Kid-Free Manifesto & Quiz
Manifesto
We, the Livers of the Kid-Free Lifestyle: (not to be confused with the Intestines of the Kid-Free Lifestyle…)
- Will not produce offspring, even though we know they would be better and smarter than any other kids we’ve ever met.
- Will be patient with the people who tilt their heads and sadly stare at us when we say we don’t want or don’t have children because they believe we are missing a magical precious thing, all the while reminding ourselves that we are not contributing the over crowding of the planet and that when we’re done talking to these people about diaper changing we can go have a cocktail.
- Will always strive to revel in and truly appreciate the fact that we don’t have to tend to the lives of those self-centered disease-carriers known as children by getting out and doing fun things, traveling, eating out… all the things the parents used to enjoy.
- Will satiate any maternal or paternal instincts that just won’t seem to die by doting unnecessarily on our dogs (or, in a pinch, cats or other pets). This may include making up nicknames for them, giving them funny voices with which they talk to us, and letting them sleep in our beds (refusing to make them move even when our legs and back are beginning to spasm because they are taking up all the room.)
- Will strive to make strong, long-lasting friendships with people younger than us so we have people to take care of us in our old age – just in case our spouses or younger siblings die before us. Otherwise, we are screwed.
|
1. Does the sound of a baby crying make you... | |
| Awww... when you spot the little guy.'>look for the source and then say, Awww... when you spot the little guy.
| |
| shake your head and smile, patiently hoping he settles down soon.
| |
| It seriously makes me want to punch kittens.
| |
|
2. Which is your favorite story about children? | |
| The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
| |
| Mr. Rogers Memoir/Style Guide: Sweater Vests for Any Occasion
| |
| A Modest Proposal - Swifts plan for the poor to earn money by selling their kids to the rich for food.
| |
|
3. If your kids were fighting, how would you break it up? | |
| I would sit them down and logically work through their disagreement with them
| |
| Dress them like little evil clowns, give them tennis rackets and film the ensuing mayhem for You Tube
| |
| Tell them the first one to get Daddy a beer wins
| |
|
4. When a kid runs up and hugs you, do you... | |
| Joyfully hug them back, reveling in their unrestrained, innocent affection.
| |
| Smile and pat them, secretly hoping they will learn to be less trusting someday for their own good.
| |
| Leap back in fear the little walking petri dish will give you a cold.
| |
|
5. In your spare time you like to... | |
| Scrapbook and shop for high-waisted jeans.
| |
| Party like a rock star with one week left to live and a magically refilling vodka bottle.
| |
| Travel, read, stare at bright shiny objects... wait, what was the question?
| |
|
6. Do you like poop and vomit? | |
| Yes, when it is the adorable poopy poopy poop my little poopster poopied.
| |
| Ah, no. Stupid question.
| |
| I saw them on tour with Nine Inch Nails. They were awesome.
| |
|
7. How often do you like to have sex? | |
| Whenever it is time to make a new baby. Why?
| |
| Once to a few times a week more or less.
| |
| Depends. With whom?
| |
|
8. What do you do with your savings? | |
| Roll around naked in it screaming "Mine! Mine!"
| |
| Save for future. Blow it all on a random toy. Save for future. Repeat.
| |
| Spend every cent on a person who will some day tell me I ruined his/her life.
| |
|
9. Childbirth is... | |
| Best experienced while unconscious.
| |
| A natural and beautiful part of life.
| |
| Ew! Ick! LALALALALAlalalalal I can not hear you!
| |
|
10. Describe your home decorating style. | |
| I like to call it Modern Dorm with just a touch of Stuff from Mom.
| |
| Whatever Pottery Barn tells me to do.
| |
| Frilly sofa covers and ceiling borders with sailboats and ivy on them. Stuffed animals on my bed.
| |
Some Kid-Free Links:
- La Vie Childfree
- Happily Child-Free
You are brilliant. When the kids were driving us batty with their usual bickering this morning , I asked my husband “you know what we need?” (suggesting a vacation) and he said “a Time Machine?”
Don’t get me wrong, We love our kids dearly but they are killing us very slowly and painfully.
(I am a very old friend of Mike’s from HS, thanks for checking out the pics on FB!)
Why thank you! Thank you for the picture! Mike’s Mom accidentally (we assume) threw out a trash bag full of ALL their family pictures during a move so any picture that pops up of him is precious!
You have a funny and brilliant site. My husband and I live a child free lifestyle. We love being able to watch or say what we want uncensored in our own home.
Thank you! Our humor tends to run a little blue around here too with no reason to censor. We could never be on the Amazing Race together because they’d have to bleep every other word and no one would know what the )*&^)!!! we were saying!
I happen to think it is harder to live in a home with two adults searching for their meaning in life, and therefore “telling it like it is,” as opposed to filling up the house with kids and clutter and hollering and carrying on just to AVOID facing the hard questions. And can I just say, people who bemoan having kids that they voluntarily had and then, had more of, drive me to use language I’d rather not put here. Pathetic fools.
Too funny. We have two teens, four dogs, two miniature donkeys, four outside cats, a string of Polo Ponies (4), and two lawn ornaments (retired horses): 16 animals: 18, if one includes the teens. The Polo ponies, horses have good ground manners; the rest? None, whatsoever! With the exception of the rescue Golden Lab a/k/a “The Good One,” whom requests permission for everything including going out; however, always waits – as the Alsatian, Belgian Lab and Neapolitan Mastiff leap over, and barrel through us – for the “ok” to proceed.
As for censoring words, etc. our teens were corrupted by their
friends a long time ago so we act quite naturally around them
not that we are ‘effin’ and blindin’ on a regular basis, do try to
instill good values/work ethic, etc. None of us is perfect and it’s not as if we have nightly orgies, run a nudist colony or inappropriate. Seems in this country, and I am an Amercan Citizen, there is such rampant insecurity which creates an armosphere of distrust and intolerance from road rage to being ‘non-conforming’ by choosing not to have kids. In Europe,
where I find it so much more natural, less fake, in every aspect, one rarely has the bad manners to question another’s way of life.
For a good fight, we merely get in the car & get off the property
(when neither of us can drive, generally because we have our hands around each other’s necks, we’ll argue in the garage). See! There are ways around it! Yes, we adore our kids, also;
the only reason we have them is that they should come in handy
when we become decrepit, senile and in our nappy-wearing
dotage. We cultivate unsuspecting younger humans, in case our kids catch on, and abandon us to our own devices. We get
irritated by spoiled, coddled, noisy and undisciplined ‘little shits’
as well and, even as parents, always aim for holidays, domestic
and abroad, in adult-centered areas/hotels well after kids are
back at school; refuse to go on school outings as a school
chaperone, try to avoid PTA meetings and Parent Teacher
Conferences like the plague, ad infinitum. We just
throw the minimal amount of money we can get
away with at them, and hope it suffices. As for children in restaurants, don’t get me started… Perhaps I’m missing a gene! Though we tried for years for our first whom was raised along
with various wildlife, seals in the back seat of the truck; ducks
and geese in the tub, gulls, feral cats, sick raccoons, opossums,
skunks, etc. many orphaned babies of a zillion species. I nursed my child for 2 1/2 years whom spent most of the first 18 months
strapped to my chest in a sling. Another thing, don’t you simply
hate it when parents harp on incessantly about their offspring?
Most of this is satirical; not much:) And, I say this only should one of our ‘precious ones’ happens to stumble across this post
Love your site!
Holy hell.. few things…
1. Everything you wrote here is A. freaking hilarious and B. You sound potentially drunk which I C. love even more because I happen to be drunk as I’m responding to it right now.
2. I’m fascinated by this statement: “two lawn ornaments (retired horses)” – Do you literally have to ex horses as lawn ornaments? I can see what I assume are two live horses on your lawn, walk up to them, and then be like: “Holy crap! They’re stuffed!”
3. I’ve mentioned this before, but you are much more clever than I, because clearly you consciously put people on the planet to take care of you when you are old, and that is brilliant.
4. Why are there SEALS in the back seat of your truck??? you are “anonymous on the eastern seaboard” but seals are not really common here…
All I know is — I want to party with you soldier…
I feel the need to change my name lest the teens (they frighten me) find my posts, hence have expanded on my anonymity status by changing my locale from “Anonymous on the Eastern Seaboard” to “Anonymous somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.”. All a bit silly really, as they are incredibly smart, beautiful/handsome darlings, devoted upon by their parental units no matter if they destroy farm equipment, mistakenly bring about the untimely demise of livestock, trash the house when we, in desperation, flee to other countries to escape the incessant neediness of these mini human beings. Shouldn’t 13 and 14 year olds be able to fend for themselves? In some countries, it’s quite alright to marry them off at this age, even earlier in some, obviously progressive cultures, AND the long-suffering parents get rewarded with goats or sheep. Clearly, there are benefits to having the ungrateful, privileged little shits. Unfortunateky no, I was not imbibing when I wrote the former post, however I do have an unparalleled fondness in the grand Hemingway fashion of writing best when smashed. I think you’re definitely in the queue for being a recipient as you appear to find me mildly entertaining and that feeds my enormous ego;) I like that. Thanks for your comments & shall answer shortly; first, must put on the “Mummy Face,” and wake aforementioned offspring, make breakfast (rubbing alcohol in mine of course, simply to get through the ordeal), step outside and see what survived the night,et cetera. Enjoyed reading your post. Funny!
Hi, I just read your article in the March skirt! magazine (Lexington, KY) and went to this site to see if you were for real. I am so glad you are honest about the having-kids (as in, not having kids) thing. My partner and I think kids should only be had by people who are crazy enough to think that they would be really good, well let’s just admit it, the BEST possible parents (my brother and sister-in-law, for instance). That said, we are honest with ourselves and know we would not be good parents. Therefore, we have no kids and no plans for kids of our own! And I’m sure you know how my family reacts to this decision… the eye-rolling… the black “sheeping” of my reputation… the “you’re going to wish you had someday” admonitions…. *can i just say, SHUT THE HELL UP???* lol how about *GET OVER YOURSELF, childbirth is not a requirement of being female!* ugh. my grandmother once told me I wouldn’t have been seriously mentally ill my whole life if I had had five children to raise, as she did. Apparently, just having a child is saving the world somehow, and so everyone should do it, or else they’re just stupid. Needless to say, I think it is more than responsible to take care of ourselves, enjoy life with our partners, and not contribute to the overpopulation and vain illusion of power that leads some people to provide the world with more and more and more children. (and expect many more grandchildren) Thanks for listening, and thanks for being out there. yours, jen
But seriously, have you considered having children?
Oh thank heavens…SANCTUARY! My God, I thought I was the only person on the planet who wasn’t a breeder. I am one of those women who are treated like a pariah because I find everything about children/childbearing/childrearing absolutely loathsome. I must be broken in some fundamental way because I don’t think “babies smell wondrous” but like a horrid combination of piss, shit and sour milk. I don’t think a toddler standing there licking at the runners of snot under its nose (like the movie Red Balloon) is “cute.” I have told a parent of a fat, sticky sucker-con-dirt bedraggled, spoiled shitbag, in front of aforementioned monster, that he was out of his FUCKING mind for asking me permission to place that mess in the front seat of a trailered, pearl WHITE, custom, 1949 Cadillac.
You’d think I asked him to set the filthy brat on fire. Some people are so SENSITIVE…
I have been frequently badgered for not having or wanting kids. My ex and I were together, unmarried, for 15 years. People constantly asked us when we planned on getting married and settling down and having a couple of kids. When I answered “never,” someone actually said, “Oh! That’s tragic!”
TRAGIC?
No, she was confused. Tragic is winning the lottery and losing the ticket. Tragic is having your house burn down. Tragic is being told you’re pregnant with twins.
I love the argument, “well YOU were a child once.” Where the hell is the logic in that statement? Just because I was a child once doesn’t mean I have to tolerate misbehaved kids or want to breed. That is just as mind boggling to me as the parent with the screaming monkey/child, who’s doing practically everything but flinging poo in the fancy restaurant that I’m attempting to enjoy a meal at, saying, “well, we have a right to have a night out too,” expecting you to just accept that they clearly have no parenting skills and don’t care how uncomfortable their brats are making you because they work harder than anyone without kids ever could…AND THEY DESERVE A BREAK.
Apparently these people have no concept of “babysitters.” I often voice my opinion about that situation and get the pariah treatment for not accepting that “kids will be kids”. I swear, I just don’t get it. I can’t bring my dog into a restaurant because he’s an animal, but he’s better behaved than most people’s children, and a whole lot cleaner too.
How bad does it suck when you’re in the break room at work warming up your lunch and there’s a bunch of mothers standing around talking about mucus plugs, afterbirth, breast feeding, etc.? Nothing makes lunch taste better. The one exception being watching someone burp a breast fed baby, having it vomit a runner of undigested, modified sweat down its mother’s back. I just want to beat the parent over the head with the remains of my now-to-be-uneaten lunch.
Nice that parents at work can take time off to deal