That's ridiculous. Even if you were an Olympic athlete and richer than Bill Gates, giving birth and/or raising kids is a private matter.

I have to say I'm with you about kids; I don't like most people, so it makes sense I don't like most kids. There are deep, dark reasons why kids behave the way they do, but there those reasons for adults, too, and that has never stopped me from disliking adults. There are kids I adore, like my professor's son, but he's well-behaved and goofy. I take everyone on a person by person basis

I'm morbidly curious about how children are going to turn out nowadays. Getting a sense of the parents (a friend tells me if she wants advice on baby formula, she'd have to defend herself ridiculously for why she isn't breastfeeding), it can't be good on a whole

This be true. But most people seem to want to butt into your life and dictate to you how, when, where and why you should have children and if you don't want 'em, then you're suddenly a murderer and a sheep-rapist or something. When my friends heard I was getting married to H, one of things they instantly asked both of us was "When are you having children?!" They were dismayed, upset and a bit rabid to hear that we didn't want any. (and am I wrong for finding Bill Gates attractive? oh the humanity!)

I just really don't like humanity as a whole. Particularly in America there's this attitude that children are GOD, and that if you punish them or discipline them in any way they'll turn into Jeffrey Dahmer on speed so you better just cave to their every whim if you want 'em to turn out okay! And that sort of pop-parenting just makes me want to take a pencil and turn my eyeballs into optic soup. What happened to common sense? There are so few good parents nowadays.

And yes, there are kids I adore, like the artistically-gifted little girl in mum's class this year: she was witty and sarcastic, well-behaved but hysterical at the same time. (she used to chase the boys around on the playground saying that she had a magical substance called "Girl Cream" and that if she smeared it on them, they'd wake up the following morning a pretty little princess. they were all terrified.)

And I'm with you: I take it on a person-to-person basis with both kids and adults. And a vast majority of people I meet end up not getting on with me because I'm admittedly rather strange. But the people I do meet that do like me tend to become very close to me. Same with the kids. Like the Girl Cream Girl. According to mum, she still asks about me even though she only met me once. It makes me happy because if she continues on with her art, she'll be a fantastic artist when she gets older.

Oh I know. Parents are scary these days. Look up 'boob nazis' if you really want to be simultaneously terrified and have your hope for humanity dashed to millions of pieces. Humanity is doomed I say!

On the subject of breast vs bottle, I've gotten into and gone toe to toe with women about this.
Breastfeeding IS NOT FOR ME. I don't like it, I don't enjoy it, I don't revel in it, and HONESTLY I resent it. Period.
So when I say I've bottle fed, being called a negligent parent for doing so causes my hackles to raise and my ire to be unleashed.
I've made an informed decision based on research and personal experience...that should be enough.



There's a girl I know who castigates mothers who feed their babies gerber babyfood, because it's overprocessed and has starches/sugars in it.
She'll fire a daycare for not holding her child enough, or for giving her the bottle (of breastmilk) instead of holding her while she's eating.
I shake my head and keep my mouth shut because seriously, God help her if I'm ever in a bad mood and hearing about this shit.

Some of those women are NUTS. The other day, I was reading an lj community that linked to one of the pro-breast feeding lj communities. Not only do some of these women find it darling that their breast fed kids refer to the breast as a "tit" (I bet that'll be a real treat to train them not to say that) but also that it's precious that their kid UNHOOKS their bras. I don't know, that just seems really invasive to me, never mind that some of these children are breastfed until they're rather old (3 years or older).

I can't look at those communities. They kind of scare me, honestly.

'all natural' moms scare me, I won't lie.
Over protective moms annoy me.

I can't stand those communities you're talking about, those women are crazy.

Dude. I just looked that up and wow. Just WOW! I didn't know women took breastfeeding to that level.

I'm all for breastfeeding. My daughter was breastfed until she was 1.5 y/o. But if the woman doesn't want to do it, let her be! As long as she's making an informed decision then damn....let her formula feed the dang child. As long as it ain't straight apple juice and soy milk (ok. bad joke). I'm so glad I stopped visiting the online parenting communities. No one influences our parenting decisions except ourselves.



I'm still in shock at how people try to enforce their ideals/lifestyles about having children to those who choose to be childless. Really. I've never met anyone who has said to another "You're supposed to have children" or anything along those lines. I find that rather odd.

Yes, I started this thread to find out why one would choose to not have children because hey...I only know 2 or 3 women in real life who don't ever want them because of health reasons. Not any other. But I never implied that I think everyone should.

To everyone who has children, wants children, or doesn't want children....more power to you

Seriously.

Live your life the way you want to and disregard societies pressure to make you think otherwise

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I think it's one of those things where people think they know everything and there's only one path of correctness. If people deviate from it, they're "wrong" and "bad" for that. Different lifestyles, choices, opinions, etc. scare the hell out of some people. Some people also like to feel better about themselves so if they can make you feel bad or inferior, they're a lot happier.

It happens with religion, race, families, politics, everywhere and everything, like the people who breast feed and lord that over those who don't. It particularly bothers me with children, because making someone feel bad for not wanting kids is ridiculous. I'm biased, of course, but I'd rather someone make an informed decision not to have a child than to have a child to sate societal pressures and do a terrible job in raising that kid.

I think there's a relatively large minority that thinks that. I'm not even a Windows user (a fairly fan of Apple, actually), and I love Bill Gates.

You put into words EXACTLY what I was thinking.

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I didnt breastfeed my son because I didnt get to meet him untill he was 3 days old. He was in NICU, but He is superhealthy now. But in all honesty, I never wanted to. I gave it a chance, but I didnt like it. He didnt like it either, he would push me away, cry and bite me! and he was a lil baby!!

My nurse was a boob nazi! She MADE me sit there for 3 hrs trying to breastfeed Noah, he was crying the entire time and she wouldnt let me feed him a bottle. So then when she left me for 5 mins another nurse that was watching told me "breastfeeding is an option" so I told her if I could please have a bottle and gave it to him. THe lactation nurse was angry! But I didnt care. I didnt go to the "mandatory" workshop where they put a bunch of moms in one room n u have to breastfeed ur son there.

When it was time for him to leave, one of the nurses said she wanted to keep him in longer cus he wasnt feeding properly. BS she wanted him to be breastfed, but the doctor said he couldnt imagine that a week old baby weighing 9lbs not be feeding well so he let me take him home. UGH I was so annoyed w/ the nurse!!!

That's ridiculous. If it hasn't happened already, I'm waiting for the day when a mother is going to court for starving or "accidentally" killing her child because it won't breastfeed or if a nurse does something like that.

I wasn't breastfed, and I grew up to be an able-minded, non-deviant healthy adult. Those communities and people like that- it's like non-breastfeeding mothers are the devil and they're raising little deliquents.

Not to totally go off topic, but I didn't fully breast feed my daughter until she was 2 months old. She neglected my breasts and pushed away a lot but I kept trying. I pumped and bottle fed her my milk until she got used to eating straight from my breasts.

I'm not saying anyone was wrong, just wanted to share my story. It was what I felt was the best for us and if she had never "gotten used to it", I would've still pumped and fed her via bottle.

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