Its silly, no?
When a rocket blows
And everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man aint happy, truly
Until a man truly dies
Oh why, oh why, sign o the times
Time, time
Sign o the times mess with your mind
Hurry before it's 2 late
Lets fall in love, get married, have a baby
Well call him nate... if it's a boy
~ Prince "Sign O'The Times"
You wanna live in this lousy world? You play it cool.
~ "Cool" West Side Story
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would let it go, this desperation, dislocation
Separation, condemnation, revelation
In temptation, isolation, desolation
~ "Bad" by U2
I look at FaceBook photos of friends who just had babies and think something like "oh great, congratulations! new baby - yay!" but then can't help but think "...and welcome baby as the next generation of misery...."
God how was I so warped into such routine matter-of-course negativity?
Or am I just twisted inside as a happily married woman who'll willfully not have children? Is it really just me & my choices all along?! I have a blog post I want to do about "Aging as a Woman Without Children" as I approach 40. Only one more year to go now! (Staring down the gun barrel of 40: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_barrel.)
Yet I also wonder - will anyone really care?!
But I do wonder seriously, how can you have a baby these days and not stop to think...at least for a moment, before evolutionary instincts to reproduce take over...about so many things - melting ice-caps and economies doing likewise, and shootings and public education in complete shambles - ADHD and the parents on anti-anxiety/depression meds when they aren't self-medicating the old-alchoholic-fashioned-way....everyone way too busy and distracted, by keeping up with daily life, how fast everything is moving these days, and then there's things like "social media" - oh FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, how we love you.
And how nothing seems to be getting any better. Does it seem to be getting any better to you?!
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All that stuff is all crappy; having a child or not isn't going to change it. I was more concerned with the "stuff in front of my face" problems, like how to pay for day care ($1330/mo, in case you wanted to know), and how to advance in my career when I have a "hard out," as we say in broadcasting--a time that I have to leave. And which, if any, of my other activities I'd have to give up.
ReplyDeleteNothing is going to stop the world from sucking. Some people would add "except for good people raising good children." But that won't make it stop sucking, either! The suckiness of humans is endless. So maybe you're asking if parents say to themselves, "but, wait: how can I bring a child into this horrible world?" Here's the thing: I don't think people base their childbearing decisions on things that are so external and theoretical. Even if they think they're deciding based on that, I don't believe them. That's just my opinion; others may think, "of *course* that's why I decided xyz." But I think people are a lot more selfish and immediate than that.
And if you want to flip it all around and be all Pollyanna: think of all the great things in life. Do you think anyone actually decides to have kids because they want another human being to experience peanut butter and honey sandwiches, The Wire, and orgasms? No. They have kids because *they* want to have kids. Not because they want another human being to experience all the great things in life. I mean, if someone told you that's why they were having kids, would you believe them? No. So why should the inverse be true?
IMO, people do or do not have kids because they think it will make their own lives better to have or not have them. They don't do it to please their parents or to have a certain impact on the world or to fulfill the tenets of their religion. They also don't "not do it" to help control population growth, nor to protect someone from suffering by not bringing them here. They do it or don't do it because they think their own lives will be better for it. The other reasons are secondary, at best.
IMO, this also applies to the *number* of children people have. I commented on another blog about that. People will come up with the weirdest reasons why they have to have a certain number of kids. But if it's based on anything, it's based on how they think their own lives will change and be better for having had that number.
My thoughts for the day! As I listen to the creator of this blog on a podcast:
http://www.stfuparentsblog.com/
Thanks for commenting P! I was seriously starting to think I had lost every reader, maybe due to the deluge of posts out there :)
ReplyDeleteI'll check out the blog and btw I think you are right on, as usual. I love how you never sugar-coat anything and how you see things so clearly. Hope you are enjoying how baby is making your life better! I'm sure he has, and I hope to meet him one day.