I Rest My Case

Today at work, I saw something remarkable from a parent: honesty.

A woman approached me at the register, purchasing multiple pink bookmarks. She was very friendly and pleasant, so I would never have guessed that she had any children. She then told me of her plans to give the bookmarks as party favors at her young daughter's birthday party the next day. (Usually when people start telling me about their stuff -what or whom it's for, why they like it, &c- I get really annoyed. But this customer was very amiable, so I didn't mind.)

"It's so much work," she said with a laugh.

I laughed as well. "Honestly," I began. "I give a lot of credit to mothers everywhere, simply because it's such an immensely demanding job." This is true. While I may not be a mother, I have a mother, and I remember very well what a little brat I used to be. There are tons of stupid parents out there, but I have tremendous respect for the ones who do it well. (If your kid says, "Please" and "Thank you," you're doing a good job. If he kicks you in the shin and runs around the store because you won't buy him the toy he wants... you're doing a bad job.)

"Thank you!" she replied gratefully. She sighed. "It's... it really is," she began. "It's a lot of work. You have no idea..." she then looked at me. "Do you.... you're very young; you don't have any children, do you?"

I shook my head. "Oh, no, no I don't," I replied.

Then she nodded vigorously. "Yeah, yeah, good..." she said. Good?! Ha! Good! I love it. "It's..." she then looked over her shoulder, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear her saying this. She leaned in very close and then said to me quietly... "It's so bad."

"It's so bad." Yes. This is what a mother actually said to me about being a parent. "It's so bad."

She then shook her head and shut her eyes tightly, as if trying to shake off her guilt. "I mean, don't get me wrong, of course I love my daughter. But... being a mother.... it's so bad" she reiterated. "I mean, if you don't have to.... good. Don't do it if you don't..." she just shook her head again.

At this point, I felt comfortable enough with this customer to tell her the truth. "Well, I'm actually planning on not having any children...."

She sighed a sigh of relief on my behalf. "That's good. Yeah. Don't do it."

I finished the woman's transaction, wished her good luck at the birthday party, and she left the store.

If members of the other team are coming up to me and advising me not to join... I rest my case.

Eight Things I Hate About Your Kids

I love weekends. And I love my job. But I absolutely hate weekends at my job, not because I resent having to work weekends, but because weekends mean that all the little brats are out of school and their parents will bring them to the bookstore where I work. Here's a list of child-related things I can't stand when I'm at work:

1) I absolutely detest, with a violent and passionate disgust, when parents send their young children (I guess any child under the age of about eight or nine) to pay for things at the cash register by themselves, as the parents themselves stand there and watch from about twenty feet away. I don't get it. What, do they think it's cute? I've had parents send their four-year-old children up to me alone. These parents don't know me; they don't know I'm not some kind of a psychopath! I think it's weird. Not only that, but it bothers me. I am not comfortable with children. I am not comfortable bringing myself down to the intellectual level of a child while I am on the job. I also have this theory that parents send their kids to do their dirty work so that I can't ask them if they have membership cards or if they want to donate something. I also hate when the children hand me their crinkled up dirty money and I have to stand there unfolding it for half an hour, not knowing where on earth that money has been. It was most likely up that child's nose not ten minutes beforehand and here I am touching it. (I brought a bottle of hand sanitizer to work to keep behind the registers. I love when the parents see me using it right after I deal with their kids.) To be fair, some of the children are very well-mannered and very nice, and that always brightens my day. But it's such a rarity that when a child actually says things like "please" and "thank you," I get so excited that I have to tell all of my coworkers.

2) When they knock things over and make a mess (this one is pretty obvious, but still incredibly annoying).

3) When parents tell their children to "bring [your] book up to the lady." I AM NOT "THE LADY." I AM TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD. I AM WAY TOO YOUNG TO BE CALLED "THE LADY." IF YOU WANT TO REFER TO ME AS "THE GIRL," OR EVEN "THE YOUNG LADY," FINE. BUT "THE LADY" IS SOMETHING I CONSIDER EXTREMELY INSULTING. (This really makes me bonkers.)

4) When parents decide to go into parent-mode in the middle of a transaction. I'm mid-sentence and all of a sudden it's, "Johnny, do you want to go to Chuck E. Cheese?" Ugh. I especially hate when I'm in the middle of ringing them up and their children run off so they go and run after them. I understand they need to catch their children (and I'd be even more freaked out if they didn't) but it still irks me.

5) When (oh this is so gross) parents decide to place their babies (not children but, like, BABIES) ..... are you ready for this? ....... ON THE FREAKING COUNTER. It's happened on a few occasions to me. They'll sit their babies down RIGHT ON THE COUNTER WHERE I'M RINGING THEM UP. THAT IS EFFING DISGUSTING. I would rather clean the bathroom than deal with that, and I'm totally serious. I really don't want to have to be near your baby. I don't think it's fair to put A HUMAN BEING ON TOP OF MY WORK SPACE. I don't think it's any more acceptable than if a grown person were to sit his ass right down on the counter. Gross is gross, and that is GROSS. Then the babies are grabbing at things and messing things up, and the parents don't even apologize. I've tried things before to get them to stop: first I say to them, "Oh, that counter is really dirty," hoping to appeal to their germophobic side. That usually doesn't work. Surprisingly, parents seem okay with putting their children on germy surfaces. Fantastic. Maybe because the little overgrown sperm-cells are overflowing with germs already. When that fails, I start coughing really loud (into my sleeve, of course, not on the children... although parents don't seem to have a problem with their children coughing on me) which sometimes gets them to move the kids. Sometimes that doesn't even work. I'm thinking of saying something to the parents next time like "I'm getting over a bad flu and I don't want to get your child sick" (when in reality, your child is making me sick) or maybe "I have a severe allergy to talcum powder" (this is the only baby-specific material I can think of... I wish I could just say I have a severe allergy to people under the age of eighteen). Any suggestions on this one?

6) I hate when parents try to get special treatment because they have kids. Like today, some woman came up to me and asked me for change for a twenty dollar bill. I said I would need a manager to do so, so I called the manager. While waiting, this woman says to me, "I just need change so that I can pay the babysitter," like it's supposed to make me jump up and say, "Oh, goodness! I wasn't going to open the drawer for you before, but now that I know you have kids, I've suddenly got manager-like superpowers! In fact, there's a button on my register that says, 'Change for Babysitter' for precisely this purpose! I'll get your money out as fast as I can for your darling little children!" They'll try to get extra discounts ("but this one is for my grandson!") or expect me to wait for them at the register while their little brats pick out more idiot toys that will melt their brains anyway...

7) When parents ask me to throw away their children's garbage. This is disgusting.

8) Children stare at me and it freaks me out. I don't understand it. There's nothing particularly interesting about the way I look. I don't have any piercings. I don't have any tattoos. I don't have strange hair or any significantly distinguishing feature. Children just like to stare. It's creepy. It reminds me of that kid in The Omen. It's creepy. STOP STARING AT ME, CHILD.

I mean, they're not always terrible. One day, I was cleaning up toys in the children's section and this little girl, maybe about four years old, wanders over to me and starts going through the toys on the floor around me. I figure she's going to bring a toy over to her mom to buy it for her or something. So the little girl is there for about five minutes and I'm not really paying attention to her (hey, that's her mom's job, not mine) when she starts handing toys to me, one by one. Then I realized... this little girl was helping me put back the toys. She had put back like ten toys on the shelf and had started handing them to me when she couldn't reach the shelves anymore. It really was heartwarming.

So even though I'm pretty sure I don't want kids of my own, it's still really nice to see kids who are brought up well and are polite. I think that if all children behaved like that little girl (or maybe if all parents raised their kids the way that little girl was raised, perhaps?) I would be more inclined to want children.

But because of the other eight behaviors listed above... I'm extremely happy to be child-free.

In Your Kid's Mouth? Not My Responsibility

Here's a classic, particularly disgusting story from the bookstore.

I'm at the register, as usual, when a woman comes up to me with her spawn and wants to buy some little brightly-colored board book. I ring it up, and as I'm trying to tell her what she owes, she keeps yelling, "BENJAMIN! BENJAMIN! BENJAMIN NO! DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH, BENJAMIN! BENJAMIN, GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!"

(At the registers, we have little bins of Lindt chocolate truffles. Wrapped, of course.)

All of a sudden, as I'm standing there minding my own freaking child-free business, with one very quick and very self-important motion, the woman places an unwrapped and very spit-covered chocolate RIGHT ON MY COUNTER. And she says, "You really shouldn't have these chocolates here. My son tried to eat one. Could you throw this away?"

I was absolutely stunned. I've had parents do/say stupid things to me before, but this one was just astonishingly stupid. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, such as:

1) Why the fuck aren't you watching your spawn? You decided to have the little fucker, so therefore it is YOUR responsibility to keep it safe. YOUR responsibility, NOT MINE. I did not decide to have your child.

2) I am not the one who decided to put the Lindt truffles below the counter. You'll have to take it up with corporate. Here's their phone number...

3)That is merchandise, ma'am, and because you weren't watching your child, who damaged merchandise, you must pay for it. (It was only twenty-five cents, but I hate these parents so much...)

4) YOUR CHILD HAS GERMS. GET THAT SLIME-COVERED CHOCOLATE AWAY FROM ME.

5) That is garbage, Assface, and it does not belong on my register.

But, being as I was too stunned to even speak, I simply shot her a very cold, very disgusted look. There I was minding my own business and this bitch decides she needs to put her GARBAGE on my register? Her germy child's bacteria-covered GARBAGE? That is nasty and disgusting. That is garbage. I don't go to your job and put my garbage on your desk, do I? ESPECIALLY IF IT HAS BEEN IN MY MOUTH.

"I'm not touching that," I said to her. I continued to ring her up and figured I would pick it up with a tissue later and then Lysol the counter down very thoroughly. But I was NOT about to give her the satisfaction of watching me subserviently cleaning up after her kid. That is her job, not mine. So I just kept ringing her stuff up on the same counter as the germy spit-covered thing, because that's where she put it and that's where it was going to stay for the duration of her visit.

"Excuse me," she said in a huff. "I'd like to see your manager."

"Okay," I replied. "And may I ask what this is regarding?"

This bitch actually looked me right in the face and said, "YOU ARE SO RUDE!"

Yes. That's right. The woman puts HER garbage on MY work space, after it has been in her kid's MOUTH, and then she has the nerve to call me rude. Yes.

"Excuse me?" I said. I was so shocked. I'm the rude one?

"You can't look at me like that!" she said. Actually, there are no rules on how I may or may not look at customers. Sorry. "All I wanted was to make sure my son didn't eat the chocolate! I don't know where that's been!" Well, I know where it's been: IN YOUR KID'S MOUTH. And if you really didn't want him to eat it, then you should've been watching him. "I haven't done anything wrong!" she screamed. Really? You go around putting your trash on other people's work space? "WHY ARE YOU TREATING ME LIKE I'M SUCH A BAD PERSON?!?!?!" she screamed at me (she really wasn't wrapped too tightly...)

I again shot her that cold, confused look. "Ma'am, I haven't said anything derogatory to you." Then she realized that I was right, and then she looked confused. "Would you still like to see my manager?" I offered.

"No," she said. "Just forget it." And she walked out.

Ew.

Welcome!

Welcome.

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am twenty-two years old. I am not married. I do not have any children.

I will never have any children, because I don't want them.

I am a member of the on-the-rise "Child-Free By Choice" movement. I am of the school of thought that children are unnecessary, if not detrimental, to people. Numerous studies have proven that having children is directly related to marital dissatisfaction, with almost irreversible damage to one's psychological health (particularly women). Having children is a massive responsibility. Having a child entails tremendous sacrifices: financial, emotional, personal sacrifices. Children hurt your body, your wallet, and your psyche. And probably your furniture and walls as well, as I remember from my childhood.

If you disagree, you have children or you want children, and you hate me and/or the rest of the Child-Free population, I really don't care. You do not have to read this blog. Please click out of the page and have a nice day.

But I did not start this blog to discuss the merits of being child-free. (Please see the links section for resources regarding this topic.) I came here to discuss something much more specific. You see, I'm a graduate student. And graduate school means tuition. And tuition means I need to have a job. And I do, indeed, have a job. I work at a very prominent bookstore chain that unfortunately has a very large children's section.

Being Child-Free, I have begun to shake off this brain-washing image that society loves to feed us about children being "magical, innocent, special" creatures, and now see them for what they are: humans. That's all they are. They have rights, just like everybody else, absolutely. But they're not special. They're not magical. They're humans. They're tiny humans. Our society loves to give special concessions to children: it's okay for them to scream, it's okay for them to lie, it's okay for them to steal. They're children. It's okay for them to make messes. They're children. It's okay for parents to slack off and abandon their work responsibilities for their children, because they're children, and children are the most important thing in the world.

Well, fuck that.

This blog started as a collection of stories, in another blog of sorts. A collection of the tales of idiot parents who want me to make concessions for their children. (Essentially, this blog isn't so much "anti-children" as it is "anti-stupid-parent.") I've come to realize that working at a retail establishment is one of the most unpleasant (although entertaining) venues in which to be proudly and happily child-free: here we are, making the conscious decision not to pollute our lives with these little resource-sucking bastards, and yet their consequences are being forced upon us anyway. True, it is more or less my own fault: I don't have to work at a retail establishment with a children's section. I don't even have to work retail at all. So I fully, fully admit that this is mostly my own doing. Despite all of this, I enjoy everything else about my job so I've decided to stick with it and turn my grievances into amusements.

After sharing so many of my Child-Free in Retail moments, I realized there's a pretty large community of us out there, who don't want children, who don't enjoy being around children, who work (particularly in retail!) and have many a stupid-parent tale to tell. This blog is for that community of people. Welcome to the Child-Free At Work Blog.

Whether you're decidedly Child-Free or just someone who works in retail, this is the place for you to vent your frustrations.

Interested in writing for Child-Free At Work? Drop me a comment! I'd love to have more writers!