eliyanah:

i absolutely agree that the nuclear family oppresses women, and that it’s just not reasonable for two people (and let’s be real it’s almost always the mom) to raise children on their own without any outside support. and yes it takes a village to raise a child, etc….

but i also don’t think that women who choose not to have children should be expected to help raise someone else’s child. I’ve seen it way too often where childfree women are routinely saddled with babysitting their friend’s/sibling’s/cousin’s children because they don’t have children of their own and therefore “have the time.” it’s really, ridiculously common for childfree women to be expected to provide free childcare because “it takes a village!!” normally I avoid reddit but there are so. many. stories. on r/childfree from women who have had their friend’s or family member’s kids dumped on them and who just get ignored when they say they don’t want to or can’t take care of them.

i think it just goes to show that even the women who have made it enduringly clear that they do not want to be involved with raising a child are still expected to perform motherhood—are still expected to fulfill that role, whether it’s their kid or not. even if you’re childfree, you’re expected to be the cool auntie, or the friend who is always willing to babysit. yeah, it takes a village to raise a child, but not all women want to be a part of that village. many women want absolutely nothing at all to do with children. and expecting your female friends and family members to instantly take up the motherhood mantle whenever you need them to… tips pretty damn quickly into old-fashioned misogyny.

Help! My Wife Wrote a Book When She Should Have Been Caring For Our Newborn and Supporting Our Family, Which She Was Actually Also Doing!

Dear Prudence, Slate,23 November 2021:

Q. My wife wrote a secret book: My wife is an accomplished author who also holds down a fulltime job in an unrelated field, mostly for the benefits. When we had our first child last year, we agreed that she would pause her writing career—something had to go with a new baby at home.

Except, it turns out she didn’t pause it. She got a great idea for a new novel, wrote it secretly during her lunch break at work, and sold it for $100,000. I feel so many things right now; it’s hard to be mad at someone when they casually tell you your son’s college education is now paid for, and her lunch hour is technically hers to do as she wishes. But she went against our deal! She could have been home an hour earlier every night this year if she hadn’t done this project, and when I think back on all the times she’s been tired or grumpy in the past year, I now blame the book (even though it could have just been caring for a newborn). How do I trust her to keep to her word? How should I feel right now?

Dear My Wife Wrote A Secret Book,

I think there’s only one thing a person can feel when their wife had a baby, worked a full time job, and wrote a novel on her lunch break that she later sold for a six-figure advance such that it never fucking affected you for a single moment until it became the subject of your whole family’s wild financial success: absolutely fucking enraged at her unbelievably rude self-centeredness!

Whothe entire fuck did this bitch think she was, being a parent while setting the entire family up for an easy, debt-free college send-off while being a creative fucking genius, when she could have just as easily not done any of that because she owes you every last fucking minute of her whole-ass life? She could have preserved the most precious thing in the world — a promise she made that she in no way broke by doing a thing you didn’t even notice she was doing — or, she could have stifled a great idea so that you and she and your child could be saddled with life-long debt!

Honestly, the gall.

Women are getting mighty uppity these days; many, like your wife apparently, believe they can “have it all” by spending every waking moment trying to hold the whole world’s shit together and funding it, besides! When what they really should be doing is keeping their good fucking ideas to themselves and sitting down, shutting up, and making sure no one else has a nice time, ever. You owe it to yourself and your child to make sure the poor example your wife has set is never repeated again, lest people give you every last gift they have to offer so that you never worry for a single dang moment about anything ever.

The truth is, you can’t trust your brilliant, creative, awful, and bad wife to keep her word! She may get entirely out of pocket and do some further absolute perversity such as

• writing more novels that keep your family in financial comfort indefinitely
• doing so while not at all interfering with you or any of your dip-ass nonsense
• making sure everybody has enough to eat and a place to live
• being smart and cool as hell
• even if it’s hard and stressful and makes her occasionally grumpy and tired

Just generally a list of the worst shit women can do, especially when they are moms of newborns and should be full of vim and vigor like all new parents everywhere! Definitely divorce this untrustworthy intellectual slag so that you can find out what life is like without her, and with someone more reliable instead.

Help! A Teen Disagrees With Me!

Dear Abby, 23 September 2021:

DEAR ABBY: I am cleaning out my closet and have decided to sell my wedding dress from 21 years ago. I love the dress; it’s beautiful. But it’s a very large box to store. My 16-year-old daughter has made it clear to me she will never marry. It was difficult for me to accept, as she’s my only daughter. The thing is, she wants to try my dress on. I don’t want her to because she doesn’t agree with the sanctity of marriage or the commitment of it, and I don’t want my wedding dress tried on by anyone who feels this way about marriage. It means more than playing dress-up, and I believe it should be worn only by someone who respects it. Am I wrong? Does my daughter have a right to have hurt feelings over this? – NOT A GAME OF DRESS-UP

Dear Not A Game Of Dress-Up,

Madam, you must defend the holy and precious institution of marriage at all costs lest one single teenager wearing a dress decimate the blessed sacrament! You hold the fates of marriages the world over in your hands, and you mustn’t let your daughter obliterate billions of lives by applying cloth to her body. You and your unassailable principles are the only thing protecting an all-too-vulnerable world from the end of the very concept of marriage as we know it!

Not only does your daughter not have a right to experience hurt feelings over this, but she really owes you and every other person who has been married, considered marriage, or who vaguely believes in marriage as a concept a major apology. Why, marriage is not a game of dress-up! Marriage is primarily and historically a business and financial arrangement built to reinforce the patriarchy by legally regulating and mandating heterosexual relationships for the purpose of increasing wealth and property by treating women like interchangeable broodmares whose sole value rests in their reproductive capacities, and making men think they’re worthless if they don’t make gobs of money and spend their evenings grunting with the boys over brandy and cigars. Ah, romance! That your daughter would take an ill view of such a beloved and honored custom is genuinely mystifying.

We can be sure, of course, that your daughter will never marry, nor will she ever change her mind about marrying under any circumstances whatsoever. Teenage declarations are contractually binding, and grand proclamations about future life plans by 16-year-olds in particular are known for their consistency and longevity. And yet you must seek to change her mind, otherwise you may be obligated to support her in indefinite spinsterhood should she fail to match with a master who can provide her with food and housing in exchange for heirs.

The best way to convince your daughter that marriage is desirable is to tell her that her filthy, offensive body will desecrate a piece of clothing you’ve kept shoved in a box in the back of your closet for over twenty years unless the little hussy straightens out her attitude. If that doesn’t have her beating a path to the altar with the closest available male, the next best way to respect and honor marriage as an institution is to sell your wedding dress for cash.