For Sale: Mint condition Uterus! Never been used!

So I was on Heidi’s blog today (Completely Barking Mad,) and she had a link to another blog called Nine Pound Dictator. Sounded like a good title, and I’m a sucker for a good title so I decided to check it out. I only made it to the post titled Mommies Rule before I had to stop.

What’s that sound you ask? Well, that’s me having an aneurysm. In the article, she says that people look at her differently now that she’s a mother. It’s the respect, she claims. Respect for her, and her respect for life. She also claims that women are nicer to her when they find out she’s a mother, she’s no longer the Competition, apparently.

You know what? You know what!!?? (the Double ‘You know what?’ from me is a sign that you have just unleased Evil Margarita. She doesn’t get to come out and play very often, generally because I’m left to apologize for whatever she does while she’s out, but I’m letting her out this time because she has a point)

(continuation of Evil Margarita’s tirade . . . ) Just because I haven’t pushed a nine pound human being out of my uterus does not mean that my life is a total waste of time. I’m tired of being constantly informed by the media and anyone else who has a baby that I just don’t understand the meaning of life. You know what? I don’t understand the meaning of life, but I doubt that having a baby will make everything crystal clear for me. Some of us aren’t wired that way. Some of us don’t have a burning desire to procreate. And just because you have procreated, you do not instantly deserve my undying respect.

Don’t get me wrong, I think motherhood is a great thing, and if you choose to be a mom and that makes you happy, then I’m happy for you. My sister is a great mum to two beautiful boys and she works hard to be a good mum to them. It’s a hard job. The pay is lousy, the hours worse, and nine times out of ten, you have to be the bad guy.

But for those women out there that have a baby and then instantly start propogating the urban legend that the rest of us childless freaks are missing out really irritates me. I actually had to give myself a cooling off period before I could even write this blog. I know alot of women who don’t have kids. Some don’t want kids, some just haven’t had them yet, some aren’t in a position to have them, but none of them feel like they are missing the boat on life because they don’t have mini-me’s running around.

What about the woman who can’t ever have kids? Is she less deserving of my respect because she is incapable of having children? What about the women who choose definitively not to have kids? Should I disrespect them for their heinous choice? Or what about the women who knowingly have unsafe sex with no regard for the consequences and get unexpectedly pregnant? This is instantly deserving of respect? I think not.

I tell you what I do respect. I respect people who make the right choices for themselves. I respect anyone who chooses to live their life in the manner which suits them. I respect people who live their lives every day making a conscious effort to be good people. They pay their taxes, they are nice to the coffee barista, they are kind to their friends and they love their family. Some of them have kids, some of them don’t. If they have kids, they are working hard to make those kids good people too. That is worthy of respect. However, you can have a child and be raising him or her to be a royal pain in the a$$ to the entire world. Chances are, you’re a pain in the a$$ too. And you don’t get my respect for that. You get my ire.

I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade. I’m just tired of getting my child free parade washed out. Live your life, I’ll live mine. Neither one of us has to like the other’s, but don’t tell me that you are instantly a better person because you procreated. Or that I can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be a mum. I don’t have to know. It’s not your job in life to show me the way.

Evil Margarita has left the building.