The general decline in standards today

[LizzieMaine]

That's one thing I've never really gotten any lip over. Childlessness is the norm among my personal circle, for various reasons -- economic, medical, sexual orientation, or they just don't like kids -- and it's not something that ever comes up in everyday conversation with people outside that circle. Again, in New England culture, you just don't get into that stuff with people you don't know well. It's considered pushy and crass to bring it up.

 

[ChiTownScion]

There are people out there for a myriad of reasons who should not be parents, and the ones wise enough to admit that will always win my respect over those who approach parenthood with starry eyed cluelessness.

 

[Dennis Young]

If you admit to being a Christian, whichever denomination, on this side of the pond, at best it would get you patronised, worst cast though, you're a weirdo. Religion has become such a hot potato that it's only ever spoken about in hushed terms.

One subject I have learned to keep my mouth well and truly shut about, is that of children. More than once I have been questioned why I don't have any. It seems to rankle some parents that two people can get married with the intention of living childless. I have respect and admiration for parents, forever juggling their family needs, but that's not for me.

Two of my three siblings feel the same. One of my sisters has no children and is happy being a crazy cat lady, a brother had just one child, born twelve years after they married, not planned but much loved. It's probable that our childhood coloured our outlook on life. Mother died just before my tenth birthday. Dad not only raised four small children, I am the eldest, he had to fight the authorities all the way. In the 50's it was inconceivable that a man was capable of doing such a thing.

"Got any kids?" is an innocent ice breaker of course, A question I turn around: "No, what about you?" I will hear about their children and then just carefully guide the conversation away from the subject.

I’ve wondered about the view of religion over there. I suspected as much but didn’t know for sure. Its too bad.


As for being Childless. Try being my age and being unmarried. People whisper. I used to want to get married, but honestly, at my age, I really don’t want to. I’m happy being single. I do miss not having kids though. I like kids. But yeah, I suspect people wonder why I never married or had kids. Thankfully no one has had the gall to bring it up. But I do feel like they wonder.


And around here, the sad fact is that when you have never married, like me, you do have to be cautious about what you say, how you say it, where you go and what you do.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the things worth noting about at least part of the Era is that there was a lot less public combativeness about religion than there is now. There were the fundamentalist/modernist wars of the Twenties, but these were largely regional -- most of the country looked onto those controversies as spectators, not as direct participants. In general, the religious mode of the period was gently ecumenical -- someone who disagreed with your particular brand of theology wasn't assumed to be enemy to be struck down, or an infidel to be converted. There was a lot of public curiosity about how various faiths were practiced -- there was a long series of articles in the Saturday Evening Post during the 1939-40 period by religion writer Stanley High reporting on the beliefs and activites of many different non-mainline denominations. These articles were, for the most part, fair-minded and respectful in treating these believers not as anomalies, but as part of the overall religious diversity of the US.

There were certainly exceptions -- the Jehovah's Witnesses, who considered flag saluting to be idolatry, were treated brutally by mobs during 1940 and 1941, and there was a vicious thread of American anti-Semitism that grew out of the Ford-Cameron/Coughlinite/Catholic Action/America First movements during the late prewar years - but in general, "live and let live" superseded any differences of creed.

If you had proclaimed, in an abrasive and Dawkinsish way, that you were an atheist you might have generated some unpleasant responses. But there were plenty of atheists and agnostics around, and there were plenty of books and articles being written about non-belief -- if anything, the trend was already moving in that direction with the increasing faith in science and technology as the real hope for the future. Technocrats of any sort seldom had much use for spirituality, but they weren't viewed as threats to the American way of life for that non-belief, and they didn't tend to view believers as an obstacle to progress.

 

[HudsonHawk]

My wife and I have no children, due to Mother Nature. I've been asked countless times "Why...don't you like kids?" "Are you afraid of the commitment?" And the ubiquitous "you'll regret it later in life." I've even been told by more than one person that my marriage is an abomination before God because we are childless. I've learned to let it go, though I really, really want to tell someone "her insides are a rocky place, where my seed can find no purchase." My wife says she'll take the rolling pin to me if I do.

 

[dh66]

One subject I have learned to keep my mouth well and truly shut about, is that of children. More than once I have been questioned why I don't have any. It seems to rankle some parents that two people can get married with the intention of living childless. I have respect and admiration for parents, forever juggling their family needs, but that's not for me.

I managed to avoid parenthood until I was nearly 40, so I am familiar with the disapproval of those whom it's none of their GD business anyway.
Now, I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I have half a dozen, and the comments from the peanut gallery are just as unwecome. "Are all those yours?" or "You ought know what causes that by now, heh heh." (I wish I had a buck for every time I've heard that one)
I have one kid who's adopted, and she, obviously, doesn't exactly look like the rest of 'em. You should hear some of the comments and questions about that. Why in the world random strangers should even feel compelled to comment is beyond me. The uptick, at least, is that I can bring a conversation to an uncomfortable silence when I calmly explain that they don't all have the same mama.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's an inordinate number of bookish young brunettes with glasses on the staff at the theatre -- purely coincidental, I assure -- and every once in a while a patron will notice the resemblance and the way we tend to interact with each other, and I'll get asked "Are they/is she yours?"

I usually reply "Only by indenture."

 

[jamespowers]

My wife and I have no children, due to Mother Nature. I've been asked countless times "Why...don't you like kids?" "Are you afraid of the commitment?" And the ubiquitous "you'll regret it later in life." I've even been told by more than one person that my marriage is an abomination before God because we are childless. I've learned to let it go, though I really, really want to tell someone "her insides are a rocky place, where my seed can find no purchase." My wife says she'll take the rolling pin to me if I do.

Parents are probably the worst for that.
I was married for ten years before we decided to have children so I saw both sides of the issue. My favorite is when some dumbass thinks that you have nothing to say about children’s issues---education etc---just because you don’t have children. Great. You just want me to pay for your rat kids to go to school etc. but you don’t want me to have a say about how it is spent?

 

[Dennis Young]

Exactly.
I was wondering also, how do you guys handle , say, being in a restaurant or maybe a Dr’s office, and someone’s kids are just running wild and out of control? So if they are loud, unruly, whatever. And maybe the parent does nothing to stop it. I always want to say something to the kid or the parent. But I usually don’t.
I remember going to a Dr when my dad had Alzheimer’s and someone’s kids kept bothering dad. He could no longer speak and it was clear the kids were stressing him out. I wound up taking dad outside the waiting room to sit with him alone in the hall.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If they're little kids, and they usually are, I make faces at them -- nothing grotesque, just enough to catch their eye. That usually makes them stop whatever they're doing and gaze with puzzlement at me, and they forget what they were doing. If the parents notice me doing it, they'll take the hint and bring the kids under control.

If it happens at work, I have the advantage of being in charge of the place. If I see kids running on in the lobby or on the stairs, I have no problem at all with barking "No RUNning!" in a cast-iron voice that will carry all the way out to the street. That usually embarasses the parents into taking charge of the kids.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

What I hate is when I'm out eating somewhere and some 2-4 year-old in the next booth is staring at me. It really creeps me out.

 

[Bushman]

I was wondering also, how do you guys handle , say, being in a restaurant or maybe a Dr’s office, and someone’s kids are just running wild and out of control? So if they are loud, unruly, whatever. And maybe the parent does nothing to stop it. I always want to say something to the kid or the parent. But I usually don’t. I remember going to a Dr when my dad had Alzheimer’s and someone’s kids kept bothering dad. He could no longer speak and it was clear the kids were stressing him out. I wound up taking dad outside the waiting room to sit with him alone in the hall.

I usually ignore them, but if they're really being obnoxious, I'll either do what LizzieMaine does with the faces, or I'll get the parents attention and silently direct their gaze to their kids in an effort to quietly say "Tend to your kids, please!"

What I hate is when I'm out eating somewhere and some 2-4 year-old in the next booth is staring at me. It really creeps me out.

lol Actually, I find this somewhat cute if the child is really little, like 2 or 3. I'll usually smile back at them, or make a funny face to make them giggle.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Exactly.
I was wondering also, how do you guys handle , say, being in a restaurant or maybe a Dr’s office, and someone’s kids are just running wild and out of control? So if they are loud, unruly, whatever.

You mean aside from remarking in a W.C. Fields voice, "How'd you like to go for a piggy back ride on a buzz saw?" I usually start by thanking the powers that be that it's someone else's kid.

 

[jamespowers]

What I hate is when I'm out eating somewhere and some 2-4 year-old in the next booth is staring at me. It really creeps me out.

Children of the Corn.

 

[HudsonHawk]

My favorite is when some dumbass thinks that you have nothing to say about children’s issues---education etc---just because you don’t have children.[/SIZE] Great. You just want me to pay for your rat kids to go to school etc. but you don’t want me to have a say about how it is spent? [/FONT][/COLOR][/B]

I hear that one quite a bit..."you don't have kids in school there, why do you care?" Because I'm paying for it.

 

[jamespowers]

Exactly.
I was wondering also, how do you guys handle , say, being in a restaurant or maybe a Dr’s office, and someone’s kids are just running wild and out of control? So if they are loud, unruly, whatever. And maybe the parent does nothing to stop it. I always want to say something to the kid or the parent. But I usually don’t.
I remember going to a Dr when my dad had Alzheimer’s and someone’s kids kept bothering dad. He could no longer speak and it was clear the kids were stressing him out. I wound up taking dad outside the waiting room to sit with him alone in the hall.

I usually do this:
https://youtu.be/t7Y49bLVeN0

 

[jamespowers]

I hear that one quite a bit..."you don't have kids in school there, why do you care?" Because I'm paying for it.

Exactly! I still do even though I pay EXTRA to send mine to private school because the ones I am paying for SUCK.:doh:

 

[Jack Vincennes]

My girlfriend of 18 years and I also decided early on not to have children and have found that, that decision can provoke some people so, like you, we turn it around immediately, ask sincere questions of interest about their children and it seems to abort any issues. It seems, at least this has been my experience, once they see that we have interest in their children and are positive about children in general, they are comfortable.

I have a very close friend who has children and I've told him about this phenomenon and he says that it is, in part, because parents invest so much time, energy, emotion and money into raising their kids that some feel defensive if somebody else has made a different decision - he says that there is so much invested in the kids and it is wonderful but exhausting, that some parents get preemptively defensive if you don't have kids because they think you might be questioning their decision to have them. That's his opinion, I'm not sure, but I put it out there.

I do know that, like you, I redirect the conversation away from why we don't have kids as fast as possible and things seem to go better.

Pardon me butting in, Gents as I am knew to these parts. One of the things that was very lucking in my then wife and I finding each other was that neither of us wanted children. Nephews great our own. Not so much. My office was going through a rather voracious spat of breeding and one day a colleague stopped by and asked when I was going to have children and I just replied, "Well, that would take a rather massive failure of medicine and science." She blushed, and turned on her flip flop and walked away. That never came up again. Lots of our friends found it hilarious that we just acknowledged martinis in hand that we would be horrible parents. In a household of a Cubs and a Red Sox fan, how would those poor devils have turned out?

 

[Zombie_61]

My wife and I have no children, due to Mother Nature. I've been asked countless times "Why...don't you like kids?" "Are you afraid of the commitment?" And the ubiquitous "you'll regret it later in life."

My wife and I also have no children. We were married for about a week when she asked, "So when can we start a family?" My response was, "Listen, this is California. [She grew up in northern Illinois.] Let's wait to make sure we (i.e., the marriage) are going to last, then we can talk about kids." We had discussed children before we got married and agreed we would eventually start a family, but made no real plans for it at that time. Ultimately, we decided "If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn't, it doesn't." It didn't. When we were younger and were asked about children, we would explain this to whoever was asking and that seemed to satisfy their curiosity. Now that we're in our mid-50s and have been married 33 years, we simply say "It (having children) just never happened," and the person who asked usually spends the following several minutes apologizing for having broached what they assume was/is a sensitive subject.

What I hate is when I'm out eating somewhere and some 2-4 year-old in the next booth is staring at me. It really creeps me out.

This happens to me a lot; I assume it's because I look far more like a "missing link" than their usually more clean-cut fathers. It doesn't bother me, and I'll usually try to interact with them in some small way--smile or wave at them--always from a bit of a distance so that they and their parents know I'm not a threat. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they "play shy" and turn away, and sometimes they simply continue staring, but they always get bored eventually and find something else to entertain themselves with.

 

[GHT]

Exactly.
I was wondering also, how do you guys handle , say, being in a restaurant or maybe a Dr’s office, and someone’s kids are just running wild and out of control? So if they are loud, unruly, whatever. And maybe the parent does nothing to stop it. I always want to say something to the kid or the parent. But I usually don’t.
I remember going to a Dr when my dad had Alzheimer’s and someone’s kids kept bothering dad. He could no longer speak and it was clear the kids were stressing him out. I wound up taking dad outside the waiting room to sit with him alone in the hall.

My wife has a "disapproving school teacher," stare. We were doing our weekly shop, a young boy, six, maybe seven, running down the aisles, arms outstretched, screeching at the top of his voice, collided into my wife. The kid got the withering stare, pure napalm, for a good ten seconds he held defiant eye contact with that stare, before his eyes welled up.

My wife walked on and left him. At that moment I heard a female say "What do you mean, she looked at you?" My wife, with her Jessica Rabbit red hair, witchy green eyes and, oh that scowl, can have grown men wimpering. The boy was no contest.