The Cottage Smallholder

My pesky thoughts have now been marshalled, and at work I have a proper full size keyboard to type on, at home I just have a little netbook thing which is very useful, but not so good for the long winded and self indulgent rants that I like to partake in.

Joanna, you couldn’t be further from upsetting me! I think you’re absolutely right, and I really don’t understand why so many people I’ve encountered in less enlightened places than the CSH forum can’t come to grips with the (to me at least) relatively simple concept of “I’m happy with the choices I have made, and I hope you are happy with whichever choices you make”.

Is it so hard?

Instead people seem to feel it’s their right, bordering on their duty, to tell anyone who has done something differently to they way they themselves did it, that they are wrong. Not just when talking about reproduction, but also education, child rearing, faith, relationships, diet, pet ownership…

I’ve concluded that people must be very insecure about the decisions they’ve made in life if they feel that someone else doing something else undermines them so much.

Back to the topic in hand – I have no desire to procreate, for several reasons. One is that I was an abominable little brat, and there’s no way I would want to stick myself with a kid like me.

Also, and I’ll freely admit that this may be selfish and lazy, I don’t want to give up my lifestyle to minister to first a crying puking pooing baby then a small child that requires constant attention to stop it killing itself in some way or other, then a bigger child which may nor require constant supervision but will still require constant thinking about, and then an older child will require massive amounts of money. And I don’t want to share my Sam. And I don’t want my body deformed in ways that it may never recover from, and I like my sleep, and being able to go away for the weekend at short notice, or go out and not come home til 3 in the morning on a whim.

I’m sure that there would be numerous rewards for these inconveniences, and having someone to pay the nursing home bills when you get old might well come in handy, but I can see an alternative life without children of my own in that I think looks more attractive.

I don’t particularly care if thinking these things makes me selfish, surely that’s another indicator that I shouldn’t be breeding – selfishness is not a good trait in a parent.

These are slightly (only slightly) facetious comments, but a more serious one is that raising a child is such a massive responsibility. It seems that anyone who isn’t daunted by it can’t have thought about it properly. Teaching a child right from wrong, equipping it to cope with life, trying to make sure it ends up a pleasant, good person not selfish, spoiled, rude or mean. That’s a terrifying thing to take on. And I don’t want to.

My greatest fear is that I may accidentally, despite my best efforts, get knocked up. I’m pro choice, and I think that if I found out early enough I would probably terminate, but I worry that the hormonal and chemical changes that start when that little clump of dividing cells latches on might alter my thinking. I don’t want to be in thrall to my brain chemistry, though I know there’s really no way not to be.

And now I fear I may have inadvertently sparked a pro-life/pro-choice debate. Ah well. que cera.