Your child is not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

[napoleonherself]

The following is my comment to this post, only expanded a bit to become a post in its own right, kind of.



I am totally behind the curve on this one, but YES.

wing_zero_ew and I see way too many parents these days who seem to think that it's not only their right, but their DUTY to pop out as many kids as they physically can -- whether or not they actually have the time or energy to give those kids the attention they need; whether or not the money is available to properly support them. And, naturally, once they've done the world the huge favor of having those kids -- why, they've got no obligations left, have they? They don't need to teach their children how to behave. Let the schools do that. Let the neighbors. And if the schools and neighbors and society won't do the hard work, it's certainly not the parents' fault when their kid turns out to be a thug. They already did THEIR part, right?

I also get tired of my roommate's mom telling me that I will never be a complete person until I have children. I'd like to think that my status as a PERSON is defined by, um, ME. Not by the presence or absence of small screaming things that share some of my DNA.

There should be a test you have to pass to be ALLOWED to procreate, with questions such as the following:

If you take your small child to the grocery store at 10 at night, and he throws a tantrum, is it
A) His fault, so yell at him and snap at him and threaten to leave him in the store if he doesn't stop.
B) The media's fault, because of all those awful awful video games that it's a damn crime for them to make, that you buy for him because you can't be bothered to read the cover and see that it's marked M for Mature and therefore wholly inappropriate for your child.
B) YOUR FUCKING FAULT FOR EXPECTING A SMALL CHILD TO BE AWAKE AND NOT CRANKY AT 10 AT NIGHT YOU IDIOT

Or:

R-rated movies are:
A) Totally acceptable for little Timmy. Sure, he'll get scared by the spooky bits or the loud noises, and start crying, but still, nobody should dare suggest that you and Timmy leave the theater.
B) Okay for little Timmy as long as you are there to loudly reassure him throughout the entire movie that everything is fine.
C) NOT OKAY FOR A SMALL CHILD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING

And of course:

Teaching your child how to act in society is the responsibility of:
A) The schools! Even though you hate paying more than a pittance in taxes to provide the salaries of the people who you expect to raise your child for you, and the tools they need to do the job.
B) The child himself! He's too young to understand now. He'll get older and figure out on his own that screaming "I WANNA GO BATHOOM MOMMY I NEED GO BATHOOM AGAIN MOMMY PLEASE MOMMY MOMMY" in a crowded restaurant is not appropriate. You don't need to react in any way to this.
C) YOU. Because it is YOUR CHILD. IDIOT.

If you can get these questions right, you get to spawn. Otherwise, you get spayed or neutered.

For more thoughts on this topic, see the comment that mecha will no doubt be making when he sees this post!

Comments

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

I'm not a pessimist, I'm just mad, that's all. My life has gotten to the point where I can't go to a movie, check out a book at the library, eat a meal or shop for groceries without someone's kid, or horde of kids, wrecking the entire experience and pushing my life one rung further down the ramp of living hell.

I mean, come on. It never ends, and no one ever calls them on it. It's patently absurd and everyone pretends not to see it. There's some kind of collective insanity going on and it drives me absolutely mad, every single day.

Like, here's one for you. People who take diaper clad children into public restaurants. That's bad enough right there; if I brought a bucket of my own waste with me to a restaurant, to sit open and exposed, emitting foul odor and germs, would I be allowed in the door? I'd wager not. But then they take this disease carrying, typhoid mary, subject zero, living incubator and they put it ON THE MOTHERFUCKING DINING TABLE THAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE TO EAT THEIR FOOD FROM. AND NOBODY CALLS THEM ON IT. I'm told once, my sister did in fact get the manager of a restaurant to make them take their filth-waif off the table because it violates a health code, but it should violate a health code to bring them in in the first place! Here we are, rightly, I might add, banning smoking in restaurants as a health risk, and we have shit piss spit vomit germ spewing petri dishes that only stop screaming, mewling, squirming and crapping to BREATHE sitting in our GOD DAMNED PLACES OF PUBLIC FOOD CONSUMPTION. WHAT THE HOLIEST OF FUCKS IS UP WITH THAT ONE?


Argh. As I said, angry, not pessimistic. I can't bring myself to be pessimistic, because the universe is so damned cold and heartless and uncaring that I can be sure that, if humanity doesn't shape up within a reasonable time frame, we'll all die in some grotesque expression of cosmic power. Every time astronomers discover a new way that we could all die, in fire, in horrible abrupt nuclear searing flame or impact, I smile a little, because now I'm sure, either way, everything will be all right in the end.

See? Not a pessimist. How could I be, when Gamma Ray Bursts exist? Those suckers can exterminate all life in a 10,000 light year straight line from their parent star. All life. Gone. Crispy. It's like there was a God, and he thought lightning was far too blaze for the ultimate smiting. Look those suckers up. They rule.

[psykoghoti.livejournal.com]

I dunno about this end-of-the-world stuff. They keep saying we're going to get an asteriod, but I haven't seen one yet. It's one disappointment after another.

[napoleonherself.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was me, sorry. It was hurtling towards earth, and Tomio Hoshino asked me for my help, and, well, I rolled up most of the countries on Earth and stopped the asteroid.

...I have been playing way too much We Love Katamari lately.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

The problem with the end of the world thing is human ego, that's all. People have only been around, in 'civilized' form, for 50,000 years, and in that time we've had several near-extinction events. Generally speaking your mass extinctions happen every few dozen million years, so the fact that none have happened in the last 500 centuries isn't really a big deal, statistics wise.

So they keep jumping the gun, out of their eagerness for news to report, and the species' collective paranoia about death. The same insane, clinging, fearful avoidance of the subject of mortality that leads to church attendance and bizarre ritual leads to people expecting to be wiped out by whatever the cause du jour happens to be.

Patience, random internet stalker. The oblivion of our world will come, sooner or later. If not by some catastrophic impact or calamity beforehand, then certainly when the sun goes through its slow, inevitable death.

Actually, long before that. The sun's luminosity increases every year as the heavier elements accumulate and increase its fusion output. Each and every year the earth absorbs an incrementally greater amount of solar energy, and becomes a tiny bit less ideally inhabitable. Long before the sun goes through its death throes, this entire world will be a searing desert, devoid of complex life.

That makes *me* feel a lot better.

[napoleonherself.livejournal.com]

I'm a random internet stalker now? :P