So I had a thought last night, and it went something like this. It’s neither researched, nor well-written. Here goes:
My sister, whose career and adult life have been nothing but a series of acknowledgments and validations of her hard work and dedication, steadfastly refuses to have kids, or even a desire for them. This isn’t something we talk about (or would talk about if we actually exchanged more than terse text messages or tweets) but it occasionally pops up, usually when I start feeling more suicidal than usual, when she would send me some kind of lighthearted reminder that, without me, my parents wouldn’t have grandchildren, because she’s not having any. I normally don’t think about it; frankly, my sister’s one of those people I’ve given up trying to think about, if only because we don’t like each other very much on an interpersonal basis, but then she posted this article to Twitter, and I snapped.
To be fair, it wasn’t just her that caused me to flip out. Mostly it was living in Portland, and seeing so many gorgeous, interesting, intelligent people finding each other and getting married, yet meticulously choosing not to have kids. Most of them had the same kinds of attitudes–“oh, there are too many children in the world already,” or “well, you know, I might adopt,” or “I’d make a better aunt/uncle” or, occasionally “I’m just not ready to be a parent.” (Full disclosure: I theoretically fall into the latter category–gods know I financially do–but when an upwardly-mobile middle-class white person says it, it usually means…well, I’ll get to that later.) Many of them settled into this sense of pride about being non-breeders, that they were bucking the stifling traditions of previous generations, I guess, or defying “the man,” as it were, by refusing to excrete crotchfruit into the world.
I used to accept those kinds of attitudes with a sort of crotchety cynicism, making legitimate appeals which I knew were perceived as the same kind of self-righteous oppressive bullshit they get from people that actually have kids. After all, I didn’t have kids myself. Not for lack of desire; frankly, the only thing I’ve known I ever wanted to be with any certainty was a dad. Nor did my childlessness stem from lack of ability; sadly, I know empirically that I’m fertile. Truthfully, the only reason why I haven’t had kids yet–not coincidentally, one of only two excuses I will accept–is because, frankly, I’m afraid I’ll fuck it up. For the longest time, my rationale was “I can’t balance a checkbook or, for that matter, keep a positive balance in a checking account for longer than seven months–how can I raise a child without fucking it up?”
All of that changed when I started working with kids again. I think it was being a special-needs school bus driver that did it, frankly–seeing the sheer courage and energy from so many of those kids (especially Alec, the kid with CP who could barely form syllables, yet approached every morning with the kind of positivity and enthusiasm I’d have killed to feel myself). When I started coaching debate, the picture got even clearer–watching young minds explode, egos collide, and vocabularies flex was far more interesting (and entertaining) from the outside looking in. Working for Head Start sealed it, though–watching little kids who didn’t share languages or family backgrounds or skin colors function together was about as eye-opening as my experiences with some of their fucked-up, social-program-stereotype-validating, lazy, horrendously ungrateful parents (which, thankfully, did not apply to all of them).
I’ve noticed over the years that there’s a certain self-righteousness that non-breeders (that is, people who have no desire to procreate) have when it comes to those that have kids. I’d get it a lot when I’d talk about my day job whilst working the bar job–people would hear that I worked with kids and they’d say something to the extent of “wow, that must suck.” The more intellectual of the group usually would make some observation on how shitty parents–and, by extension, their crotchfruit (it is a great word)–are the reason why society and the usable portion of natural resources are simultaneously going down the tubes. When I dared suggest (in one of my more caustically candid moments) that procreation ought to be a licensed privilege, one conversant suggested that only the rich ought to obtain said license, as the rich would have sufficient resources to take care of and appropriately educate a child, whereas the other dared call me “fascistic.”
I tend to refrain from explaining to them the truth, but I’m going to say it here: The problem isn’t just the people having the kids; it’s also the people that aren’t. Shitty-ass welfare moms that crap out babies annually to fatten their checks are just as much to blame for society going into the shitter as the intelligent, decent, thoughtful person who doesn’t have kids because they don’t want to deal with the responsibility of having them.
Because, let’s be real–the only reason why someone wouldn’t want to have kids are because they don’t want to deal with the responsibility. We live in an entitled age, in a culture that values its freedom to be selfish and self-centered, in a country whose very ideological foundations are based on wastefulness and a low value of human life. The backlash against the social conservatism of the 50s has led to something bordering on Anarchy, in which everyone looks at themselves as some kind of special fucking thing that has no real duty to anything other than its own comfort and excess. So-called Liberals are often the most egregious offenders in this regard, enjoying the trappings of their freedom to do as they please, demonizing the idea of procreating because they realize they wouldn’t be able to exist solely for themselves. “What can we do?” they say; “we don’t want to contribute to an overpopulation of idiots.”
The obvious solution, of course, is to breed out the fucking idiocracy by having kids that actually model good behavior, by having kids and teaching them how to be accountable, responsible, logical fucking citizens.
No one wants to do that, of course, drunk on the opiates of their own freedom and opportunity much as the idiots multiplying like rabbits are, because to admit they have an responsibility to society is to admit that they themselves are imperfect, insufficient, or unfit. Furthermore–and this part is more conjecture than anything else–I think people are uncomfortable with the realization that they were better people when they were children, when all of the things in life they now find so important didn’t fucking matter, because admitting that would involve admitting their own successes and identities are completely fucking worthless in the end. I think it’s the same reason why most adults–especially, sadly, a lot of people that do have children–don’t feel comfortable around kids in the first place, not realizing that all it does is perpetuate the cycle of kids becoming shitty adults.
Being an awesome aunt or uncle-type isn’t the answer, either–at best, that’s a stopgap, while at worst it’s creating a completely different type of problem. One could point to me and say “but Zero, you do the whole ‘mentor’ thing even thought you don’t have kids,” and they’d be right on one level. But I, like most of the dedicated teachers I know, care a lot about my students, making the kinds of sacrifices that go beyond simply being “cool person to talk to”. There’s a reason why I call the kids I mentor “my kids;” because they’ve taken my advice–some of it painful–and they’ve worked their asses off at my command. And everything I give them is a pathetic shadow of parenthood–I’ll admit that even to them–but the love I have for them comes from my desire to teach them to be better people than I am.
This, sadly, is not a problem I think anyone can really solve. By embracing capitalism and the market economy–two things defined by shortsightedness and myopia–we humans have overtly stated that we don’t give a flying fuck about future generations, and are willing to mortgage their ability to function so that we may have luxuries today. I wish I had a better answer other than “stop having being so narcissistic and make better people,” but that’s the best answer I’ve got right now.
It also seems to be the only one that’s even close to being a practical solution.
Just a thought, and an incomplete one at that.
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