One of the loveliest young couples we know recently surprised us when they announced that they did not plan to have children. My thoughts: but what awesome athletes they could create — he a standout wrestler and football player, she a high school and college field hockey star. What fine, intelligent, thoughtful, and good-looking additions to the human race their progeny would be. In short: what a waste of their awesome genes.
I used to pity people who chose to remain childless because I viewed their decision through the prism of my own idealized Ozzie and Harriet value system. I used to think of them as somewhat selfish — hell-bent on traveling around the world, indulging in dangerous passions like rock climbing, or living 24/7 for their careers. Ach, I thought: how sad not to know the joy of raising a family.
Now with the wisdom and insight of knowing exactly what raising children entails, I no longer regard the decision to remain childless as selfish but rather, very carefully thought out and even, in a way, selfless.
There is, admittedly, a certain narcissism to the desire to create living creatures to perpetuate your genes and those of your loved ones. Who will the baby look like, will he have dad’s great hair and strong throwing arm; will she be able to play the piano like Van Cliburn and sing like a lark? Will we see Grandma’s culinary talent or Pop’s passion for tennis? Will she have Aunt Barbara’s beautiful eyes or Uncle Ron’s sense of humor?
There is also the appeal of immortality — the family’s bloodlines alive through generations, with descendants who might one day find the cure for cancer or lead the United Nations. We’d like to think that the best of us will live on and flourish on the family tree. I won’t deny that I’m tickled by the thought that some day a Euna Junior will achieve the goals that I’m beginning to accept that I won’t accomplish in my own lifetime.
But the reality of today’s world is that it is screwed up and scary in ways that I never imagined. The recent “wilding” event in New York involving the motorcycle gang and the family in the SUV is riveting and horrifying. Now it turns out that off-duty police officers were involved in the chase, crash, and beating of a young father with his wife and infant daughter in the car. A rider is in the hospital, probably paralyzed for life, the family is traumatized, and as the investigation reveals new details almost daily, I am reminded that the line between a civilized society and the animal world is a very thin one indeed.
In fact, the video reminds me of a clip from Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” (one of my favorite shows from my pre-Animal Planet childhood — THE original wildlife and nature show hosted by the ever-so-gentlemanly Marlin Perkins). The SUV is like a desperate prey chased by an angry and growling pack of predators, brought down and bloodied in a savage showdown. The pack mentality of brutality also reminds me of “A Clockwork Orange” — a 1962 science fiction novel turned into a brilliant film by Stanley Kubrick that depicts a futuristic society characterized by an extremely violent youth culture, gang activity, and other social, political, and economic chaos. Sound familiar? That vision of the future is here.
There are new horrors every day that, with cameras on every corner and Big Brother watching every step, are captured for all to see in real time. We have the added pleasure of getting a soundtrack with big mouth gibberish mongers on national television misinterpreting all of it live. Look at the recent fracas involving a woman and her baby and dozens of law enforcement officers dodging her car-turned-lethal weapon. While that investigation continues, early signs point to mental illness rather than an anti-Obama agenda.
And there’s another sadness of modern life — that the mentally ill in this country are underserved and overlooked. It becomes everyone’s problem when a new mother acts in a way that makes her viewed as a potential terrorist threat, when a lonely and neglected high school student turns into a mass murderer of small children, when a young man who had fantasies about killing people turns a movie theater into a shooting gallery.
It’s not enough that the world is filled with these kinds of homegrown perils, but there is the ever-growing specter of international terrorism. Families out for a weekend jaunt to the local mall in Kenya are attacked by gun-wielding extremists; trips into New York City, around Times Square, and frankly, on any transit system, are now, for me, at least, forever shadowed by thoughts of dangers perpetrated by people who don’t know us but want to kill us.
There is so much that is awry with our world and so much that needs to be fixed, and the crowning point of it all is that the leaders we have elected to guide us are instead mucking it all up and squabbling in front of the entire world. As an American citizen, I’m embarrassed. It’s like Chicken Little is running around warning that the sky is falling, the sky is falling — and in some respects, it truly is — while those who are supposed to fix it are telling us what the hell, let it fall, we’re right, we won’t budge, and we don’t care.
It is for all of these reasons that I fear for the future of my children and for their children — my grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I love even now though I may never know them. So who am I to judge others who choose not to bring children into this kind of world? It is the ultimate strategy to keep them safe and stay free from the bonds of worry.
