I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.
Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:
“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”
So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.
This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?
I went through hell and back with fertility treatments and multiple miscarriages because ***I wanted a child***. People have children because they want children. Doing something because you want to is the very definition of selfish, even if what want is biologically ingrained in you. Taking care of your own children is not a selfless act, it is your damn responsibility for choosing to have them.
You know what is not selfish, all the resources including time and money that I put into my two stepsons who are not my children. They are not mine. I did not want them. But I never hesitate to give to them (though admittedly it is out of love for my husband that I do).
Other things that are not selfish are being the person who takes care of all the other family members or who jumps in to take care of the crisis at work or who spends hours volunteering instead of focusing only on their own children.
Yeap! I suppose if you are very young when you have children and have had very limited life experience, you can claim that it taught you to be less selfish because you now have to think about someone other than yourself. I take care of my husband, and this included helping him recover from a very serious illness that included a 51 day hospitalization. I bathed, washed, changed, fed, etc. him. I have done this for other family members, aunts and uncles without children. I stayed with my uncle in hospice the night he passed away, and am a primary caregiver to my mother who has dementia. I take my parents out every weekend. I was a teacher, now a professor and spend countless hours helping my students beyond the class. I have cared for stray animals, including hand feeding a baby sparrow, I feed birds and plant butterfly gardens. I am a really good friend to my friends when they are in crisis or need. I do not need children to teach me how to be less selfish.
Ok – firstly, what is a GINK?
Secondly, this woman sounds miserable – absolutely miserable – like, exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t have kids. Clearly she regrets her choice and wants others to suffer like she does.
I feel no guilt about not having children. If the logic is that you have them so that they may become your future caretakers, then you’re given birth to indentured servants, not children.
We may choose to care for others (whether as teenagers, adults or even seniors), and we may choose to care for our relatives (or even those outside of our families); but hopefully that is a choice, and something we choose to do out of the goodness of our hearts. It’s not a requirement and it doesn’t pay (which is lucky for those who have children).
Now should I get old and need assistance, I’ll most likely pay will have a caretaker and that caretaker will be paid – so the caretaker will be benefiting, as well as myself.
To assume people will care for the childless without pay, is frankly, preposterous – so this woman’s argument makes absolutely no sense.
No one is beholden to care for another, except one might argue, the parent- and to be a parent is, absolutely, a choice. We should all be responsible for our choices.
Under anonymity, really crappy people feel comfortable posting their idiotic comments. You find this across the board on all sorts of issues. Definitely one of the down sides of the internet.
I believe people say what they because they “don’t walk on your shoes”.
They have no idea what we are going through and we don’t know what’s happening in their lives. If only we could see how much people is hurting
…
You are in my prayers !! ♥♥
Yes, even though we know that people hold these views, and we know that they are invalid, they can sometimes get under our skin, can’t they? I’m sorry – and think that a long hot shower was the perfect solution to wash away your hurt and her anger and negativity.
My “Let Me Be” post almost six years made pretty much all the points I ever want to make when I see these sentiments, so I won’t repeat them.
Isn’t it selfish to assume/expect that their children will take care if them. I am so fed up with children being a constant topic which portrays strength and motivation for everyone. Does it mean that we, those that suffer from the many faces of infertility, are not worth anything positive. Frankly, and forgive me for saying this……but those people make me yell to the skies “they do not deserve to be parents. Why do they get to be parents as we infertile, loving, caring people sit on the sidelines and watch/ listen to this disgrace?”. I feel more bite reach day seeing stupid, ignorant parents who are clueless to the pain infertile people live with!
Love this post. My husband recently wrote an article about the childfree lifestyle and selfishness in the Manly Monthlies section of my blog.
It’s crazy to me that we’re still being labeled this way. Every life choice is selfish in a way, since we all choose what we think is best for us as individuals, but having kids is not as selfless as many parents declare. Just as being childfree is not nearly as selfish as they say either!
This is why i don’t comment on articles, and why i was a reader of the blog for 2 years before i wrote a comment. I don’t know how Lisa keeos this a safe place for us.
My whine for yesterday is my pet died, we had him for almost 10 years. He got sick suddenly and was gone before i could get him to the vet. He was small, loved to be held, would snuggle into me, and felt like it would be to hold a baby. I am heartbroken.
Maria,
I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you – xoxo hugs – Kristine
Thank you Kristine.
Maria, may you find peace in the love that you both shared.
You are in my prayers. ♥
I’m so very sorry for your loss, Maria.
Last night I was at a dinner with some of my partners relatives, nice people all of them and it was a wonderful evening.
None of them would, I think, ever think of me as selfish for not having children, but I know some people do think of those of us without children as selfish. I have heard it many times. Selfish and not really mature or properly grown up.
So I couldn’t help but thinking, as I sat there yesterday, as the only childless adult, about how none of the couples there consider all their flying around the world as problematic. It’s their children that are to live in this environment that we destroy, not mine and I don’t fly for the environments sake, even though I love to travel.
I’m a vegetarian. I’m getting bees. I try to throw as little food away as possible while the hosts yesterday laughed about not ever eating leftovers.
I’m envious, of their children but also of their feeling of being allowed to do whatever pleases them without ever considering possible bad effects. While I hope to stay healthy and become rich enough to be able to travel by train as I retire, since it takes too much time for me to be able to do it with the work I have now.
This makes me a bit bitter, I know, but still I can not start to fly, because to me it’s wrong. I know I can’t change them. I just don’t want to be considered selfish by people who are…
Not sure what a “GINK” is. Looked it up on Urban Dictionary and found a bunch of super-offensive options, none of which quite worked in this context.
I think the commenter meant “DINK,” which stands for “double income, no kids.”
And I’m with all of you on getting rankled by this “accusation.” Have been known to lob back with “…that must be why I pay taxes to support public schools, donate to your kids’ fundraisers, help elderly friends when their own kids are too busy….”
No my blood is boiling too. 🙁
I know I’m a week late, but this one hits a nerve for me.
In trying to navigate my childless life, I’ve often worried about what will happen to DH and I when we are old. We have no nieces/nephews, no children, how will we survive, was often my thought. Then about a month ago an elderly family friend, with a younger wife, three children, and 5 adult grandchildren, was in a car accident. He was in the hospital then transferred to a nursing home. I found out his children and grandchildren haven’t visited him, and his wife only once stopped in briefly. He was literally all alone on Christmas. He has a family and still no one cares about him! Having children does not guarantee you’ll be taken care of in old age. This has given DH and I a new perspective.
I actually feel sorry for this commenter who feels the need to spread such venom. I don’t know that I’d be so quick to help her if she were my mother, so she should really be careful with what she says because it may come back to haunt her.