The Mad Momma asks: Why is it alright to be openly intolerant of children?
It’s for the same reason it is alright to be openly intolerant of anything – salwar kameezes, Shashi Tharoor’s writing, chicory-blended coffee, and so on. Freedom of speech are there. Or as Skimpy famously put it, I am a free citizen of free India and I shall say what I want.
Of course the reason I express my intolerance of children more than my intolerance of anything else is that nothing is as much fun as enraging mommybloggers1. Enraged mommybloggers move about in herds, angrily clucking ‘Wait till you have kids of your own!’ or ‘You are horrible and have no empathy!’. The warm, fuzzy feeling to be obtained from people bitching about being mischaracterised as emotional and stupid – and doing so in an emotional and stupid manner is delightful.
The pinnacle of emotional outbursts, of course, was this point-by-point takedown by J. For my own amusement, and for yours, beloved readers – I will now respond to this:
kids will become irritating when they are given too much attention:–Dude if you are dating a woman or married to a woman and if she will not give you enough attention, you too will become irritable. Correct me if I am wrong.
Being an upright young man with Saivite neo-Edwardian values, I am able to separate my behaviour from my mental state. Kids are not. I blame their mothers, given that they seem to be unable to differentiate between being irritable and being irritating. This pernicious encouragement of expressing your feelings regardless of the consequences is undermining our society.
This is also probably the reason why kids in Delhi and Chennai are the worst behaved–whoa whoa wait a minute. Iam smelling discrimination here or you are a less travelled person who is like a frog in the well….kids are kids irrespective of caste, creed, religion and nationality. Every child of a specific age behaves quiet similar and this is one of the reason why all the mommy bloggers relate to each other irrespective of their financial and geographical status.
If every child behaved ‘quiet’, I wouldn’t be bitching about them online. And yes, it is discrimination. Man is endowed with the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. Without the ability to discriminate, there would be no way to promote virtue and punish vice.
Jobless doting female relatives, who do nothing but stay at home–what kind of a loser talks like this about the women folk who spend their entire life serving their family. WTF do you mean by “jobless”. Does jobless means earning money only. I really question your upbringing today which taught you to respect people on the basis of their revenue generating capabilities.
No ‘jobless’ means sitting on your arse while the domestic servants do all the work, the husband earns all the money, and the grandmothers do most of the child-rearing. What part of ‘do nothing but stay at home’ do you not understand? I use words with precision.
In the case of Chennai, because they actually are unemployed–Can you please support your statement by some figures (if at all you are intelligent enough to understand what I am saying). By the way in my work career I have come across some really intelligent tamilians and real dumb punju’s. (how does this sound since you are a punju)
Given that I have been abusing Punjews online since… oh, 2003, and with an especially popular campaign in 2005, and that I am widely acknowledged to be Tam – it sounds like validation.
and in the case of Delhi, because employment for Delhi women usually means fraud stay-at-home stuff like garment designing–FRAUD?????????? Are you a fuckin police or intelligent department official who can pronounce a profession as “FRAUD”. As a matter of fact can you design a garment? DO you know what kind of creativity goes into it. Have respect for every person who is trying to make a honest living yet tending to their responsibilities.
Yes, deciding to put sequins on a salwar kameez is very creative. And a business set up purely to satisfy ego, and which gives lower returns than a fixed deposit is an honest living. As for whether I can design a garment, I’m thinking of having a Kansa Society T-shirt up for sale on Myntra soon. Also, why do I have to be a fuckin pole or intelligent department official to pronounce a profession fraud? Nobody in my IIMB Batch was, and everyone used to pronounce either consulting, or marketing, or I-banking, or HR fraud. To say nothing of all the courses we used to pronounce fraud. Your grasp of lingo is really quite terrible.
With non-stop attention lavished upon it, the kid becomes a monster–How dare you call a kid “monster”. They are the only purest form of mankind left now. Rest all are busy talking bullshit (like you). Did you ever have a kid come to you and look at you with those innocent eyes and appreciate all tat you did for him / her? I have experienced that innocence and how can you call such children monsters, just because they are extra energetic and crying is one of the ways to express their needs (god created that way)
Well, there goes the argument for intelligent design…
Also, J, you are wrong. Kids are not the only purest form of mankind. Masabi, Skimpy, and Jugga are. There is no malice in Jugga’s heart. He loves all of humanity, without fear or reservation. So much so, that he hugs hijras on MG Road and gives them money. Read Skimpy’s petromax post to realise that he is fearless, and unconstrained by the mores of society. As for Masabi, you only have to gaze into his eyes to discover how innocent and pure he is.
But I never saw kids throwing tantrums in mumbai–Dude refrain from making such statements. How many kids did you sample and from which cities. Can you once again provide some statistics.
No. Can you provide some statistics on kids being the purest form of humanity?
have seen this with my own nephews and nieces also. The one who curls up with a Roald Dahl and generally doesn’t talk is the one whose parents are a doctor and a physiotherapist, and who therefore hardly see him. On the other hand, the Nephew Who Bites has lived his entire life with a stay-at-home mother, a stay-at-home grandmother, a drop-in-practically-ceaselessly grandmother, and a father who is an ameer-baap-ki-bigdi-aulaad, and so doesn’t need to work— I am an Associate Director in a big firm in Manhattan and my husband is a software professional. We both spend few hours in the morning and few in the evening with my 22mths old son. Contrary to your statement he bites us, he throws tantrums, he screams his lungs off on roads / malls, spits food. Well his grandparents do not stay with us. (now its your turn to start battering working mothers)
No, I shall stick with my theory of attention as it stands. Since his tantrums are not being caused by nurture, they are evidently being caused by genetics. So it’s still your fault.
And where I’m concerned, Ma and Papa used to just leave me alone and whack me every once in a while, and I am now a model of manners, rectitude, decency and sobriety. So much so, that people refuse to believe that I’m Punjabi.—-hahahahaha. This was my fav part out of the whole blog. Dude get a life, you were deprived of love and attention your whole life that’s the reason u r spitting venom at mothers who are showering attention on their kids.
They’re so busy showering attention that they can’t recognise literary references. Oh well.
Think about it. You devote an entire blog to the kid, and nothing but the kid–How about devoting entire life for my kid. The happiness he gave me, nothing else can ever match it. I will not mind giving up everything for him.
Well, you’ve given up spellcheck. ‘Appauled’?
1: This is not strictly accurate. As Ravikiran discovered, making sexist comments at feminists is huge fun too. But enraging feminists will lead to undesirable friction with the girlfriend, and who needs that? So mommybloggers it is.
I too would shower all my love and devote entire life for my kid. Ergo, hence and forth, you may call me “Daddy Blogger”. Make that “Blog Daddy”: it’s way cooler.
And I would love devote the kid’s1 entire life. To the Tentacularity. Especially if the kid is spawned of the Infernal Black Goat of the Woods.
1. Mercifully brief.
Three points.
First, I’d ask commenters to stay clear of personal attacks regarding how my (our) parents brought us up. The vitriol and lack of reason in this post stems from my brother’s own insecurities, and is hardly a reflection on his (our) upbringing.
To the second point, and a larger one at that. I find it disturbing and hypocritical that a libertarian (and “fundamentalist” one at that too) can even jokingly (I assume this is in some perverse way what it is meant to be) come up with the Kansa society, or indeed the underlying justifications for the same. Live and let live is a nice principle to ascribe to, but given the weight libertarians attach to ideas, it extends not only to ones actions but ones words themselves. Does one have a right to be free to say and do what they like? Without a doubt, in the absence of harm. Should one however go ahead and do this? Sure, but then don’t attempt to hold yourself to a philosophy that preaches tolerance and respect for the individual in its purest form.
Third, I’m disappointed that even in a follow up post someone who again holds themselves to a standard of intelligence and argumentation picked out Strawmen to respond to, rather than tackling some of the more pertinent objections to the earlier post. I’m disappointed that the level of argumentation here is comparable to that found on most rediff posts, but mostly I’m disappointed that the views represented here are justified using libertarian frameworks of freedom that are frankly only paid lip service to.
Again, what is with this attitude towards women!
And y’ve referenced Ravikumar and his post!!! (one of the most sexist and offensive posts i’ve ever come across).
you make me miss jivha….almost!
“Yes, deciding to put sequins on a salwar kameez is very creative. And a business set up purely to satisfy ego, and which gives lower returns than a fixed deposit is an honest living.”
Aadisht – The voice in your posts is of someone who hasn’t experienced much hardship. My (single) mother was a tailor. And she did, in fact put, “sequins on a salwar kameez”. And it is this income that gave “lower returns than a fixed deposit” that made me finish my law degree and become a partner at one of India’s top law firms. While I completely agree that you have the right to say whatever you please, I feel compelled to point out that despite your sarcasm-filled denial – you aren’t very empathetic. Using the libertarian card to justify, what is quite simply, meanness detracts from libertarianism’s purpose.
Linking to Ravikiran (someone I have great respect for) isn’t going to redeem the condescension in your post.
Good luck! and grow up, Aadisht.
Regards
Nisha Thomas
Hhmm??
@Nisha – Not to knock hardship, but I notice you conveniently ignored the “business set up purely to satisfy ego” part of Aadhist’s comment.
[…] that is how that little business of stitching sequins on salwar suits got my brother and me an education. It put food on our table. It bought my father a new lease of […]
Aditya – I didn’t ignore it.
But who is to say whether the business was indeed “set up purely to satisy ego”.
Conjecture is one thing. Presumption, quite another.
Neha: please refer.
[…] major fight has erupted in the Blogosphere over momblogging and children in public spaces. At least Aadisht is mocking people and having fun. What the hell is Falstaff’s [1, 2, 3] excuse? Is it that […]
I found this very funny. It’s interesting that mommybloggers care so much about what you think – and you don’t sound like you’re even a daddyblogger.
Aadhisht, I will stick to what I said….yes, you will change your views when you have ur first one…ok…let me put it this way! for all those non-parents who happen to share your views today, will change their views down the lane when they happen to have their kids….yes, that is the truth…it mite sound so duh-like and blah! but yet the truth is inevitable…
btw, with MBA from IIM you still sound like an illiterate….yes we do lot of clucking ,going around telling people that we are what we are….and hey i dont want to go ahead and say am working mom, with a good position and blah blah and blah….coz nothing makes sense to people who have already had their notion set otherwise….but understand one thing, NO job is fraudulent ,if that job puts food on the place and feed the hungry kids….you are MBA from IIM…u must be knowing all the valid examples right…how people turned rags to riches right…doing fraudulent jobs rite…
You have this weird attitude towards women and children. I dont say you will realise all about children once you have kids of your own because not everyone learns.
Here is what i have to say.
http://jayashrivemuri.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-did-not-want-to.html
I can see your point, though I dont see myself nodding in agreement everytime 🙂
I seem to have bad Kid Karma…
http://m0rph3us.blogspot.com/2006/08/kid-karma.html
“This pernicious encouragement of expressing your feelings regardless of the consequences is undermining our society.”
Not a fan of PDA then?
More entertainment from the comments than the post itself – congrats on having achieved a self-sustaining model for blogging!