There are a million things in my head right now, and that head was up all night. I’m tempted to not write at all, but that’s when the terrorists win.
I was looking at some photos people posted yesterday. The general theme is to write your personal hard-luck story out on a piece of paper and then photograph that alongside your face. It’s not unlike the smugly annoying photo essay that ran a few years ago where people apologised to “the world” when Bush won the presidency. Back then I think it was called “The 48%”{Correction–it was called “sorry everybody” No comma. Given that I think the whole idea was rather sorry, that lack of comma cracks me up big time}. Now it’s called “The 99%”.
I found the whole thing rather enlightening.* But I have to be honest. What I found most enlightening is that of the one hundred or so pictures I saw, three-quarters of them mentioned having two or more kids. You know the drill. “I’m so poor I can’t feed my five kids. I am the 99%.”
Why does everyone think having kids is going to be cheap? Cheaper than condoms? Cheaper than The Pill? Having Kids Costs Money. A Lot Of Money.
And like it or not, having kids is also a choice. So at some point you have to realise that one of the reasons you and your husband can’t afford to go out to the movies is in the crib in the corner. The other two reasons are on the couch watching Handy Manny. It seems sort of tacky to blame “corporations” for your life choices.
I’m so tempted to start a photo essay for those of us who are child-free by choice or circumstance. We could hold up pieces of paper that say “I’ll be able to pay for my own nursing home. I am the 18%” and “I have a fulfilling life pursuing my career and adult relationships. I am the 18%.” “I get all parental warm fuzzies I need from my dogs. I am the 18%.”
No, I don’t hate children. Not all childfree people do. (It’s a common misconception. Ha. Get it? Misconception. Infertility humour! Ho!Ho!Ho!) But I don’t “love children” either. Then again, no one ever says to me “You must just not like adults.” No….I evaluate individuals. Some I like, others not so much. “Children” fall under that category. There are those I’m crazy about, those I enjoy being acquainted with and those that I’d rather see dragged out of the restaurant and taken home where they belong and aren’t ruining my romantic dinner by screaming for chicken nuggets.
And right now I’m thinking this post makes me come off like Silas Marner and I should just delete it. But I’ll leave it up here because hey. It’s something to talk about. And I wonder also if people have an opinion on the Ken Jennings picture. (See below—->)
*I was lured into looking by a promise of a picture from Ken Jennings. Sure enough, the man who won several million dollars on a game show is a) crying poor-mouth and b) blaming “corporations” for stealing his “job” of being a “quiz show contestant.” Okaaaaay. Was $2.5million not enough? And doesn’t he realise that his bitching about $2.5 million not being enough really sort of mocks the people who are all “I had to steal this piece of paper from a nun because I’m so broke.”? NPR and other sites are playing it straight, but some folks seem to think Jennings is mocking the Occupy Wall Street movement. Either way, it was in poor taste.
Eh, you’re assuming that those people had the kids when they were already broke and jobless. The reality is that people with young children have been getting downsized for years, and that women with children have a harder time getting hired (in this case, re-hired, generally even for jobs that pay less than those they were downsized from) than women without. Look, I personally know people who have done dumb things with their lives, and are broke as a result. But I personally know more people who have done what we were always told were smart and safe things (living modestly, not running up debt, limiting family size, saving for college/retirement), only to find that when market collapses, job cuts, or major health problems came up, they were lost.
No. You’re assuming I’m assuming that.
I know full well that people hit hard times no matter what their choices. I’m living proof of that.
But I can’t just pretend that there weren’t gobs of people in those pictures whose hard-luck stories included their kids. In many cases they were using their kids as a sort of trump card for extra sympathy. “I’m broker worser than you because I Haz Kids!” That frustrates me on several levels.
I won’t pretend the economy hasn’t been done up the tailpipe by politicians who sold out stability in favour of their own electability. Or that the mortgage crisis wasn’t helped along by those politicians and the lenders who enjoyed the high style cruise right up to the collision with the iceberg.
But people do make personal choices. And they should expect to own up to those choices. Some babies are accidents. A lot of others aren’t. And no baby makes someone else’s woe more special.
Clearly I misunderstood what you wrote.
This is also assuming that the kids weren’t accidents when some method of birth control did fail, or that these people had access to condoms or the pill in the first place, or there wasn’t pressure to make a poor decision and have a kid anyhow (from family, partner, or another source).
Lack of resources is one of the reasons that most people are in the 99%. Having kids by choice kind of depends on resources, especially if you’re dealing with people firmly at the bottom of the 99%. If you can’t afford or can’t access birth control, it doesn’t do you much good. :/
Birth control DOES have a failure rate. Of between 1.5 and 12%. I know that. And I wasn’t assuming the kids weren’t accidents at all. I am assuming that people use their kids as bloody shirts in these things, which is gross.
And I’m sorry. But “I had a baby that will cost me upwards of $500,000–on the low end–over the course of my lifetime because I couldn’t afford $8.95 for a box of Trojans or bus fare to Planned Parenthood for free condoms” doesn’t really work for me.
Especially when the people who “can’t afford” even the least expensive BC methods can somehow find a way to pay for beer or cigarettes or cable TV.
Birth control is usually free at health centers (in response to Alii). I know. I’ve used most of it, and consistently, too. Four children later . . . All the birth control did was delay pregnancy, with a six year gap between my 2nd and 3rd child, before that 1% failure rate kicked in. But those are the odds, I guess. Sometimes God has different plans for us than we do, and since abortion isn’t in my list of choices for myself, I’m now a mother of four. And, yeah, children are expensive. That’s why my husband and I have had to take on extra jobs after our state politicians destroyed the state economy. When we had a libertarian governor, the economy was stable. But he got blacklisted for believing marijuana should be legal. Okay, so this goes way beyond the scope of my comment. Politicians don’t do these things alone. Usually, they convince people of why it’s a really great idea to spend more money on xyz because xyz is a right, damn it!! We are so full of our supposed rights in this country that it makes me sick. Okay, thanks for the rant platform.
p.s. I have to add in something funny. One of my young college friends got all wide-eyed and scared when I told her that, yes indeed, I was pregnant because pills and condoms have failure rates. But don’t worry, I told her. All the years of sex in between make it worth the while.
But Jill, from what I know of you I don’t think you are taking a picture of yourself holding a note that says “I have four kids and don’t know how I will be able to buy them food.”
There _is_ a lot I agree with OWS protesters on. I just don’t agree with people acting as though their personal choices have no bearing at all on their circumstance.
And the sad part is I would agree with the OWS for a lot of reasons, too. And, no, I wouldn’t take a picture of myself and give a sob story. Nope. But part of that comes from my upbringing by poor but hardworking parents who never blame their problems on anybody but themselves. My personal choice was involved in the sex and marriage part and in the part where I married an uneducated man (as in, not on a college career path, but working whatever job came his way).
@Nm no I was working on 45 hours without sleep and wasn’t clear with any of my points.
I am all OVER that photo essay! Just tell me when and where!