Why I don't want kids

I don't dislike all kids, and I don't think you should dislike all kids. Some kids are wonderful and bring an abundance of joy to the world. And some kids need to be spun on a tire swing until they throw up the macaroni and cheese that they, earlier in the day, complained about having to eat. All I'm saying is that, right now, a few years before the time in my life when, if I were to decide to get pregnant, I'm pretty much guaranteed a baby with far-apart eyes, I still don't want a baby. But I could always adopt. And I still don't think I would want kids. Because I have way too much vintage Blacktron Lego that I don't wanna share.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that the kids I don't like are the fault of their parents, whom I probably like even less. So I'm not blaming kids on kids altogether. But I am blaming them a little. Here's a brief bit of an infinite list of reasons why I do and don't like kids:

I don't like kids for putting on the Macho Man costume they screamed and cried and oozed all over the Target aisle for until they got it.

I do like kids for choosing the Macho Man costume. And for tying up everyone around them with their neon orange Macho Man fringe.

I don't like kids because they're not dogs. [I've always wanted dogs, which I think are a nice alternative to being a parent to a human. You can't have a conversation with dogs, and you can't teach dogs how to do long division (barf anyway), but you can love a dog, and it will love you back. This is one of the things many parents enjoy. It makes a lot of sense. Being loved back is a nice thing. But why must we be loved back by something that requires absolutely every bit of us? I can throw a sock for my dog while I read a book. It's a little annoying, but it can be done. You can't throw a sock for a kid and still get something done because a kid wants to have your undivided attention (worst case scenario, the kid is helpless enough that it requires all of your attention and without it will die) -- it knows when you're not paying full attention to it, and it alone. And when it doesn't get all of the attention, it will make horrible noises. And if the noises don't work, it will shit its pants. And there goes whatever it was you were doing, especially if you were eating a hot peanut butter sandwich.  Also, unless you're doing things all wrong, a dog will never rip your vagina.]

I don't like kids because they're sometimes allowed to be so helpless. [This could be a cultural problem. For instance, a four-year-old living in the United States isn't expected to do more than chew up the pre-cut cheese cubes from its plastic tubby and spit them at the wall, while a four-year-old living in many other parts of the world is dabbing its own chapped ass with bag balm after a long day of splitting wood. The same bag balm it used earlier in the day on the udder of the family cow. I'll accept that children are important, but only if we're teaching them that they're not that important. Ah, a Zen moment. If you have kids, that probably hasn't happened to you in a while.]

I do like kids because sometimes they'll stop the world to tell you that they think panda bears are their favorite animal instead of regular bears. But I guess that's also a reason why I don't like kids.

If I did want a kid, I'd think real hard about adopting one. Why must we play the "If They Mated" game in real life? If most adults who wanted children were adopting them, the issue of children would be so much different because then we'd be attempting to solve problems that already exist instead of creating beings that will develop a hundred thousand new problems. Adopting is a great way to get a heap of bonus points before you even start playing the game. Plus you save a woman in the relationship from gaining a minimum of fifteen pounds of un-losable belly fat (level down), and from either the horror of pushing a watermelon-sized thing out of a grape-sized hole in her body (lose fire flower), or from reenacting the best-known scene in Alien (game over).  

I don't hate kids. And apparently neither does Jesus. In fact, they say Jesus loves all the little children of the world. Well, that's probably because Jesus never raised a kid. He never had to wipe some sweet little child's diarrhea out of its crack, then listen to it scream for hours because its genitals were scratchy from having to lay in donkey hay all day. It's really easy to love kids when you don't have to be around them all day. Even if you're around kids in the morning, then get to go out and raise a guy from the dead, then you come home to kids at night, you're cheating a little. Because that guy's gonna be like, man, I sure could use a drink after raising that guy from the dead. And we all know what kind of a babysitter booze makes. [Side note: maybe Jesus DID have kids, and that's why he was cool with being crucified].

Here is the thing I want to say: right now I don't want kids because I cherish my time, my sanity, and my nice things. But I'm also currently living a life that is quite happy and fulfilling, and introducing a child to an already happy and fulfilling life would be like adding a keytar player to the Beatles. It wouldn't be like adding a new kind of flower to the world. It would be like adding seventeen extra tines to a fork -- it would still work, but you'd spend a lot of extra time getting that thing into your mouth [TWSS]. Bringing a child into my life might add joy, but only in the way that you have a good story to tell after you break your face open while rollerblading naked. I love it when I get home and my dog wags its tail and licks my face and pees on my foot. Sure, while I was away he didn't color me a stupid-looking periwinkle house with dinosaur spikes and a seesaw with a fat guy on it. But he also didn't wear my husband out so hard that he has to go to bed now, leaving me to drink whiskey out of a wee-sized moon boot until I pass out on a Barbie van.