If Todd isn’t into kids, he shouldn’t have them. If I were dating him, that would make me sad, not just because he doesn’t want them, but because he doesn’t have that warm need to hug kiddies when he sees them. Still, it’s his choice.

Yes, Son?

What does regret mean

Well, son, a funny thing about regret is, that it’s better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t done. And by the way, if you see your Mom this weekend, will you be sure to tell her…
SATAN SATAN SATAN!

-Sweat Loaf, Butthole Surfers

It seems somehow appropriate. I can’t wait until my 3 1/2 year old is old enough to appreciate that song. He already takes well to moshing. The 1 year old is willing but not yet able.

Parents do have an absolute right to pressure their kids for grandchildren. In fact, providing grandchildren is just about the most elemental obligation a child owes his or her parents. The problem arises in the permissive parenting of the last 50 years, where traditional mores and expectations were not passed down in a despondent fit of self-loathing over two generations.

The ambivalence towards bearing and raising children by so many of my peers, shared by myself up until a few years ago, is indicative of the unhappily self-indulgent and immature world-view we suffer from. What is salient about this in reference to our host, Mr. Seavey, is that he is ostensibly a great defender of tradition. I think that we realize, in actually, that this robot-loving libertarian is just a traditionalist poseur.

J’accuse!

First off, I’m 90% certain I don’t want kids. I’m 50% certain that the 10% of me that is unsure is due to the fact that I turn 38 this year. I think kids are nifty — babies escpecially, believe it or not — but the overwhelming responsibility (and the lack of sleep and the time-suck and the utter about-face of the focus of my life) gives me hives. Now that my window of opportunity is sliding shut, I find I’m thinking about kids with alarming frequency. Three years ago I could not have cared less. I was single and loving it and was totally ambivalent about having kids of my own.

Todd is not alone in being totally put off my kids for the reasons he’s cited here. I have several friends who feel EXACTLY the same way (and three of them are women) so I’m surprised that people are surprised by it. Maybe I just hang out with a weird crowd. I know men and women who react with actual disgust when people shove babies in their faces for their cheeks to get pinched. They make that “I just ate a lemon” face. Kids are baffling to them. They think they are simply “yucky”. But none think that they are too unintelligent to deal with.

Todd, you can’t seriously claim to dislike kids because they are unintelligent. They’re wildly intelligent (well, many are, anyway) and learn things at a rate that puts most adults to shame! Ever see a two month old discover his/her tongue? Feet? It’s amazing and totally hilarious. I digress. Developmental stages are just that: stages.

You know what flips my wig? What really makes me crazed? When people (usually pregnant friends, new parents or My Own Mother) tell me “but you’d be soooo good at it! All those smarts! All that patience of yours! So caring!”. This is uncool. The fact that other people lament that the world will somehow lose out if I don’t attempt to create a teeny-me to carry on my — my what? My good nature? As if that was somehow guaranteed in my offspring– makes me bananas. The world will trudge on, I’m sure. Todd is a singular character: interesting as all hell and smart enough to know how smart he is, and guess what? One Todd is fine.

I’ve been told I was selfish for not having kids! Selfish! I posit that perhaps THE most selfish thing a human can do on this planet is breed. I really enjoy kids, and I don’t hold it against people if they want to have them (unless they have more than two and don’t live on a working farm, and unless insurance is paying for infertility treatments). What I DO resent is that I am constantly being treated like a second class citizen because I am childless. I fall out of the cultural norm and am thereby “weird”, and it’s totally okay if my co-workers are late because they were at little Betsey’s dance recital, but I get in trouble if I miss the train. I could go on. I won’t.

I happen to have met and fallen in love with a man who insists he doesn’t want children…unless there are children around. Then he lights up like a Christmas Tree. The man is The Baby Whisperer. It’s a little frustrating. Watching him is what nags at my 10%.

Todd doesn’t feel The Urge. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that I don’t feel The Urge either, but as a woman I’m under far more cultural pressure to reproduce. It’s screwed up.

There is no way that I would say that parenting is completely fun, or in any way easy. However, it is such a rich and amazing experience. Something I am so glad that I did not miss out on.

The thing that makes Todd’s attitude on this score so frustrating is that Todd has so many characteristics that I think would make him a great parent. He’s intellectually curious, caring, mature, sane, and funny, just for starters. Just on intellectual curiosity alone, I think if he tried it, he’d really like it. But add in compassion, maturity, sanity, and humor, and, well, he seems a natural.

I have many friends who do not want kids, and it doesn’t trouble me at all. With Todd it does trouble me a bit because I think he’d be good at it; I think he’d have great kids; and, most importantly, I think he’d really enjoy it. With most of my other friends who don’t want kids, it makes sense to me. With Todd, it doesn’t make sense to me. But, whatever.

I adore children. But I find it disturbing that a desire for them should be assigned –in an offhand way– some definitive importance in whether one has any number of other qualities.

Todd is in no way lacking in protective instincts, generosity, tenderness or the ability to enjoy “unpredictability in [his] companions.” Likewise, my sisters, who are both straight and married and who have chosen not to become mothers, have plenty of warmth, compassion, kindness and affection –including affection for other people’s children. Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, has chosen to reproduce.

Parenthood is a wonderful ambition, one that I can’t wait to fulfill, but there is absolutely no basis for requiring it as a measure of humanity.

On a side note: Ersza is correct in that Todd’s description of children seems to “confuse developmental stages with ‘intelligence’.” I was just telling him that the other day. Rejecting children because they are cognitively unskilled is a little like rejecting the early chapters of books because the ideas introduced in them aren’t yet fully developed.

Many of Todd’s most persistent defenders so far have been those of us who understand the difficulty and challenges of parenthood from experience, and still have the energy to accept and tolerate that other people might not feel the same way about children that we do. My earlier comment was intended as evidence that Todd has a great amount of warmth and compassion. I still can’t understand why not wanting or liking children, and publicly describing these feelings with wit and eloquence, should make someone a terrible, heartless, intolerant person.

I have no argument with anyone’s desire not to have children. In fact, I think it’s a choice more people should make. It’s obvious that our species produces some good “breeders” and also some good “workers.” However, Todd, I wish you would reconsider your views about the children themselves. I can tell you have not been around children much at all in your life. You confuse developmental stages with “intelligence.” A person can be three years old, and not know how to use the bathroom, but still be an intelligent, insightful, fascinating little person. In fact, one of the great things about children is in talking to them and hearing what they think about life. They can give you a very different perspective on things.

Anyway, I want to support your decision not to have children, but also to call you out for what seems like a basic lack of respect for a whole category of human beings.

But the lovability of dependent children who grow into self-reliance and the enjoyment of slight unpredictability in one’s companions — there are instincts that one either senses or can never be taught. Todd cant be faulted for something he does not feel.

I do wonder about a fatherhood-averse man finding a straight woman who shares his disdain for children. (Growing up, I had two female friends who were adamantly against motherhood. Both now are lesbians.) Motherhood and femininity seem, to me, bound inextricably. What sort of woman lacks the nurturing instinct for motherhood, yet embodies the warmth and compassion of a girlfriend? Similarly, if a man has no interest in defending the weak, mentoring others and providing for dependent relatives–what sort of man is he?

Leo Tolstoy (_War and Peace_) said it better.