7/13/19

OLIVIA CAMPBELL ON THE CENTURY LONG BATTLE TO DISPROVE THAT ALL WOMEN WANT TO BE MOTHERS


VICE: THE CENTURY LONG BATTLE TO DISPROVE THAT ALL WOMEN WANT TO BE MOTHERS   by Olivia Campbell


EXCERPT: The concept of maternal instinct had figured prominently in scientific theories since the time of Charles Darwin.  Late 19th century psychologists believed women possessed a unique need to create and care for offspring.  In the late 1800's experts attempted to use biology to shore up this theory, positing that maternal instinct was located in the female reproductive organs.

Hollingsworth (Leta Hollingworth, a psychologist in the early 1900's) wasn't buying it.  "There is no verifiable evidence to show that a maternal instinct exists in women of such all-consuming strength and fervor as to impel them to voluntarily seek the pain, danger, and exacting labor involved in maintaining a high birth rate.  We should expect, therefore, that those in control of society would invent and employ devices for impelling women to maintain the birth rate."

5/7/19

ROYAL BABY SUSSEX TO FULFILL THE NEED IN BRITAIN FOR BIRACIAL REPRESENTATIVE

Baby Sussex, a son, unnamed to this point and unshown to the public, is being commented upon in certain news articles as fulfilling a role that the British need, and that is as a royal representative of the biracial (or people of color) population.  Of course, people can't wait to see what he looks like.  Will he look Black?  What will his hair, his eye-color, and his skin color be? 

Fashionable and slim but "no spring chicken,"  Meghan Markle, the Los Angeles born and raised wife of Prince Harry, wanted to do a home birth and was educated and ready for this to be so, but being rather elderly for a first child, the 38 year old woman, a yoga practitioner, likely gave birth in a hospital. Markle, who seems to always be smiling, who always seems to be engaging, is not someone you can even imagine in pain.

Markle, a successful actress, retired that life for being a royal public servant, she and Harry eager to be present for an endless number of engagements having to do with making the world a better place.  Less burdened with protocols than his someday-to-be-King brother, Prince William, the wealthy Sussex's might even decide to have a home in the United States or live in Africa.

The speculation - the people placing bets - on this innocent child's date of birth, name(s), and so on, is what gets to me. It's like betting on horses in a race, dehumanizing.

I can hope that this new person will not feel any need to fulfill the needs of Great Britain just because he was born as he is.

C 2019  Never Married No Kids BlogSpot.

4/20/19

EASTER CELEBRATION OF FERTILITY

ARE you HOP HOP HOPING into BED?

Easter, all those bunnies, is a spring celebration of fertility.

The bunny, a rapid breeder, was selected for this reason.

Fertility was a necessity for much of human existence since the creation of a family as a support system was also necessary.  

Now many of us have a family of chosen friends instead.

3/19/19

COLLEGE SCANDALS and COMPETITIVE PARENTING

In past posts I mentioned that people with children often claim special status when it comes to dissing those of us who are NMNK - or simply NK.  We are not supposed to have an opinion about how others parent their children. We are sometimes even told we do not understand, especially when encountering brats, because we have not given birth.

The recent college entrance scams that have been revealed to the world in which wealthy parents got their undeserving children into colleges - especially elite colleges - through bribes, having others take tests for their children, even offering their nonathletic children for sports, has disgusted so many who are deserving, especially deserving and without privileged. 

It especially upsets me because it's ILLUSTRATIVE OF PARENTS WHO ARE COMPETITIVE WITH OTHER PARENTS, using their children to compete and imply status.  And it reminds me of being surrounded by people who aspired to PhD's at one time in my life and learning that most of them got this message early "To earn our love and respect, earn your PhD and make us proud."

At at time when the general public is having doubts about the value of a college education - and the investment of time and money in a college education - this scandal is about NARCISSISM - about parents who expect their children to be something to brag about for the rest of their lives.  

It reminds me of a friend who I'm no longer friends with who managed to outdistance her parents and grandparents though a hard won college education and a Fortune 500 job but soon moved into owning a house in an elite neighborhood where she took on the characteristics of every braggart in town.  Every encounter with a neighbor included bragging, letting people know how well, how educated, their children were doing, name dropping who they knew.  Using the children to compete started in kindergarten, the pride of the child getting a good grade.  But as in everywhere there are some students who are not so brilliant, not so talented, or simply not as mature or ready for school as others - a natural human variation - as well as those who truly need special education.  I often wondered how much more stressful it must have been to be one of those children who knew in their heart and soul that they could not compete in academics or sports.

C 2019 Never Married No Kids BlogSpot

2/4/19

THE "IN LABOR" ABORTION CONTROVERSY

I'm Pro-Choice.
Pro-Choice means everyone gets to choose for themselves.
Being Pro-Choice isn't the same as being Pro-Abortion.
You can be Pro-Choice without ever wanting to have an Abortion yourself.
Being Pro-Choice means that you understand that other people have different values.

Since this blog is about NMNK - Never Married No Kids people, contraception and abortion is a fair topic.  Because if you're a sexual woman, there's always a chance that your contraception will fail, or that you will be raped some time when you are not using contraception.  And then you have the choice to have an abortion.

I met a young woman recently who was very responsible at 18, both on the pill, and using protection,
She was raped by a stranger and has PTSD.
If she got pregnant by rape and wanted an abortion, an early abortion, I could understand that.

Women should not be punished by pregnancy.

At the same time, I must admit to you, third term abortions are already legal in many places, so long as you can find a doctor willing and afford it.  I know someone who did this, at about 7 months.  She'd been having an affair.  She was close to 40.  The man she was having an affair with was blond.  She and her husband black haired.  I accepted her choice.  From what I was told later, her extremely expensive (wiped out their life savings) legal third term abortion was carried out without anesthetic in a high rise building office.  She got the doctor's name from a clinic that does only first term abortions.

Still, I must admit that the thought of aborting a viable fetus, a fetus that is called a baby once outside the body of the mother, that can live and breath on it's own and is not likely disabled in any way, is upsetting to me.  Because there have been all those months before to make a decision and do something about it.

In actuality I think few women ready to give birth would opt to have their fetus aborted.  And few doctors are willing to do so, especially not openly.

Listening to discussions on this issue over the weekend on radio stations that are conservatively biased, I must admit also that I think the law is a prescient for other changes that we as a society would not like.

For instance, what about the pressure put on someone without resources to have an abortion.  This pressure can be put on a woman by a governmental agency, such as a welfare agency social worker through disapproval.

Though it is my choice to be a NMNK person, I realize that most people do not idealize this option.

I've met the women who were shamed and embarrassed by abortion clinic personnel because they could not come up with the money for their abortion early on.  In fact, my friend who had her 3rd term abortion many years ago had no way to get the money for an earlier abortion.  The financing is what sometimes makes women wait.  I said that she used her and her husband's life savings to pay for the third term abortion.  She needed to get him on her side for this and he did.  He never spoke about it with her again.

She didn't tell him she was having an affair.
She said she had not suspected she was pregnant and thought she was going into menopause.
She said she was worn out from caring for their difficult child already and felt too old to do another 20 years of childcare.
She said she had been using cocaine and other illegal drugs.
All the doctor wanted to know, off hand, was why she waited.  She lied about the cocaine and other illegal drugs to him too.

Today there are so many contraception options.
Yet it is true that many women cannot take the pill or find certain methods difficult.
So unplanned pregnancies happen.  A lot.

If you're sexual, you MUST have communication and agreement on what happens if.

C 2019 Never Married No Kids BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved


1/26/19

WARNING! VALENTINES DAY IS AHEAD

Valentine's Day is ahead and already NMNK are feeling the societal pressure to be included in the mushy love fest that this day has become.  Not dating?  Not interested in dating?  Have no one "special."  Haven't "made love" in ages - especially because you only attract people who see sex a different way? Well, consider that there are many ways to love and that includes PLATONIC.

Valentine's Day does not have to be about long stemmed red roses, candlelight dinners, or presenting yourself for sex wearing silk undies or something wicked and stupid from a lingerie store.

Spend it with friends.  Or don't go out at all.

Send only the people you really care about Valemtines or chocolate. Such as your siblings or you dad.

Women feel more pressure than men to do SOMETHING for this day.

Men who are heterosexual feel weird to remember their men friends for Valentines.

So the pressure is on Men to celebrate this by "treating" the Women in their lives.

Men, if you ARE dating, if you are having SEX, if there is someone special who qualifies to be remembered...

If you DO NOT, chances are the relationship will be OVER or at least DOWNGRADED.  You'll be considered cheap if you forget.  But I caution you NOT to say you love someone (or give them that impression) if you DO NOT.

1/15/19

BROKE NOT CHEAP - AND WHY I DO NOT WANT A MAN

Why is it that when a man hears that I need (to earn more) money, he recommends I need a man?
No man has ever paid my bills.
Why start now?

And why would I need a RELATIONSHIP in order to be INDEPENDENT?

It's not that I don't need people.

I must say that when you cultivate other people who depend on you being independent, they may interpret your unusual need as neediness or codependency and go away.

I don't like that.  I'm not like that.

One kind friend says he knows I'm "Short" right now.

I'm conscientious about that though.

I don't believe in lists and keeping things even compulsively but I give back when I can, in my own way.

He is not a "boyfriend."

Today I was lunching when a man struck up a conversation with me.

When he said I needed to get a man I felt he was trying to advertise himself. (He was not at all attractive to me by the way but I feel sure that I would have said the same thing if he were.)


I said, "Not at this time of my life."

"But you NEED someone," he said.

"I have friends," I said.

He said, "But are they the kind of friends who will take care of you?"

He meant take me in.

I have been taken in by friends in the past.

Generally it didn't work so well.

I didn't say that.

I did say (and this is the truth) "All my friends have taken someone in."

C 2019  Never Married No Kids BlogSpot



12/28/18

WOOPS...DID I MISS CHRISTMAS? MARRIED PEOPLE WHO FEEL ALONE IN THEIR MARRIAGES

I certainly missed POSTING for Christmas.  The Holidays. 

So I have to admit to you, I've been feeling a bit alone, maybe not to the point of being lonely, and certainly not to the point where I thought "Gee it's all my fault that I didn't get married and have children."

Well, I had to be reminded that being married doesn't mean you never experience loneliness.  In fact it's probably awful to be MARRIED and feel ALONE IN THE MARRIAGE.

Before I could feeling sorry for myself,  I realized my two newest friends are in need of a person like me to go places with them because their partners (one in a same-sex marriage) are so busy with work and other friends and activities that do not include them.  Not that they would stop their partners from having friends or activities that they aren't interested in, but both of them admitted to me that they spent many hours alone.

My friend in the same sex marriage has been with his husband, the income earner, for 20 years.  He helped raise the man's daughter, now grown, being the one who drove her and picked her up for school and other activities.  His partner is a professional who seems to always take on more in his profession.  Sometimes, in order to spend time together, he goes on rides to this man's meetings, then finds something to do like go shopping while he's in there.  He has been like a traditional stay at home wife, making a beautiful home and so on for them so that the professional really only has to come home.  I encouraged him to speak up and say they need more quality time together, but he will not.  He says usually he likes all the alone time he has.

My friend in the opposite sex marriage married a man who she knew as a coworker for 35 years, someone who was married for 20 of that to someone else.  He's a man who lives up in his head and is rather uncommunicative overall.  I see how she always goes to him and tells him she loves him before she leaves the house.  I know they most often sleep alone for practical reasons.  Their house is rather quiet and she says she is not much of a talker - but she is with me.
One day I got a text from her saying that someone she feels alone in the world.

Neither relationship is likely to end in divorce. These people have accepted the limitation of their partnerships. 

As I must too.

Because when the partner actually wants to spend some of that quality time, one way or another I will be cancelled upon or put on hold.  I understand it.  I do.  So far I haven't been offended. 

Yet, it is also nice to have other unpartnered friends who won't do that to me.

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