After another long ass talk with my dad a couple of days ago, it occurred to me that I really am not ready for children of my own.  I was listening to KFOG’s morning show yesterday and they were talking about kids vs. no kids.  More specifically, Renee’s recent marriage has become a battleground of questions from people close to her who keep inquiring about the possibility of children.

Regardless of what her situation is, her choice is not to have them, either for now or ever.  I happen to agree on this, quite strongly.

People look upon those who have no children to be handicap in a certain way.  I think this is a very limited point of view, not to mention selfish and inconsiderate of those who they are attacking with their questions.  Yes!  I said attacking!  Assuming that just because a couple doesn’t have kids is because of a medical condition is ridiculous, and sounds quite uneducated to me.  For example, Lisa’s grandmother keeps nagging her about fertility rituals.  I find that offensive, personally.  I think she’s the only one that shall get away with that kind of talk too.

I don’t know where this societal ‘norm’ came from.  Perhaps it dates back to our evolutionary nature: we must procreate, the meaning of life.  But we’re not animals.  We’re not an endangered species.  There’s little reason to breed in this day and age.

We have plenty of people doing that for us already.

Perhaps it gets traced back to our religious roots.  I just don’t know.

The conversation with my dad showed that he’s ready to leave his new children and come ‘take care of my children.’  Let’s think about that for a while: a daughter that’s 15, and a son who’s 8.  I think he’ll be plenty busy for a long time to come.  No jumping ship for him.  I am not going to an accomplice of abandonment.  If the road gets rough, you have to keep rolling through.  You can’t ‘change lanes’ and hope that a better side of the road will let you get through easily.  No, he’s staying in Ecuador as far as I’m concerned, until his children can support themselves, and then we’ll talk.

To me, that is a great responsibility.  People who have children only to ‘breed’ and contaminate the gene pool should just keep breeding and keep their breeder comments to themselves.  As humans, we have a responsibility to bring our children into the best possible world we can.  If we cannot do it within our means, then we shouldn’t.  Period.