Opinion columnist Christian Trejbal writes in the Roanoke Times that President Bush's tax policies favor people with children:
President Bush and the Republicans who control Congress have a soft spot not just for the wealthy but also for married couples and families. Six years of tax cuts have lightened the civic burden on both demographics, shamelessly shifting it onto low- and middle-income households, especially the ones with young, single taxpayers.
Wow. It seems like the the growing ranks of the childfree have snuck up and bit Australian journalist Paula Pidcock on the sensitive behind! In her painfully defensive column, she tries to paint a rather nasty portrait of your average childfree grocery shopper:
You know the look. You've seen it before. There you are at the shops buying food because if you don't feed the kids the neighbours will call DOCS.
There is no nanny. There is no housekeeper. There is no PA to do it for you. You are just an ordinary person going about your business. So there you are, and you feel it. The glare. The evil eye. You dared bring the children out. I know the child hater; they lurk everywhere. For those unsure of how to behave, here are the rules: the Commandments for the Childless.
What follows is 12 (count 'em, 12) commandments for the childfree, delivered bitter tongue in wounded cheek.
OK, so everyone around you is having babies. And so, naturally, you think to yourself: What's wrong with me? Why am I not having babies? Here's something to answer your question, courtesy of the New York Times:
"... last week, a channel called BabyFirstTV, initially available to DirecTV subscribers, became the first 24-hour cable and satellite network to offer programming aimed at viewers between 6 months and 3 years old. "
Imagine, you're home and your tot is sitting googly-eyed in front of the television. What's on? Again, thank you NYTs:
"... when an on-screen graphic introduces a segment about giraffes, you can expect several minutes of grazing herbivores, and when a cartoon jigsaw puzzle assembles itself, you'd better believe its pieces will try every possible configuration before the picture is complete."
If you're childfree, the answer is obvious. But this terrific column from the L.A. Times titled "Sex is Essential; Kids Aren't" provides some fascinating explanations from the field of evolutionary biology that explain and validate the choice to make love, not babies:
People are inclined to eat when hungry, sleep when tired and have sex when aroused. But in most cases, we remain capable of declining, endowed as we are with that old bugaboo, free will. Moreover, when people indulge their biologically based inclinations, nearly always it is to satisfy an immediate itch, whose existence is itself an evolved strategy leading to some naturally selected payoff. A person doesn't typically eat, for example, with the goal of meeting her metabolic needs but to satisfy her hunger, which is a benevolent evolutionary trick that induces the food-deprived to help out their metabolism. For more than 99.99% of their evolutionary history, humans haven't had the luxury of deciding whether to reproduce: simply engaging in sex took care of that, just as eating solved the problem of nutrition. But then something quite wonderful arrived on the scene: birth control. Because of it, women (and men) can exercise choice and, if they wish, save themselves the pain, risk and inconvenience of childbearing and child-rearing, indulging themselves rather than their genetic posterity.
It's worth reading the whole column, especially if you need fodder for those silly arguments over whether humans are biologically programmed to procreate. [LINK]
Ooooh, this is the sort of thing that makes BNOB's blood boil!
From Raleigh, North Carolina: Vernon Robinson, the Republican running against Democrat incumbent Brad Miller in the 13th Congressional District, has sent out a mass-mailing that's raising eyebrows. In the flier, Robinson, who opposes gay marriage, seems to imply that Miller might be gay.
Robinson's flier says, "Brad Miller&is childless [and] middle-aged." Miller's wife, Esther Hall, believes it is an insinuation that her husband is gay.
"Which is a great surprise, since we're about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary," she said. "I think it absolutely crosses the line."
About the couple being childless, Hall says they are physically unable to have children.
If not having children--whether by choice or due to physical reasons--is reason for political smear, then clearly we have a long way to go towards making our choice as socially acceptable as changing your baby's diaper in public. [LINK]
