Parenthood? Really?

One could reasonably say that choosing to have children is akin to playing Russian roulette with all six cylinders loaded.

Yes, Fellow Patriots, with the possible exception of bank robbery, or kidnapping, or injecting yourself with some fentanyl you bought in an alley, having children is the single most dangerous thing you can possibly do to yourself.

Dangerous!  And risky!  Why should anyone take the chance that their kid will turn out okay when they could just as likely become an axe murderer!  

In fact, I've said that an operator's manual should follow the baby out the birth canal.  Like all those 3-ring binders Microsoft used to provide when you bought a new computer.  A whole box of them.  10 pounds of them.  Long before there was a thing called an "App."

Something that tells you, as a newborn's parent, what you should do next.  For trust me, you won't know.  You'll be struck with fear!  You'll be terrified!  Funny, all of us know by rote how to make that baby.  And enjoy doing it, thank you very much.  But none of us know what to do with the proceeds of that act once it shows up nine months later.  

If it's your first, you'll be making it up as it comes along.  Hoping not to break it.  Praying that the decisions you make are the right ones.  With no expectations that they'll be right at all.  You're beset with doubt.  The kind of viseral fear that makes you sweat.  

And pray!

But somehow, some way, most kids turn out okay.  Because most parents tend to do the right things.  By accident more than concious decision making.  When they cry you'll figure out they're hungry.  Or that their Pampers are full.  Trust me, they are self-contained bombs just waiting to go off.  Just waiting to force the police to show up on your porch.  And they can't tell you what they want, either.  Because their little brains aren't fully baked.  And they won't be for several years to come.  During which you'll have a whole lot of time and opportunity to mess up.   

The "good news," if there's any to be had, is that you usually have a Partner in Terror.  A wife or girlfriend or husband or significant other, who helped you get in this mess some nine months ago.  Somebody to talk with to try and deduce why the little bugger is screaming.

And then they grow a little.  They start to walk.  Which, you as parents, try and force into reality.  You'll want it.  You'll invite it.  You keep looking at your kid, sitting on the kitchen floor, and give him or her that "Come on, you can do it!" instruction.  And then one day he/she does.  And your life as you knew it is over.  Never to return again.  You invited in trouble, and now it showed up.  Like opening up a ouiji board and asking for the Devil to appear.  

Then little Johnnie or Suzie starts to open cabinet doors.  Or pick up foot-long steak knives.  Or try and drink battery acid.  

Your life then becomes a never-ending series of "run here, run there," taking instruments of death out of their grubby mitts.  Trying desperately to keep them from falling down the stairs and killing themselves.  And driving you stark raving nuts in the process.  

I'm using myself as an example.  I was a holy terror.  My older brother was even worse.  He was a certified nighmare.  Causing nothing but trouble for himself and our entire family.  Making what I did mild by comparison.  Enabling me to break almost every rule and law available.  But nobody noticed, because my brother drew all the attention.  

I was not complaining.  It was a blissful youth.  

Perhaps you're beyond the baby days.  If so, and if you didn't murder the little heathen, congratulate yourselves.  You won the parenthood lottery.  You managed to procreate and not be sent to prison for doing so.  You managed to do what nature put you here to do (read Genesis), and not be sued for doing so.  Or jailed.  You escaped the danger of those "birds and bees" days.  My sainted wife and I did as well.  We had a whole flock of them.  And all turned out fantastic!  Not a single problem amongst them.  And I thank the Good Lord it all worked out.  But I will admit it was more luck than intellect and good planning.

If you did all the stuff right, then you just might be rewarded with the joys of parenthood.  Our absolute reason for being here.  Those wonderful days of watching little Johnnie hit a triple in Little League.  Or little Suzie dazzling the audience with her first piano recital.  You did it.  You now can sit back and reap the rewards of parenthood.  And they are manifold.  They will follow you all the rest of your life.  And perhaps even care for you when you get older.  And those who refused to share their lives with a son or daughter will never know what they missed.

I think the only bit of advice I could offer up at this point is to hope your babies came from a family with both a mother and a father.  And that your partner chose to join you in the journey.  

My supposition is that those choosing not to have kids either haven't found the right partner to join them, or are too selfish to share their lives, and money, with offspring.  I've read that a baby can cost as much as $One Million Dollars to raise these days.  Trust me, that 930 Turbo Carrera Porsche I lusted after would have been mine if I hadn't decided that the significant expense of of having kids wasn't worth more.  

Much more.  

Right now some 40% of births occur to unmarried mothers.  And then the mother, most generally, has to work to pay the bills.  Leaving little latch-key kids to fend for themselves.  That's up from 0.7% of unmarried births in the year I was born.  Times have changed.  Making babies is easy.  Raising them is both expensive and hard.  And with fathers who choose to no longer partipate.

And trust me, kids left to themselves will figure out how to set fire to the house, or rob the 7/11 on the corner, or take the keys to the family car and lead the cops on a high speed chase.  Leaving you to post bond and try and get them out of jail.  Assuming you make the mistake of actually doing so.  I recommend against it, BTW.  Just pretend they belong to somebody else.  Just try and go back to doing what you were doing when they first came around.  And be sure to let them know that is your intention.  That doing so will be your choice should they decide not to walk the straight and narrow.  That they have One Chance to do it right.  So don't screw up.

You'll thank me for my advice...