My Dear Hard Drive

Not having children is one of those things that seem to attract controversy all the time. I personally knew I didn’t want kids fairly early in my life. It may have started as admiration toward my auntie who lived in New York (instead of Isokyrö, Finland, Europe) and didn’t have children because she didn’t want to. I wanted to live in New York and not have children, too. However, as my fondness to New York grew thin and my admiration toward my auntie diminished to more realistic levels, I still didn’t want children. To me it’s something that other people do. There’s a bunch of things that other people do, like go to work every day to do something they hate to stay alive in the life they hate and get drunk when they can’t handle it anymore. Having children is one of those things. It just isn’t something I can really see myself doing. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have a job, like a real job that actually pays you every month (or week like they do here, I’ve been told) and not when someone finds your work worthy. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be drunk. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be a parent. So far, none of those things have felt right.

Sheldon the Wonderhorse said, when commenting on Mad Typist‘s blog post about not having children, and I have to quote: “One of my biggest fears about having kids is how much it would cut into my Xbox time. Pathetic, I realize.” Sadly, I see the dilemma. I worry about loosing valuable computing time. And sharing my Barbies with a kid. And not being able to have dogs because all the money would be spent on the kids. I thought that as long as these things seem important in comparison to having children, you really shouldn’t have any.

People should just let us be and butt out!

However, the part where childfree people get up and arms about the “breeders” nosiness and intrusion to their right to not have children, I don’t really get. Sometimes people ask if I’m going to have children. I always tell them how I feel about it. Sometimes people tell me that I will change my mind, and sometimes my mother gives me funny reasons to have children. Often I explain to people why I don’t want children. However, during my 25 years of dedicated “I will not have children”-time I have encountered only one (western) person who simply could not wrap her mind around the idea of me not wanting children. She was 22-year-old German, curiously, and I met her at a friends wedding soon after I got married, which is the reason she inquired about our child situation. I didn’t find it infuriating that she asked, or that she couldn’t understand us not wanting any, I found it utterly amusing, especially as she was so much younger than we were. I LOVE IT when people don’t get me and I get to explain my reasons to them and see how their narrow view of the world gets shaken up. I don’t do it violently, I laugh and joke and giggle when I explain things, I’ve seen it has a lot more chance to sink in than driving a point through with an iron fist demanding some acceptance or what ever. (Goes with the stereotype-post I wrote yesterday, how can you change their minds if you have already decided they won’t change their minds before you even try to explain things.)

Men who want me to breed will be ex’s!

The dating world seems to be a tough place for women who don’t want to have children, too. I’m glad I never realised this while I was still dating, because I had enough problems with men as it was. Adding “he can’t be wanting children” to the list of demands would probably have totally depressed me. Instead I didn’t bring that up until I was asked and I can’t remember anyone asking that on a first date… Or the second… I have never tried to hide it or make an issue out of it. I can’t remember it coming up until things got serious. I remember my mom telling me that no man would want to marry me if I didn’t want children. I thought she must be mad thinking that, and I was a bit insulted because she seemed to think that the only value I could possibly have to a man was my ability to bear children, especially as she had a lot of examples around her of married couples without children. As it turned out, my husband didn’t want children either, and it was never discussed until we got really close, at least that I can remember. It was a non-issue. While we’ve been married, we’ve both taken an imaginary trip to the baby land and came back screaming. In fact, sometimes that I wander off my track at super markets and end up on the baby isle, I feel like running away screaming.

It is not us who should be explaining themselves

I feel that most parents should have stopped to think before breeding. They should have asked the kind of questions like: What will they be able to offer the child? Will they be good role models? Will they provide the children with the kind of security and understanding that a child needs and deserves? And the question you are not even allowed to utter out loud: What kind of genes are you providing to your child? It seems that no amount of inheritary problems should stop a human being from reproducing. Not even if the child is likely be so allergic that any sign of life will suffocate him or her, no, that should not be effecting your decision to be a parent! Every child deserves to be born, and every parent deserves the right to be raising their own biological children. I asked one woman who is not exactly the cover girl of health, that isn’t she worried that the child might inherit her health problems. She replied that her life wasn’t that horrible, she survived. I was left to wonder, that would it have made a difference to her if her parents had known what she was likely to go through and still decided to go ahead with having her, and not only have her naturally, but force her into the world through artificial insamination because one of the health problems included trouble of reproducing. And it left me wonder why no doctor ever questioned her decision to have children, while women who want their tubes tied have to explain and explain and wait until a certain age to get the procedure done. If they are afraid of getting sued, they should draw up a legally binding contract that takes away the possibility to sue afterwards.

There’s always the other side of the coin

While I sit here and judge some parents for having their children, and you might be judging me for not having them, I realise there is always the other side to the story. Luckily these days it is fairly okay not to have children or adopt or do what ever you want really. The only thing that worries me is when those children in question are caught in the middle of the adult selfishness. I can rest easy knowing that what ever I do, I will not hurt my child in any way, and I have provided the best possible protection to my offspring by not having them in the first place. Nothing will hurt their immortal souls. *grin*

And before you head offline, you might want to read this post “You’ll change your mind” by Verbal Remedy.