At the moment I’m taking care of a child. I love him to pieces, but I swear there are moments when I’d like to dump him on his parent’s front porch like a flaming bag of dog poo, ring the doorbell and drive away quickly.
He whines. He complains. He doesn’t listen. He gets cranky. Various liquids flow from every orifice. I have to clean up after him, feed him, and wash his clothes. He often won’t eat what I put on his plate, and he for sure insists on drinking things that aren’t good for him, rather than the healthy alternatives that I suggest. He won’t go to bed when he should, and he wants to sleep when he should be doing something else. You’d think I was water boarding him when it’s time to take medicine. When we have to go somewhere, getting him moving is like pushing a train up a mountainside, and he usually makes me late. Lord knows he makes me cancel plans on a regular basis. Strangulation looks more and more attractive to me with each passing day.
This child that I’m taking care of just happens to be my 56 year old boyfriend who is sick with the flu, but my mantra for the past few days has been “Thank GOD I got my tubes tied.” He is my reminder that, aside from my dogs, I do not have a maternal bone in my body.
Now, before I get a s***storm of hostile comments about how SELFISH I am by not being a parent, or how INSENSITIVE I am for even talking about this subject when there are so many people out there who can’t have children who desperately want them, or how I’ll someday change my mind, let me say that a) It’s much more selfish to have a child that you didn’t want in the first place, b) I’m not against other people being parents except when they let their child throw tantrums in the checkout line at Walmart or when I’m trying to watch a movie, and c) I’m 48, and I haven’t changed my mind yet, not even for a second.
Another comment I always hear is “The Bible says we should be fruitful and multiply.” My response to that is that the next part of that sentence is “…and replenish the earth,” and the earth seems to be replenished enough without my help, thank you very much.
I’m convinced that not all of us are cut out for parenthood, and it’s better to embrace that than to do what society expects and be miserable. Oh, I think I would have been a great parent. I would do everything to make a child feel loved and safe and nurtured, because he or she didn’t ask to be put into this situation, and every child deserves not to be emotionally crushed like a bug, in spite of the fact that most children wind up crushing their parents at least once in their lifetime. The fact is, I’d have been unhappy deep down, and therefore I chose not to have children.
I could go on about this for pages and pages, because I’ve certainly been expected to defend my choice every step of the way, but my boyfriend is calling me from his death bed, begging for lime sherbet, so I’ve got to go.
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