Honestly, Beautifully : honey blade

2002-05-03 - 2:16 a.m.

Wow. My flat is now tidy enough that you can see the floor.

What's more, you can walk from the door, to the bathroon, over to the computer desk and round to the other side of the bed without having to jump over things or risk breaking your neck.

Of course, it'll be back to normal in a week, but for now I'm proud of myself, dammit!

Anyway. Before I got to bed I'm just going to rant a bit about something that happened at work this evening.

One of our managers has just become a father and so he's on paternity leave for a while. This naturally resulted in lots of talk about babies, mainly from Ruth. Which is to be expected really, since she wears her kid like a medal and won't shut up about her.

Eventually it worked into the conversation that a) I don't like kids, b) I never plan to have any, and c) I plan to get sterilised as soon as someone in the medical profession will pluck up the guts to do it for me.

And this was greeted with the following responses:

"You need to get help" (from manager number 2)
"Oh, you'll change your mind about that" (from Ruth, who knows everything about me because she's a woman with a child, yep)
"I guarantee you, in three or four years' time you'll be pining for kids" (from Rick, strangest of all because he'd earlier said that "baby talk does nothing for him")

Let me just say... WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

I truly do hate people who refuse to accept that I know my own mind well enough to know that I don't want kids. They see a 21-year old who hasn't settled herself down with a may-yun yet and so I can't possibly know what I want.

Here's what I know about myself. I know I don't like children. I know that my life plans will not accommodate the possibility of having children. I know that I have a really short fuse. And I know that when I get angry enough, I will strike out at the person who has angered me.

The fact that I know all of the above makes me a candidate for both the best parent in the world (since I'm actually aware of the responsibilities associated with kids and I don't just think "awww! Babies! So cute!! When can I get one??"), and also the worst one (because I'd beat the shit out of the little beast).

So why is it so damn hard for these people to accept that I do know what I want and I do know that kids won't enrich my life at all (au contraire, they'd just get in the way)?

Incidentally, before anyone says this is a "whim", I've been crying sterilisation since I was 9 or 10 years old, so don't try that one. Whims don't last 11-12 years.

I am kinda happy that they didn't try using the "babies fulfill your relationship!" argument, because that would have resulted in a serious hissyfit right there. My relationship with Neko is, quite frankly, great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Simple as that.

And since I've already sworn that should Neko and I ever split up I'm going to reject men utterly and stick with women, I have a childless future ahead of me anyway.

I like this "very gay side of bisexuality" thing :)

And if they'd tried the "symbol of love" argument and said "don't you love Neko enough to want to have his kids??" I would have happily responded with "I love him enough not to."

Children drive wedges into relationships. Marriages are more likely to fail after the kids come along than during the childless period. There's less freedom. Less spontaneity. You and your partner can't have spur-of-the-moment sex anymore because either your baby will begin screaming its head off, or your toddler will wander into the room because they've had a nightmare and then ask the inevitable question of "daddy, what are you doing to mummy??"

If I want something that will suck up all my time, energy and money, I'll move into a betting shop and look at the gee-gees. And even then, I might win something back. Having kids is an utterly rewardless activity as far as I can see.

I'm hoping that this debate won't go on in work tomorrow night because I don't want to have to go through it all again for everyone. It isn't that complicated at the end of the day. And if it does go on, I'll bring up my idea that people should be forbidden from having kids until they pass a competency test. Hey, if you want to adopt, they'll test you incredibly harshly. But anyone can produce a kid naturally as long as they have the appropriate, fully functioning bits and pieces, regardless of whether it's a genetic step forward or leap backwards.

I'll throw in the name Robin Poulton for those of you who'll get it ;)

I'm going to go to bed now, so I'll finish with a quote from a picture I saw recently online:

If I want to hear the pitter patter of little feet, I'll put shoes on the cat!

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