I’m in the 1st class “quiet carriage” on the return leg of a trip to Devon; naturally it is filled with screaming children and thuggish louts using their mobiles on speaker phone. I have my earplugs in but they are no match for the hue and cry.
I don’t care for children in the least. I don’t think they are cute or funny or in any way charming or amusing. They are like little drunks: boorish and lacking a volume control. I am utterly devoid of the breeder gene and consider those who feel a need to make imperfect copies of themselves extraordinarily selfish.
I am proof that Darwin was right. I despise children and would rather be pickled alive by aliens than have any so therefore my “defective” DNA will not be passed down to future generations. If for some strange reason mine were the only sperm left capable of propagating the species and the little wigglers were harvested from me during the night and used to inseminate armies of willing females, the entire human race would die out within a generation because none of my offspring would posses the biological imperative needed for procreation.
I am the first to admit that I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why anyone would want to subject themselves to years and years of the kind of pain and suffering that having children brings. I am of that age where everyone in my peer group has kids and all of them, to the last, moan incessantly about their precious little snowflakes. They complain that the kids don’t listen, are too loud, won’t sleep, sleep the wrong hours, won’t do what they are told, say “no” to everything, won’t settle down, are sick all the time, cry when you pick them up, cry when you put them down, cry when you leave them alone, cry when you put them in the car, cost them thousands of pounds for clothes, shoes, dental care, doctor’s bills, repair bills, childcare, day care, private school, piano lessons, ballet lessons, karate lessons, tutoring, the list, and the parent’s ability to drone on about it, is endless.
Judging by what I hear I would rank the parenting experience as somewhat less pleasant than being gang-raped in a Turkish jail. At least there you know the sodomizing would eventually stop; with children the fun just keeps on going.
A colleague recently said that she took her offspring on a two-hour drive to see their grandmother. She summed up the experience thus, “It was like having an angle grinder in the back seat for the whole way.” Wow, I really don't know what I'm missing.
Naturally since I hate children, they love me. I am a child magnet. Each and every time I board a train to anywhere, a mother and her 27 germ-infested toddlers will sit next to me. I can’t count the number of tube trips I’ve taken when I will be in an empty carriage and suddenly hundreds of school children swarm in: invariably being herded off to a museum or other cultural activity which will be lost on them because, really, they all would rather be playing Xbox or, if they are English, getting drunk.
Children find me at parties, in cinemas, on the beach, on the bus, anywhere were I simply want a bit of quiet. If there is a charter flight to a Babies with Colic Convention, I will be on it. At this very moment I am 37,000 feet above Eastern Europe on a run to Istanbul. The plane is packed, standing room only, I'm in Business; next to me and behind me are the only children in this part of the plane. For me this is perfectly normal and I have come to, if not accept it, at least expect it.
To be fair, although that is nor really my style, the kid next to me is pretty OK. He's fidgety but so am I and he gets up a lot to see his mum; I get up a lot to go to the loo. We've established a pattern that seems to work. He is also exceptionally polite and as such reminds me of me when I was whatever age he is (about 10 I would guess). He has some pretty cool games too and is exceptionally curious which is a good thing at any age. His mum seems bright and his dad came by to give him a sports magazine but he appears to be more interested in a book of Sudoku puzzles. I wonder if I should offer him my Herald Tribune?
Right. Back to reality. The two girls behind me are using the back of my seat as a kick-boxing pad.
I've dated more than my share of single mums over the years and the experiences were always fraught with anxiety. I was never good step-father material and always wanted more horizontal time than they could fit into their child-centric schedules. A couple of times, I must admit, I did manage to bond with the kids: baseball games, Frisbee playing, photography, computers, that sort of stuff. Mostly though it was a series of uncomfortable dinners followed by even more uncomfortable breakfasts.
The standard line I get from my child-enriched friends is, “You might think you hate kids but just wait until you have your own, it will be different then.” Somehow I doubt that and anyway, why would I want to take that chance? The world does not need another unloved child- we seem to have them in plentiful supply.
Twice and only twice have I ever experienced a loss of self-control so catastrophic that I thought seriously about the possibility of spawning with someone.
Woman number one was a brilliant and beautiful English professor from Chicago who already had an equally brilliant and beautiful daughter. I ended up cheating on her (the mum, not the daughter) with a girl from my photography class who showed up at my door one night with massage oil and candles. That action alone should cast serious doubts on my suitability to be anyone's father.
Woman number two dumped a truckload of ice on my child rearing plans when, after a week of panic and pregnancy tests (negative) she declared, in bed, after sex, that she wasn't afraid of being pregnant, she was afraid it would be mine. Ouch.
After that it was pretty much game over for me as far as breeding was concerned. One by one friends transitioned into ex-friends because they started popping out their young. It became increasingly difficult to steer conversations away from poo, tiny clothes and the cost of daycare. Inside the shells of shallow, self-absorbed parental units I knew there were still bright, entertaining, politically active people but there was no way to reach them over mountains of nappies and Motherhood Today magazines.
I have a dear friend who, at 37, has one and only one ambition in life: to have as many babies as there are eggs left in her body. She is, without a doubt, one of the brightest people I know: well educated, a good job; she is actually making a positive contribution to the world. Men flock to her but she brushes them away, judging them on one criteria alone: would they make a good sperm donor? She's looking for the antonym of “sponge worthy” she wants Ovary Worthy. Believe me, the standards are much, much, higher.
Returning from Istanbul now. Lots of room on this flight and I even have an empty seat next to me. This ever so slightly makes up for the asshole in front of me who fully reclined into my knees. Here's a tip: if you're flying BA within Europe the only difference between Business and Economy class is the food. The seat pitch is identical, i.e., crushingly narrow and anyone over 3.5' tall will need a well oiled shoehorn to fit in.
There are no children in sight or hearing range. This is a good thing as I got exactly zero sleep last night and I'm in no mood to mollycoddle the screaming fruit of someone's loins. Instead I am surrounded by suits and well trimmed greying hair. These blokes can't be much older than me and yet they all seem so grown up. I imagine they all have dull but well paying jobs like Director Of Product Enhancement (read it again, it will come to you) and their Rolexes where gifts from loving but oft ignored wives who are, at this very moment, getting boned by their Life Coaches.
I get up to go to the loo and sure enough, staring back at me in the mirror, is a balding, middle-aged, middle-manager with a Rolex. Holy shit! How did that happen?! Six years ago I had hair down to my waist, $60,000 in debt and a well cultivated reputation for womanizing. I let a woman cut my hair and look what happened: nice clothes, money in the bank, a garden and a lot of female friends who consider me “safe.” The shame.
Maybe the reason that I don't want to have kids stems from the fact that I consider myself an emotionally immature adult. I don't want to stop someone else from being irresponsible when I'm too busy being so myself. I'm not talking about participating in games of Russian Roulette in a Cambodian cock fighting ring but I don't even want the burden of having to wait for the green man in order to cross the street so that I don't unwittingly poorly influence an impressionable child's behaviour.
No. I'll leave the survival of the species to those who seem most eager to procreate: Chavs. When, in your old age, you are being cared for by someone who looks and acts like Amy Winehouse after a hard night on the town and the only shows on the telly are 357 channels of Big Brother don't come crying to me. I was the one wearing a condom.
