This Is One Of The Best Takes.

Blessed be 🌟

Reblog to bring fairy godpossum blessings upon your followers.

TIL so much thanks 👆👆👆👆👆

Link for full article below.

Yikes, what a shirt-bag!

Will probably need this poem in the future

for the new house by Ursula K. Le Guin

Damn, girl, you don't gotta shoulder the burden of propagating the species all by yourself 😍

(Giant Hogna wolf mum 🖤)

february by Alex Dimitrov

This is my uncle in 1984. 

I’m reblogging this for the discussion of community and elder care. I’m a mom of 2 little kids, and my career is in nursing. So I am not child-free, and I really do support anyone who wants to be child-free for whatever reason (none of my business). But what I do hope for is that you do support children in whatever capacity that you can do**

Find out how you can volunteer at a local school, volunteer with a scout troop or camp, children’s hospital. Put love and respect and empathy into the world of children. It takes a village to raise kids and that village is gone for so many families nowadays. Maybe child-free people can help bring back part of that “village”. You don’t have to be a full time parent to a kid to have a positive impact on future generations’ lives. When these kids grow up having positive experiences with adults in their lives they will have (I hope) more empathy for adults and older adults who need help.

** If you cannot stand to spend time around young children then try older children. If you can’t be around kids of any age without being toxic then please sit this one out and leave kids alone. I don’t know what advice to give you, but follow the advice of the above posters and please work on your other community connections. You can be a cranky old man/lady/non-binary but please do have some kind of personal relationships because I want you to be cranky and cared for 💗

It feels taboo as a childfree person to admit this but I actually do have concerns about who is going to take care of me when I'm old. The elder care system in our nation relies A LOT on the unpaid care labor of adult children. I just don't think that's a good reason to have kids.

"But you'll have more money!" does not completely put this to rest for me. Neither does "Buy care insurance!" Even if I can afford direct personal care, who is going to advocate for me to get it? Who is going to navigate bureaucracy for me when I'm 80?

"If you do have kids, there's no GUARANTEE that they'll take care of you when your old!" That's true, but doesn't solve my problem.

I think childfree people get very defensive about this question because its used as a kind of "gotcha!" against us, but I actually do not feel we can afford to be in denial about this reality. Based on current trends of more people in their 30s stating they intend to be permanently childfree, we are going to see a huge wave of childfree adults hitting the eldercare system at once in a few decades. Childfree people in their 30s should be advocating around eldercare NOW.

Reblogging because I’m a grown 40-something mom whose career is in nursing. whose special interest when I was 17 was marine biology, and it still is. Just a little reminder that there’s no shame if you didn’t make your special interest into your career. Find joy in it still if you can! Collect special interests and find joy.

i feel like this is very importantTM to say, you dont need to be an expert in your special interest

marine biology is my special interest. i suck at identifying fish. i can identify one fish but only because i spent ages fixating on it. i couldnt tell you the scientific name of anything else.

when i was in primary school most of my information came from the octonauts since i wasnt allowed the internet, it was still my special interest then even when i hardly knew anything.

having a special interest doesnt mean you immediately become amazing at whatever it is, and thats totally ok. its ok to forget things, to not know things, for other people to know more about the thing. thats part of the fun, theres so much about everything to learn and improve on.

in my personal case there are thousands of scientists who know more than me. i may know more than my friends, but im 17. there are scientists who study the ocean for a living and its perfectly reasonable for them to know more than me

the only thing that matters is that it gives you energy, that you enjoy doing it, that its special to you