 50/50. This whole breastfeeding issue is so bizarre to me. When did it become such a huge issue? I don't remember anyone in the 80s or 90s protesting because some mom whipped out a tit in the middle of the Target snack bar and someone wasn't stoked about it. It seems like the boob police are out in full force these days. I once saw a minor celebrity get attacked via social networking site because she expressed distaste for a mother at a nearby table in a public restaurant breastfeeding. The boob police wanted to burn her at the stake. Get real people! Your kid isn't the most important thing in the world! Part of the reason why I do not have Facebook is because I do not care about your mundane musings. I especially do not care for the half dozen pics you post a day of your baby that could be Benjamin Button's sister for all I can tell. Also, the "funny" things your toddler says are about as amusing as Dane Cook's stand-up routine. I hope you realize your asinine posts are fodder for my office mates and I to chuckle about over our morning coffee.




I'm fairly certain this post will draw a great deal of negative attention. A wise man once said, "Haters gonna hate." I'm tired of repressing my beliefs! I'm a non-breeder and I'm proud of it! I may be the minority, but from now on I will hang my head high. I raise my pint to Beth, Kenny, and all the other non-breeders out there. Call me a heartless bitch, godless commie scum, etc, I don't care. Just remember that when you are in the midst of your 18yr prison sentence, I will be travelling the world with my life partner and twelve dogs.