When
people talk about their kids, it’s often in the kind of way that makes me want
to puke. Not the declarations of love and happiness – that’s normal, but the
suggestion that they are something other than regular kids. You know, not every
kid is a world class genius sports star in waiting. Sorry to disabuse you of
whatever notion you might have had. Of course, I too get ridiculously proud
whenever one of my girls does something cool like spell a tricky word or ask a
perceptive question, so I can’t really rant too much about that.
The
honest truth is there are some things having children has made worse, not
better. My bank balance. Traffic jams. The already crippling overpopulation
problems. Also, my enjoyment of fiction, in all its forms. I cry far too easily
now, and I’m blaming my kids. Jeopardy or tragedy involving children or even young
adults, with a focus on the lost potential of a young life lost. Depictions of
cruelty to, disregarding of, or annoyance with children (not that I don’t get
annoyed with them. So I’m a hypocrite. Shoot me). Now that I have an intimate
knowledge of just how dependent children are on constant, unconditional love
and acceptance to develop through their early years, these things shown on film
or TV, or written into books leave me a wreck. That never used to happen.
Seeing
them becoming more sophisticated with every year on the one hand makes me eager
for some of the things I’m looking forward to sharing with them, while on the
other makes me increasingly fearful that an inevitable misstep will leave them
going down a different path to one I wish for them. It’s sometimes enough to
make you sick with fear, this crushing feeling of responsibility. It can also
lead to a determined resoluteness to do your absolute best for them, come what
may, which can be freeing, although too often is restricting instead.
Quite a
few of the people I know who are also parents will talk of what they might have
made of their lives had they ignored this biological imperative to reproduce.
Where they might have gone, what they might have done. This, I am certain, does
not make them unfit parents, but more realistically human. For sure I’ve missed
out on some probably fantastic experiences because I had children. It is okay
to lament the loss of this other life.
But. Like the majority of those other parents, given the chance not to have them part of my life, no matter what other eventuality might persist, there is nothing that could remotely tempt me. To watch day by day as these individuals take shape, with their own thoughts and their own ideas, is incomparable. It makes living with the sickening fear born of the creeping feeling of inevitability that you're bound to do something that messes them up irrevocably worth it.
