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Against uninformed parenthood
Aug. 9th, 2007 10:18 amFor most of my life, I've been against the idea of myself becoming a parent.
There are several reasons I've had for this over the years, but they all boil down to two issues: children are too precious to be fucked up by my inadequacies, and I am too precious to allow having a child to compound my issues to the point of unfixability.
Too many people leap into parenthood somehow believing that having a child will fix, rather than accentuate, their troubles. Too many people have unresolved psychological issues or, in many cases, mental disorders like unipolar depression, A.D.D., and so forth, and don't consider the fact that they are not only passing on that genetic burden, but that they're also inflicting their dysfunctional behavior on an impressionable child, who has no other model for how to behave. Too many people's bodies are fucked up, and they allow themselves to believe that somehow, giving birth is worth fucking their bodies up further. Too many people are convinced that their way of seeing the world is the Only Right Way, and thus fail to communicate with either themselves or their children, leaving their children to be stubborn and intolerant themselves.
From a societal point of view, of course, it's better to perpetuate all your mistakes writ large on your children rather than to not have children at all. I mean, heavens forfend that you leave the elderly without the support of the younger generation. (Personally, I think we'd all be better off if we died earlier rather than straining the current system in such a drastic manner. But I'm in the minority on this one.) So of course my perspective means nothing, and the only way to fix it is to write my own mistakes on some poor defenseless child's life, so that I can combat the hordes of people having children who do even more terrible things to their children. No, wait. What if society actually had more communal parenting, spreading perspective? What if we actually had universal health care and mental health counseling was actually available for people who needed it? What if the adoption system wasn't so screwed up and backlogged, and the pro-life movement actually put a lot of effort into revamping it rather than yelling about how people should always have unwanted babies?
Okay, I'm cranky. I just read a story where Yet Another Parent came off self-righteous and abusive towards their kid, and between that and having a bit more to do at work (where I type up reports on the worst of parents), I needed to vent.
Do I see my issues too clearly? A tendency to depression, and compounding it, a poor ability to balance multiple tasks without trying to do them all at once, a tendency to retreat and get little done when under stress, a body that literally gives out on me when I go too long without food, or if I'm too stressed, or if my blood pressure just randomly drops, my general lack of large-scale social intelligence, and my current inability to support a child financially. None of these make it so that I can't survive as a functional, responsible adult, but if I threw a kid into the mix, it would be a Disaster.
No comments or emails, please.
There are several reasons I've had for this over the years, but they all boil down to two issues: children are too precious to be fucked up by my inadequacies, and I am too precious to allow having a child to compound my issues to the point of unfixability.
Too many people leap into parenthood somehow believing that having a child will fix, rather than accentuate, their troubles. Too many people have unresolved psychological issues or, in many cases, mental disorders like unipolar depression, A.D.D., and so forth, and don't consider the fact that they are not only passing on that genetic burden, but that they're also inflicting their dysfunctional behavior on an impressionable child, who has no other model for how to behave. Too many people's bodies are fucked up, and they allow themselves to believe that somehow, giving birth is worth fucking their bodies up further. Too many people are convinced that their way of seeing the world is the Only Right Way, and thus fail to communicate with either themselves or their children, leaving their children to be stubborn and intolerant themselves.
From a societal point of view, of course, it's better to perpetuate all your mistakes writ large on your children rather than to not have children at all. I mean, heavens forfend that you leave the elderly without the support of the younger generation. (Personally, I think we'd all be better off if we died earlier rather than straining the current system in such a drastic manner. But I'm in the minority on this one.) So of course my perspective means nothing, and the only way to fix it is to write my own mistakes on some poor defenseless child's life, so that I can combat the hordes of people having children who do even more terrible things to their children. No, wait. What if society actually had more communal parenting, spreading perspective? What if we actually had universal health care and mental health counseling was actually available for people who needed it? What if the adoption system wasn't so screwed up and backlogged, and the pro-life movement actually put a lot of effort into revamping it rather than yelling about how people should always have unwanted babies?
Okay, I'm cranky. I just read a story where Yet Another Parent came off self-righteous and abusive towards their kid, and between that and having a bit more to do at work (where I type up reports on the worst of parents), I needed to vent.
Do I see my issues too clearly? A tendency to depression, and compounding it, a poor ability to balance multiple tasks without trying to do them all at once, a tendency to retreat and get little done when under stress, a body that literally gives out on me when I go too long without food, or if I'm too stressed, or if my blood pressure just randomly drops, my general lack of large-scale social intelligence, and my current inability to support a child financially. None of these make it so that I can't survive as a functional, responsible adult, but if I threw a kid into the mix, it would be a Disaster.
No comments or emails, please.
