For the Eternally Childless

I've known for a long time that I would not be having children.

You are not special for having a child. You accomplish nothing that anyone else couldn't do. You gave up your own potential and passed it to another, who is likely to pass it on again, just the same, until finally someone actually uses it along the line.

Isn't it funny that parents automatically (in most cases) get full rights over their children, just because they fucked and that was the result? Everything is regulated nowadays; you essentially need a license to breathe. However, have sex and you get complete authority over the human life that results. What the hell? Many times, you need to fill out extensive applications if you want to adopt an animal (or a child for that matter), but just have a night of fun and you're good to go, no strings attached. That new, unique individual is now under your dominion, and you need no qualifications to be its master.

I will never be someone's great grandfather that they tell stories about. I will never be "awesome" in a person's eyes simply because I'm his dad. I actually have to accomplish something if I want my name to live on.

When people have children, their world shrinks. Their kids become everything that's important. Perhaps once they had dreams and thought about the vastness of the world, but now they're concerned with soccer practice and flu shots. If they still have dreams, they become depressed because they are no longer feasible. Relationships are ruined, individual potential is lost. My mother, once valedictorian-then-medical-student, says having kids was the best thing to happen to her and she doesn't regret it at all. I don't know which reality would be worse: if that's the truth, or if it's not.

I don't have TIME to have kids, even if I were capable. There are far too many things that I need to do, that I know others can't or won't. It's up to me to do what others would've/should've been had they not devoted their lives to their spawn. Having children is a response to our inherent fear of death; well, my cells live on, so I live on. Sure, but at a great cost to your own potential of leaving behind something even greater and long-lasting.

People walk around with their toddlers and I wonder what complexes are forming in the young ones. I wonder how those parents are fucking up their kids, unintentionally for the most part. We don't have a choice to be born. To have kids is to have obligations you are unable to fulfill. If you make the decision to bring someone into existence, it's up to you to take care of them, to keep them safe, to keep them happy. That's not possible. Everyone who exists will suffer. Everyone will cry. Everyone will at times wish they were never born. Parents like to think that children are obligated because the parents brought them into life, but I think it's the other way around. We didn't have a choice. You did.