Committed

I had a conversation with my colleague yesterday that I still cannot get out of my head. So rant I must.

As I was busy idling my time away, she suddenly asked whether I had plans to get married and have children. I gave a laugh/snort and said no to both. To which her reply was: “Who takes care of the elderly in your family?”

“Hmm…the children. Why?”

“Then aren’t you worried that you won’t have anyone to take care of you when you grow old?”

And here I was tempted to give another laugh/snort. But I replied honestly: “I personally think that it is impractical to expect your children to take care of you when you grow old.”

Which is true, I do think that way. But that does not mean I would want to send my mother to a nursing home. What I mean is that if ever I were a parent, I would not rely on my children that way, duty or not. My parents never expected any of us to do anything much for them, in fact, even when we became adults, they had our backs the whole time. So my point is, parents are truly parents because they can do what noone else can for their children, become completely selfless.

And again, if ever I were a parent, that would be the day when I become completely selfless. Otherwise, the original plan goes…check myself into a fancy nursing home 😉

Then I couldn’t help but adding to my colleague: “I think that as long as you have a partner to grow old with and to take care of each other, that should be good enough.”

Which I should’ve thought about before letting those words escape my mouth, because she immediately retorted with: “Then you should get married!”

To which I decided to keep mum because I realised that nothing I say would change her mind about marriage and kids, or in her mind, the utter necessity of it.

But she again volunteered: “My husband told me that he loved me the most when I gave birth to his baby. Now, I feel that we are truly one whereas before, we were more like two separate individuals.”

Okay…I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to lose myself that way. Crazy though I might be, I actually enjoy my quirks and what makes me unique. And if a man can only ‘love me the most’ if I produce him an heir, then is he going to love a surrogate mother as much, if not more, if I am not physically capable of bearing children?

Unfortunately, there really isn’t much I can say to women like these to make them think any differently. Even though there are some out there who think and feel the way I do about marriage and children, it’s sad that most women cannot allow themselves to explore the possibility of anything different.

Because no, marriage was not created by God but by men. And no, God will not smite you if you do not get married. Your parents might and probably would, though.

And no, not having children will not leave you dying miserable and alone. It is how you live your life that determines how it ends. In reality, having a child (or more than one) entails life changing decisions, not only for yourself but for those very children you deemed a necessity to create. As you go about your daily routine, have you put any thought at all into how much you are affecting your children? How yelling at them in public may cause them to have low self-esteem. Or how berating them constantly may cause them to become a bully. Or how expecting them to pull straight A’s all the time may cause them undue stress and eventually retaliate in unimaginable ways. Or worse, and in most cases, by yielding to their every whim and fancy, you are in fact creating a spoilt monster who has no regard for anyone else but herself/himself.

Because it takes so much more to become a parent than simply knowing how to cook, clean and sew, as my colleague suggested. Personally and honestly, I do not want to create another human being like the little horrors I see in my family, just because I feel my biological clock ticking/I want my husband to love me more/society pressures me into doing so.

Are you one of these parents?