YOU KNOW YOU'RE NMNK WHEN... (16 INDICATIONS THAT IT'S TIME TO COME OUT OF THE NMNK CLOSET!)

1) People say to you "Isn't it about TIME you got married."  (Getting married because you've reached a certain age, making whoever you're dating into Mr. or Ms. "Right" because it's "time" and "settling" is to me, a ticket to Divorce and Single Parenthood.)

2) You work overtime while your co-workers with children get to go home to take them here, there, and everywhere, like to soccer practice and the Drive-Through for dinner.  (They assume you will "understand" and "won't mind" and so does your boss, but oh you do!  Being used at work like this is worse than when it's your family!)  Worse, some employers GIVE RAISES to those who have children, thinking "that man/single mother now has to support a family." Even though that person may be LESS PRODUCTIVE. 

3) You are also tapped to be the BABYSITTER or CAREGIVER for exhausted or broke friends and relatives who assume that your life is not jam packed with activities that are worthwhile.  They sometimes try to sell it as "bonding" or getting to know the child/children better.  They may even put guilt upon you as an aunt or uncle of the child if you are not eager to accommodate them being fearful that it will become a habit with them to dump their children on you.  These people often want free or discounted services.  Don't they know that you can like or not like someone else's child, love or not love someone else's child, but that THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD CHILDREN COUNTING ON OTHERS TO DO THEIR WORK FOR THEM or SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD CHILDREN THEY CANNOT AFFORD as in afford professional childcare?  Worse, some of them think that if you spend time with their children, YOU WILL WANT SOME OF YOUR OWN or that if you can't have children you want, that theirs will make that up to you!

4) Without your pre-knowledge or permission, you find yourself being "set up" for dates and meetings with people your friends or relatives think of as "marriageable" or "eligible" because they think the real reason you are unmarried is that you keep meeting people who have "fear of commitment" or who are just no good.

(I suffered the humiliation of going to a Thanksgiving dinner, only to find out it was a set up with a man looking for a wife.  He was not for me and I heard my cousin actually tell him I had a "fear of commitment!" as if to apologize for me and my lack of interest.)

5)  Some people think you have a"fear of commitment."  Though you may be committed to your family, doing elder care or the care of disabled siblings, committed to your education or career, or committed to your volunteer work or some other activity, the lie they tell themselves is that you don't just fear commitment with someone all wrong for you but commitment in general.  (One male friend of mine, the only son of two sick parents, put on hold dating and marriage for years, working full time and then coming home to care for them, until they died.  Would you say he "lacked commitment?")

6) Your friends who married and have children dump you because they prefer to socialize with other married with children couples.   At best they may invite you to a party or give you a call or send a card once in a while, but it's clear they don't relate to you any more.  (More than once I've had the experience of being invited to showers and weddings, and the last I hear from someone is the thank-you note.)  Basically they no longer value or work at being friends with you.  Sometimes they will continue to be friends with you until their children become out of control teenagers; this they say you just don't "understand" because you "never gave birth."

7) Some people think you are "immature" that you have not married and had children.  While becoming a duo with someone else probably is the best first step to having children and considered a Passage of Life, and maybe most people (still) do, maturity is not dependent on being a spouse or reproducing yourself.  Just look at all those teenager parents!  Some stay-at-home parents, in particular, are very immature.  Being isolated, removed from the world, and depending on someone else to develop a career and go out and bring home the bacon so you can fry it up in a pan, is a great way to become isolated and STUCK!  To mature you have to have a lot of life experiences, I think including supporting yourself for at least a while before you let someone else support you.

8) Your high school friend who has had four children now says "I had your share."  (Guess what!  I think anyone who can AFFORD more than two children, who really wants them, and can love them, respect them, and do right by them, can have more than two children!  This is not yet China with a one child policy that includes forced abortions.  I even think that there are some people who can do OK as single parents, like some of the actresses who have adopted and have a few million in the bank!  Still, most people today cannot afford a lot of children. )

9) Some people who hear you have never married or had children think "there has to be something wrong with her/him."  This has happened to me more than once but I did meet one older man who told me that not bringing along children to support could be a plus to some men who have already raised families or cannot afford to support more children.  Some people don't get it that when you hear someone is thinking of trying to work full time and support a child on their own, or that when you hear someone had children and then deserted them, that there HAS TO BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM like they have really underestimated their own ability to cope! 

10) You're suspected of being gay (and repressed) because you never talk about dating, having sex, or being involved with anyone.  Why not?  Besides being private, you're sick of some people always assuming that you're either terribly alone and lonely without a partner or that eventually you will "find someone" and hate it when they make TOO BIG A DEAL of someone you're probably not going to marry.  Besides, how much about your private life should you even be talking about at work or with people who you are friendly with but who are not friends?  You may not want to talk about dating, having sex, or being involved with someone because you just are not doing any of those things right now.

11) You're suspected of being a womanizer or player and maybe you are, but again, other people are looking for an excuse for why you are not married and childless that you are not looking for.  How many womanizers or players have no children?  I think few!  For men, traditionally, being thought of this way is more of a plus than it is for women.  It's been assumed that a sexually active man is at least ... normal.

12) When you travel or go on vacation, you find yourself paying a penalty for traveling alone.  People who share rooms get discounts as if they don't use twice as much water or make twice as much a mess or as if there aren't two beds in the room already!

13) When you go shopping for groceries, because you are buying food for one, you never seem to get the prize for spending a few hundred dollars a month, whatever it is, "gas points" or whatever.  Oddly the same stores are marketing "personal" sized pizzas, water melons, and other products.  (You really have to be careful because the price for these food items may be higher than if you bought in bulk.)

14)  Some people think that your beloved pet is your "child substitute."  (I hate to say it, but if you baby talk to your dog like I do they will be really sure of this!)

15) Jealous married people don't get it that being self supporting does not necessary mean that  you are "totally free" to "just go anywhere you want" as if having a spouse who doesn't want to or can't move is the only possible reason someone doesn't transfer all around for career or travel for work.  (Some of them think that being NMNK means you will be more desirable to employers but just the opposite is true.  Some employers like employees who live hand to mouth and have children to feed so they can enslave them and don't trust the more "independent" NMNK!)

16) You start telling people you are NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS.  "I'm NMNK!" you declare  and if you can't do so with pride, at least don't say it with shame.  There are so many ways to be NMNK.  As I say it can be personal choice (my case) or it can be fate, but whatever the reason, make the most of your life!


C 2014 NMNK - An Intentional Community/Sister  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

MY SHITTY GODMOTHER'S ONLY CLAIM TO FAME IS MOTHERHOOD

Recently someone reminded me of my GODMOTHER, who was once overheard talking against me.  She said "She's the kind of person who doesn't even like holding babies!"

I'm not sure how this got started as I haven't even lived near my Godmother for the majority of my life for her to see me or not see me holding babies but as a child, no I was not eager to hold other people's babies.  They seemed heavy, they seemed wiggly, and I was probably feeling as though  I might accidently drop the baby and be in big trouble.  After all I was still a child.   (Why do people thrust their babies at others to hold anyway?  Probably they feel they need a BREAK!)

She never said anything like this to MY FACE and I suppose I should call her on it, though what difference would it make?   She's now quite old.  She got fired as my GODMOTHER long ago; for years I was conned by her into believing that everything she said was the truth and learned that she has done a lot of PR in her time, and probably what was really behind her comment is her need to promote herself as SUPERMOM.  In case you are wondering, she never fulfilled the role of a GODMOTHER in my life.  She never was concerned for my spirituality and she didn't become a substitute mom for me when mine died.

For sadly, my GODMOTHER never had a chance to be anything else in this life but a wife and mother.  She never had any education past high school.  She never fully supported herself or worked a full time job.  She got pregnant before she got married but the marriage worked.  Being the mother of TWO is her claim to fame because they did turn out well, as have her grandchildren. I have no idea if she wanted more children.  I've always assumed that she only had two because that was the NUMBER GOD GAVE HER (along with some sort of preventive medical condition) or because at least she and her husband were smart enough to know that was all they could afford.  The doing well part is because they could afford college for their sons who could afford college for their children.

But then, as her children grew up, my GODMOTHER was the go to person for many of my relatives when they needed free babysitting services.  This was something my own mother actually didn't want.  I was not left at my GODMOTHER'S house to roam in a troop of village children.  Though we showed up to visit and attended many family events my same GODMOTHER calls this "We never really got to know you."

I suspect my GODMOTHER thinks there are all sorts of things I personally and my parents ought to be GUILTY about!

As a teenager I baby sat my fair share of children and some were still in diapers.  Most were not.  Most were OK kids, a couple were horrid, and the parents never paid anything close to a minimum wage.  That tells you just how valued mothering and child care was.  The three kids I babysat the most were really good kids, well behaved, respectful, sometimes fun. 

None of the children I babysat made me think "Wow! Someday I'll have my own!"  I suspect that my GODMOTHER thinks I am ABNORMAL because I'm NMNK...  And sadly people like me make for being an easy target for people like her.

C 2014 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot

HAPPILY DINING ALONE : OVERHEARING THE UNHAPPY DATERS : SISTER SPEAKS

Once in a while I enjoy taking myself out to a restaurant and dining alone.  So often I'm seated near a group of women who spend their entire meal bitching about dating and men that ruin the meals of everyone in hearing distance!

I was so provoked to say a few things to these young women about men and dating that they might not want to hear.  I said nothing but left as soon as I finished my meal!

They were unhappy with dating.  Why do it?  No one HAS to date!  If it's to meet someone to marry, perhaps they should ask their parents, older sisters, or someone that they respect to ARRANGE their marriages!

They were unhappy with men.  It could be the men they are meeting and not all men on this earth, but OK, let's say all men are basically defective.  Then try women.

Men had treated them all badly in some way.  That's terrible but has it turned any of them into feminists?  Hopefully they all know that when a person treats another person without respect it's time to end the relationship before it turns into SINGLE MOTHERHOOD with NO SUPPORT!

I wanted to know:

If they ever do the asking out and if so do they make the plan and pay?

If any one of them has discovered a pattern such as being dumped or being the dumped, or being the one who asks the other person out and being the one who leaves the relationship.

SUMMER IS HERE.  DON'T RUIN YOUR SUMMER OVER DATING!  Get out there, have fun, make friends, and maybe you'll also have a romance.  No one will come knocking on your door uninvited!

C 2014

WACKOS AT THE LAUNDRY ON MOTHERS DAY! CAN THERE REALLY BE PEOPLE IN A BIG CITY SO STUPID?

Recently, on MOTHERS DAY, a non event for me personally since my own mother has passed away, I went to do laundry.  Earlier in the day a couple other dog people (I try not to say owners) wished me HAPPY DOGGY's MOTHER DAY!   I said Thank You!

I wouldn't usually go to do laundry on a Sunday but news that we'd be going through another heat streak (while it snows elsewhere in May) was motivation enough.  Anything to beat the heat and be indoors.  Plus, I expected it to be vacant.

We got there and it was strangely packed with women and children.  I thought the Mothers would have the day off, perhaps be Queens for the Day, as their children spoiled them a little and gave them gifts and did the chores.   There they were doing massive loads of laundry including lots of children's clothes. 

Since my dog is not allowed inside the laundry I usually tether her outside in the shade while I load the washers and dryers and then walk her between loads.  There were some nice children who wanted to pet her and so I sat outside with her and supervised.  Soon another woman with a small child who she said was her Grandson came outside too and this Grandson was undisciplined and screeching and seemed to want to play too rough with my dog while the other children were so gentle.  I determined that I would not got inside while this troubled child was outside.  I felt that, though he might only be 3 or 4 years old, he was probably having some emotional problem. I didn't want him to smack my dog around.

The Grand Mom was a young Grand Mom.  She seemed to have supreme patience with this child or maybe she just ignored his bad behavior.  Now if I had children, which I don't and won't, they would be raised up and raised rights.  No brats for me.  Other people's brats are enough!

The Grand Mom got to talking to me.  Right in front of her Grandson and the other, gentle, children, children who belonged to other mothers, she started talking about some man she met on Craig's List.  She wanted my opinion, that being the opinion of a stranger, granted another woman.

She said that she had put a picture of herself up and it was only of her legs and feet.

Hmmm.

A man had contacted her and asked her if she had any stockings for sale.

You may be able to leap frog to the rest.  The woman had agreed to meet him at the gas station across from the laundry with a bag of her underwear, socks, stockings, and shoes "the more the heels are run down the better," he said, and sell these to him for $200. 

She wanted to know what I thought.

Now I may not be a Mother, but I have some strong opinions about raising children, and like many of us NMNK, there are those who have given birth who believe that because we haven't we are NOT ALLOWED to have any opinions about it.  At this point I was thinking "Lady, does it even bother you that you are talking about this to me in front of other people's children?"  The two boys who were out there because they wanted to play with my dog, ages about 3 and 9, were just listening.

I told her that she needed to be very careful, that if she was going to go ahead with this then she should take someone with her to meet him, preferably a man, and that she should then drive somewhere else but not directly home.  WHY WOULDN'T THIS PERVERT (a very not politically correct word!) not want a relationship with the woman who was selling her used undies to a man who would SMELL THEM?

She didn't have to say openly what this man was going to do with them but she did say "you know how some people like to get off when they're..." and did a hand gesture!

Really, she sounded intelligent but how stupid can someone be?  (I've had the experience of simply being friendly to a man only to learn later that he had an entire fantasy life developed about me, just because he wasn't aware I was involved with someone else!)

She then said she thought it would be OK because she planned to go to a thrift store to buy other people's underwear and shoes to hand over to him, as if he would be a repeat customer!

When I got home I realized this was BS.  They don't sell shoes that are smelly or very run down in thrift stores, nor do they sell worn undies.

Luckily she left, and the 9 year old boy looked at me.

I shook my head and so did he! 

"That lady had better be careful, I said."

As she was leaving the laundry I said, "Be careful.  Hopefully this is just an adventure."

She and her brat Grandson left and later I realized that maybe I should have stopped her from talking in front of the children!

THE CONFIRMED BACHELOR DOWN THE BLOCK

The Confirmed Bachelor Down the Block is probably not at all mysterious but in walking my dog I've met a log of single women who Wonder About Him.  They want to know if he has ever married, if he has children, and (though he is in a macho profession) if he is gay, or whatever!  Some are curious and some are looking for a man and think he's handsome.

I talk to this Confirmed Bachelor once in a while.  I pass by his house a lot because I walk my dog past it on my way to the store and I notice that he is a person who keeps himself immaculate and so is his house and yard.  He has the time and inclination to have everything clean and in place.

He is smiling and happy.  He has friends - male friends.

They seem to spend the weekends watching sports together.

He's hard working and up early to go to various job sites.

A few times he was on his porch with one of his male friends and me and the dog went over there to talk to them.  We joked and laughed a lot.

Then, he joked that he was "available," but the way he was joking, I wasn't sure.  Was he baiting me?  Was he making a joke of his Confirmed Bachelorhood?  Did he want me to ask him out?  Did he think I was only talking to him because I'm looking for a man?

Well, I'm NOT looking for a man, but I wouldn't mind making a new friend.

I backed off even making a friend of him.  For a few weeks I avoided walking that side of the street with my dog.

I thought maybe he would be surprisingly complicated if I tried to, that I would have to give him too many assurances that I was not trying to pick him up, date him, or be anything other than a platonic friend.  I thought it would be over doing it to go to him and say, "I am only looking for friendship."

Was he wary of me?  Is he "afraid of women?"  Now I may be more curious about the Confirmed Bachelor than most of the other women who want to know about him.

IF HE WANTS A GIRLFRIEND HE IS MISSING OUT ON SOME DECENT PROSPECTS!

Sister

CELIBACY AS THE "NEW SEXY?" A HOT TOPIC : IS IT ALLOWED? WILL IT PREVENT CHILDREN BORN OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE

HUFF POST : Sannon Colleary  full article  ON THE MARKETING OF SEX

EXCERPT: ..." read a fascinating article in the New York Times called "Life Without Sex" by the engaging French author and French Elle editor, Sophie Fontanel. The author took a 12-year hiatus from sexual congress... My first thought when I read this was, "Can you do that? Is that allowed?"  he writes, "At the beginning, I kept the fact that I had given up sex a secret, and nobody around me could guess how untouched I was. I knew perfectly well that people accept all kinds of sexual behaviors, just so long as you are doing something with your body."


MYBROTHA ; one Black persons viewpoint of Celibacy as Sexy  full article link  ON THE ISSUE OF CHILDREN BEING BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK IN THE BLACK COMMUNIT

EXCERPT: "It's sexy because it represents a total commitment to emotional, spiritual and intimate growth, and puts the worries and social pressures to have sex on the backburner. And while many people believe that abstaining from sex is difficult, faith-based dating sites like BlackCelibacy.com are dedicated to providing education and support for those who wish to explore celibacy.

With over 70 percent of kids being born out of wedlock, the continued spread of HIV/AIDS, and blacks leading the nation in divorce, BlackCelibacy believes it is important to work on fostering more healthy relationships in the Black community...."

BLACK CELIBACY COM  to check out that site, click here!

VOGUE : CELIBATE MARRIAGE


EXCERPT:"Celibacy is no longer a vexatious condition of religious life. It is now a considered choice individuals are exerting -- those not of the cloth or cloister but choosing nevertheless to gird their loins, test the frontiers of self-restraint and redirect their Eros towards other ends. Let's not forget, Gandhi and Freud did it."


ENJOY THESE ARTICLE! 

Sister

DO YOU HATE DATING? YOU CAN'T BE MATCH MADE

Is this you?

You can't be match made.  

When someone tries to match you, you feel uneasy, even angry.

You don't want to go out to clubs, unless you just want to dance or listen to the music, but you would happily hang at a table and talk, or dance and say "Thanks! but no Thanks" because you do not want to give out your phone number or ask for anyone else's number.  You do not want to pretend that you will call someone to see them again, unless maybe just as friends.

But you've noticed that when you say "I'm just looking for friends" most of the time you are not believed.  If someone is interested in you more than you are interested in them, saying that you're just interested in meeting people for friendship usually results in them trying to change your mind - now you're a challenge! 

So if you're simply nice, because you aren't trying to be mean, just honest, the whole club scene just results in follow up and follow through you aren't really interested in.

You're not anti-social.  You just don't want to date.  Not now.  Maybe not ever.  You need to get over you past experiences  or you need a break.  Maybe the problem is sex.   You don't like it or you want to wait until marriage or you think it's over emphasized.

Maybe you want to try going a year  or longerwithout having sex at all, because you find that sex seems to complicate things. 

You are not interested in meeting on the Internet either.  The whole experience leaves you feeling like you're in a beauty competition and marketing a product when you're a person.  It feels unnatural to you - and a time waster. 

Or you've tried it and it didn't work for you.  You spent your time meeting people who just wanted to e-mail, or who you met in person and didn't want to actually date you after all that.

IS THIS YOU?

Sister

(All original writing on this blog is C Sister/ Never Married No Kids Blogspot)

L'WREN SCOTT SUICIDE and FUNERAL : I'M ADDICTED TO THE NEWS COVERAGE! WHY?

I have a really lousy cell phone that won't download any apps, but it does have a news feed on it that you can program. I chose to follow the news of the suicide of L'Wren Scott, high fashion designer and girlfriend (?) of Mick Jagger for thirteen years closely.  I normally have the phone shut off all day, but I was checking that news hourly, all day, all night, and when I woke up in the middle of the night.

Not an especially fashionable person, I might not have heard of L'Wren if she were not associated with Mick Jagger.  In fact, I first picked up the news because I was reading a book about the Rolling Stones and picked up that they were on tour. 

The news was SPECULATIVE and REPETITIVE and therefore not much was new.  As usual I suspected that the speculation became the official word and that reports of family strife were probably exaggerated.  I thought how tough it must be to live your life and then have your death in the public eye, and the funeral is today!  (That is, if they have the tight security at Hollywood Forever cemetery in place.  I read guests will be delivered by car to tents.  The tents should keep the photographers from taking close ups of Mick and family and friends crying their eyes out.

WHY AM I SO HUNG UP ON THIS STORY?

Well, I think it has to do with something that I have not seen any coverage on, and that is that L'Wren was raised as the adopted daughter of a devout Latter Day Saints Family and I wonder if she is still a believer or what it is that she (or Mick) actually believe, if anything, spiritually,

My guess is that she left that religion long ago, the way she left Utah for Paris modeling or Hollywood Stylist work, or New York based fashion design.  One of the reasons I think this is that Latter Day Saints STRESS MARRIAGE, especially early marriage, and HAVING CHILDREN.  I think that there are more babies being born to Latter Day Saints Couples than Catholic Couples here in the United States.  I read that L'Wren was married to two millionaires before she chose to be not married to Mick Jagger for all these years, both marriages ending in divorce, who knows why.  She was career oriented or she had fertility issues or they did or maybe she didn't want to bring children into marriages that ended a couple years into it.

My feeling is that because she was raised in this conservative religion that expects marriage and children she may have felt a failure and that may have been more important a failure than a fashion business that needed loans or restructuring or bankruptcy.

I wish she were more FEMINIST!  But I think her feminine fashions were all about men and women having very different roles in life.

I too am speculating.

All for now,

Sister


C Sister/ Never Married No Kids BlogSpot 2014  All Rights Reserved.

UNMARRIED ORG FOR UNMARRIED EQUALITY - FOR GAY MARRIAGE

UNMARRIED ORG - FOR UNMARRIED EQUALITY  site link...

OK, one of my personal jokes is that the ONLY people who want to get married these days are GAY PEOPLE...