Many of you already know this. I have no desire to have kids. None. Don’t like ‘em. Nothing against them, I’m sure your kids are great, just have no desire to have my own.
My good friend from home, Jacob, and his wife Courtney have a four month old named Noah. My cousin Melissa, with a little help from her husband Jake, recently squirted out their own spawn named Sawyer (if he becomes friends with a Huck, I’d keep a close eye on those little fuckers). I offer them both my deepest congratulations and the best of luck. In the great words of Jacob’s father, “Once you have kids, you’re life is over.” Some dad. (Just kidding. Mr. D is awesome.)
From my side of the wall though, I don’t honestly see what the big deal is. I mean, I guess it’s great to have your own kids, but I don’t see why people are so amazed when two people make a kid. Honestly, I think it takes a lot more effort, and is a lot harder, to NOT make a kid. I mean, shit, give me a chance and I bet I could get a woman pregnant real quick. Not that I want to; farthest thing from it.
IF if if if if if, I ever decide to have a child of my own, I want to adopt. I feel the time honored tradition of passing on ones genes and “the family name” are over. The idea of family in this day and age, with same sex couples and raising children from third-world countries, is so different, the old ways are outdated and unnecessary. It’s way more important to love the person you are raising. “Wait until you have kids of your own. It’ll be different.” Well, what if it’s not. What if I meet someone, have a kid, and I can’t stand the little bastard and end up hating this little piece of person. And now I’m stuck with him/her.
On the radio the other day, Heidi from the wildly popular afternoon talk radio show on 97.1 Frostly, Heidi, and Frank made this analogy (bear with me, I don’t remember it exactly):
I have two cats. I love them both equally. Now the first cat, which I bought at the pet store, likes me, but is a little anti- social, not only with people who come to visit, but also with me. Her owner. My second cat, I adopted. When I went to the shelter to pick her out, she peeked at me through the cage, mewed at me, and reached her little paw thru the cage trying her damndest to get to me. I brought her home and she shows me everyday how appreciative she is that I rescued her. Not that my other cat doesn’t do this, but the one I saved from the shelter I think knows what I did, and she knows that because I picked her out, I really wanted that cat.
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I think adopting a child is like that. It’s great to have a kid of your own, but if you adopt a kid, you have to go thru years of background checks and really work to adopt. You have to prove you are capable of taking care of it. You go thru a lot and you know you want that child more than anything. And I think that kid will love you way more knowing you took a chance by bringing them into your home to love. They know you wanted them and that makes a huge difference.
To solidify that response, a few days after that, I overheard the craziest conversation. I was scouting a dance studio for Parental Control. A beginner ballet class let out. One of the students, a girl who was probably around six years of age, was having a conversation with another member of the class about her parents. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, because when my ears perked up, I heard the first little girl say,
My birth parents didn’t love me. They had me and gave me up. I lived in an orphanage until I was five, then these other people adopted me: my real parents. And they love me a whole lot. They really love me. My birth parents just had me and gave me up.
Wow. Her birth parents, as she called them, obviously didn’t care for her, or weren’t ready to be parents, or whatever the reason. And here’s this six year-old-girl who was intelligent enough to realize her “real” parents wanted her and loved her more than anything. That really struck me. And it confirmed my decision to adopt kids instead of having my own.
Again, I don’t want kids. But if for some reason if my idea about that changes, I think I want to be at a point where I really want to have a son or daughter, and I really want this kid to know I tried my hardest and worked my ass off to be their father.
Just because I’ve gone away, doesn’t mean I’ll be gone forever…
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