Cultivate Saplings

Unknown, Green Bathroom - Line Holtegaard , 2024.

Danish , b, 1980 -

I do not think it should need to be said, but unfortunately it absolutely is, that nobody should ever be forced to become pregnant, be a parent or carry a pregnancy to term. Ever. This requires both complete and total abortion rights & access but also the dismantling of the gendered expectation of women to want and need children. Remaining child free should not only be possible for women, it should also be normal and completely accepted. Anything else is oppressive.

However, I am deeply bothered by how many people who share these views talk about children. I have come across many posts describing children in cruel and dehumanizing ways, emphasizing how gross and terrible children are and how much of a burden they are to their parents. This, I think is also wrong.

Children are a particularly vulnerable population. They often have very little rights and autonomy and are at the whims of adults around them, which makes then particularly vulnerable to abuse. Children are real, fully realized people who have very specific needs and considerations. Constantly discussing how disgusting and terrible children are, means attacking people who have no power and cannot defend themselves, legally or otherwise. These views cannot be separated from calls to remove children from public life, like parks and transportation, the practice of which is both dehumanizing and oppressive. This goes hand in hand with the gendered oppression of women who are unfortunately still often the primary caregivers of children. Forcing children out of the public sphere means forcing mothers out of it too. And the right to not have children needs to go hand in hand with the right to have children. Women need abortion rights and access but they also need the right and access to give birth for free. They need robust childcare and child & family friendly infrastructure. Otherwise the only people who can afford to have children are wealthy elites.

The medieval peasant I went back in time to give a bag of Doritos to, concerned: what terrible and powerful sorcerers they must have in your age, to be able to veil the vault of heaven itself from view, as you say

Me, sniffling: I didn’t realize, I can’t, it’s so much, I, I… are the chips good, at least?