The Childfree
Lifestyle
03/22/05
My step-daughter is 8 years old now, so she's much easier
to get along with than she was at five. You get a lot of whining from a
five year old. Eight-year-olds seem to have a better grip on reality, for
sure.
Do you watch those Nanny shows? Nanny 911 and SuperNanny?
I watch those almost every week. It's a great reminder of why I don't want
kids of my own. It drives me crazy, seeing those families. They'll have
like FOUR kids and they can't control any of them and everything is
falling apart. Meanwhile, Dad is sitting around reading the paper and
ignoring the chaos while Mom runs around like a crazy woman, trying to
help everyone and do everything. It's insane!
Don't you think they would realize after the first two
kids that they are losing their minds? Why would they go on to have two
more? I don't get it. And do they ever consider the fact that the world is
WAY overpopulated? (NO). Have a kid if you want. Have two even, if you
really, really like kids. But please don't have FOUR! That is way
too much of a contribution (that we don't need) to our world.
I was speaking to my long-distance friend Lindsey, who has
one child, and she asked me why I thought the tsunami happened. I told her
that I thought it was Mother Earth's way of dealing with overpopulation.
She freaked out (in a good way), because she thought the same thing, but
had never heard anyone else say that about it.
People are all like, "Why? Why would God allow this to
happen?" Duh.. why do you think? Keep popping out more and more babies and
you'll see what else Mother Earth can do to help us with our
overpopulation problems. I'm sure she has lots of tricks up her sleeve.
The sorry part is that even people like me, who are doing their part and
not contributing to population growth, will still die in the disasters
that everyone else caused. And just when my life started getting really
good.
I don't need any hate mail from parents who think I'm a
child-hater. The issue isn't about whether or not I personally like kids.
It's about whether the Earth NEEDS more children. But the issue of whether
I actually LIKE kids is a lot more interesting to talk about, isn't
it? Little kids... cute little kids... adorable little snot-faced
children...
It's funny, isn't it, how a little kid can have snot
running all down their face and into their mouth and they just don't
notice it? Don't they feel the cool, crisp breeze on their tiny,
snot-covered faces? Don't they taste the sweet deliciousness of the snot
as it oozes into their cute, tiny mouths? Apparently not. I find it
difficult to believe that they really don't know it's there. But if you
don't make them wipe it, they will go all day like that, just doing a
little "sniff-sniff sniiiiiiiiiiiffffff", trying to suck the snot back in
once in a while.
So there was a new school shooting yesterday. On an Indian
reservation - odd twist. I would have thought the Indians were somehow
better than the rest of us - more spiritual, more peaceful. But obviously
they suffer from the same problems - the problem of horrible children
picking on other children.
Everyone thinks their child isn't a bully, right?
You are reading this right now thinking that it can't be
your child - it's those other kids that are doing it. The mean ones.
Well, guess what? Nearly all kids are mean, at least to each other. It's
the nakedness of human nature. Children haven't learned to be civilized
yet, They haven't learned to pretend like they aren't assholes like most
adults have. So they act out on their basic urges, which is to demean,
humiliate, bully, hit, and kill other people. This is most especially true
of teenagers. You would think that at their age, they would know how to
act civilized, but the hard truth is is that they do not know how. They
act like morons in public.
I was at Fazoli's the other day (a restaurant) and had to
decide whether to sit near a huge family with about 6 kids, who were
whining and carrying on, or sit near three teenagers. I chose the
teenagers - two boys and one girl.
Ron said as soon as the teenage girl saw him, she started
telling the boys to look at the bump on his head (a big bump where I had
accidentally whacked him with my keys a week ago.) They turned around and
looked and started laughing (loudly) about it.
Then when that hilarious event was over, one of the boys
started sticking objects in his shirt to make him look like he had boobs
(which even I admit is always funny.)
The girl laughed SO HARD that she ended up literally on the floor of the
restaurant, next to their booth, just laughing and laughing, and generally
making an ass of herself.
The funny thing is, I KNOW they think they're cool. They
think they are the shit - that they have some private joke that everyone
else wishes they were in on and that everyone is astounded by their
coolness and the fact that they have friends to laugh with. I know that's
their attitude. I wish they realized the truth though - that no one else
cares and that we are annoyed when ANYONE - teenagers, adults, or
children, act up in public and intentionally draw attention to themselves
like that. It's not cool at all. It's immature, foolish, and annoying to
everyone around them. But they don't care. Because that's their next big
act - pretending that they don't care about what anyone thinks, when in
reality they care more about what other people think than any other age
group does.
Then of course, there's the fact that they treat their
parents like shit, rolling their eyes at everything, putting on the face
that says, "I can't believe
I have to be here with these losers (my parents). I'm so
much cooler than this. How lame." They just conveniently forget that you
have spent the last 15 years paying their way, giving them everything they
want or need, and doing your best to raise them to be decent humans. Now
you are just an embarrassment to them at best, and at worst they hate you
and kill you or themselves (or the whole school) to prove how miserable
they are. Oh, the drama of being a teenager. And the never ending JOY of
raising one. Yes, that's the life.
Hmm... what can I do to totally turn my life upside-down,
make me miserable, be broke all the time, never get a moment's peace, and
in the end get no thanks for all my sacrifice? Oh that's right, I could
have children! Yay! It's such a great idea. Why didn't I think of it
sooner? Let's all think back and try to remember how often we told our
parents thank you for giving up their entire life to raise us, giving up
buying any luxuries so they could buy us treats that we wanted, giving up
their sanity to be surrounded by screaming children all day who always
want attention and can't do anything for themselves? Some of us may have
realized at one point what we put our parents through, but it's unlikely
you really ever told them "thanks" for it. If you did, I certainly commend
you for it. Well, I intend to live my life peacefully. No, I don't think
I'm missing out. No, I don't worry about who will take care of me when I'm
old (a very selfish reason to have kids anyway.) No, I won't regret it and
NO I WON'T CHANGE MY MIND, as people so often love to say to the Childfree
people of the world. There are many reasons NOT to bring more children
into this world. There are very few reasons to have kids that are valid
reasons, not selfish reasons, yet breeders call Childfree people
selfish. I don't think they've looked at their own reasons for having
children if they think people without children are selfish. Mothers really
get the raw end of the deal when it comes to having kids, but they don't
realize that until it's too late. Lucky for me, I did my research and
found out before it was too late. I know what you're going through
as mothers (I've seen you on shows like Nanny 911.) I'd rather keep my
life just the way it is, thank you.
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