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Marymac: Dear People Who Use the Word 'Breeder'
- January 9, 2013
- on 1/9/2013
- MoJo: Mary McCarthy
Dear People Who Use the Word “Breeder,”
Before I had 4 kids, I had never even heard the word breeder. A quick look at urbandictionary.com reveals the following definition, in case you're not familiar:
Breeder
1: slang term used by some childfree people for one who has a child and/or has many after that, refuses to discipline the child/ren, thinks the sun rises and sets for their child/ren, look down upon people who do not have children, and are in general very selfish and greedy when it comes to their whims and those of their child/ren, especially if they can use their parenthood status or their children as an excuse to get their way. A female breeder is commonly called a moo, and a male breeder a duh.
2: slang term used by people of homosexual persuasion to refer to heterosexual couples, who have a significantly higher risk of contributing to the population increase than the homosexuals do.
"Can you believe the nerve of those breeders? They come in to a nice restaurant and proceed to sit by and watch while their progeny shriek and run all over the place, and then let the children make a huge mess and do not even tip the waitstaff. Disgusting..."
I have been called a breeder once to my face, at some kind of social media cocktail event, back when people had things like social media events that I would actually put on a bra and makeup for. I was meeting a person (it so happened, a woman with no children) for the first time and I said something about “blah, blah four kids, blah,” and she sort of sneered at me and said, "Oh, a breeder," and then she was all done talking to me.
I oddly felt like I should apologize for my fertility, explain I was Catholic and Irish, that I only had four kids because the first three were girls, and I really wanted a boy, and that he was worth waiting for and is the only thing that keeps me sane while raising three girls. But I doubt any of that would’ve helped my case.
I get it. I overpopulated the planet. I suck. But you know what? I don’t go around inventing condescending Urban Dictionary words to describe your choice not to have kids. You don’t have kids? Seriously: good for you. I love how y’all came up with “child free” which sounds way nicer than “childless.” I’m genuinely jealous.
Kids make you insane and broke and stressed and exhausted. If you get to come home at the end of the day to a quiet, empty house (or, I gotta say, for some of you, to a house where you act like your pet is more special than a person), then you rock on.
Despite how much they’ve ruined my life, I don’t actually regret my decision (though I can’t pinpoint a moment in time where I actually made one) to have kids. I love them. They love me. I have a dog and cat I can’t stand, because they pee wherever they feel like it. I notice at least the kids traditionally use a toilet.
So can we come to some sort of agreement on this whole use of the word breeder thing? Like, you don’t effing use it anymore because it’s insulting, condescending, and snobbish? Or just use it amongst yourselves, but not in our earshot.
Not that we’d hear you, because our obnoxious kids are so damn loud.
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