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I get so tired of this conversation...
May. 17th, 2010 02:55 pmThis is a rather infuriating thread on Feministe, entitled "On Hating Kids".
Now, I'm friends with a few child-free folk. I am fine and down with being child-free. I am even understanding if someone doesn't like to have children in their lives. You know what? That's great. You go with that, it's your right.
But with all things, one person's rights end where another person's rights begin. And children are people, they have rights. They have a right to go out into public. They have a right to eat at restaurants where there is no age restriction. They have the right to see movies, go shopping with their parents, to run down a street and enjoy the sunshine.
Of course, this view is not touching the very real pressure women feel to live a heteronormative ideal. I've felt that pressure plenty of times. I didn't want kids in my early twenties and often balked at the thought of being a mother one day. I'm not even talking about the preference society places on people that have children - I understand that is a real and frustrating thing for those without children.
But I always maintain that one should keep their frustrations focused where they belong. Children do not choose the way society treats them. They have had a tragic past where they have been exploited, sold, used, abused and treated as subhuman. This is something that still goes on today in certain parts of the world, some not so distant as you'd like to think. It is only recently that they're starting to gain the rights they deserve. The last thing we as a society should do is step backwards and discriminate against people who can't help the fact that they've not had the time to grow up yet.
ETA: Public space is not our space. Children, the elderly, and people with disabilities don’t use parks, restaurants, stores, museums, and theaters at our indulgence, because it’s not our space. It’s everyone’s space, and everyone has an equal claim on it. -- This excellent post that says exactly what I meant to say but much, much better than I did.
Now, I'm friends with a few child-free folk. I am fine and down with being child-free. I am even understanding if someone doesn't like to have children in their lives. You know what? That's great. You go with that, it's your right.
But with all things, one person's rights end where another person's rights begin. And children are people, they have rights. They have a right to go out into public. They have a right to eat at restaurants where there is no age restriction. They have the right to see movies, go shopping with their parents, to run down a street and enjoy the sunshine.
Of course, this view is not touching the very real pressure women feel to live a heteronormative ideal. I've felt that pressure plenty of times. I didn't want kids in my early twenties and often balked at the thought of being a mother one day. I'm not even talking about the preference society places on people that have children - I understand that is a real and frustrating thing for those without children.
But I always maintain that one should keep their frustrations focused where they belong. Children do not choose the way society treats them. They have had a tragic past where they have been exploited, sold, used, abused and treated as subhuman. This is something that still goes on today in certain parts of the world, some not so distant as you'd like to think. It is only recently that they're starting to gain the rights they deserve. The last thing we as a society should do is step backwards and discriminate against people who can't help the fact that they've not had the time to grow up yet.
ETA: Public space is not our space. Children, the elderly, and people with disabilities don’t use parks, restaurants, stores, museums, and theaters at our indulgence, because it’s not our space. It’s everyone’s space, and everyone has an equal claim on it. -- This excellent post that says exactly what I meant to say but much, much better than I did.
