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Are You a Breeder?
No, I don’t mean of dogs. I’ve encountered the curious word “breeders” a couple of times in the past week from lefties. As near as I can tell, it’s the way they combine their two most compelling (to them) religious beliefs: gay rights and environmentalism. “Breeders” are those who have the audacity to have a baby, thereby unkindly reminding same-sex couples that they have no such ability and at the same time increasing the surplus population that will consume stuff and destroy the earth. The term and its implications are so distasteful that I suspect it is one that has been used among lefties for a long time, but that they have kept out of their conversation with the larger world for fear it would hurt their cause. After all, there is definitely a misanthropic, Scrooge-like quality to the term. I speculate that now they are feeling confident in their ascendancy and are allowing it to slip out.
Let’s examine the term for a moment. It manages, in one fell swoop, to denigrate the ability to produce children, the people who do it and the children themselves — all with canine or bovine overtones. I have great hope that this will backfire, but who can tell in this upside-down and backwards age?
Has anyone else encountered this word in casual conversation or unfortunate Facebook discussions? I believe it originated in that dreadful and ridiculous 80s novel, A Handmaid’s Tale.
Published in General
I too have encountered the term recently. Perhaps a good answer would be to suggest that anyone over 62 who has not had children and cannot produce a medical reason why, should be prohibited from collecting Social Security.
Yes, I am a breeder. :)
And yes, I’ve encountered this term, going back to the early 90s, as far as I recall. I shared an office with a homosexual group in college. (Putting the Conservatives in the same office with the gay-rights group was the student government’s idea of a joke, I think, and a pretty good one; we got along just fine nevertheless.) I also lived in downtown Manhattan where there’s a high percentage of gay people. Can’t recall exactly when and where I encountered the term, though, but it was from the gay community.
Happily, this is a problem that is a self-correcting: The meek may or may not inherit the earth in the near future, but mortality ensures us that the breeders will.
(The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985, so this may well have been the ultimate source.)
With 4 daughters I definitely get it at times, often coupled with undisguised pity, snarky remarks about my being “outnumbered,” questions about whether we’ll still “try for son now,” and so on.
I would think a term that is so crass and disrespectful to humans would make the person who uses it look really insensitive. It sure does to me, but then I am an unrepentant breeder who hopes the 5 products of that status will prove to be breeders as well. One already has with delightful results!
Yes, we got that while vacationing in San Francisco. Two males were standing in line behind us. We had two munchkins a-foot & a third in a stroller. Yes, we were called “Breeders”. We were amused, actually, once we realized that we would propagate ourselves, while they would not. The issue will resolve itself over the long term.
I am not now a breeder but hope to be someday….I guess I kind of hold the opposite views I needle my siblings for only having 2 each and accuse them of contributing to population collapse. Perhaps we should come up with a snarky term for that? Social Security Killer is apt but to unworldly.
Yes, I’ve been aware of the term for a long time. And yes, it’s derogatory.
On a related note: there is a film by the same name. I have it but haven’t watched it yet. It’s a criticism of surrogacy.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/jennifer-lahls-breeders-completes-trilogy-on-reproductive-technology/
I suppose we could make a joke of this by calling ourselves Pro-breeders or Pro-breeding.
If it breeds it leads. Isn’t that what local news always says?
Wow, leave it to social-progressives to come up with another way to cause pain while trying to appear smug and superior. Hearing such terms used so derisively can be hurtful to a couple that has struggled to conceive. Even worse is receive unwanted praise for not being a “breeder.”
I’ve heard this term many times. In fact, similar derisive terms have been used at least since the 1960s. My folks were the butt of many such thoughts since they had 6 kids and many nonbreeders, or limited breeders, asserted that all those kids caused an undue burden for smaller families. It was a crock then, as it is now.
But how about a counter attack: Gutless non-breeders? How about non-breeder leaches? Maybe, since the non-breeders are contributing to de-population, we global warming with population cooling?
There is an indie band called The Breeders.
I have heard the term applied to heterosexual procreators for years. It is distasteful, however, if a gay friend applied it to me in a good-natured way, I would not be insulted.
There is nothing good-natured about the way that radical environmentalists use the term. If such people had the courage of their convictions, they would kill themselves.
What “issue will resolve itself over the long term”? Are you suggesting that heterosexuals do not give birth to homosexuals? If not, then where do they come from?
Any Progressive knows it’s much less burdensome to impose one’s convictions on others than it is to apply them to oneself.
Movie was made in 1990. The early 90s timing seems correct.
Breeder here: five kids, eight grandkids.
Maybe it’s because I live in Utah, but I haven’t heard the term used out in the real world. Likely that’s because a mom showing up at Costco with four kids isn’t the odd experience it seems to be in much of the rest of the world.
The leftie-types who use the word do so with the intent to denigrate people like me. Let ’em. If they don’t get to experience the joy of being a grandparent I feel sorry for them.
I first heard this in the mid-80s from a much older, gay co-worker.
If it weren’t for breeders, you wouldn’t be here!
would be an appropriate response. Kind of common sense, but that is often missing among the intentionally-sterile.
The left has always had an odd tension with children. They hate children and the counterexample they represent to the left’s view of human nature chaos while insisting that they (the left), and only they, are allowed to indoctrinate children into proper thinking. This composite desire to control something they dislike so vehemently is, to me, the best explanation for the actions of Teacher’s Unions..
FWIW, I recently read Dan Brown’s Inferno where (spoiler alert) the baddy releases some sort of virus that sterilizes a third of the human population in an effort to “save” the human race from overpopulating the planet. As I was reading it, I realized that Dan Brown (who has always been a lefty) wrote the book as a thinly veiled warning about global warming and if given the chance, most of the enviro-wackos would gladly kill one-third of the global human population. If we really want to reduce CO2 emissions, we will have to kill off a huge segment of the population, either directly to reduce CO2 or indirectly as a result of the policies put in place.
Heard it in the mid to late 90s, counseling/psychology grad school. First, from our significant gay and lesbian contingent, but then others.
I address it like I do most impolite conversation, focusing on the impoliteness, not the politics…which, at times, leads to a string of other impolite words from the user…which then makes the look tacky and classless…Mission Accomplished!
I am a non-breeder (over 65, by the way, and not intending on ever drawing Social Security). My reason is and was excellent, and I greatly admire anyone with multiple children (I used to tell my friends to “have one for me”). Children are always a net benefit to society, and I cannot understand those who think otherwise. I also believe that stay-at-home Moms are doing the most important job they could do. I find it disgusting what the feminist movement has done to men.
Sometimes I get the impressions that isn’t a problem in their minds.
Aspiring Breeder here; results below:
How we doin’?
-E
In my less charitable moments, it might not be a problem for me, either.
I’m a breeder too, but it’s not my fault. As the offspring of an unrepentant breeder, what chance did I have?
You are doing very, very well indeed! More breeding please!
A+
I like to get ahead of it. I call myself a “spawner.”
But then again, I enjoy telling people that natural things are evil and if they think otherwise, they are pagan cargoculters without the common sense to realize that the earth is not a deity.
We should have the confidence to be on the offensive, to frame the debate. People who fail to procreate are committing genetic suicide for the sake of a false god. Let’s tell them so!
I like Asquared’s point that the left has problems with children. Pardon me for saying so, but I think some libertarians do too. Children really do change everything. The world has to be different because children are in it with their very special needs. Without them, adults could do exactly what they want. Imagine that world. Nirvana for sure.
Real me back. Having spent last week producing a musical version of the Pied Piper story with 50 children, I can firmly say that I’m deeply grateful for a world that includes children. I’m so looking forward to a few weeks with my three adorable grandchildren in July!
A classic case of the sins of the parent being visited on the children.