The kid option.
I happened to pop by my friend Burbur’s blog and found a post with which I can truly empathise, even though I am one of those six lovely women whom she met at the dinner she mentions in it.
Frankly, I can never understand why some people feel the need to pity people who choose not to have kids, or to denigrate their decision to be childless. Having children is not fun. In fact, it is a downright pain in the ass punctuated occasionally by happy and proud moments. From the time you find out you are pregnant, you go through a whole host of discomforts – from having ultrasound wands, forceps, speculums and a whole host of medieval torture implements shoved up your hoo-hoo in the name of making sure the baby is OK, to putting up with night feeds and colics, tantrums, mouthing-off and attitude-showing. It really is no walk in the park, and it makes me wonder why I chose to have not one but two, TWO, kids. Whose arrivals, by the way, put me in worlds of pain because they had to be cut from my belly.
Children are not a necessity. If you think about it, we have nearly seven billion people on this earth. Maybe one couple adding one or two won’t make a difference, but if all seven billion of us procreate, there’s sure to be problems. And don’t even get me started about people like the Duggars who apparently have never heard of birth control. You can trot out your Bible and other religious or philosophical texts to substantiate the view the children are a blessing, are needed for continuity of the human race, for economic purposes etc, but when you really think about it, we no longer farm our land, the planet is going to hell in a hand basket, and prices are shooting up so rapidly that at the end of the day, children are more of a burden than anything else.
So I get why some people don’t want to have kids. I really do. I love my children to bits, but they are not essential in defining my worth as a human being. In fact, with them, I stumble more than I succeed because I have to try so hard to be a good mother, worker, wife and all the other roles that I have to play, when sometimes the world pisses me off so much that I just want to fling things around and scream and shout and stamp my feet. It’s amazing to me that other parents – who presumably have gone through the same travails that I have as a parent – don’t seem to feel the same way. Worse, they feel the need to proselytise parenting to people who have already decided that having children is an option, not a compulsion.
Comments (4)
I totally agree with you, even though I’ve not had to have them cut out of my belly, and I’ve 4 of them *faint*.
Extremely well-written babe. And I completely agree.
Much as I love kids, it shouldn’t be something that you feel compelled to have. I believe in birth control, I believe in having a baby only if you really want to. Not having children definitely does not define who you are as a human being. Some think that you are a failure, as a woman, if you don’t. I think that is BS. If you are a horrible mother, than what is the point? Having a kid is not at all cheap, especially not here in Singapore. It is a joy, to have one. An experience perhaps worth having but along with it comes many sacrifices that many fail to realize..
you know I like this :p
You’re right about stumbling more with kids. I, too, can’t fully comprehend why others have to impose what they think and feel onto others, just because we don’t fit in their mould. This is an awesome entry.