These are actual words said to me yesterday. By a total stranger. In the park. It's astonishing to me that anyone feels entitled to lecture women about something so personal. I am 47 years old. It is 2017. Are you freakin' kidding me.
Yesterday's Child-demander
I took a walk with my sketchbook. I got a kale smoothie and stopped on a park bench. People were out and about, walking dogs and strollers, riding bikes and generally participating in the pastimes that make up a sunny Sunday in the city. It was a nice day. I did not set out expecting yet another battle in the whole "Virgin/Mother/Whore" war, with yet another man who ain't got a clue.
I'm personally of the belief that to expect a come-on every single time a man talks to me is not fair, "not all men," yadda yadda, so for the simple reason that I don't wanna be a dick, I am always friendly to strangers. When today's stranger sat a respectable distance, on the next park bench, I lobbed back "nice lady" rejoinders. I inserted "my husband" as soon as I could fit it plausibly into the conversation, which is a woman's gentle just-in-case'ism because we have learned how guys can turn instantly vicious if, in their mind, we've "led them on." Shit, these men make it SO HARD to be polite, don't they? He told me he was from Morocco, that he'd just moved to the neighborhood, where did I live? I waved in the general direction of our apartment. That's when the interrogation kicked into high gear.
Do you have children?
No.
Why not?
Because I don't want to have any children.
CAN you have them?
I don't know...? and I'm sure the look on my face said, "...this is getting weird because a man I've never met is asking about my reproductive organs in the park. He, amazingly, pressed on.
Why don't you have children!?
It's not the life for me. I'm not cut out for it.
What about your husband?
He does not want children either.
You need to give him children What are you scared of? Responsibility?!
Wait, Do Men Think They Own Motherhood?
I'm not scared of kids. Kids love me, I like to hang out with them sometimes, but then I need to go home where it's quiet. And I'm not scared of responsibility. Lucille Ball said "Responsibility is the ability to respond." Well, childless women (alone, rarely men) have had to respond to this line of questioning for soooo long. I am sick. Of. It. Please let Gen X be the last of this shit.
Men? Back the Hell Off
It's pushy enough when it comes from aunts and stuff, but when YOU do this to childless women, you're taking yet another stride in your aggressive muscling-out of our own agency. You dudes feel way too comfortable sticking your nose in our business, from how we wear our hair to THIS.
Why do men think a women's personal lifestyle choice is their purview in any way, whatsoever? Here a man who has happened across a woman alone in the park demands personal information. What would have happened if I stood up and dumped my smoothie on his ridiculous head.
It gets better. "Do YOU?" I finally asked. This guy has three children. By two different ex-wives, in West Virginia and New York. He didn't know ANYTHING about his kids except for their names. Not what grades they're in, what sports they like, what music, do they have pets? He isn't in their lives. At all. He never sees them. He never sees them. He never sees them. Please, by all means, tell me more about responsibility. What a total jerk. ⧫
Related:
The Mommy Problem ("I Hate Jake's Turn")
