Probably Not

The other day, I was asked if I had any kids by one of the new secretaries.

"No," I said, "I don't."

"Well," she said with a knowing smile, "then you have lots to look forward to."

"Uh, yeah," I said. "I guess I do." And we walked into the office together.

This got me thinking down the normal line of do I really want to have kids? (Which seems like a strange thing to even consider since there's one with whom I have the possibilities of procreating with at the moment, and in the near to foreseeable to far future.)

The only answer that keeps coming to me is, "Probably not."

Sure I've seen how happy Heels and Johnny Logic have been since they had their son. I've also read about the ear aches and the fevers and the falling and the general fussiness that sometimes just happens. It seems that along with the many moments of happy, there's a lot of worry involved during that early time. Still, it seems that many people would agree that those good moments out weigh the worry, and even with the worry the kid won't be falling down forever; children tend to get older and learn how to walk and talk and (sort of) express themselves.

I'm not sure that matters, though. I walk around town and through the malls and I look at kids of all ages and I think, what would I do if I had a kid and it turned out like that. And even if they don't, the worry, at least if you're a caring parent, never goes away. I'm sure that there are 90-year olds out there worried about their children. And it'd only get worse if the kid is a fucked-up crack-head, wouldn't it?

Ticknart, you may be saying (unless you know my real name, in which case you're probably saying that instead), there's a good possibility that any kids that you happen to have won't be a fucked-up crack-head. You seem like a decent person, Ticknart, and that means it's more likely that any kids you may have will be pretty decent as well.

I suppose that's all true, but still, I look around at people in high school, people my age, people older than me, people my parents' age, and people my grandparents' age and I think that the grand majority of them really suck. Old or young, they suck. I'm not so sure that I'd want to do the tough job of raising a kid (hopefully with someone who was willing to make it with me) in a world full of as much bullshit and batshit-insanity as there is. I bet raising kids was tough enough when a family only saw stupid people maybe three or four times a year.

How hard is it to keep the stupidity from sticking to children now, since so many of the learn how to turn on a TV and pop a video tape (if the family still has a VCR) in before they can string a full sentence together? There are hundreds of channels and thousands of hours of inanity on TV, and I love me some inane TV but, unlike little kids and a growing part of the adult population of this world, I have a filter that keeps reminding that what I see on the TV, even the news, isn't all true. And it's not supposed to be all true, but can a little kid be expected to know that? How--in a world where a kid sees its parents spend so much time watching TV, using a computer, playing with a mobile phone, and treating those things as if those are what make up life--are children supposed to learn how to discern possible truth from probable lies?

(I'm not really trying to bash TV or computers. When I have television, I'm a real junkie. I like watching the fictionalized lives of fictional people in their fictional worlds in the same way I prefer to read fiction to non-fiction. I think, though, that I'm pretty good at remember than the things I watch and read aren't real, even if they claim to be based on real life events.)

It seems really silly spending this much time thinking about something like this. Especially since I think I did this sort of thing a few years ago here (although I couldn't find it). There's really no reason for me to be concerned about this because without someone to fornicate with on a semi-regular basis the possibilities of having a kid is (unless some of the things I've seen on TV are true) impossible.

Still, if asked if I want to have kids, I think I'll be answering, "Probably not."