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.

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.

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).

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.

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.