TigerEatsCow

This bloodline ends with me.

In a perfect world, we’d raise our children in safe spaces. They’d have food, clothes, shelter, emotional fulfillment, and be spared all forms of violence – whether physical, sexual, or emotional. We would also spare them from forced gender roles and listen and honor them when they expressed boundaries.

You might be like, oh, I know where this is going. The world is dying from corporate-sponsored climate disaster and nowhere is safe and if your 11 year old is raped in Missouri they might be forced to give birth and die. You might be like, you’re not going to have children because they might not be well off in the future because the future is trash. To which I say: it’ll continue to be trash with that attitude. Jesus fucking christ.

Or if you subject your body to child birth your rotting corpse could be used as an incubator. To which I’d say: absolutely, and please also donate to Adriana Smith’s family using this Gofundme link.

But your bitch asses would be wrong about every one of these scenarios: I will not have children because they limit me politically, and subject me to the whims and violence of state-sanctioned bullshittery. 

one/yī : the personal issues, my energy

What do Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Gloria Steinem have in common? None of them had children in their lives (may bell hooks’ memory be a blessing). They had full-on careers, wrote, spoke out, lead movements, and focused on their work as political change makers. They were/still are devoted to the things that lead their souls and their moral compasses – and they had/have the time to do such things. This is the labor I’d rather be doing.

Though reproductive labor, having kids, and raising them to be politically engaged and thinking, curious people is absolutely a political act, and one I absolutely respect 1000 times, I will not be the sole proprietor of this act. Teaching and raising kids to be kind, thoughtful, curious, and politically aware is a responsibility we all have. And we need folks who do this just as much as we need childless people to do the more risky political work, too. Personally, I would rather spend my time writing, advocating, and making art than sucking a baby’s boogers out or changing a diaper blowout. I’m not saying you can’t do both: you can. And people do. I am simply saying I only have enough energy for ONE of those two things. Again, this is personal. 

Let me also add that reproductive labor – growing, nurturing, birthing, raising, and taking care of kids – is absolutely gendered and unfairly falls on AFAB (assigned female at birth) people most of the time. And people who have kids in America just do it for free, without any help from anyone else. If every birthing parent made a salary, like, every single one of them would make over six figures a year for all the hours they work. And they amass $0 for it?! This is ridiculous. I could go on: men/partners will “babytrap” people with kids. The number one killer of pregnant people is domestic violence. Until AFAB and birthing people get the goddamn respect they deserve, and until America ends white supremacy so that Black birthing people stop dying at 3-4x the rate of white folks… safe to say I don’t want kids.

TLDR: I would rather spend my life putting most of my energy into being politically active than into raising kids. I adore kids, and I can’t wait to sugar my friends’ children up with dippin dots, and teach them about the world. And I can’t wait to listen to them and learn from them, too! Kids are so knowledgeable about their special interests and have the energy to match my unmedicated ADHD. Kids are a joy. But so is coming home to a mostly clean, quiet house and then spending 3 hours reading, learning a new language, and/or volunteering on weekends. And the money you can save by NOT having kids can be given to mutual aid, yay. You can acknowledge the sacredness of kids and still not want them.

èr/two : this world is trash, kids are not safe in it, and no, it’s not because of drag queens you queerphobic sluts!!!

This world is trash. People use this as an excuse for not wanting kids all the time. I think that excuse is valid, but personally, for me, it’s bullshit. This is HEAVILY personally influenced, though: I am white and come from generational wealth, and so I think that for me to just give up and not clean up my mess/the mess of those that came before me is a bullshit excuse. Don’t stop fighting for a better world, yall. It is possible– with hard personal and collective work, that is. 

Yeah, the world is ass, especially the US. Have you seen our for-profit prison system? Our lack of healthcare, HORRIBLE treatment of pregnant people, dearth of reproductive healthcare, the fact that Roe v. Wade was overruled, zero universal daycare, and how millions of kids in America go hungry while we handout tax cuts to the rich (mortgage? Tax cut for you! Capital gains? Way lower tax cuts for you– especially if that shit is held long term. Oh and you can also tax-loss harvest! So fun). Until America addresses its white supremacy, reproductive health, and poverty problems (all linked), I will be fighting these bullshit systems til I take my last breath, whether with mutual aid, volunteering, writing testimony, or simply by reading and educating myself. I’d rather spend my time on causes that will help kids and families in the future than focusing on my own kids. 

TLDR: The future isn’t gonna get better unless we fight for it. Kids aren’t gonna be safe unless we challenge the systems that take advantage of their vulnerability. A better future is out there, and WE DO have the tools to fund it (tax the rich and hold rapist presidents accountable, amirite). But fighting for it is lots of work and way harder with kids than without them. So, yeah. I’ll go the without them route.

sān/three – I WILL NOT BE CONTROLLED BY THE ALT RIGHT

Sometimes I think the alt-right or modern day MAGA republicans love THE IDEA of having kids because kids and parents are easy to control. No wonder so many alt-right Evangelicals discourage curiosity and questioning with their kids, therefore pummeling them into a system of religious, evangelical-backed fear mongering that encourages them to be in cisgender, heterosexual, child-filled relationships where they’re two kids and one unhappy marriage in too deep before they’re like, “Oh, shit, do I even LIKE this way of life? These systems?” 

Having kids forces you into these systems. It makes you easier to control and more exploitable. Having kids makes you more likely to comply with systems of oppression than fighting back, because your kid’s lives will be at stake if you, say, are a political prisoner for speaking up against white supremacy, get arrested for marching for a ceasefire in Gaza, or are attacked by a police officer for no reason and – godforbid– fight back. Your own children will also be subject to absolute hell if you are not white, or they are not white, or they’re disabled – living in a system where sexual, police, racial, and ableist violence are all too common. But what I’m really trying to get at here is that kids make you easy to control. They should NOT, by any means. You should be able to have children and speak up about bad shit and defend yourself against corrupt cops without risking your safety, which will in turn impact your kids safety. But that’s not the world we live in at the moment. 

In this world, we have to give into bad systems for our kids, and are victims of said systems. The world’s systems hold us back from being kind, or fighting back against them, due to some very real threats and consequences. We have to work jobs we hate that exploit us and leave us feeling drained so we can get the healthcare that pays for our 12 year old’s asthma inhaler. We talk ourselves out of political unrest, whether it be attending communist meetings or marching in a protest for racial justice, because if something goes wrong or we are caught, we risk our kid’s mental and physical well-being. It’s normal to put your kids before your political wishes. Under violent political regimes, it becomes normal not to stand up to dictators, or ICE agents taking away your neighbor, and it becomes normal to hide parts of yourself, because your kid’s safety is your number one concern. It makes sense. 

Kids aren’t the problem here, obviously. It’s the systems and regimes that thrive off of fear (whether real or imagined), and use this fear of consequences to bind us to them. I am not excusing evil horrible Nazis or right-wingers who want a Christian Nationalist state. Those people can fuck right off and are too far gone for me to include them in my thoughts. Rather, what I am saying is that in a world as politically dim and fraught with right-wing violence as ours is now, I know that many folks would keep themselves and their kids safe, even if, under these regimes, no one is safe, and even if that safety is a farce. It’s a safety that makes sense, and makes you easier to control. It’s a safety that forces you into a system you might not believe in or even want, for the sake of your kids. It’s fucked on all levels. It shouldn’t be so. And maybe I am too much of a coward to fight back if I did, in fact, have kids. I think I’d want to keep them safe, too. 

TLDR; I don’t want any kid to be a political tool, and I don’t want the fact that I have kids to limit what I can and cannot do politically. I genuinely believe that part of the alt-right wants people to have kids and families SO BADLY because they make you more easy to control. The tip of the iceberg is “family values” and “Christian values” but when you look underneath, that iceberg is all about control. It’ll split the titanic in half and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, and then everyone will be scrambling to get on the lifeboats. 

TLDR

We all have a responsibility to make the world a better place. Our kids, friends’ kids, niblings, and even the children of strangers we’ve never met deserve better. But until we repair the world, and fix the fucked up systems, I will not be having children. 

And look, here’s the truth: in a better world, I would be open to having kids. In a world where we prioritized public parks, programs, and housing over corporations and Christianity. In a world where trans kids were treated with love and respect. In a world where we were thoughtful and approached each other with curiosity. In a world where collectivity and compromise were prioritized over weapons and war. In a world where public health meant everyone, everywhere, had access to things that kept them safe, fed, and nourished. In a world where no one was forced to give birth and carry a pregnancy they didn’t want. In a world where gender was viewed as flimsy like organza and not solid like concrete. In a world where every single kid could thrive and be happy, I’d want kids. Maybe. But fuck those diapers, ew.