There is always the counterpoint that “you don’t understand until you’ve had your own kid”. Yes, I agree. But because I don’t have my own kid, I find myself free to judge.
I have been around parents recently and I decided to delete any personal misconceptions of wonderfulness of parenthood.
Some parents think having a child is selfless – on what planet? Kids don’t ask to be born. I guess we all know this. If someone was raped…I can understand that’s being selfless. You can’t choose to have a child and then turn around and say I’m sacrificing all my life for the child. I don’t want children. Also selfish. I want the freedom.
There is a strange misconception that just because a kid wants attention, they should get it. It’s like breeding an apron-clinging-nipple-sucking generation that cannot be independent. There was a story about a guy who got a bad to OK end of year review at work and mom called the boss to understand why. Say it ain’t so!!!!!
Some parents become boring. After a kid is born, they have nothing else to talk about besides the development of their kid. “Oh my gosh she has a tooth!”. My response is usually, that’s what kids do. Unless your kid is the new Mozart or that guy that could recite Pi forever, I don’t want to hear it. It’s boring. If your kid falls into the hump of the normal distribution, please know you are boring us to death. How can you possibly not have anything interesting to say? Watch the news at work, go for a beer with adults. Do something for goodness sakes.
On that note, your kid is most likely not exceptional. With 7 billion people in the world that were or are kids, trust me, your kid likely falls under the range of normal, and is like any other kid. So stop updating us on useless information we could get on the internet if we were interested.
Most kids are ugly. Especially newborns. The beauty of a new born is that a new life has been put forward, nothing to do with the face. So please stop texting me pictures of your alien looking kid. And after that, don’t send me pics of your fat baby. If I want to see a picture, I ask – which I honestly do.
Kids are not toys. Don’t play with the like they are personal entertainment. If they are, start saying for future therapy.
Having said all this, if I have a kid, I will update and see if I become one of those “please-put- a-pencil-in-my-eye” helicopter parents.
EJ SHOKO 
I reall like the “Some parents become boring” bit of your text because I’ve experienced it more than once. Even really good friends suddenly turn away when they get kids and ‘replace’ you with another person who has kids roughly the same age, because the kids then can become friends as well.
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In all this, I do have friends that stayed interesting. But those seemed few and far between!
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Lol… kids are ugly.. I know. But those innocent un noisy ones are cute if they aren’t fat. And I second.. nobody should keep updating on the progress.. what are we?? Child growth report monitoring services??
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I get parents get excited about their growing children. It’s a good thing. But they forget that it not unusual and that parents without kids likely won’t care as much as they do.
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As a mother of three young boys, I would like to ask you to save this post and, if you ever do have children, to read it when the oldest turns five.
You may be surprised!
I enjoyed this post 🙂 Nothing like stirring up a bit of controversy.
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Ha ha!!! I most certainly look forward to doing this!!
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