Yeah, okay. I guess I am selfish

     Recently I read an article that accused /dismissed childless people as being ‘selfish’.

     I thought this condemnation unfair.  While the article never said so, it was aimed at childless women, (as opposed to childless men).  Apparently the author was unaware it is absolutely impossible for a female human to get pregnant without a male human contributing sperm. (or, perhaps, the author was a misogynist). To demonize only one side of the equation, as it were, is disingenuous-and bigoted.

     Nor did the article breathe a word about abortion. I’ve never been pregnant. Personally, I don’t care for abortion, and was always careful in my sexual activities. If the guy said he didn’t want to wear a condom, I said “Then you’re not having sex with me.” There’s more than one time I slept alone that night, but that’s fine with me. If he doesn’t have enough respect for me to wear a condom, he doesn’t deserve me.

    However, I’m a firm believer in legal abortion. The anti-abortionists all seem to be rich white people. The loudest and most offensive of anti-abortionists seem to be men. I’ve never seen a black woman protesting abortion, but I sure have seen plenty of poor black teen-aged mothers. They don’t get abortions because they can’t afford them, not because they don’t want one.

    It also amazes me that the anti-abortionists never attack the boys who get girls pregnant. The boys get a pass, it seems, whereas the girl is vilified.

    The article never really mentioned WHY I should be considered selfish for being childless. It really makes no sense. Actually, I’m selfLESS when it comes to never having had kids.

   My never having children means I’m using only my share of the natural resources of this planet-the air, the water, food, etc. My contribution to the human population explosion is zero.

  I’ve never had children, however, every year I’m paying taxes for other people’s children to go to school. And it never ends. I’m paying for as long as I own property. I’m paying for generations of children, not just one. I went to public middle and high school.  I paid for my Bachelor’s degree all on my own. No loans, no grants, no scholarships. You’d think I should be allowed to opt out of paying for thousands of children to attend school.

    I’ve never had children, yet I am constantly being challenged with more and more obstructions to things I want to do because of them: opening a pill bottle, for instance. The warning labels on my plant rooting powder will scare you to death and make you a carnivore forever, but you can open it with a twist of the wrist. 

My vitamin C bottle, however, has a plastic wrapping, a security tape shrink-wrapped around the cap, and an impervious liner to the opening itself.  One needs a vice, a wrench, and a blowtorch to open it, all to prevent some unsupervised kid from ingesting vitamin C. If a breeder depends on The System to protect her kids from ingesting pills or poisons, why must I pay the price for her lack of supervision?

  I’ve never had children, and yet everyday, more and more laws are imposed upon me because Someone Else didn’t supervise THEIR kids. I cannot buy a bottle of beer without being carded. While I don’t smoke, I can’t buy a pack of cigarettes from a machine any longer. We’re the only country on the planet that imposes such ridiculous rules on its population. 

Most countries…..and we’re not talking third world nations, we’re talking Germany, England, Japan; depend on the parent to parent, not the government. Our government imposes laws on children to abstain from drinking, smoking, etc, and then decides that at the age of 18 they are suddenly, voila! adults. The govt apparently thinks that the parents are training the kids to handle substances, when it’s anything but. And how can one train a kid to drink responsibly when he’s not allowed to drink before he’s considered an adult? Duh, there’s a catch-22 here.

    I’ve never had children, however, I run the risk of being maimed or killed on the roads, because the same children who aren’t considered mature enough to drink or smoke until at least 21, are considered experienced and mature enough to drive a high powered car at the age of 16. In many cases, they are on the phone, or worse, texting. Most completely ignore speed limits. They race each other on the interstate.

   This is ludicrous. Not only do kids think they’re immortal, they don’t need booze or drugs to get high on plain old horsepower. A fast car is intoxicating all on its own, no matter how old one is.  Not only are the cars faster and more powerful, but the kids have plenty of peer pressure, cell phones, loud music and whatnot to completely distract any scrap of their miniscule attention spans from driving safely.

    I’ve never had children, however, I’m exposed to unruly, uncivilized, foul mouthed, spoiled brats every day. They don’t consider cheating at school to be bad. While they cannot read, spell or do math, they have tons of self esteem and a highly cultivated sense of entitlement.  

   Just recently I caught a ten year old boy teasing my neighbor’s geriatric dog, on their property, through their fence. When I told him to go away and stop tormenting a defenseless animal, he cursed me, laughed and flipped me off. And I could do nothing.

   When I was a child, any adult in the neighborhood could-and did-dispense badly needed justice to any offending child with a good swift swat on the fanny. It only took once or twice for the child to realize that he is NOT a god, he is obligated to the same rules and morals as adults. But these days, the kids are given “time outs” because discipline will hurt their developing psyches. Because “violence begets violence” (but only when it’s a parent admonishing a child. Turn about, in this case, is not fair play.)

Lack of discipline turns them into bullies and manipulators.

   Even little ones must be handled with kid gloves.  Toddlers are ‘reasoned with”. This is crazy. To quote Heinlein, a toddler “can no more think like a human than he can think like a bee.” Toddlers may be small, but they sure in hell know how to push adult buttons.

   Older kids get put into any sort of ‘program’ so that mom can be rid of them. You can’t even walk into a public library and study anymore. It’s now a free daycare facility. The kids run riot, hunt for porn on the free computers, and all of them are incapable of reading or even being quiet.

  The kids grow up to be demanding monsters. Their parents abdicate all responsibility for their obligation to raise a child.

  Had I so much as chased the dog tormenting boy off the property, I’d probably be in jail for assault, child abuse, etc.

  Don't think that kids don’t know their power. They do. They know without a doubt that they are free to do whatever they like, be it stay out late or steal a car-and nothing will happen to them, as they are ‘minors’.

   They rub our faces in their messes and the parents quiver or, worse, absolve the child of all wrong doing.  Not because they love their children. No, it’s because they don’t want to admit to the truth, that they are lousy parents who cannot control their kids. They turn any sort of request to parent their children into a 'personal attack'. They refuse to admit that they are failures at parenting. They turn their children's rotten behavior into MY problem.

   If you ask me why I never had children, I have several reasons. Part was due to the fact that I was bullied mercilessly, on a daily basis, at school by several neighborhood children, and at home by my truly wicked sister. My father, who favored my sister, alternately emotionally abused me or neglected me. He didn’t love me, never wanted me, and in all my life, never gave me a lick of credit for anything. Need I say he never ever said “I love you”?

  At the age of 13, when I decided to never have children, it was because I didn’t want the awesome responsibility.

  I didn’t care for the religion I was raised in. I was told from first grade on that my sole purpose on the planet was to birth other people, preferably boys. My desires, my dreams, my goals, were nothing. I was told often (by my father as well as by the church) that females were below males in everything. Thus I grew up hating being female.  God, of course, was male, and had his cruel joke on me by making me female and intelligent, so that I was punished for something  I had never had a bit of control over, and smart enough to know it.

    I didn’t want to be saddled with a child, being expected to give the child what I had never received: love, attention, guidance, opportunity.

     Being female meant I was expected to breed. Being female was being kicked out of the house at 19 because father was certain I was going to get pregnant on his dime.  To totally demonstrate his monstrous ego, insisting that, now that I’m old enough and on my own, I should be making grandchildren for him.

   Being female meant that I was not given the same opportunities that boys/men had. Being female means doing twice the work as my male co-workers but only get paid half as much.

   Being female meant that I was supposed to have this mothering instinct that made me want to cuddle infants, worry about the prom, play with Barbie dolls and want to be a mommy or a teacher or a nurse.  Women weren’t scientists. Women weren’t veterinarians, or mechanics, or soldiers. Women were things that joined the convent, or worked in the house and made babies.

  But in retrospect, I guess the writer accusing me and others like me of being ‘selfish’ is right.

   If enjoying my life without burdening myself with a child is selfish; if not contributing to the 7 billion plus number of people on the planet; if not having to deal with a government that prevents me from raising a child they way they should be-with love, guidance, discipline, and a sense of responsibility for one’s actions; if not claiming a tax credit for a child (thereby paying more taxes); well, then, I suppose they’re right. I am selfish. I am also a scientist, a retired career soldier, a writer, a horseman, who is happily married to a man who doesn’t want children EITHER.

    I’m successful, intelligent, and happily childless, and it all came from my own doing. It wasn’t handed to me on a plate, like it’s given to males without thinking. I’m happily atheist and happily childless.  I don’t like children, never did, and don’t really give a rats’ ass if the breeders think I’m selfish.

  It sounds like sour grapes to me.

How can you trust a president who doesn't have pets?

It's no secret I absolutely loathe the great Trumpkin, and the spineless bootlickers who are his party supporters.

Witness the recent depravity of the repubs at the hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominations. I have never in my life seen such a disgusting display of hissyfit tantrums and outright bipartisanship as at those hearings.

These are the same people who spit in Obama's face when he tried to nominate a relatively neutral man to the Supreme Court, and McConnell flat out told him no. But when the repubs wanted this new joker, and the people of the country said no, the repubs went batshit crazy.

But as I was Not watching the procedures, I came upon this picture:

The trophy wife of the clown in the White House, touching an elephant. Photo by Doug Mills of the NY Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Melania Trump, wife no. 3 of the great trumpkin.

Look at her body language. She's only just barely touching the elephant. She's as neat as a pin in where the hell am I Africa. Everyone else looks like they've been outside in the sun. The rest of her body is as far back from the elephant as is possible.

She is touching the elephant but not really liking to do so. The elephant was brought out for a photo op which she would much rather have done without, thankyouverymuch.
She clearly does not like touching the elephant  despite the calf being as cute as an elephant can get.

It's who she is...a city girl who probably has never touched an animal, much less been able to identify one.
And that is what brought me to the topic for this post: Presidents and pets.

In my lifetime, at least, I cannot think of a single occupant of the White House who didn't have pets. The Kennedy's had horses. Johnson had his beagles. Ford had Golden Retrievers. Carter's kids had cats.
Reagan had animals, Kings George the First AND Second had dogs, and Obama had two adorable water spaniels.

Trump?

You would think that someone like the great trumpkin would be a natural for a dog...a creature that will slaver at your feet no matter how badly you treat it, one that says you are god to me.

But he doesn't, nor does his wife, nor do his kids.

There's something...sick about that. A person who doesn't like animals also usually doesn't like anybody but himself. A person who doesn't like animals finds it easy to abuse them, and usually, humans as well.

Not to say all folks who are pet less are animal haters. No, some just don't have them because they move around a lot, or their lease forbids pets, or they travel, and find it better to be pet-less than have to worry about leaving them in the care of others.

Some folks don't have pets due to allergies, but the many allergic folks I've met over the years all longed passionately for a dog, a cat, a horse. They all felt as if a very important part of being a human was missing from their lives.  I feel sorry for them.

But these bozos? No animals. None. Nor do they seem to have any appreciation for animals, wild or domesticated. Trump has shown a dreadful disregard for the natural world in general. If he had his druthers, the jungles, the forests, the prairies would all be turned into...golf courses and hotels.

Some people don't deserve to have pets. I think the Trumps are that sort. 

I'm not saying anything new...that Trump is a highly disturbed piece of s...t, one who should be either behind bars or in a mental hospital. Instead, he's in the White House. But the fact that there are no pets is just a glaring example of it.