Word Soup

I love my friends' kids. I'd probably think your kids are cute, too. But there's a degree of pronounced cultural child worship in this country that I can't quite get my head around. I'm thinking about writing a short story about it -- but it has been slow in coming. This article brings up the child or no child debate, though it doesn't quite hit on the issue as comprehensively as I'd like.

"How many times have I heard after saying that I don’t want children:

* "Oh, I’m sorry." Sorry for what? I’ve made a conscious choice and I’m proud to have the courage (because that’s what it takes in this society) to say no.

* "Don’t you like kids?" LOVE ’EM! They’re cute, huggable, sweet smelling, curious, and all that. I just don’t want one in my home relying on me.

* "You’ll change your mind." Isn’t it possible that as an adult, I’ve learned how to make a decision and stick to it?

I'm capable of having children but choose not to. I respect both the decision to have children and the decision to not have children. Still though, there is a culture of almost religious fawning idolatry of children (particularly pronounced on Facebook) that, despite the greatest efforts to suppress, I find will occasionally pounce and handcuff the gentler spirits of my nature, and annoy the living hell out of me. It has something to do with the American ideal that the two greatest things you can accomplish as a human being is to make money, and to procreate.

I have to someday flesh out my grumpy tirade on this subject more fully and creatively, but I'll have to choose my words carefully, since criticism on this front is akin to lashing out against the cult of Mac, hating baseball, suggesting you don't support the troops, or other American cultural blasphemies of the highest order.