a wolf angel is not a good angel

Note: I neither intend to have children nor intend not to. At this point, I do not want any. This may change, but it may not. I generally only like children who I am related to (siblings or cousins). What this means for the following I do not know.

I have commented on the childfree/childed (I think nonchildfree sounds silly and English zero morphology is productive, so childed it is) discussion elsewhere, but I am now thinking about my uncle.

My uncle has never ever wanted children. He made that clear to everyone he ever dated seriously. He dislikes children, and he does not want to give up his own interests for them. Fair enough. His first wife got pregnant on their honeymoon, figuring he’d change his mind. Now, some people do. My father never wanted children, and he now has three. But my mother only got pregnant *after* he changed his mind. My uncle never changed his mind. So he divorced his first wife, and though I believe he’s supported his son financially, I know he sees him regularly. This seems remarkably fair. Sometimes things happen, but to force someone who has made it quite clear they don’t want children into having them is wrong.

I *wouldn’t* want him as my father. And I daresay there are women — many of them — that I wouldn’t want as my mother. Many people who wouldn’t be good parents realise this (like my uncle) and don’t have children. Sadly, some don’t, and do.

But I don’t think saying that you wouldn’t want someone — say, Betsy Rollin — as your mother is vitriolic. Tone could make it so, but I don’t think it is.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2003 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Random bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.