A favourite rant against the enormous societal pressure on people to have kids.
On daytime T.V.
(Cracked mirror of society),
Each programme features
Items designed for other creatures,
For sisters, not brothers,
And only those who would be mothers,
On the programme list
It seems the child-free don’t exist.
The daily slot
Filled with teenager, babe or tot
Says we’re without
What womanhood is all about.
And obviously
Models of deficiency,
Much less than thrilled
At being labelled ‘unfulfilled.’
We don’t have babies
So might as well have AIDS or Rabies.
We don’t conform,
And so we’re set outside the norm,
Marginalised
Ignored or even ostracised,
By the tyranny
Of the parenting majority.
They think we ought
To rock the cradle, not the boat.
Should not be free
To challenge domesticity.
When we protest,
Our challenges are not addressed,
If we acquiesce,
Child-free by choice becomes child-less.
We’re forced to try
To rationalise and justify
Our child-free state,
To remonstrate and demonstrate
Another way
That women have a part to play
In daily life
Other than mother, daughter, wife.
This stereotype
Is patriarchal super-hype,
Pushed on TV
As absolute normality,
By stick thin chicks
With blown-up boobs and pumped-up lips,
Employed to be
Models we will never be.
So we remain
Outside normality’s domain,
Social pariahs,
Whose aspirations reach up higher
Than maternity,
And being a man’s property
His only means,
Of passing on his worn-out genes.
Childless by choice,
We should protest and raise our voice
Louder and louder,
Fiestier, more robust and prouder,
And joined by more,
Chorus a triumphant roar,
“We will be
Whatever we decide to be!”
© Lynne Joyce, 1991/2007.