Seems like the original poster doesn't really know any childless-by-choice folks. There are lots of reasons why someone who likes children and/or works with them might not want any of her own. Many don't mind playing with children in short bursts, for example. I love my nieces, but can only spend about 48 hours with them...I can't imagine dealing with them 24/7. As for a child-friendly but childless-by-choice preschool teacher, taking care of children all day is a job, and she very likely found that going home to a quiet, orderly apartment where ten or fifteen little voices weren't all clamoring at her at once was a great relief.

This poster apparently harbors the attitude that parenthood is inevitable...big deal if birth control fails. It's fortunate that parenthood suited this couple enough that they wanted a second child. But what if it hadn't? There are lots of folks out there who don't want to be parents and know that they shouldn't be parents. Please respect their preferences.

Whatsa matter, Rev. Jim, couldn't find a woman dumb enough to fall for your pickup lines tonight?

It's about time someone called that poor excuse for a wife, mother, and writer on her plagiarism. I hope her star, such as it is, is on its way back down for good.

Oh, incidentally, tonight, after putting in a hard day's work writing two articles on extremely technical subjects (consisting entirely of my own prose), I had a glass of pinot noir and a meal of perfectly broiled salmon and steamed asparagus on the table for my husband when he arrived home. Didn't require me to sacrifice my career or anything.

I like Obama a lot. I'll probably vote for him in the primary, if he runs. But I'm scared to death for him, I really am. It's the invisible 900-pound gorilla in the room, the idea that the same thing could happen to him that happened to Bobby Kennedy, to Martin Luther King, Jr.

So it's with deeply mixed feelings that I watch the ascendancy of my state's junior senator. On the one hand, I really, really think he has a lot of promise, that he will appeal to people who would never before have given a black Democrat the time of day, and I would love to see a President Obama. On the other, I'm terrified for his safety. On the third hand, I think, dammit, if he eschews those kinds of fears, he'll be showing the kind of courage and leadership and dedication and sacrifice we need...and on the fourth hand...he has a wife and children who need him as much, if not more, than the country does. I don't know what to think.

I just *knew* this one was going to end in cannibalism.

Heh.

I'm a childfree, straight Unitarian who supports gay marriage, and frankly, gay marriage and the plight of people like me are firs-world problems.

We'll take care of ourselves. Let's make sure the kids who get made don't get screwed.

The robot looks an awful lot to me like a profoundly developmentally-disabled child, actually (I used to teach in a school for such children). But not inhuman.

The comments on the YouTube page are what really frighten me.

*points*

[nelson_muntz]HAW HAW![/nelson_muntz]

Personally, I'm with the folks who are pleading with you to get snipped before you magnanimously get with child some girl who was in braces when you were swallowing the Viagra that allowed you to bestow your seed upon Wife #2.

So some cranky flight attendant (maybe she had a fight with her boyfriend, maybe she had a headache, maybe--oh, this is so treacherous of me!--she had PMS) was sent over the edge by some little munchkin who got on her last nerve. Um, has it occurred to any of you parents who've gotten your panties in a bunch that maybe this is *not* symptomatic of a larger, anti-child culture, that maybe this has more to do with the general lack of civility between passengers and crew on airlines whose executive boards don't give a shit that they devolved long ago into airborne cattle cars?

And you, my childfree compatriots, you just took the bait. Yeah, I alternately hate and pity screaming children on airplanes too. (Mostly pity, actually, for the little ones who can't equalize the pressure on their eustachian tubes). But scrolling past letter after letter of breeder and anti-breeder bingo (and I'm about to get bingoed for using the word breeder by some more-enlightened-than-thou pompous ass, I just know it, and I DON'T CARE), I am thoroughly bored to tears and wondering why on earth I even bothered with this.

But I'll try one more time. Folks, if you're tearing each other apart, you're not looking at the real culprits, the ones who make air travel a living hell and can't even make it profitable.

As for me, next time I travel, I'm taking the Atcheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe, traveling in style on good old Amtrak, and if the kid two seats down from me starts hollering holy hell, I'll just move to the lounge car, thank you very much, and watch the scenery go by. If this whole controversy isn't a persuasive argument for a revitalized American passenger railway (maybe with separate family and childfree cars!) I don't know what is.