Ever run into one of those women who call themselves feminist and pro-choice, then open their mouth about how kids are subhuman and so are their mothers? Once in a blue moon, I come across that, but this random woman on Facebook really had me thinking. You see, she likes to call women who have kids “breeders” and kids “little shits”.
Now, at first I was angry. After a few minutes of realizing that she called herself pro-choice, I started thinking about what she said even harder. Then I LOLed like never before. After consulting with a very good friend of mine, we really wondered about those kinds of attitudes and how they fit in the pro-choice world. Survey says, they don’t.
First off, I think it’s awfully sad to be calling children little shits. My youngest is too young to be a shit, and really, if you so much as look at him all happy, he smiles like he is just so glad you are looking at him. My eldest, while she can be a lap crawler and likes the conversation to focus on her, is not malicious. She does not throw things, she doesn’t hit people, she does not pitch fits, and I scored a goldmine with the fact she behaves in public. For all intents and purposes, she is not a little shit. Even when kids behave like little shits, you should probably take into account that there are kids out there that may have a mental diagnosis that makes it hard for them to adhere to what we believe are “normal” social standards…or even if the child doesn’t have that working against them, maybe the parents deserve your scorn, not the kids. Kids are a reflection of their parents and they aren’t usually born little shits. But you know what parents don’t deserve scorn for? Being parents.
Breeder. I really hate that term. You know what I think of when I hear that term? Horses. Don’t ask me why horses, it’s just the first thing that comes up….and I am not a horse. I don’t breed children because someone made me or because it’s my purpose in life. I can admit to the fact that I cannot come up with a single practical reason why I had kids. When I asked my equal half why we had kids, even he shrugs and gives me a consonant free ”
Family Portrait?
“. I had my kids because despite being pro-choice and feminist, I love babies and small kids. There, I said it. I’m sure there will be some people more than happy to take my feminist card away now that they know that I squee at tiny humans.
But you know what’s less feminist than having kids because you want to have them? Levelling my choice to the point that you nullify a woman to her parts. We’re all a fan of pointing out Pro-Life rhetoric. We love pointing out that PLers treat women like they are not people, like they are nothing but the sum of their reproductive parts. They’re just incubators to these awful people. Well, what do you think calling a woman a BREEDER is doing? What do you think reducing children to excrement is doing?
It goes back to what I pointed out in my very first post. You can’t expect people to respect you as a person while you’re fighting for your rights and denigrating other people’s choices. You may think you’re being hardcore, edgy, current and totally badass. But in reality, you just look pathetic, angry, sad, immature and above all else, anything but pro-choice and/or feminist.
Then again, feel free to remain as visible as possible, because I don’t like assholes around my kids and if you’re easy to spot, it’s easy to avoid you.
I’m child-free by choice, and I’ve seen that kind of attitude among other CFBCers. And it really bugs me. When I’ve challenged those who refer to moms as “mombies” or children as “crotch droppings” they respond with the defense that CFBCers are often called selfish or unnatural, or even incomplete human beings for not wanting kids.
I’ve had such comments firsthand. And that’s really shitty too.
But that’s no excuse to be an asshole to parents!
No one has carte blanche to be an asshat, childed or child-free.
I’m always amazed by the amount of casual ageism and outright child-hate that goes on among my women friends, many of whom have consciously decided not to parent. I count myself among the planning-not-to-parent group, but don’t see that as oppositional to family life and really don’t seek a life sans children in my social world. I like being in age-diverse environments. But many women seem to take up child-hate as a defense against the pressure they get from family and friends (and strangers!) to get pregnant/parent as something “natural” to their womanhood. Saying “I hate kids” seems to have become, in many cases, shorthand for “I don’t want to be a parent.” I feel like this is a really sad state of affairs.
And Marie Anelle, I totally agree about “breeders” used as a noun. In the queer circles I move, this is an often-used derogatory term for hetero couples whether or not they are visibly parents. It’s frustrating. It sets up hetero couples as inferior because they have sex to procreate (as if they all do!) and reduces them to that aspect of their lives
. I try to call it out when I hear it, but it definitely remains popular and problematic. Argh.
This is really interesting. I’ve never heard anyone use the term breeder like that; it seems so incongruent, as you mentioned, with respecting women.
Apparently, there used to be a great gay club around here, with regular drag shows, but some hetero young adults decided it was trendy to start going. The place eventually became a hetero hangout, where LGBTQ people can’t feel as safe (harassed for dancing together, kissing, even holding hands). Now some young adults in the local LGBTQ community call it a “breeder bar.”
Does anyone know if, in certain contexts or regions, “breeder” is meant or received less caustically?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by marieanelle. marieanelle said: RT @TPoHarpyness: On “Breeders” and “Little Shits” http://bit.ly/h7CzSe [...]
” I had my kids because despite being pro-choice and feminist, I love babies and small kids.”
I don’t think there’s an inherent conflict between being a feminist and having children. I do think that there is a tendency to lash out and denigrate the ‘traditional’ choice when you’re still figuring out your reasons for making the non-traditional one, insecure about your own choices, or have your choice/integrity questioned repeatedly in a short period of time.
I’ve never wanted to have children and most likely will never want to. So I haven’t and probably won’t. When I was younger and recently married, there was a constant barrage of pressure to have kids and any indication on my part that I thought a child was cute would have added fuel to the litany I had to put up with day in and day out. This stressed me out and made me very angry, and the easiest thing to do was to lash out at the whole idea of having children, to avoid babies and children like the plague and act scornful of anyone who did have kids (and yes, I made references to ‘breeding’). Over time, I’ve understood that the reason I was so hostile was that I was afraid of my own ambivalence. I do like kids and sometimes I do think about having some, particularly in the company of friends who’ve made an active choice to have children. But I know myself well enough now to understand that that’s a passing twinge and that while babies and little kids are adorable, they’re not for me. Now when someone accuses me of harboring maternal feelings when I smile at a child, I shrug it off. But even four years ago, I probably would have become defensive or just not looked at the kid in the first place. I would not have had the wherewithal to say, ‘I just don’t want them’ and expect that statement to be respected as is.
It is in great part due to feminism that I can articulate and make the choice to not have children without feeling obliged to hate them or the women who choose to have them. That’s the point of being pro-choice. Yes your choice is not my choice, but my right to make that choice isn’t worth a damn if I don’t support your right to make yours.
As for ‘breeder’, the only neutral context I know of is when it’s a job description – ie, an animal breeder. It may be that some individuals or groups will use and receive the term less negatively, but you can say that about any term that starts life as an insult. And it is meant as an insult – whether it’s LGBTIQ people referring to straight couples or anyone at all referring to mothers.
I actually feel a little bit sorry for people who refer to children as ‘little shits’, ‘crotch droppings’, etc. When I was 17ish I would say that I didn’t like children, in fact I will admit to having said that I hated them. I was completely wrong, I ended up working at a school for children with special needs for a couple of years and grew very fond of the kids, and I’m now auntie to a 4 year old who I think is fun, funny, and caring, and I enjoy hanging out with her. Because this ‘little shit’ is a person.
I’ve lost where I’m going with this. But I’m now 24, have gone from very definitely not wanting kids to considering it as a possible future, and finding that my life is enriched by the children that I am in contact with. I think that anyone who dismisses all children probably hasn’t had enough contact with enough children, because if they had they would notice that they’re individuals. And some of them are pretty amazing.
I am never an asshole to parents. I am very consciously kind and thoughtful to parents out with their kids, hustling strollers and sippy cups and what-all. They have a helluva job, and the world is not really on their side.
But here’s the deal: I actually don’t enjoy the company of children. Not until they hit 10 or so, and the older they get, the more I appreciate them.
It’s not the fault of little kids, they gotta do certain stuff on their way to getting bigger, but what they need to do is not what I like to do. I like quiet, and order, and reason, and that’s not what little kids are good at. I have nephews, and yeah, they’re not little shits, but they are little kids, and I have limited patience for them just as I have limited patience for all little kids. It has nothing to do with being feminist.
Of course I’m offended when someone calls me a breeder, but at the same time, I totally understand where the defensiveness comes from. I agree with anna and Nadia that there’s a sense that if you give an inch, your family will try to take a mile. And the language from the patriarchy-enforcers can be so infuriating. I remember being pregnant with my son and being told by more than one woman at work that my life was “really starting” now. Really starting? Like the first twenty seven years didn’t count? I can totally see how that kind of talk leads to lashing out. Likewise, I was asked at my wedding reception when we were going to have kids. Responding with a strong never and insisting that I hated kids was tempting, although I don’t think anyone would have believed me with all that nanny-ing on my resume.
I guess my point is that, while it’s certainly not ok to denigrate other women’s choices, and it’s kind of ridiculous to hate children when you were one, I think it’s just an immature way of dealing with all the flack the childless get from so many people.
PhDork, my own mother doesn’t really like kids. I mean, she liked us well enough, I guess, but I don’t think she really enjoyed us until, like you said, we were about ten. We have a fabulous relationship now, but I definitely sometimes felt like she wasn’t very interested in me when I was younger. Likewise, she’s good with her grandkids, and she’s willing to babysit when we need her, but I don’t get the impression she really wants to spend time with them. Which is fine, and not a sign she’s an unnatural woman.
As a parent, I understand where the talk comes from. I was that way for several strident years, mainly as a rejection of patriarchy saying women SHOULD have children.
This post is awesome in pointing out how certain feminists see women who have kids as nonfeminists, because we’ve made a *choice* that is personal, but just *happens* to align with patriachal demands. One can’t claim to respect women’s choices while denigrating those choices as not the “right” one.
@Ms. M
Building on what you said about mothers having “made a choice that is personal, but just happens to align with patriarchal demands” … I think it’s pretty simplistic to say that people who have children have all made that decision totally free of social demands and constraints. I hear people who use exclusionary rhetoric re: children and parents defend themselves by saying, “hey, they made that choice” to have kids. But wow … we’re SO FAR from a society that gives people full reproductive justices and a full range of choices and support to pursue their choices fully. Reducing childcare and parenting to a “lifestyle choice” is to dehumanize children and turn them into mere accessories in my opinion.
I’m child-free by choice at the moment, but I hope to have children some day. And if someone criticized that desire or that choice and implied that it made me less of a feminist, I would be royally pissed and they would GET TOLD.
@Nicola: I completely agree with you about feeling sorry for people who refer to children as “crotch droppings” or “little shits.” All of us were children once, even the most strident child-haters. What does it say about people who so hatefully denigrate their former selves?
@Nadia: I’ve heard the term “breeder” used sort of self-deprecatingly by hetero people and with no malice intended by gay people. I don’t take offense at it in those contexts, but, yeah, I find it a distasteful term simply because it’s dehumanizing and because so many women are still unapologetically and unironically treated as breeders by the Patriarchy.
I’m childless by choice. (I hate the term “childfree” because it reminds me of the discourse on Newspeak in “1984″.)
I am not a parent largely because I have trouble relating to pre-teen children. Some people have the social skills to connect with people of all ages, and I admire them tremendously. I’m sure I’ll get better as I spend more time with kids. It’s all about practice.
My reticence around kids is not because there’s anything wrong with children whatsoever, it’s because I feel at a loss around them. That’s me, not them.
Unlike some “childfree” people, I don’t feel the need to project my social anxieties onto other people.
“When I was younger and recently married, there was a constant barrage of pressure to have kids and any indication on my part that I thought a child was cute would have added fuel to the litany I had to put up with day in and day out.”
Ugh, this is why it’s always bitter-sweet to see my nephews. It’s true that I find them adorable, but any kind of affection or attention I give them is automatically compounded with “aww look at her motherly instincts” or “I can’t wait till you have kids.”
It’s like dogs. Just because I think my friend’s puppy is cute, and just because I will probably spend the whole time sitting on the floor playing with it when I am invited over doesn’t mean that I would ever, EVER want one of my own. (Not trying to conflate kids with puppies, just to be clear.)
I also see a lot of misplaced anger and misunderstandings around this issue. If only people would MYOB about others’ reproductive choices and if only we felt powerful enough to call them out when they didn’t.
I was so happy to hit menopause and have enjoyed the cessation of questions about my own choices. Parents I know have been harassed or criticized for their parenting styles and pregnant acquaintances have had strangers poking their bellies. Even after all the prep including mandatory counseling (which vasectomy candidates don’t have to go through) my single coworker was quizzed on the exam table about why she was having her tubes blocked. It all sucks
What’s hard for me as a stay-at-home mom is constantly seeing my choices ridiculed all across the feminist landscape and the larger structural issues that sort of forced my choices ignored. One of the latest surveys done of military spouses showed that only 37% if us have full time work. Also about a year ago an Under Secretary of Defense stated in a press conference that military wives should be happy as hairstylists and childcare workers. The military spouse world was outraged but it seemed as if the feminist world completely missed it because we have basically been written off. It’s just frustrating because it seems like the feminist movement us doing a lot to support active duty women but then completely ignoring military spouses (who are affected by many of the same policies and out number active duty women). I think it is because a lot of things are assumed about us because of our ‘choices’.
Being a boomer (and too old for this crowd
) I wrestle with thoughts like, was my 50′s stay at home mom really unhappy, she didn’t seem like it. I love kids but hate dogs, I still call them endearing terms though and can see their cuteness though I don’t want one. I like social justice movements but think when ‘naming’ things (necessary for problems) cross over into people, its just another form of bullying.
I admit that I’m with PhDork on this one… I don’t really like being around children, except that my age limit goes up to 18 for most. I heard a saying the other day that children are like farts because you can only stand your own. While it’s callous to compare a living being with an inanimate, smelly thing, I have to say the theory seems correct. I really think that people have a hard time accepting other people’s children, and because of that we are much more critical of parents and parenting. We assume that if a child misbehaves, it’s the parent’s fault. I think that has a lot to do with the term “breeders.” That if you are making babies, it’s presumed that those babies then become your life and it’s your fault if they don’t turn out well. I’m having a hard time communicating my thoughts, but I do agree with Marie Anelle that it’s unacceptable to write a person off for the decision to be a parent. It’s insulting to classify them by one event in their life.
@2.5: your comment was not approved because it was egregiously hostile and snide. If you’re still lurking and can submit a comment that doesn’t attack everyone in this thread, feel free to try again. Otherwise, displays of judge-y assholery will not be approved.
@Feminizzle said: “I really think that people have a hard time accepting other people’s children.”
While I understand and largely agree with your reasoning re: how/why many people view the parenting decisions of others negatively, I have a couple of problems with the idea that folks in general are only accepting of their own children. The first is that this argument is belied by the many people who choose to work (paid and unpaid) as caregivers and educators for those under eighteen. Clearly, not everyone is put off by children to whom they are not — by blood or by law — related. The second problem with this view of children is that it dehumanizes them. Instead of viewing them as independent human beings who deserve to be approached in their own right as persons with whom you may (or may not) get along … you’re reducing them to possessions. You’re saying if they aren’t “yours” then they aren’t interesting to you. I don’t think you, personally, meant to frame the argument like that. But I just want to point out that — in my opinion — there’s something highly problematic about dividing the world into “my” children and “everyone else’s.” It objectifies children in the same way discourses of wife ownership objectify married women.
@annajcook: totally agree. In addition, I think the idea that no one truly likes anyone’s children but their own is pretty thoroughly refuted by all the adoptive, foster and step-parents out there who love and raise children who are not genetically related to them. Some people might have a hard time nurturing or even tolerating children who aren’t “theirs” but it’s by no means a universal experience.
re-reading my most recent comment, I can see I should stay away from the computer before coffee since I fail at spelling.
Yet again, we are letting our valid choices become points of contention among us rather than finding ways to support each other. and who wins when we undermine ourselves? Hint: it starts with a P.
No matter what you call yourself, if you indulge in this idiocy, you’re no feminist.
Pro-child, pro-choice, love kids, but also have used the terms “breeder” and “little shits,” etc. Have you *been* around hipster moms? Oy.
Trigger warning on this post.
Sorry I skipped ahead a little and I’m late to the party but I’d like to share some of my experiences on the frustration this, admittedly not so mature, response may come from in some people (not all, of course).
Personally, I cringe at derogatory terms like “breeder” for parents or children. Unlike some childfree people I’ve encountered I have no problems with parental leaves and other work-life balance and tax benefits for parents. It doesn’t chap my ass at all to help out at work when a co-worker needs to deal with childcare. But sometimes I know where people are coming from with this crap.
Here’s my personal experience. This is going to be long. I’ve been dealing with mild depression. At first it was managable so I didn’t go to a psychologist. I didn’t want it on my medical record. The pharmacy switched a medication that I was on to what for all intents and purposes was the exact same dose of the same chemical I had been on. Whatever the difference was, however, caused a nasty cascade of side effects that made my depression worse. (My doctor wanted me to wait out the side effects to see if it got better.) At about the same time many of my co-workers had recently had or were expecting babies. I had the misfortune of being the only non-pregnant woman at the end of a row of cubicles in a small company. On top of the usual have children crap from family, I was regularly harangued about having children at work. People were wishing pregnancy on me. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell them that their wishing pregnancy on me was, in my mind, the same as wishing lung cancer on me. I couldn’t tell them to shut the fuck up. That’s not nice. I certainly wasn’t going to tell them I was depressed. That’s none of their fucking business. My attempts to deflect the conversation or run to the lab when it was about to start did little. I began to dread going to work. Worse yet with my already bad mental state I started to worry about what if I was pregnant and couldn’t get an abortion. The slightest bloating or weight gain sent me into fits. I became suicidal. I had a plan for killing myself. I made sure that my husband would take care of my cat if I died. I put off getting life insurance because it’d be a waste of money if I killed myself. I still wouldn’t see a doctor for the depression. I didn’t want “suicidal” on my medical record. I also didn’t want to get the same shit from a doctor (oh, yes, they do this too). What did all of my tormenters have in common? They were all parents. As you can well imagine I did not have warm thoughts for them. They became cows/sows/dumb clucks. I wanted to do some sort of verbally smack them down, especially the men. Hearing “pregnancy isn’t all that bad” from a man is especially infuriating. Obviously none of them saw anything wrong with what they were doing. I was never so impolite to say or write any of this. I knew it was wrong to think of parents that way, but damn, they were destorying me with this and I needed some way to at least mentally get back at them. Why do I always have to be the nice guy? I internalized it. Others, obviously, don’t.
Things got better in the end. I decided it was worth the possibility of a note on my medical record to get help. My medication was switched back with a special dispensation. Somebody in the group took out a loan, bought a clue, and realized that I was upset by this and told some of them to back off. I, politely as possible, told off some of the others.
Here’s the thing: if someone tells you they don’t want children, be polite and leave it at that. Make some other small talk about the weather or a local sports team. Don’t try to convince someone that having children is great or the most important thing they can do with their life. You won’t be the one to make them change their mind. Only they can do that. You might be the one to push them over the edge of frustration into calling you a breeder or worse.
Yikes that’s long and ranty. Sorry.
VaS, thank you.
I see this issue the same way I see the “Real Women Have Curves” issue. It’s a reaction to oppression. It’s not the most productive reaction. It can be hurtful to those at whom it’s aimed. But I understand it.
Agree with both SarahMC and VaS on this. Since getting to know a lot more women who aren’t interested in parenting and have gotten a LOT of crap for it, I admit to being way more aware than I used to of the way in which motherhood is used as a weapon against women who choose not to parent. My friend Laura Cutter guest-posted on this subject over at my personal blog a while back.
Hugs, VaS. Your life is your business and no one else’s-unless you invite them in.
Count me amongst those who understand where this reaction comes from. I don’t condone it, but I get it. I also agree with MM: we point fingers and lash out at each other, and the big P just sits back and laughs and laughs.
@annajcook I understand what you’re saying and I actually agree. As Becky said, the rates of adoption and foster families show that there isn’t always an “othering” of people’s children. But in the circumstances I’m thinking of, it’s more like sitting on a bus/in a metro with someone’s kids running wild, in the grocery store with a kid wailing, basically the nightmare stories.
I agree that it’s a dangerous concept to dehumanize kids and see them as possessions but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen- I see it all the time in the parents around me. For example, someday I’d like to adopt a child (not a baby.) The first question I get from people is “why?” I’m perfectly healthy, why wouldn’t I birth my own kids? It’s seen as selfish that I wouldn’t want to experience pregnancy and they imply a risk at adopting a child rather than a baby. I have only come across one person who hasn’t criticized the idea and she was adopted. Even though our culture is very much, “it takes a village to raise a child” and I agree that there is a lot of evidence that people accept other’s children, I feel that there is still a stigma against adoption for the reason that they aren’t BLOOD relatives. I’ve even heard conversations where you would think a dog was being discussed, saying you don’t want to adopt older children because you don’t know where they come from and they could be “damaged.”
All in saying, basically, that I feel that the “othering” of people’s children is still a broad trend in our culture and a dangerous concept.
Sorry to the original poster- I realize that I’m slightly derailing the conversation by talking so much about adoption but in my mind it’s linked to the issues discussed.
Count me in as childless by choice but loves kids. I will hang out with your kids all day long and we will all have a great time. But then I get to go home and relax and have space to myself without someone else needing attention.
I also understand the breeder comments (although not the “little shit” comments – our snarky but fond phrase is “rug rats”). I first heard it used among my GLT friends to indicate straights. I accepted it as a reactive term – it was a result of/reaction to oppressive terms used to denigrate them. I think when childless straight women use it, it is also a reaction to oppression: having children is a privileged position under the big P (even though women are lesser on the P ladder, childless women are even lower), and sometimes people lower on the ladder lash out at people higher on the ladder, even if they are not the people they should be targeting.
I should note that I don’t use the term myself.
As to how I react when people say that I should have kids, well, I tell them that I’m the oldest of 12 and therefore I’ve already had the kids. I’ve done it all already, except the pregnancy, labour, and breastfeeding parts, thank you very much, and am now enjoying my freedom to be an auntie/pseudo grandma. I’m 40 yrs old now, so I expect that the societal pressure to have kids will eventually ease (even my mom has given up, now that some of my middle siblings have had children).
This really reminded me of the recent post on fluidity in female sexuality.
I think the same can be said of a fluidity of female motherhood and parenting identity.
Instead of picking an extreme (you’re incomplete without a child vs you’re a breeder tool unfeminist if you do) we can recognize there’s an entire spectrum of identity and thus experience for women in the realm of parenting and dealing with children.
For example, women can change their mins about having children at all (in either direction!), having birth/adoption/both, adopting vs fostering, caring for a relative or other loved ones’ child without their being an explicit or legalized “guardian” status (as many poor families already know and do everyday without enough help from our system, but I digress), being a parent to a human child and/or to our darling critters, being a mentor or favorite auntie to a child, and so on. One or MANY of these are options through are life, including further variations when you include blended families (stepchildren, including adult children who you become a parent to when you marry their parent), families where on or more parents/guardians is not het/cis/etc…and so forth.
We need to accept and promote motherhood/familial identity fluidity in addition to a fluidity of sexuality. It’s never just either/or with having kids, that’s way too simple of a way too look at it in the first place. And that even if a woman ends up wanting different things at different times (for example, having an abortion at one time, and carrying a pregnancy to term or adopting at a different time in her life) this doesn’t invalidate any of these goals/decision/urges and we should stop putting people in little boxes. (There’s a great Malvina Reynolds song about that, but I digress.)
Whew. Thanks for listening.
p.s. Not to mention, both extremes fail to take into account that someone may want to be a parent but not be able to biologically (fertility issues, meds they have to be on, psychological challenges) and/or via adoption/fostering, since they may not qualify financially or otherwise to adopt or even foster. So it’s pretty crass to assume it’s always a voluntary decision – women have unintended motherhood, as well as unintended non-motherhood.
@veganmarcy, I really like your point about the fluidity of caretaking identities. Most of us at one point or another have been cared for (as children) and will likely be cared for again (in old-old age, if not before). Similarly, most of us will care for others. We might care for children (in many different contexts), we might care for our parents, for a friend, for a spouse. And many of the same issues that come up about children and their caretakers in public spaces come up about those other people too … that is, elderly or ill people move more slowly, require special equipment, may need to be accommodated in inconvenient ways out in public, etc.
I feel like our extreme cultural reaction against children and their parents in public places would be alleviated somewhat if we recognized that all of us have needed, do need, or will need, to be accommodated at some point … as either a caregiver or someone who is being cared for.