No Question

Today at lunch my coworker asked me "if you could have ALL of the money you'd ever spent / will spend on your children, instead of having them, would you still do it all again and have kids, or take the money?"

Now, if you don't know him, let me explain a few things.

• He's 30-something and just got engaged.
• He likes to spark a lively lunch conversation by starting a debate, and will sometimes take a platform and stick with it just because it makes someone else at the table crazy. For this and many other reasons we occasionally refer to him as the punk.
• He's sort of my boss. Ahem. So by that I mean, of course, that he's a very, very intelligent punk.

Moving on...

K is apparently(or, more likely, was pretending to be) pondering the topic of whether to foist his offspring on the unsuspecting world. His entertainment platform today was "Aren't kids really just a headache every day, and a waste of a ton of money, and would you really do it all again?"

I had to concede that "Don't you think some people just have kids because they've reach a certain age and think they're supposed to, and they don't really want them?" was a valid question. (Even though he said he talked his sister out of having kids, with that argument, and we all laughed at him ) Yes, I do think it's true. Some people figure "it's time" and so they do, and have at least one moment of "oh my god, what have I done?"

That being said, I do have the experience of wanting to have a child, and having a spouse not be so sure, but turn out to be very happy to have kids. (As far as I know!) Sometimes, it is just fear of the unknown. An "I've never been around kids and I don't know what to do with them and ugh, there are DIAPERS and stuff and I'm afraid I won't be a good parent and I'll do something like drop the baby." Somewhere along the line some of those people discover they really can change a diaper without retching. Much.

There are also plenty of people I know who DON'T want children, not because they're afraid or squeamish, they just don't. I don't pity them, nor do I envy them. It's their choice, and as long as their spouse agrees, not my business. But you really need to lay ALL of that out on the table with one another before wedding invitations go out. I can't say a whole lot about this, because, obviously, HELLO, I didn't feel that way. But the people I do know, who don't want children, all seem perfectly content with their decision.

Another one of K's thoughtful remarks was "What if he sucks at sports? I wouldn't want my kid to be a loser. What if I had a kid and he's a loser like I was when I was in school?" Really, he's good, because he's completely bullshitting but can ask questions like this with a straight face. It's a gem of a question though. It almost made him sound sincere. I wonder if every parent secretly worries that their kid won't be good enough somehow, and that it's really just our own fault.

And since there were three parents (with eight kids in total) sitting across the table from him, we played along. Saying things like, yes, spending almost $1000 a month on groceries does suck because you could play poker every night with that much money. Things like "Yes, there will be things your kids suck at, because that's life, but generally you don't think your own kid is a loser, it's fun to watch them and you're proud of them for trying; and anyway your job as a parent is to help them try OTHER things and hopefully find something they don't suck at..."

To the original question, I would absolutely, without hesitation, have children again. Even though my kids bounced off each other like pingpong balls in the supermarket today putting everything imaginable in the cart, and left crap everywhere all over the house and forgot to bring in the garbage cans and didn't do their homework until I asked 3x, and my son swallowed gum, and my daughter's teeth are just... well, all effed up and it will cost me untold dollars to yank out the baby teeth that refuse to fall out and straighten the others as they reluctantly grow in.

They're MY pingpong balls. Ever since I got them, I haven't been able to imagine not having these little people in my life. You just never really understand that, until you feel it.

Besides, they look pretty darn cute in our Christmas card.