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Child’s Play

Is our culture trying to scam us into having kids? This is an epic question and I only have 850 words, so let me start close to home, with my grandma. \"Listen to me,\" she said last week over the phone from Reseda. \"You have to have kids. You\'ll never regret it. It\'s the best thing you\'ll ever do. Listen to your grandma.\" Catch any celebrity parent on a talk show and you\'re likely to hear the same sentiment about the singularly life-changing effects of parenthood. When Jude Law, Eminem, Denise Richards and Esther Strasser agree on something, you have to give it consideration.
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August 4, 2005

Is our culture trying to scam us into having kids?

This is an epic question and I only have 850 words, so let me start close to home, with my grandma.

“Listen to me,” she said last week over the phone from Reseda. “You have to have kids. You’ll never regret it. It’s the best thing you’ll ever do. Listen to your grandma.”

Catch any celebrity parent on a talk show and you’re likely to hear the same sentiment about the singularly life-changing effects of parenthood. When Jude Law, Eminem, Denise Richards and Esther Strasser agree on something, you have to give it consideration.

The only way to find out if this magical experience really happens, this moment of euphoric selflessness, this instant reshuffling of values and priorities, is to actually have or adopt a child of your own. There’s no other way to test the hypothesis. It’s like swallowing a new medication to see if it works for you. Let’s say it doesn’t, well, that’s one heck of a seizure you had to have to find out. Or worse.

“You can’t explain it,” parents tell me. “When it’s your own kid, you’ll understand.”

According to most parents, your own children’s cries rarely sound annoying and their poop literally doesn’t stink. In fact, their bodily fluids won’t gross you out at all and, in no time, you’ll be wiping their little noses with your bare hands and not minding one little bit.

You’ll excuse me if I need just a little more evidence. Here I am, somewhere between 29 and death, and I’ve got to figure out if it’s worth it, because if it is, I’m going to have to arrange my life accordingly; you know, decide if my mate is father material, maybe find some sort of stable employment, get air conditioning in my car.

I could be looking at years of carpools and making meals (which I don’t currently do for myself unless it involves a diet ginger ale and six pieces of toast), purchasing bottles and diapers and pajamas and “Harry Potter” books and “American Girl” dolls. With almost no proof that parenting is a positive experience, I’m expected to sign on for stomach flus, ballet recitals and protecting a vulnerable little being around every body of water, sharp surface and stranger.

There will be years of whining (assuming I’ll be a bad parent who can’t set boundaries) and tedious descriptions of what the cat is doing and what’s outside the car window. When I want to be alone, this will involve finding and paying a babysitter, who, if karma exists, will drink all of my beer and make long-distance calls. How will I even take a bath? Or go to the gym? I have to tell you, the closer I get to mating, the more freaked out I get. And I can’t get a straight answer.

In sharp contrast to the bill of goods grandma is trying to sell me, some mothers are admitting that it’s not all fuzzy blankies and painted clouds.

“Mothers Who Want to Kill Their Children,” screamed my TiVo, describing a recent episode of “Oprah.”

Actress Brooke Shields also went on “Oprah,” discussing her book about post-partum depression. I don’t know much, but I know this: If there’s a disorder dealing with hormone imbalances and resulting in wanting to drive a car into a wall, I’m going to get it. No matter what Tom Cruise says about natural healing, it’s going to take more than a few jumping jacks and some folic acid to make me all better. I’ll be the one at the Mommy and Me class staring out the window while my child is in the corner experimenting with matches.

It won’t surprise you to know that my mother wasn’t all that big on having children. It was the thing to do, so she did it, but it was never a passion of hers. I have to factor that into my ambiguity; my main maternal role model took a job driving a city school bus after I was born so she could afford a nanny to take care of me. Let that sink in. The woman preferred inhaling diesel fumes in Van Nuys to singing nursery rhymes and spoon-feeding.

My only hope that I won’t loathe parenting is the fact that I’ve raised two kitties from the pound. I know there’s no comparison at all to raising actual children, but I’m heartened by how much I adore my cats, pet their whiskers for hours and take them for shots without even resenting it.

I just wish I could trust parents. Once you have a kid, you sort of have to say you love the whole experience. Maybe nature even convinces you that you do. Maybe you get Stockholm syndrome, which is to say, you must fall for your tiny captor to survive the ordeal.

This brings me back to grandma. She seems like someone I can trust. What would she have to gain by lying to me? Oh yeah, grandchildren.

Teresa Strasser in an Emmy Award- and Los Angeles Press Club-winning writer. She’s on the web at www.teresastrasser.com.

 

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