Columnist’s 5 Reasons To Have Kids Will Have You Reaching For Birth Control
My kids are great, and I love them dearly. That said, this article in last week’s Guardian about why you NEED to have kids was so terrible that it almost turned my uterus into a vacuum to try to make me a non-parent again. Did you know that kids are the solution to every problem in your boring, sad-sack 30-something life? Well, Tim Lott knows, and he has a lot to say about it!
Note: please securely anchor your children before continuing to read, in case of sudden uterine-vacuum onset.
Lott’s first reason to have kids is to reinvigorate your social life, because, as he says, most of your friends are people that you’ve known “since school or university and been heartily sick of them for years.” If all you want is new friends, maybe try a pottery class or a running club or a key party or literally anything else before you commit to having offspring. If you are the kind of parent who thinks all your childless friends are boring and stupid because they don’t have kids, though, please do them a favor and cut them loose.
Moving on to reason #2: having kids will give you something to discuss with your partner. I did not get the memo that politics, films, literature, and post-apocalyptic zombie survival plans were off-limits after I popped a couple of miniature humans out of my body. But according to Lott:
You start to realise that you are average and dull like everyone else. Having children means you can stop trying to be Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre and get on with the real meaning of life wiping excrement from children’s bottoms.
I think this is the parenting version of those dudebros who make offensive jokes and then say, “No, it’s satire!” It doesn’t count as satire if part of the author believes it’s really true.
The third reason is that kids are funny. You know what else is funny? Watching Bob’s Burgers on Netflix. Netflix, coincidentally, is something you can cancel after a few months if the humor isn’t to your taste. You cannot turn off your monthly subscription fee to parenthood until eighteen years or so into the gig.
The fourth reason is that having kids will make you less suicidal. Holy crap, what?! If you are already contemplating ‘throwing yourself under a bus’, as Lott cavalierly puts it, maybe sign up for some visits with a therapist before the OB-GYN. I can feel my uterus shriveling up as I read this, along with whatever passes for my soul.
And last but not least (okay, maybe it is least, actually), Lott thinks you need kids because kids are beautiful. Even if they’re ugly. This whole article is terrible but upon reaching this last point my carotid arteries constricted just long enough to cause me to black out and avoid any further brain damage that might be caused by reading more. I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air, send an email to my best friend since college, and then watch an episode of Bojack Horseman while I eat breakfast to try to salvage the day. (And then, yes, there’s likely going to be some bottom-wiping involved. It’s just not going to be a topic of conversation this evening.)
(Image: Anatoly Tiplyashin/Shutterstock)
