As a teenager, I decided it would be wrong to bring children into this world. As an adult I find it ironic that parents sometimes accuse childless people of being selfish. If we examine the ‘noble’ reasons why people procreate, we find they do not hold up to scrutiny.
1) My kids will care for me in old age: Perhaps onThe Waltons, though in reality children will drain retirement savings and likely will ignore parents when they are old and infirm. Daycare, tuition, wedding costs - even adult children see their parents’ money as a birthright. One of the saddest things in my volunteer work at the Geriatrics Unit at my local hospital is that the old and the sick are abandoned by their offspring. Very rarely do I see an attentive son or daughter at the parent’s bedside. Have no fear though; they will definitely show up for the reading of the will.
2) Children bring happiness: Perhaps when they are babies. But what about the worry each time they are out of sight? Arguably, the world has never been a safe place, but lately child abductions, murders, rapes grab headlines far too often. And forget about when they are teens. Imagine a happiness ledger; on one side add up the joy and pride your child brings and on the other list the stresses, anxiety, expenses, and miseries. Now tally them up and see if there is net gain or loss? If you want a cute thing to love and be loved by, better invest in a puppy.
3) They are my hope: People feel my child will live my dreams. They forget the child is not a blank slate. He came with his own dreams. Hope? Guaranteed way to experience disappointment.
4) “Go forth and multiply”: Your Bible may have said it, but with seven billion and counting, isn’t it time to stop? It takes more than a village to raise a child. Global warming, dwindling food and water supplies and extinct species are not the result of under population. The Earth’s resources are stretched, anyone adding another mouth to feed is just not thinking.
5) He might be an Einstein. Statistically, it is more likely you will win the mega lottery. Historically, for every Shakespeare or Gandhi who changed the world for the better, there have been a dozen Hitlers and Bin Ladens. Chances are your son could as easily grow up to be Mark Chapman as John Lennon. Parents sometimes ask me: What if your parents never had you? I have no delusions; the world would have carried on as ever. An overwhelming majority of people is of mediocre talent and leads mundane, mediocre lives. Rest assured, your child will likely be one of them.
6) They make me selfless: In some spiritual traditions, being a parent is seen as a way to crack open the ego. Because children need you, it supposedly makes one more compassionate, more altruistic. If that were true, why then are nuns and monks celibates?
7) Family name: I come from a culture where having children is seen as a way of propagating community. But it only adds to a sense ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’. It is only recently that both China and India have discovered that having fewer children makes for not only a more prosperous society but a more peaceful one. Communal riots and caste discrimination are just an excuse to gain advantage in competing for resources. Gay men and lesbians should be encouraged in India and China because they contribute to society in the present without adding a burden to future generations.
8) Children bind a union. There was a time when couples stayed together for the sake of the children, but not anymore. With a fifty percent divorce rate, the welfare of the children is the last thing on people’s minds. Compound that with the fact that most people remarry, the children are then torn between two families. And if you need offspring to keep you together as a couple, perhaps the relationship is not so stable to begin with.
9) Evolution of Species: Procreation may be nature’s way of evolving species, but survival of the fittest was supplanted as soon as civilization was invented. People marry based on non-genetic criteria: language, education, status, wealth. Sperm banks, egg-donations, and surrogate mothers mean we are in danger of regressing. Octomom has passed on her DNA prodigiously, but Oprah has not.
10)Immortality: People feel children are a legacy. They are the only permanent proof after their death that they existed. Now really! Beyond our own grandparents, how many of us know who our ancestors were? Despite Ancestry.com, the past is murky and few are interested in investigating it anyways. People derive joy from their kids because the children resemble themselves. This is narcissism.
11)Children make me fulfilled: Talk about peer pressure! Historically and culturally this idea that spinsters and bachelors are somehow unfulfilled is nothing but a form of bullying. The main reason people reproduce is because it is expected. It is what everyone else is doing and what others before have done. To physically not be able to have children is a stigma, but to opt out of having children when biologically feasible is considered non-conformists. Is that such a bad thing? There was a time when being atheistic was heresy. Those who opposed slavery were ridiculed and jailed. Women who demanded the vote were ostracized. Civilization moves ahead by the bravery of the few.
12) Congratulations. We say that when a person has a child. As if the father or mother consciously accomplished something difficult. Biology and instinct did most of the work. All he or she did was consent to unprotected sex. Much of the stigma around HIV revolves around the fact that it reveals you probably had unprotected sex. Then why is having a child reason to congratulate someone?
Okay, so having children is self-indulgent. But then, so are most human undertakings.
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When a man decides to hire an escort he usually has a sense of what he is into and what his boundaries are. He is paying for a service and he establishes the power dynamic. An escort often has their own boundaries but those boundaries might be flexible depending on how much money is being offered and how low their bank account might be.
The show centres on a production about Marilyn Monroe's rise to fame, something they all admit has never been done successfully. Debra Messing plays a songwriter and her songwriting partner is - get this - a gay guy. Gay characters are very well represented in the story, all are believable, not stereotyped with plenty of male/male kissing and intimacy. A cast-off from American Idol, (I forget what season), Katherine McPhee is the title character - and what a voice! (The person who won American Idol that year was I think Taylor Hicks, not sure but he never made it. McPhee should have won, the judges were the most surprised when she got the boot off the show. Her mother managed to land a job with American Idol recently.)
