Day 73: thoughts on child free spaces from an admittedly childless young adult and a postscript

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Recently I have discovered that there is something of a debate about whether businesses have the right to set a minimum age for children within their establishment. I believe I should first say that I’m 26 and have no children of my own nor do I plan on having them in the extremely near future at least.In spite of that I do like children very much I am the last person you will find making purposefully discriminatory statements. However I believe that adults  with and without children are entitled to “child free” areas. I have heard from several parents of young children in my acquaintance that there are times when a completely adult conversation is paramount to their continued sanity. Completely adult in this instance encompasses a time frame in which the eyes that seem to attach themselves to the back of your head at the onset of parenthood can sleep, and your superhero cape can be left at home underneath your socks in the bottom drawer of your dresser. I applaud parents for their sometimes superhuman efforts in raising their children but to all the parent bloggers out there who are muttering about “child discrimination” don’t you think you deserve a small increment of time in which to remember that you were a person long before your children came around? I think sometimes parents have the tendency to forget that they were functioning beings before their infant/toddler/preschooler was here. My suggestion: get a babysitter for the night and at least once a month enjoy a conversation which is comprised wholly of words and not punctuated with high-pitched emotional sound half the time. If your favorite restaurant happens to have a minimum age and you foresee giving up your absolute favorite dish forever take heart, it’s not forever. Personally I might consider letting my child believe that the nice restaurant dinner on their sixth or seventh birthday was my present to them when actually it would be a present to myself.
Now a note to anyone who has a mind to or is currently following this blog about the next few weeks: I have just updated my speech recognition software and until we get used to each other there might be some really bizarre phrases that accidentally get put in print. I beg your indulgence for about the next month.

Related articles

• The Baby Ban: What are we saying to parents? (scanofnova.wordpress.com)
• Child Bans: Acceptable Bigotry? (alainamabaso.wordpress.com)
• On Banning Children: Two Sides of the Coin (caridwen.wordpress.com)

love… the great equalizer… or so I thought…

I recently had a discussion with a friend and Matthew Shepard got mentioned  For those of you who don’t know Matthew Shepard was a university student who was beaten to death because he was homosexual.  I think I was 11 at the time this happened but even so I remember being appalled.  Somehow being punched and kicked to a bloody pulp is at least as horrifying if not more so than dying from a gunshot wound.  Matthew was just as much someone’s son as those boys who were scared enough to kill him. “All man of created equal”, remember that?  A simple statement that all Americans at least have known since grade school, but like so much of the history books, apparently untrue.

“All you need is love,” so said John Lennon.  Several years ago when I was dating my senior high school boyfriend of course I met his parents, two of the nicest people you will ever meet  Even though we have long since broken up and rarely speak when we do I still ask how his mom is, both of them.  They’ve been together since he was seven and even know that a lot of distance from 17 to 24 (almost) when the subject comes up I always tell people that he is a wonderful person and a good man.  The fact that he was, in large part, raised by two women makes no difference. They are roughly my folks age so they should be around for a decent bit I have to wonder what will to them as they get older.  Marriage is more than just ceremony confirming commitment.  Once confirmed as a spouse someone’s partner automatically becomes their legal next of kin able to make medical decisions if the other is incapacitated etc.I cannot stand the thought that they might be denied the right to hold their loved ones hand for the last time.  I hope my uncle doesn’t have to face that and when fate decrees it is his time to leave I for one will fight to make sure the person closest to him is allowed to visit.

At almost 24 I freely admit a lot of things I don’t know but after having been in and out of hospitals my entire life there are a couple things I can tell you: hospitals are depressing, all too often humanity stripping, demoralizing places.If the person I love were kept from seeing me because they were female and therefore could not legally be considered my spouse, that would depress me worse.  Yes  that  could actually happen me because I’m bi. As I have said before we all have opinions and I respect yours but before yoi blithely tell me that it’s a choice that I can reverse if I TRULY wanted to, let me ask you, would YOU choose to live a life that could end  with you dead,beaten bad enough that dental records were the only way to identify you?! Didn’t think so!

Churches should still be able to refuse to marry a couple…freedom of religon and all that. But I’d like to point out courthouse have been civil instituations for a long time in most cases.