Reading this discussion on Mother Talkers today made me think...
When you're a working parent, all too often, it seems that friction results. If you can't stay late because you have to get home before the babysitter leaves, or you have to work at home or miss a day because your child is sick, employers and coworkers may resent you for it. You CHOSE to have a child, after all. It was YOUR choice, and why should they have to be penalized with a heavier workload because you made that choice?
I would argue that NOT having children is also a choice. If you are in an opposite-sex relationship with no fertility problems, unless you've never, ever had sex with a fertile member of the opposite gender, you have indeed consciously chosen not to have children.
I don't want anyone to think I'm implying there's something wrong with that, because for many people, not having kids is absolutely the right thing for them. I'd just like to see everyone's choices respected, and I'd really like to see having kids treated as just part of life, not some extra-special or extra-annoying, inconvenient-for-the-rest-of-us thing.
(Hope I haven't just launched a flame war or offended anybody who is reading this -- this is definitely not about you!)
