It’s not just your baby, or even all babies, it’s everything they represent, along with engagement rings, wedding registries, showers, parties, dresses and ‘maids.’
It seems like after college, or the age of 22, which ever one comes first, women only have 2 other things to talk about: marriage and children. And I’m not talking about the whole, ‘we’re friends, I care about your life and progeny’ type discussions. Two women can be complete and total strangers, and within minutes they’ll start talking in serious tones about how his mom thinks that the table settings will clash with her hair clips. It’s like some sort of collective breeder insanity.
And maybe I just feel left out of the whole business, and it’s taking a toll on me spiritually, but I can’t help but experience a sense of pressure. In a vacuum, I just wouldn’t care about marriage and children, and other people would or wouldn’t as they saw fit, and everyone would be happy and healthy in their knowledge of self. Except that my dad calls my boyfriend my “live-in-lover” and asks when he’s going to “make an honest women of me,” my grandmother asks me if I think he loves me, and tells me that boys don’t want to marry fatties like myself, and well-meaning co-workers who meet my awesome boyfriend will say well-meaning things like ‘do I hear wedding bells?’
Granted, those all sound like perfectly harmless little comments (except maybe the fatty one), but when it seems to be coming from every direction, all the fucking time a girl less awesome than myself might begin to think there’s something wrong with her for not wanting to get married, or pining away for rings and dresses and expensive priests who don’t actually know you but will marry you to each other for a nominal fee (go Jesus!)
And every time someone in my office shows up with an engagement ring, or a baby bump it’s a brand new chorus, of “let us see the ring!” “How much did he pay in order to posses you like a horse, while ironically saddling himself with all your future child-support payments!?” and “can I touch your fertile cunt?”
It’s not like I don’t care about my friends who are getting married or having babies, even I’m not that much of an ass hole. But I care about that as much as I care about any major life change. I’d care if you went back to college, or moved to a new city, because I care about you. It’s not like I actually care about Cleveland, but if you’re there I’d care a little more. That doesn’t mean I want to move to Cleveland. It doesn’t even mean I’d really want to visit. Do you see what I mean?
Every time some girl at work is wondering around showing everyone her rock, or some new mom who we’re paying to stay away from the office takes a break from maternity leave to haul her sticky, spitty baby into work, creating clumps of mindless cooing women in seemingly every hallway at once, for hours at a time, I feel like a jerk for trying to get away from them. And of course, this is when I not only feel like an outcast for not settling down and shitting out my own cunt turd, but I get told to wait until I’m married and pregnant–not just for the irony–but because this is the inevitable conclusion to every female pursuit.
I am so tired of people assuming that marriage is the ultimate state of any romantic union, and that babies are the ultimate goal of any living woman. And every time another marriage or baby situation comes to a head, it’s like team breeder gets another point up on the massively huge board they’ve erected in front of me just to gloat about how much more valid and meaningful they are than me.
Nice, well meaning people will tell me to let it go, and to be understanding of mainstream jerks who act like everybody should like what they like, if only for the sake of my own mental health. But all of those well meaning people are usually safe in the married with children camp, or they were or are about to be. They still operate in a social safe space. I’m just a fat, unmarried, child-hating cunt.
11 Replies to “Why I Hate Your Baby and Want Your Marriage to Fail”
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Oh I feel defensive! The thing is, until recently (and still, really) I feel the same way! When I got divorced, I planned never to marry again. I couldn’t see the point – what a bunch of retarded bullshit. I would have responded to this post saying “right on sister, I entirely agree!!”
And 15 years later, I find myself indulging in that bullshit – engaged to be married with a big rock to show for it. And I am really truly happy about it. I still don’t intend to do the whole “spend thousands, wear white etcetcetc” but I am excited about the idea of having a big party to celebrate my relationship, and my BF likes the idea of the marriage thing, so why not make him happy.
So to you now, I say: go with your feeling, but don’t let it dictate your future actions.
Marina, I might just be a version of the future you.
What do you think the future you would say about this post?
Because the now version of me would tell the 25-year-old version of me to stop bitching and let people be happy how they want.
And I’d also tell me to give all those assholes who think they can pass judgment on my choices because I’m only 25 a smack in the mouth.
How’s this for a “nice, well meaning person…telling you to let it go for your own mental health”?
Up until about a year ago I hated children and any relationship status (the institution of marriage especially) with a firey passion that could melt a thousand suns burning in hell. That was until (this is going to sound cheesy) I met Jeff. And then I realized…Serving took it’s toll on me. Having children running through my legs into the kitchen and then tugging on the chefs pant legs screaming for someone to pay attention to them because their mothers were to preoccupied with planning yet another soccer mom party, while I had 40 people in the dining room waiting for my attention and 12 food orders up on the line made me wonder how any two people could be so narcissistic as to want to make a combined copy of themselves.
As for the institution of marriage? Well, lets just say that a combined problem with the fact that gays are not legally allowed to marry, the fact that I felt no one wanted me (except for maybe a one night stand), and the mounting number of people I knew getting a divorce at the time led me to believe that all marriages were a sham and that if you were delusional enough to think that yours would work when no one else’s could; you belonged in an institution. Not partaking in one.
Like I said, this was all until I met Jeff. Within a year I rescinded my statement about hating children and shortly after realized that I wanted to get married some day.
I’m not saying that I want to run off and get married right now. Or that once I get engaged, I won’t make a fuss about it. However, I know that even when I do, I’ll remember how much I hated the people that ran around telling everyone, including the strangers in line at Target, about their new ring. I dislike those people, just on principle. In my opinion, they project a vast need for external justification for their life. In reality, they probably don’t need to get married. They need to learn to be happy with the direction their life is going or has gone.
The pressures that our society puts on women are ridiculous. There are so many people, and things, out there that tell us women that we need to be skinny, married, and pregnant (or currently taking care of at least one child). Don’t those people realize that at least two of those statements contradict each other?
Children are a blessing. Marriage is a privilege. Not everyone wants or needs to have either of those things to be happy. And if you aren’t ready or don’t want them…fuck the people that are trying to tell you to rush into it. Chances are they are divorced. Or unhappily married with more than one kid.
And by the way, when I’m obviously 9 months pregnant, and I’m about to pop, and some ass hole stranger walks up to me asking when my due date is…my response (and this is a promise I have made to more than one person) will be “what the fuck are you talking about? I’m not pregnant. Ass hole.” *waddle away*
Honestly, I’ve changed my mind about things I considered to be fundamental beliefs enough times in my life that at this point, I can only hope I never do regarding children and marriage, but I understand that it is a possibility.
And Bebe, I totally understand about being less angry and just telling others to fuck right off, and not dwelling on their peer pressure like I do. I would would tell the same to my 15 year old self. Not that I haven’t changed at all in the ensuing years, but that I’m still myself: angry and with an over-inflated sense of justice, especially when it applies to me or things I want.
I care about my friends, and I care about their weddings, and babies just like I care about any other part of their lives, but it’s difficult when everyone everywhere is telling me that my own desire to stay unmarried is invalid, even as I validate their marital status and their kids.
But I think that you’re right, Rayne. Women who have to tell absolutely everybody may be looking for that outside validation. My being such a curmudgeon about marriage and children is just another way that I’m doing the same thing. It’s not that I want validation, I don’t actually need that, but I want to fight the lack of validation. I don’t know why I always have to be so stubborn all the time, but when I feel pushed, it’s in my nature to push back harder. I guess the thing to realize is that no one is ever actually pushing me personally, it’s just how our society is.
Run with that then. Like I said at the end of my first comment, not everyone wants or needs those two things to be happy. They are such a small part of what makes up our lives.
In the end, all that really matters is that you are being true to yourself and that you are happy. From what I’ve been able to glean so far about who you are and the things that you do, I have a hard time believing you would ever be anything but. 😀
I know exactly how you feel. Most of my friends are either married with children, or in a serious relationship. It’s hard to talk to them some times, because I feel like I have nothing to contribute to the conversation. Fortunately, nobody has tried to make me feel guilty about it.
As for kids, I wouldn’t say I hate them; but I’m not a huge fan either. I certainly don’t intend to have any. Just keep living your life the way you want, and don’t worry about what others think.
After reading some of the other replies, mine seems a little… Well unimportant. Yet I feel the need to comment.
I find myself feeling the exact same way constantly. I hate all these young women who’s true goal in life is to make a carbon copy of themselves. There is NO NEED for more children. These reasons are all personal, and selfish for the most part. Women enjoy having a child to manipulate and make into a person their pagers were not able to.
Did you know there is a dumb child epidemic? In countries with significant higher education standards, people are not having children. For instance, Germany, and the intelligent people of the US. The higher education level attained, the less likely you are to have children.
So then you can make the assumption, that intelligent people, do not have as many children as unintelligent people.
Reguardless of these “comforting statistics,” I still find myself hating these “perfect couples,” and “normal families.” I do not want this at all, I do not want some guy to “prove” he loves me by spending his savings on a fucking rock that some asshole decided should be more expensive than other rocks. Why can’t he get me a pebble? Like penguins, and I can tie that to my fucking finger. Haha. 🙂
Or what about the fact that the husband is probably cheating on his wife, which is why he has to spend his savings to “prove” that he cares.
Really really though, I feel the same way. I hate these couples, not because I’m jealous, but because it is drilled in my head daily that it is what I am supposed to want. Yet I have no want for it.
Though I am younger, I understand.
Ps: the bit about “can I touch your fertile cunt,” is fucking brilliant; if your write a book, I will buy it, and actually read it. (go commas!)
Thanks Jax. The “Intelligence Gap” isn’t so much a actual gap in how many smart people verses stupid people have reproduced, it’s a gap in how many educated people verses uneducated people have reproduced. So while I don’t count on our population getting any more idiotic than we already manage to be. I do think that it will get poorer as more and more children are born into poverty. So, still bad.