Happiness is Being Childless
We had to admit to the lady who hauled our pool water that we have no children, no children of relatives, that this pool is for the two of us alone. Which is one of the fantastic aspects of getting to my age without succumbing to the baby fever society tries to force upon us. Children are not a joy to us. They are a headache. I don’t mind my niece and nephew for short periods of time, but I don’t have to be responsible for them.
My former job ruined me for caring about the children other people have and then don’t raise well. Pretty much ruined me for humanity in general. The list of people I can tolerate grows shorter every year. Ok, week. Sometimes by the hour.
Oh, the joy! We buy toys for ourselves alone. We can go on adventures without a babysitter or long range planning. We can do dangerous and outrageous things because there are no little people depending on us for their safety.
I don’t miss it one bit. I believe the urge to be a parent is put into our heads by a consumer society, forced upon us by our biological need to procreate, and pressed upon us by well-meaning friends and family. I also think that if you can manage to escape those pressures for long enough, you begin to see them for what they are. You become immune to the whole cutesy baby thing. You grow beyond the need to have and own and name a child, a likeness of yourself, and actually work on your own self.
Our lives are not formed around day care, play dates, school, and baths and wiping slimy messes off our glass surfaces. Well, except those we make ourselves.
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