Is it a stroller or a battering ram?

I stumbled across a topic on a mommy board last night about strollers. The poster that started the topic couldn’t really believe how unhelpful people are when you have a stroller (not opening doors, not moving out of the way).

1. I don’t open doors for strollers. Why? I’ve been run over by them more times then I care to count. Having a stroller loaded with kids, coats, shopping and any other manner of things rammed into your knee HURTS damnit. Not opening doors for them ensures that I stay far away from them.

2. I can’t move out of the way if I don’t know you’re there. Really, I can’t. A woman in mall a couple of years back got quite indigent with me when I wouldn’t move out of her way. Apparently she’d been standing behind me for “FIVE WHOLE MINUTES” waiting for me to magically move out of the way. The problem with her standing there for “FIVE WHOLE MINUTES” was that – I didn’t know she was there. She never said a single word to me. Trust me, if I KNOW you’re there, I will move, as quick as I can. I don’t want to be near a stroller anymore then I want to be next to a poisonous snake.

Some of the other posters on this thread had a complaint to make about the absolutely gigantic “SUV” strollers. I agree with them. Whole heartedly. Unless your traversing over rough terrain (and lets face it, how many parents are actually going to do that?), there’s no need to have strollers that are built like an off road vehicle. Other posters countered that the umbrella strollers were “too small” “couldn’t fit all their stuff” and “were more cost effective” (HOW?!)

The third thing that jumped out at me as I read on in sordid fascination, was a complain from a few women about how stores are not “stroller accessible”, that their preciouses could easily reach out and grab things off the shelves. One woman said that she regularly found clothing tags in the seat of her son’s stroller when she got done shopping. K, so, YOU can’t control your kid? And you want the store to change their layout (thereby making the amount of merchandise they can fit in the store less) so that you don’t have to do your JOB; which is parent your kid? Another woman pointed out that if a store was not stroller accessible then it wasn’t wheelchair accessible either. I beg to differ. Wheelchairs have great maneuverability then the mammoth size strollers that are so popular. They also don’t contain toddler brats with lazy parents that grab at anything and everything.

I understand that strollers are great to keep tired and cranky kids contained. But really, buy the smaller ones. They do exist; even if you have two kids! My mom had a two seater for my brothers that was no more wider then a one seater, just longer. And it worked perfectly! And if you have more then two kids that need to be in a stroller at a time? Maybe you should slow down a bit. The human species IS supposed to be smarter then rabbits.

The Childfree, Parents and “It”.

Something I’ve noticed that’s becoming prevalent across the interwebs and the world is the changing of word definitions. The unrelenting attacks that come when you dare to use a word that parents have deemed to mean something else, the way it’s supposed to be used is quite frankly, ridiculous.

When I post on forums and blogs and I don’t know the gender of a kid I use “it” in place of “he” or “she”. I don’t get close enough to infants or pay enough attention to very small kids to figure out if they’re a boy or girl. If I can hear a kid screaming at the top of it’s lungs I’m most certainly not going to hunt it down and figure out what gender it is. I’m going to run the other way. I know of many other childfree that use “it” the same way.

The angst that parents display at having their precious darlings called “it” is quite funny really. They inevitably whine about how their child is not an inanimate object so is not an it. Well, yes, yes it is an it. Because I don’t know the gender! And I don’t care!

According to Merriam Webster, one of the many definitions of it is:

a person or animal whose sex is unknown or disregarded ,

1. Unknown – means I just plain don’t know.
2. Disregarded – means I just plain don’t CARE.

So, parents, seriously. Just chill. Your darlings will not suffer severe psychological damage because some stranger they never have and never will meet has called them an it on the internet.

Defining Childfree

I figured there’s so few outlets for the CF community that I’d make us just one more forum.

Defining Childfree

The American Welfare System

I was recently a member of a forum that surrounded the subject of etiquette. A poster, posted a topic asking if we members of the forum thought that a cashier had been rude to her that day. The way the story was told; she went to the grocery store; with food stamps in hand, to buy groceries for her family (her husband, herself and two children). In addition to the groceries she bought with the tax payers dollars, she bought a $100 single cup coffee maker. Upon arriving at the cash register, with $100 coffee maker clutched to her chest, she proclaimed that she was so excited to be purchasing it. The cashier’s response “Must be nice”.

The forum members went into a tizzy. Yes of COURSE the cashier was rude! How dare she speak the truth! How dare she make a judgment about another person while working her minimum wage job!

I, and a few others; thought differently. That SHE (the poster) was the rude one. Rude for buying an expensive luxury item while on the government dole.

Now; I don’t begrudge someone that’s going through hard times splurging a bit here or there. Lord knows I’d go crazy if I didn’t. But..two points…

1.) You can get a multiple cup coffee maker for $15 bucks from Wal-Mart or Target. (But it’s too haaaaaaarrrrrrd to make a single cup with one of those).
2.) When you purposely put yourself in a situation where you will more then likely be on the goverment dole PERMANENTLY? You have great big ones to splurge on a $100 something thats NOT a necessity. (But this is cheaper then Dunkin’ Donuts coffee everyday! Yeah, and, you shouldn’t be wasting precious cash on that either!)

Having a husband with little education and not much of a chance of advancing above his current pay grade and being mentally disabled to the point that YOU can’t work and then having not one, but TWO children on top of that? That’s purposely making stupid fucking choices that will more then likely keep you on the government dole.

Now before someone says “But welfare is available to everyone!” No, actually, it’s not dumbass.

I am currently unemployed. My fiance is the only one working (and he’s working his damn ass off). We do not qualify for medicare (nope thats for the chiiillllddrreeeen). We don’t qualify for any more then $4 in food stamps (that’ll barely get you a gallon of milk..).

We are childfree. I’ve heard the same story from many many more people that don’t have children. They can’t get help when they need it. People that have paid into the system for YEARS can’t get help. Nope. All of their money goes to people that continue to pop out kid after kid after kid.

The American welfare system is set up to reward those who make irresponsible choices, and punish those who work their asses off chasing the true American Dream: being self sufficient.

What’s wrong with this picture? A whole helluva lot.