Put on your hip waders, ladies, it’s about to get deep in here.
Janine Kovac wrote an open letter to one of her childless (or childfree) friends here, and it may be one of the most tone-deaf things I’ve ever read. The comments are delightful, and well worth a scroll.
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Oh, no. A woman thinking thoroughly about all of the aspects of having kids instead of cranking them out like a Pez dispenser without considering the consequences? HOW DARE SHE.
The response is pretty great though: http://www.rolereboot.org/family/details/2013-01-an-open-letter-to-janine-kovac
This woman was so obviously a younger mom who got pressured into having too many kids by her jerk husband. That becomes clear at the part where she complains about what-if Doris had a kid. Oh noes! Doris is going to read books about pregnancy and watch documentaries! She’s going to try and become educated about things! What a fool that Doris is! …Like, really!? Even down to mocking Doris for having kids with currently popular baby names. So sorry Doris didn’t have a kid in the 90s when Skylar was popular. Her baby names won’t match yours!
For a second I got excited at this part,
“All this being attentive might make you do something about that job you’re always complaining about. You know you work really long hours and you can’t see where you’d fit if you stayed but you’re too scared to leave. ”
Uh yea. Lots of women thinking about becoming mothers are worried ABOUT LOSING THEIR JOB BECAUSE OF THE SHITTY EXPECTATIONS OUR SOCIETY PUTS ON WORKERS!
I thought she was going to say something poignant, but then…
“If you stopped to pay attention, you might notice how your job is really something more like marketing than paralegal work or maybe you’ll notice that you’d really enjoy event planning”
Oh, just find a new job that doesn’t work you so hard. Because those exist.
‘And little by little you’ll be attentive to other things around you. You’ll look at the sky and think, “It really does look like it’s going to rain today. I’ll bring an umbrella, even though Mr. Weather Dude says there’s no chance.”’
Yea…cause only mothers know how to use common sense. You don’t get that special brain usage until you force a melon out of your crotch.
But my dog IS my kid. What silly nonsense. My parents refer to their dog as another kid…does that mean I think my parents are comparing me to a dog? Uh, no. This woman has issues.
As for the rest of the article, I have nothing productive to say. She’s awful and I can only hope that one day she will re-read her own words and cringe.
I always talk about my dogs when people talk about their children. They are running around right now bored and demanding attention. I’m not saying it’s as hard than keeping a teenager in line, but there’s some similarities.
Exactly. I laughed out loud when I read her rant because the whole ‘my dog is like my kid’ thing only comes up when people ask me, “do you have kids?”
Yeah or when they talk about their kids because that’s as close as I can come to relating.
I have kids and I even refer to my dog as my kid sometimes. She’s the furry toddler who might have ADHD, but we can leave her alone in the house, unlike a human toddler.
…Speaking of which, that fur-kid is barking in the backyard, so I should go let her in.
Fur-kid, ha! I like that.
But yeah, I know loads of people that refer to their dogs as kids…and many of them have kid-kids. The fact that this gal takes such offense to it baffles me. We know our dog is never going to vote, lol.
My mother calls her cat my sister. yep. And the dog is my brother. (My pets are her grandpuppies or when I had cats grandkitties)
I was ready to punch something until I got to the comments section, then little bits of my faith in humanity came back. What drivel that woman was spewing.
I don’t even want to read the whole article because the author is so condescending. :( Why can’t women writers stop with the extreme articles and let other women make the choices they want to make? But you’re right, the comments are definitely worth reading! Also, there’s a reply post linked that is pretty great. For me, right now, I’m realizing just how not ready to have kids I am.
That was… weird. It was a truth (you’re never 100% ‘ready’ to have children) and a compliment (you’ll be a good mother) wrapped up in warnings Doris has probably heard eleventy billion times already (don’t wait til it’s too late!!) and overall condescension.
That’s concern-trolling for ya.
Ah yes. I’ve read this one already. Doris, find the block function.
That is terrible! Wow…I can’t even think of an eloquent way to comment at the moment. Just…wow. Wtf?!
At some point I might try to put my thoughts into words but my momma always said if you can’t say anything nice then shut the f*ck up!
Pretty hard to find something huh? I mean by the second paragraph she is comparing a grown woman to a kindergarten aged-child. All wrapped up with the smug superiority of “Mother knows best”.