hit me baby one more time

I'm decidely not old enough to make any permanent decisions that will affect me for the rest of my life. This is why I have no tattoos. But this is not the reason I don't have children.

I just want to make the outright statement that my reason for not wanting children is not because I'm "not ready". I say that sometimes, I've even said it in this blog, but it's a short answer that somehow seems easier than truly explaining why I choose to be child-free.

I'm not even close to the end of my child-bearing years, I have a comfortable 15 more years to begin the journey of parenting, if that's what I chose to do. I'm not so naive that I would make a blanket statement of "never having kids". Life changes.

But I'm a bit offended by the "not ready" remarks, which admittedly are probably fueled by my own quick response, because I believe it is creating an absolute in which all women are called to be mothers and those of us who aren't are somehow not up to the responsiblity or not ready to give up our young freedoms. It is because I am comfortable with who I am and still deciding how I'll make my mark on this world that I have no need or desire to bring another human into the picture that is my life. Not to mention kids are the worst. Just the worst.

B and I occasionally discuss the "when we have kids" scenerio but that conversation usually ends with "ugh, kids are the worst." I know I wrote this post about how I didn't want to have kids because I was scared of gender socialization, but the longer I am not a parent, the happier I am as a non-parent, and the more I resent comments like "oh you'll change your mind" (okay well the same could be said for your choice to birth that thing that just shot poop up its back) or "it's different when it's your own kids" (that's exactly what I don't want).

Let me disect that last thing for a second. Sunday I was at a Panera Bread eating my grilled chicken ceasar salad in peace next to a table of 9-ish year old girls after a soccer game. These two girls were talking and the one was like...telling a story? Or ... a joke? I'm not sure. She was trying to set up a scene where there were these colored doors and you had to choose a door, and what was behind each one...I dunno. It was the worst thing ever. Listening to her ramble on about what was behind the green door, I wanted to throw my apple and have it hit her right in the face. That's how annoyed I was. And the parents either had completely tuned her out (awful) or thought it was adorable (also awful). I don't want either of that. That's what parenthood is. It's dealing with a person from conception getting bigger and bigger and learning how to negotiate the world. No thank you.

I'm going to stop myself here, and leave my post about why I want more rights for non-parents for a later date (seriously, if you choose to parent, don't shove that thing in my face, thanks) because I need to get back to my very busy life of non-parenting and keeping my money for myself. There is no poop or spitup on my shirt and I don't have to teach anything to pee in a toilet. And I don't have to pay for anything to go to college. Life is good. (Go ahead, blow up the comments about how rewarding parenting is. I might experience it someday. But this is my choice.)

community

Well, last night I had a bit of a breakdown at the Ruby Tuesday. No, it wasn’t over the lack of pasta salad at the salad bar (although that would certainly be a cry-worthy situation) it was over my frustration about my community.

A little backstory: Last night, husband and I attended our local community improvement association meeting. Now, because of a previous life endeavor, I have been to a lot of local community associations. Some are far more productive than others, but they all have one common thread: only old people attend community meetings. Additionally, unless a community is overwhelmingly a majority-minority, only white people attend community meetings. That’s not to say that your community meeting isn’t diverse, or that there aren’t community meetings where lots of young people show up, but after attending literally dozens of these things in a few months time, I can conclude that this is true of more meetings than not. Of course, our community meeting was no different. We were literally the youngest people in the room, and the next youngest were my in-laws. This is no exaggeration. Although my community is easily at least 30% African American and has a very noticeable and young Spanish-speaking population (due to the prevalence of Spanish-speaking church services in the area, or vice versa) every single person at this well-attended community meeting was white.

Without going into too much detail, community members vocalized their opinions on issues of illegal immigration, homelessness and class issues, and the gay community (in reference to the recently failed attempt to pass an equal marriage bill in our state’s legislature.) And then, one of our elected officials told us, with a visible eye-roll, that he was sure the “gay community” would be bringing “it” (the bill) back next year. I’m resisting the urge to say anything negative about this person because while I don’t respect his service to our community, he is a friend and so I’ll leave it at that. But the blatant disregard for who supported this bill was appalling. And don’t you worry, everyone had an opinion, whether it was on their face or on their lips.

All of those opinions were racist, intolerant, hateful, and/or ignorant. None of them were related to actually “improving” the community.

I held back tears looking at the faces of people who are grandmas, grandpas, and respected community elders while realizing that they were completely and unashamedly racist. The place I called home was suddenly completely foreign to me.

It’s at this point that I think most young people interested in change find themselves at a crossroads. You can leave and go somewhere young and vibrant that is accepting and open to their entire community, but only adding to the epidemic that young progressives are moving away, or you can stay and try to change the community around you at the risk of living your whole life in those miserable racist conditions and never seeing any improvement.

And so, I cried.

“All these people are so racist and intolerant. I can’t stand it. It’s offensive to me. I’m not proud to call this place home. I don’t want to live here. We can’t change the community. I’m scared you will turn into one of them. I don’t want to be them. We’re not them. I hate it here.”

Husband generally deals with my sobbing over social issues with a fair amount of tact. He understands why I’m upset, but usually doesn’t quite get why I’d cry over it. But husband has recently been in a pretty good mood, so he tried his best to just humor me and prevent it from turning into a scene the rest of the Ruby Tuesday patrons would tweet about.

Obviously, not everyone in my community is racist or intolerant. And obviously, all communities deal with some element of racism no matter how progressive and accepting they are. And to be fair, old people are generally the ones who show up to these kinds of things because they have the freedom to spend time worrying about their community because they’re not working or taking care of young children. But this larger social issue of communities pushing away young progressives in favor of the status quo is not going to resolve itself if people don’t step up and get involved where they live.

Ultimately, I don’t know what we’ll end up doing, staying to fix it or leaving it behind. Right now, though, we live here, and we do what we can. Last night I didn’t have the courage to speak up, but next time I will. And next time my elected official starts running his mouth about the “gay community”, maybe I will take my husband’s advice and run against him.