Dorothea Salo wonders about how it works that one is perceived differently by different people. She has enthusiastic admirers, and there are also people from the far end of the lunch table who dislike her writing or her forthrightness and opinions. And there are some who criticize her not for what she writes, but for what she is: childfree.

One blogger considers me anathema (is there a word stronger than anathema? if there is, this blogger would use it of me) because I don’t make any particular secret of not liking ill-behaved children and not wanting children of my own (ill-behaved or not).

Remember, Dorothy, you’re not anathema, you’re a notthemama.

I’ve never understood the hostility and scorn that is reserved for anyone that professes they don’t like children. I also don’t like Brussels sprouts, but I don’t get criticized for my avoidance of them.

I’m with British TV and film producer Verity Lambert, who once cheerfully claimed, “But I can’t stand babies–no, I love babies as long as their parents take them away.”

Personally, this horrifies me on so many levels: Arkansas Family Expecting 16th Child

How can someone justify this large a family as a moral imperative? Our country consumes the bulk of the world’s resources in fossil fuels and yet are behind other nations in the percentage of our gross national product that we donate to poor countries. We don’t donate 0.7% like some of our peers.

“Extreme poverty can be reduced, and indeed eliminated, in our generation,” Sachs told journalists last week in a national conference call. “What it will take is increased investment.”

How much? To the American who would mutter, “Uh-oh, more handouts,” Sachs offered background and perspective.

In lending support to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent call for a doubling of aid to Africa to $50 billion a year, he pointed out that the well-off countries are nowhere near their goal of 0.7 percent of gross domestic product in foreign aid.

And whereas the European Union has agreed to hit 0.5 percent by 2010 and 0.7 percent by 2015, the United States — second to last in foreign aid as a percentage of wealth — stands at 0.16 percent and has refused so far to set a numerical goal even though it signed off on the 0.7 declaration in 2002. While AIDS funding has been hiked by the Bush administration, total U.S. aid to Africa is $3 billion a year.

“The image Americans have that we push huge amounts at Africa and it all goes bad or goes away is simply wrong,” Sachs said. “It is one of the great American myths.”

I thought about this for a couple of days. People don’t like criticism of parents, no matter how irresponsible the parents are, no matter how screwed up their motives. Even so – sixteen and not done yet is just too disturbing to let pass without comment.

What I chose to do with my life and my body is my business, as long as I’m not infringing on other people’s rights and privileges or expecting them to pay for my choices. Maybe the real question to be asked is not “Why am I CF” but “Why are you so worried that I am?”

Chances are I know this website’s author from the old days – it’s a nice WordPress site, too. I got there via one of the blogs at the *beep* blog listing of the local newspaper The Daily Herald.

It means “a society without children.” Supposedly it means economic disaster.

A former prime minister who is in charge of the governing party’s committee on population famously told women to stay at home and breed.

Fightin’ words, dude. Your economy would be better served by more working-age adults in the workplace, not by sending half of them home to make babies and letting the other half stay out til all hours “working” (actually, drinking with their cow-orkers).

Via Clack: Don’t think for one minute that it’ll stop with just abortion. Some pharmacists refuse to dispense birth-control pills on moral grounds. There are legal protections for pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control, too. They’re supposed to make arrangements for another pharmacist to fill the scrip, but some even refuse to do that. Which makes me wonder if the RTL movement has been quietly working to get a lot of pharmacists into their tent… if you object to birth control on moral grounds, one way to stop it is to cut off the supply at a convenient choke point, right?

Right.

Good thing I got the ol’ shnipperoo.

I don’t happen to think our leaders’ ideal republic has a lot of room for overeducated lefty feminist childfree gay-friendly non-religious Spanish-speaking ex-Jewish librarians, either.

I’m with you, Dorothea – right up to the Spanish-speaking part, and I’m quite friendly with the final two constituencies, too. And I’m definitely in the “It’s a womb, not a clown car” club. I saw a Discovery/Health show on the Duggars brood the other night – the combination of fundamentalism with fecundity gave me the heebie geebies just before the election, so it was just great timing.

Oddly enough, I have some rooibos tea at home. I’ll have some of that tonight in solidarity. I’m sure it’ll help.

In any case, I’ll be doing a lot of thinking, pondering, and reflecting for a while. For one thing, I think very soon somebody will be re-writing the familiar quotation of Pastor Martin Niemoller.

‘First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.’

I’ll wager they re-order the lines, trash the Communists altogether, and have it start “First they came for the Democrats…”

I’m taking a lot of calls today – the lines are busy, and I’ve noticed the oddest thing: callers from Red States are extreeeeemely cordial and syrupy and nice on the phone. And very understanding and patient. And it’s setting my teeth on edge, and I suspect my blood pressure may be spiking and I may need insulin later (I’m not a diabetic so far as I know). And I find myself looking forward to hearing a nice grating Noo Yawk or braahd Bahstin accent next.

I’m trying to give up conspiracy theories for the rest of the year, but can’t help but wonder if They aren’t all just being a little too nice. I read something earlier in USA Today:

Many Republicans said conciliation wasn’t necessary.

Angela Lutz, 33, a Bush voter from Waterville, Wash., said she understands the divisions the campaign opened. Kerry signs in her town were torn down several times. She said “it would be nice if everyone could just get along.”

But how to do that? “It would be nice if some people could just change their minds,” she said.

AAAAAH! You know she’s not changing her mind. Of course, it would be lovely if we were all singing out of the same choirbook (shudder). This is why it will be hard for me to give up on the “hairy-eyeballed wing-nuts are taking over” theories, too.

One act of extremely civil disobedience that I will try to commit in the coming years is to make donations to NPR stations in Red states, such as Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado (KUNC is heard in southern WY and western NE, too). National Public Radio offers cultural and news programming that can seem like a lifeline to lonely progressive thinkers out in the heartlands. It can reach moderates whose only other news is local TV and commercial radio… and religious/talk radio.

When David and I went on our long road trip, we had a CD player along, but wanted to listen to various weekend shows on NPR to pass the time. Sure enough, no matter how far out there you are, you can usually find a station, even if it’s only a repeater from a college NPR station far away. As the Abu Ghraib news was literally breaking open that first weekend (Sy Hersh was on Sunday Edition) we were glued to the radio, and frequently had to twiddle the dial to get a better signal, or pick up another repeater. It was comforting to be in touch with national events, and later when the music shows came on, it was the only alternative to our small CD rotation.

NPR: it’s national, and rational, and we need it more than ever. I still love AAR, but I doubt a Bush believer will listen for long without getting turned off and turning it off (as funny as Al Franken is, he’s not making any new friends in the “Dumb States.” Heh.)

I see by my readings at Salon.com and the echo chamber that is my personal Bloglines list that the bloodletting and recriminations have already begun. I have a solution: we’re simply going to have to start up a Democratic Party version of the Grange movement, or perhaps Chatauqua, with speakers of interest, social services, and so on. Maybe the Democratic Party could spend some of those vast sums of money on more grassroots groups that work for positive change.

The “mild Protestantism” of Chatauqua shouldn’t be a deterrent to the secular (I’ve been to a concert at the Boulder Chatauqua complex, it’s like an old fashioned summer retreat). The movement was nearly killed off by the rise of fundamentalism in the 20’s, so it would be satisfying to breathe a little life on the ashes and revive it.

I feel like the people who voted against gay marriage in all those states just weren’t stopping to think of their friends and family who are gay. If they don’t have any friends and family who are gay, they certainly need some. The irony is, they probably already do. So maybe nice gay people in fleets of tastefully decorated Winnebagoes ought to ply the rural byways of this land, offering cultural exchange, makeover tips, and banana bread. And we ALL, gay and straight, need to travel the world and reassure them that we’re not all religious zealots.

And maybe we should all drink more rooibos tea. We latte-sipping liberrrls could sure stand to cut back on the caffeine a little to reduce the stress.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US children ‘abandoned in Africa’
An adoptive mother of 7 abandons her kids in Nigeria and heads to Iraq to work as a private contractor.

Even I don’t hate kids that much.