I’ve never met happy parents. It’s not that they’re necessarily unhappy, I’ve just never observed any obvious signs of happiness, other than the new-parent euphoria. The point I’m trying to make is that I suspect parenthood isn’t the huge, positive, life-enhancing experience that people make it out to be.
Of course, I wouldn’t know – I’ve never had children. And that’s the argument most parents would use in response to this. Because they know, and I couldn’t possibly know until I’m in the same situation. They act like they’ve ascended to this higher plane of human emotion because they’ve experienced the gift of procreation, a plane which is beyond my feeble, emotionally stunted understanding.
Example: Last year I was tricked by my RE teacher into attending something called a ‘Life Conference’ at another Catholic school. We were told that topics discussed would include euthanasia and abortion. I’m obviously not naive enough to expect a balanced representation of the issue from a Catholic school, but the word ‘conference,’ at least denotes intellegent discussion. It wasn’t. ‘Life,’ it turns out, is a pro-life charity. It was basically a brain-washing exercise, aimed mostly at younger pupils. Obviously I was very upset at being deceived into representing such a hideous movement. One of the things that disturbed me most was the activities they had the kids doing – thinking up pro-life ’slogans’ (as if it were an advertising campaign, and not something which actually affects people) and deciding what would be the ‘Christian’ response to certain scenarios.
The scenario our group got lumped with was: A young, married, Christian couple find out they’re expecting their first child, but also that the wife has ovarian cancer. Getting treatment for the cancer would kill the baby, but having the baby would kill the mother. What should they do?
Well, obviously we decided she should abort. No question about it. I think the girls and I were discussing how fast we’d divorce someone if they decided that you dying would be better than aborting their unborn child, when a teacher from another school came up and said, ‘Do you think you have been influenced by society in that you are all selfish in your views?’ And she then proceeded to give us a lecture about how we don’t know what it would be like – she is a mother of two, and if she were in that situation she would, of course, selflessly sacrifice her life for the unborn baby.
Leaving a widow, and two children (plus a newborn) motherless. Stupid cow.
What I’m saying is that I think this whole ‘we understand human emotion better than you because we’ve created life’ attitude is all pretense. It’s probably just an act to make themselves feel important, to compensate for the fact that they’ve basically ruined their lives by having kids.
Okay, maybe ‘ruined’ is a bit harsh – I’m sure a lot of people don’t mind their kids. But I’m equally sure that a lot of parents secretly think their life would be better without them. I had this discussion with Charlie when he was driving me back from a gig in Glasgow one time, and he said that a lot of friends he used to have who went off to have kids just basically stopped having a social life.
So, I don’t want kids. It just seems like the experience, while having some obvious up-sides, results in a net gain of negativity. I’d never be able to do most of the things I’d want to in life like travelling and studying because I’d be too busy rearing children who will inevitably disappoint me in some way or another and fail to appreciate how much I’ve sacrificed them and how much effort I’ve put into raising them. It’s not worth it. I’m not even that fond of kids – I really don’t think I could emotionally commit to them. They’re life-ruiners. They might be very nice life-ruiners, but they are life-ruiners all the same.
Of course, when I, a girl of seventeen, say I don’t want to have kids, ever, you’ll just laugh charmingly and say in a patronising, esoteric voice, ‘Oh, just wait until you’re older, trust me, you’ll want them,’ and all this shite about maternal urges etc. I was reading an article about how many young women are now opting for infertility treatment, and how hard it is to get for the reason I’ve just highlighted. Of course, years later, none of the women interviewed regret their decision. One of them made an excellent point – when you’re young and decide not to have children, nobody takes you seriously, but if I said, ‘I want to be a mother when I’m older,’ nobody would question it. I suppose you could say that’s because procreation is natural – it’s how nature continues species. But with population as booming as it is, where’s the need to procreate?
En plus, if I do come under the sway of the mysterious but powerful ‘maternal urges’ (and getting a cat doesn’t satisfy them), I could always adopt. Although D tells me this plan is daft as I would biologically be able to have children and so I wouldn’t be a priority. As if there’s a shortage of unwanted children in the world.
But you’ve got to take what he says with a pinch of salt. This is the same D who told me, when I said that the very thought of going through pregnancy and childbirth makes me feel slightly nauseous, that I ‘don’t understand the beauty of childbirth.’ This coming from a 19-year-old MALE.
I could be wrong, of course. Maybe it’s just the parents I’ve met who seem unsatisified. Maybe it’s not just parents who are unhappy – maybe everyone in the Western world, parents included, are generally unhappy. I don’t know. I just hope I never want to have children.
As a final note, I’ll give you an example of some of the bidding prayers at the ‘Life’ mass.
“We pray for all those doctors who are blinded from the truth of life that they may come to realise the true meaning of life and understand the harm and death they inflict.
Lord hear us.
We pray for all those affected by the tragedy of abortion, especially the innocent babies who have lost their lives and their vulnerable and mislead mothers.
Lord hear us.”
Needless to say, I’m pro-choice.
