spaceponies

A few years ago, I ended up on the wrong side of this response:

"Wait, I love my kids! STOP TALKING ABOUT KILLING MY KIDS!"

I found this a lit­tle con­fus­ing, as we weren't talk­ing about killing any­one. How­ever, I've since become a par­ent, and I can offer an expla­na­tion and translation.

When you become a par­ent, there's an over­whelm­ing joy at hav­ing cre­ated an entirely new and per­fect per­son (per­fect until you and the world get at them). On the other hand, there are more than a mil­lion things that you per­son­ally can screw up on and three times that which are com­pletely out­side of your con­trol. From the very begin­ning, it can lead to night­mares where you get a sur­prise phone call from a friend:

"Go to YouTube and search for your kid's name."

Accord­ingly, par­ents get together to share notes and say things that will make each other feel bet­ter. A dis­trib­uted, ran­dom, high-population sup­port group, as it were. I am a fer­vent par­tic­i­pant in this sys­tem. How­ever, some par­ents need more than that shared comfort.

Now, let's put another char­ac­ter trait into the mix: some peo­ple aren't just right, they're awe­somely right, and they have to share that joy with you… even if tends to come across in pas­sive aggres­sive ways.

"I love being mar­ried! Every­one should get mar­ried! Dat­ing was so hor­ri­ble. Hon­estly, I look back on the days of being sin­gle and shake my head because my life was chaotic and lonely back before I got married."

This kind of state­ment doesn't have any­thing to do with the subject–being mar­ried, being a par­ent, or what­ever else–but with any big invest­ment you want to feel like you did the right thing.

"Last week, I entered into a new busi­ness where I have unlim­ited oppor­tu­nity. I can say that it's eas­ily the best job I've ever had, and more than that, it's the best job I've ever heard of. And you can be a part of it, too! Have you ever heard of Amway?"

There is no big­ger invest­ment than hav­ing chil­dren. Since wait­ing to see if this is the right deci­sion is slow and, you know, of uncer­tain out­come, it's eas­ier to find val­i­da­tion in pro­claim­ing to any­one who will lis­ten how every­one could be made hap­pier by fol­low­ing your lead.

"I'm a writer! Look, I've sent out short sto­ries for con­sid­er­a­tion by the edi­tors of small-press pub­li­ca­tions! I'm pur­su­ing artis­tic endeav­ors as a voca­tion! I am a writerrrrrrrr!"

So when par­ents are joy­ful and enthu­si­as­tic about their own kids and mix that up with the thought that a per­son can't unchild them­selves with­out being a really bad per­son, a kind of mania can attach to the love. Like every­thing else in life, cer­tain peo­ple are going to han­dle this grace­fully, some with humor, and the rest of us with a cou­ple of olives rest­ing at the bot­tom of the glass.

I can say from first­hand expe­ri­ence that I've never been as happy, sad, or angry as I've been dur­ing the time that I've had chil­dren. The emo­tional level is pow­er­ful, so it can turn nor­mally balanced-enough peo­ple into the kind of per­son who could say:

"I love being a par­ent! Kids are the best!"

…into the kind of per­son who would say:

"I don't mean any offense, but any­one who doesn't have kids must be bar­ren and empty on the inside."

Now, this isn't a prob­lem for most peo­ple. You can sense when someone's a lit­tle crazy. But some peo­ple, includ­ing the younger ver­sion of myself, end up think­ing of such a state­ment ratio­nally. Then, mis­tak­ing that they are talk­ing to an oth­er­wise ratio­nal adult, will offer the counter viewpoint:

"Can't a per­son be happy with­out kids? Could you be happy with­out kids?"
New par­ent thinks, "Well, gosh I haven't thought about it in so long… what would have to hap­pen for me to be child­less. Oh right, my kids wouldn't exist!"
And then says, "Wait I love my kids! STOP TALKING ABOUT KILLING MY KIDS!"

I'm a very happy father of two, but I very clearly remem­ber the other side. Hang­ing out with kids isn't for every­one, and becom­ing the par­ents of kids isn't for everyone.

Child­less cool peo­ple, please for­give the rest of us. Becom­ing a new par­ent is emo­tion­ally charg­ing. We don't mean any harm.