Oh, HELL no

Wonder what's got me fired up this morning? Here's a little hint:

"Why Bosses are Right to Distrust Women Who Don't Want Children."

W. T. F.

Full Disclosure: I do not have children. At various points in my past - and for long intervals - it would have been entirely inappropriate for me to have had a child and so I actively avoided pregnancy. When all the stars did finally align and my life straightened out, it turned out I couldn't have children - probably was never able even when I was spending a freaking fortune on Pills. To all you Pfizer stockholders out there, You're Welcome.

I also never felt that deep maternal spark that drives women to crave, to absolutely need children. I understand that I am in the minority, that many - if not most - women who can't have children feel horribly cheated and go to great lengths, at great personal risk - financial, medical, emotional, marital, you name it - to have a traditional family. I totally get that. I don't share it, but I get it. The point is, Hub and I chose to accept that we would not have children and we're fine with it.

This woman's argument is that women who choose not to have children are less responsible at work, turning up late and hungover. Really? Because the majority of women I've worked with over the last year have been childless. And on the two occasions when someone has shown up wildly hung over? In both cases they were mothers. Clearly having passed a placenta does not render you immune to The Demon Rum.

The author of this article also profiles childless-by-choice women as less loyal, less organized, less able to deal with crises, selfish and less generous.

Really? Maybe things in her society are completely backward from the society in which I live, but around here childless women are no less likely to work late, come into the office early, work through lunch, fight fires, organize office get-togethers, and remain loyal to an employer. And, believe me, they are no more or less likely to participate in office bitch-fests.

The uncited "research" to which she refers states that in the workplace, the childless woman is seen as odd and cold.

Apparently it did not occur to anyone involved in the research that childless women are not odd, they are different from what the "researches" and author apparently are accustom to.

You probably don't know many Buddhists. Are they odd or can you just not relate to them because they're different from most people in this predominantly Christian country/context?

You probably don't know many people who play the bagpipes. Because they've taken a less traveled musical path (than the more common pianists and violinists) are they odd or are they able to hear beauty where you only hear noise?

You probably don't know many women who own their own businesses. Do they contribute less to society because they have bucked conventionality and struck out on their own?

If a woman gets to a certain age and thinks, "Oh, crap, I'd better have a baby now or I'll miss out." - what are the chances that she's going to be a really great mother? She's having a baby because she's afraid of missing the boat. So after 9 months is she automatically gifted with "an essential humanity" because she's given birth, even if she had a child for selfish reasons?

What about women who have kids because they just think they're supposed to? I know plenty of women who have had children because they fell in love, got married, and were told by society that the next step was a family.

So they did it because they were supposed to, not necessarily because they wanted to. Are they More Human than women who understand and accept that maybe they might not make a great parent and decide to remain childless? Which is more humane? Which is more compassionate?

My childless colleagues and I don't go around screaming, "Discrimination!" when we have to cover for someone with sick kids. It's life. My life is different from your life, which is different from the next readers life.

So here's MY question: Why does this person feel it necessary to publicly poke a sharp stick at childless women? What is her motivation? If anyone in this scenario is lacking an essential humanity, it is her.