I'm a little slow today. I just switched to Sanka. So...have a heart?

Monday, March 27, 2006

It must be spring, cuz I want kids.

I'm a very selfish person. Well, not THAT selfish, but still, I can't bring myself to get a cat. Or a houseplant. I mean, if I wanted to go away for a month, who would take care of it? I work too much to get a dog... And I still need to go out and get rip-roaring drunk at least one night per week. I need to be able to stay out and have dinner with my friends, and I need to either be able to sleep in on a Saturday, or run errands, or go on a 15-mile-bikeride. I do NOT need to have another human being dependent on me for survival, cleanliness and general nurturing. As of right now.

I've always wanted kids. I'm very good with them, and they like me. Whenever someone's kids come into the office, they take to me quickly. And I take right back to them. I love their shiny little eyes, and their stupid observations, and their smiles full of evenly-spaced teeth. And the way they're huggable, and the way they can pretend that things are other things... And I also love that after 15 minutes, they go away.

I can't imagine coming home after a loooooong day and dealing with homework and dinner, and questions and stories and bathing and crying and the rest of the gonteh megilah that comes with having kids. Looking back on my own childhood, my parents should be canonized. I was an obnoxious little terror. And, instead of backhanding me (I've seen old videos of myself. I deserved to have been backhanded.) they read me books and patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) helped me with my homework, and ferried me to and fro, and bought me clothes, and thought up fun activities for me to do, and quelled nuclear arguments between my brother and me.

And normally, I operate under the "Someday, I'll have kids" mantra. I genuinely intend to. I want my own, too... and, given that the Great State of Florida has seen fit to deny hundreds of loving and capable couples the ability to raise and nurture abandoned and unwanted kids, by being the only state in the union to specifically prohibit homosexuals from adopting children, if I want kids and stay down here, Imma have to have my own, or I ain't got no other choice. But I'm not going to go on that rant.

Like I said, I didn't want someone else's kids anyway.

After I save up 30 or 40K for a 10% downpayment on a condo, I guess I'll have to start saving up the Moo-lah to buy some womb space. God. That's going to be costly. Instead of saving up to buy myself an SL500, or a second-home in Costa Rica, I'm going to have to save up to convince one of my friends (or a stranger) to give up their figure for a year, and be both my baby-momma and my incubator, or bribe more than one person so I get a "huevo" and "espacio." My friend Alyson once said to me, though, very rationally, I might add, that she would not hesitate to either give me an egg, or be the incubator, but she would not, under any circumstances, do both, because then she would be too attached to the child, and couldn't see fit to give to me as my own - we'd have to be co-parents. (Even if it WAS half mine...)

So, anyway, because the thought of having kids is soooooooooooo cooooomplicated it's always been one of those things that starts to hit me in the spring, but I can comfortably shrug off as, "Eh...I'll have them when I'm a grown-up...that won't be for a while."

::needle scratching off a record::

I am now an adult with a viable career, capable of maintaining a child. I even have a second bedroom and bathroom where said child could sleep, and poop. So, this Spring, despite the fact that I have absolutely no plans at any time in the near future to even consider having children, the option seems just a little more real to me, and a little closer to being a possibility.

And it's super weird.

Oh, sure, I'm not in a relationship where I live with someone else, and we share bills and responsibilities, and cook for each other and have Friday night movie night, and read books in bed before we turn out the light every night...

But I realize that as soon as I'm in a relationship like that, after a few years (let's say five...like my parents...) down the road, we could have a chat about having some chil'runs. And think about it... if someone manages to stay with me for five years (we're on almost 2.5 here right now...but there's no moving in together, and no obvious signs that that'll ever happen) and we live together, and have a bright, fancy house with an ocean view and money to spend on jetting off to St. Kitts every winter... we could have some kids. I think I want two. And I think I want them both to be mine. I guess we could have three to accomodate any partner's desire to procreate, but that seems sort of expensive, and I want my kids to be spoiled rotten. Well, not spoiled rotten, but you know... go to Private School... have good clothes. Braces. An Explorer when they turn 16 so they can wrap it around a telephone pole (and not get hurt) and learn a lesson about safety.

So, now that it's spring, when I look around and see little children in adorable outfits, in strollers, or actually walking and eating ice cream and wearing star-shaped day-glo plastic sunglasses, or a Spiderman outfit, I melt a little bit. And I want to steal them. Or at least have my very own child, that I can raise from 0-6, and then resume raising at 18...no, let's make it 25, so that I'll miss out on all that expensive "college" and "grad school." (Jewish parent, no?) Because it's spring, that "cerebral" part of my brain saying "A CHILD MEANS NO MORE PARTYING!" "A CHILD MEANS YOU'LL HAVE TO DRIVE A DURABLE AND INEXPENSIVE JAPANESE CAR!" "A CHILD MEANS YOU CAN'T HAVE NICE FURNITURE, BECAUSE THEY WILL SPILL PEE AND CHEERIOS ALL OVER IT," is silenced, and all I see when I see plump little arms and chubby little fingers (on children) is "Awwwwwwwww! A baaaaaaaaby! I want one!"

I was going to make this longer, but see? I can't even commit to a longer blog, let alone a CHILD, which I must be financially responsible for until at least the age of 21, but preferably, until they either have a Dr. before their name, or an Esq. or a Ph.D. after their name. It won't be a matter of whether my kid goes to college... it'll be a question of where. And it damn well better be a top-50 school. I went to a top-50 school. (I went to a top 35 school. 34, if you want to get technical.) So, I guess my kid will have to go to a top-20 school. Or 10. But I'm flexible and understanding, so 20. See? I'll make such a good parent.

Bottom line: Financially able to have a child? Semi-check... I'd have to round up some bux to rent some space, and pay for all the expensive "vaginacology."

Mentally and emotionally ready to raise a child? I believe so.

Physically around enough to have a child? Probably not.

Sewn all my wild oats, and gotten all the wild hairs out of my ass? Definitely not.

Normally the "cons" outweigh the pros. Except in springtime. In Springtime, every baby is a little cooing bag of possibilities and the embodiment of (in theory) my genetic material. And I want one. At least until it turns summer, and the idea of carrying a hot, sweaty, colicky, stinky baby around in 95 degree heat with 88% humidity turns the whole idea of parenthood into a delightfully avoidable disaster...

5 Comments:

Blogger Rootietoot said...

no doubt about it, kids are awesome. I know, I have 4 of them. However, for all their limpid eyes and cuddlesomeness when they are small enough for you to physically pick them up and put them in a cage...er...playpen, they eventually (hopefully) turn into surly, demanding teens with overdeveloped sense of entitlement and a phenomenal lack of urgency about anything important. They tell me eventually they grow up and become interesting adults. It's hard to remember that when you're in the throes of adolescence x3. Sometimes it seems worth it, sometimes I wish I'd opted for a career and a nephew.

4:30 AM

 
Blogger SuperBee said...

Laura, I may take you up on your offer someday. You'd be a fantastic carrier, responsible, healthy, non-smoker, non-heavy drinker... Hell, you even fret over eating brownies! ;) And never underestimate the value of a good plasma donor, you could make..hundreds!!

RT - You weighed heavily on my mind as I wrote that post - I simply don't think at this point I have the emotional constitution to refrain from throwing them on the street and locking them out of the house when they start to get "fresh" and "entitled." I'm really into the rent-a-kid idea. I'd be great with them at the ages I wanted them, and for the rest of the time, let them be someone else's problem - no runny noses, broken bones, adenoids or tonsilitis, bad grades, childhood alcoholism or serious drug addiction. I want all the good parts, and don't think I could, without snapping, handle all the tribulations that come with the benefits. Not yet, anyway. Maybe once I develop a mild lawywer's alcoholism, then I could float through life with a patient sense of impending disaster... and not freak whenever my kids did something wrong or something happened to them...

4:57 AM

 
Blogger Rootietoot said...

I only freak 12 hours after a disaster. The rest of the time, a delicate Southern alcoholism lubricates my jagged nerves and makes most manner of misbehavior amusing.
The problem with stewing over the procreation issue, is that by the time you figure out what you want to do, it's either too late or too inconvenient. But if you just "go ahead and do it" and you aren't ready, it could be an absolute trainwreck. damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Go with the rent-a-kid. Borrow one of my teens for a month. Or a whole school year.

11:18 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i felt the same way as you until i went to chuck e cheese with my friend, and her 2 nephews (one is 2 and the other is almost 12 months). it was fun for a little while, but i was totally drained by the end of the day and i wasn't expecting that at all because i used to work at a summer day care. my friend's nephews were incredibly well behaved, but it's everyone else and their kids that you have to watch out for. i was holding alex's hand (2 yr. old) when a guy brushed past alex. it made me and alex stop in our tracks. i swear, i wanted to clobber the guy. then, this little girl took one of alex's balls in the game where you try to throw the ball down the lane in the 10, 25, 50, 100 pts. holes. i was pissed! the chuck e cheese was crowded as hell and i picked alex up because i didn't want all the big people to step on him or something. your seneses are on full alert because you just don't want anything bad to happen to them. but, my friends with kids all tell me that after you have the second kid, you realize that they're not as fragile as you think. i have moments where i just really want a baby too, but then i think that i have too much going on to really care for one the way i want to. then, there's the problem of no boyfriend in sight, which i sometimes cure by saying that angelina has made adopting "in" so i could adopt too, but i want to be a stay at home mom and there's no way i could swing that at the moment, so then i'm back to believing that when it's the right time, the powers that be will deliver me a baby (now, in what manner is the question...).

12:35 PM

 
Blogger Rootietoot said...

I realize, as a Deep South Christian Housewife, I am under some sort of cultural obligation to think gay folks ought not have children. However, I think deep down that I'd rather see a child raised by a pair of people that cherish that child than by a pair of people who think several obscure Biblical verses make a mandate for abuse and tyranny. So there.

8:09 AM

 

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