Like It Is

Just what is different? And why is it different? The nearest I’ve got to an answer is one of those “just have one, and you’ll see what we mean/you’ll understand” suggestions, which provides a convenient cop-out for those asserting “it’s different” and, if I was silly enough to follow their advice, would leave no way out for me.

On one hand it seems to suggest that anything that irritates me about children, such as running round screaming and making noise in adult environments, constantly demanding attention, throwing tantrums, yelling, being disruptive, kicking my seat when at the cinema (theatre) at a late showing and the like would become somehow miraculously o.k and acceptable – when and if they are my own. There is something wrong with this , only I can’t quite nail exactly what. But it may go some way to explain why it is that parents appear not to care when their offspring are disturbing the world at large.

Pro–natalists and parents say that it’s different when they are your own. “Have a brood of your own they say, go on, you just need to try it…just jump in, like we did. Don’t like kids? It’s different when they’re you’re own… I used to feel the same way…”

Since they are generally not talking about the good things that children bring, do they mean the upheaval, the lack of sleep the lost/missed opportunities, the broken relationships, years and years of parenting to bring children up, the sacrifices are different? Or that the constant demands of children, the noise, the struggle, the financial straits, the lack of economic power, the disappearance of self become different?

Or maybe the poop smells different, changing endless diapers is more pleasant, constantly feeling exhausted and having to fork out endless amounts of cash for the latest new must have for kids becomes good fun – because after all it’s different when the kids are your own.

Perhaps what they really mean is that “you have to put up with it all because you have no choice when they are your own?” If so, how would that make a childfree person change their mind and want to have kids? As a way to convince, it’s lousy.

On the other hand, it leads me to wonder if perhaps some parents really don’t like children in general themselves (in which case one wonders why on earth they had them, and why they persist in trying to convince childfree people that having kids is just the best thing ever) but make an exception for their own kids. So, everything they dislike about OPK’s (other people’s kids) becomes suddenly acceptable when it’s their own kids. OPK’s may be rude and noisy. But certainly not their own offspring.

I remember once talking to a friend about being on a plane where a young child was screaming for a good hour after take off. It was probably because of the effect of the pressure on the baby’s ears, but that didn’t make the screaming any easier to bear. It was a particularly piercing, impossible to ignore scream, so not a chance of shutting it out. Not the baby’s fault, in my opinion, but the mother’s. I’m sorry, but why fly with a young child, when you know (or you should know) that the pressure on take off is going to be very painful for your child? I just don’t understand that.

At first the mother was trying to calm the child down. After a while she gave up. Nothing she could do. And the screaming continued unabated until the child wore itself out or the pain stopped – whichever came sooner.

Relating this story to my friend, I was amazed when she blithely said, “Oh I really hate the noise of other children too, it just really gets on my nerves, parents should do more to control their kids. Mine is a good child though, hardly ever cries.”

I was too gobsmacked to suggest that maybe she’s immune to the noise and antics of her own offspring. People without children unfortunately, are only too aware, except we are told we should put up with it and, since we are heartless childfree people, that we “wouldn’t understand”. Well, they are right. I don’t understand why I should have to put up with the noise and disruption of children where they probably aren’t supposed to be in the first place.

I’m told that I would think differently if they were my own.

I take that to mean I’d be as oblivious to whatever my kids did as other parents are. I would hope not.