"You Look Like You've Gained a Little Weight"

I didn't blog about this the first time it happened, but since this weekend was the second time, I think I'm now pissed off enough to do a post on it. I've now been mistaken for being pregnant twice this month.

Let me preface this by saying I have gained a little weight over the past year or two, but at 143 lbs. and 5'5", I'm not exactly a hulking giant, either. Unfortunately, though, I do tend to carry extra weight in my abdomen, and I also love fashion, which is tending toward a lot of flowing tunics and empire-waist tops and dresses these days.

So earlier this month, I was at a barbecue at the home of a partner in my firm. It was pouring rain, but my husband and I politely attended anyway since we had said that we would. We brought the partner and his wife a bottle of wine, and as we presented it to them upon our arrival, he reminded his wife that she'd met me at a similar function last year. We were just shaking hands when he added:

"Kristin's a little bigger than the last time you saw her."

I was still trying to process that comment when his wife said: "Congratulations! When's the blessed event?"

My husband replied with an absolutely straight face:

"What blessed event?"

Needless to say, all parties were mortified. But I chalked it up to their tactlessness and laughed it off.

That wasn't so easy this time, since it was the second time in three weeks.

On Saturday night, I was at a going-away party for two friends of ours (we'll call them Brian and Kelly) who are moving to North Carolina. I greeted their parents, who'd come out to see them off along with everyone else, and Brian's father said to me:

"You look like you've gained a little weight."

This time, I was wearing a black silk empire-waist top, so as I spluttered and stammered, my quick-thinking husband gave him an out: "It's just the shirt."

"Oh! So it's not..."

"Nope."

What bothers me most about both of these incidents is not the fact that I have gained a little weight and that it is clearly becoming visible to others (although I certainly will be working out a bit harder this week.) Rather, it's the audacity, the absolute boldness of the assumption that because I was married about a year ago, and because I am at around the age when I probably would be having children if I planned to, any extra weight gain around the middle, or a flowy top, or a drink that looks anything like water (I was actually drinking Grey Goose and tonic on Saturday, but switched to martinis for the rest of the evening after that incident) -- is automatically interpreted as a pregnancy. So definitely, so certainly, that both of these men felt justified not only in pointing it out, but in doing so in what would be the most offensive possible manner if they were wrong.

Which, of course, they were.

Moral of the story: For the love of God, childed or childfree though you may be, please do not ever, EVER ask a woman about her pregnancy unless you are absolutely sure that she is pregnant. And by "absolutely sure," I mean either she has told you herself that she is, or she is going into labor and is about to give birth right in front of you, and you are approaching her to see whether you might be of any assistance in getting her immediately to the nearest hospital.

The Perfect Martini

As we all gear up for another work week, I decided to post my favorite way to make a martini to unwind with on a Sunday night (okay, any night!) It's not strictly on topic, but heck, I figured martinis are a pretty non-child-friendly thing, and perhaps others would enjoy quietly toasting their childfree status with one of mine.

So here's how I make them:

First, skewer one or more green, pitted olives on a toothpick. I personally like three olives -- one to eat as soon as I mix the drink, one in the middle and one at the end. Put the skewer of olives into a martini glass and set aside.

Next, get a cocktail shaker. That's right -- I said shaker. Martinis are meant to be enjoyed ice-cold, a state they can arrive at most efficiently by being shaken. In addition, shaking is necessary to get a little bit of melted ice mixed into the drink, which will release the flavors of the booze.

Put 4-5 cracked ice cubes into the shaker. Over these, pour a splash of dry vermouth. Then pour it back out. Leave the vermouth-coated ice cubes in the shaker.

Pour in 1.5 ounces of top-shelf gin. I like Bombay Sapphire for something easy to procure, but my real favorite for a martini is Beefeater's Crown Jewel.

Shake the gin, but not too much. 6-7 shakes is plenty, just until the outside of the shaker is beginning to cloud up. Strain the drink into the martini glass, over the olives.

Enjoy. I like mine alongside a small bowl of roasted, salted almonds.

"Your Child Could Grow Up to Cure Cancer!"

One common argument the childed give for having children -- and even my own dear husband has admitted to feeling some affinity for this reasoning in the past -- is that intelligent people are highly likely to have intelligent offspring, and therefore we should have children on the theory that our children are somehow more likely to cure the world's ills.

Besides its obvious elitism, this argument has another fatal flaw. What no proponents of this theory seem to bother to do is to take it a step further. If the intelligent people are going to find a cure for cancer, that means that at some point, one generation is going to have to stop giving up our devotion to our careers in order to have children, and instead actually DO SOMETHING about cancer (or homelessness, or poverty or AIDS or whatever social problem you think smart people should solve.) If we just keep on procreating and counting on our children to solve these problems, ummm... when are we going to actually solve them?

Answer: NEVER.

If you are concerned about such issues, having children is not the answer. This argument doesn't make any sense to me at all! Why, if you're so worried about finding a cure for cancer, wouldn't you donate the money, time, energy and resources you would have spent on a child to helping to find one? The average child today is supposed to cost over $1 million to raise. I'll bet the American Cancer Society could make some serious use of that money... and it's a much surer bet on helping to find the cancer cure than just having some kid, who, after all, could just as easily grow up and decide he wants to be the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. Or something equally unhelpful.

So, no, this isn't a reason for you to feel guilty about not having children. It's just another block on the Breeder Bingo Card.

Friday Fun

A little comic for you all, found in the I'm Not Kidding archives (forgive my shameless theft, but this is too good not to repost!)

Enjoy.

Pregnancy and Childbirth

I've done posts that have touched on this topic before, but I think this subject deserves its very own post, because it's really something that I find absolutely horrifying. While my aversion to the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth wouldn't be a reason for me not to have children if I actually wanted them, it's a HUGE reinforcement for me now that I know I don't want them.

Pregnancy, to say the least, is not my idea of a joyful experience. Forget the morning sickness, nausea, sudden weird aversions to certain smells, sudden weird cravings for certain foods, greasy hair, exhaustion, stretch marks and looking like a cow. While all of those things certainly seem like major deterrents to me, the main thing I find really off-putting and almost creepy about pregnancy is the idea of another being living inside of me. Some women find that idea sort of beautiful; I find it downright disturbing. It's like a parasite would be inside me, feeding off of me, totally dependent on living off MY body for nine months. I'm hoping other childfree women will understand what I'm getting at here, because I have a feeling most folks don't feel this way. But I really find that idea quite spooky.

Following that, of course, we have the lovely experience of childbirth. Again, never mind the pain, pooping on the delivery table, screaming, crying and humiliating oneself (although all of that is very scary to me, since I'm a really private person.) What bugs me in a way I can't explain is the idea of a screaming little person oozing out of my vagina. Ew! Eww! The very idea gives me the shivers. That is so... wrong to me. And I don't think I'm alone on this one, even among the childed. This is why so many husbands, having witnessed their wives giving birth, have difficulty finding them sexually attractive afterwards (The New York Times did a very interesting article on this phenomenon a while back, which you can find here.) It's not that they saw them screaming in pain or pooping or any of that. It's that they witnessed parts of their wives that they think of as sexual doing things that are entirely reproductive, and were thereafter seriously weirded out by that. And I can't blame them.

My body is my own, and I don't ever want it to belong to anyone else. And it seems like when we have kids, that part of us, along with every other part, is given away. Not only do our bodies have to play host to another living being for nine months and then give birth to it, after that we have to nourish it (for who can forego breastfeeding in our modern society without being harshly criticized for neglecting her baby??) and then tolerate it jumping on us, tugging at us, etc., for the next 10 or 12 years until it grows up somewhat.

The idea leaves me totally cold, and really craving my body all to myself. And thankfully, that's what I have.

Baby Not On Board

There are so many childfree books I adore, but Jennifer L. Shawne's Baby Not On Board really may be my favorite, not only for its entertainment value but for the way it breaks down the reasons not to have children into such simple and humorous yet truthful forms. Even my husband found this one amusing as he read it over my shoulder, and he's not usually one to get too into this stuff (though he doesn't want kids any more than I do, he doesn't really care about the whole childfree community thing.) Baby Not On Board is a lighthearted take on the childfree subject, but as is so often the case, there's a lot of truth behind the humor.

If you ever need to be reminded of what could happen to your budget, home, dinner, or travels if you had kids, this is a good way to get that reminder and a laugh at the same time. I adore the cartoon drawings it includes of "Your Home" and "Your Home with Kids," "Your Dinner" and "Your Dinner with Kids," and so on. Since Ms. Shawne and her husband, like me and my husband, live in a large city and are fairly young, her life without kids is actually a lot like my life, and she does a great job of pointing out just how great that life can be and how deeply having kids could screw it up (my favorite part is her chronology of a typical Saturday in the life without kids, and then with them, which is funny yet has the chilling ring of truth.) The book also deals with such topics as "coming out" to friends and family, and has a humorous chapter on dealing with OPCs (Other People's Children).

In short, this is a great read for sometime when you want a childfree book that isn't too serious. The author, Jennifer L. Shawne, also has a blog by the same name as her book, which I really enjoy and which you can find under my links section.

Happy reading!

Overpopulation

While my main reasons for not wanting to have children are personal (not wanting to sacrifice the time, money and freedom I currently have), the childfree community has also made me much more aware of social reasons to remain childfree. One I really have become concerned with is the fact that the world is desperately overpopulated.

Deforestation, food and water shortages, global warming, the generation of more and more trash, and the spread of disease are just a few of the social problems caused by our currently bloated world population of over 6.5 billion (and growing at a rate of approximately 80 million per year). Here are a few sobering statistics:

-According to the World Resources Institute, agriculture has displaced one-third of temperate and tropical forests and one-quarter of natural grasslands already.

-The United Nations indicates that about 850 million people worldwide are malnourished or starving, and 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water.

-As many as 400 million people are at risk of starvation because of drought and crop failure.

-3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions.

-Global warming will force hundreds of millions of people out of coastal regions in the next century or so.

-The population of the U.S. tripled during the 20th century, but the U.S. consumption of raw materials increased 17-fold.

-Every 20 minutes, the human population grows by about 3,000. At the same time another plant or animal becomes extinct (27,000 each year).

-By 2050, world population is projected to reach nine billion, a 38% jump from today's 6.5 billion, and more than five times the 1.6 billion people believed to have existed in 1900. Most of this growth will be concentrated in developing nations.

Obviously, I could go on, but it's difficult to truly address the crisis in depth in a single blog post. I hope the above gives you some idea of what I'm getting at.

It's easy for my husband and me to contribute to solving this problem, since we don't want kids anyway. However, it's also my firm belief that, even among the childed, no socially responsible couple should be having more than two children (enough to replace the current population), and even that may be too much.

Drastic? Maybe. But massive problems sometimes call for drastic solutions.