Open Letter To A Parent Or A Parent-To-Be

Dear Parent/Parent-To-Be

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure about the fact that you had a kid or that you’re going to have one soon. What I am feeling is not without reason, but most of you all’s decision to have one, is.

It’s a fact, face it.

Image credit - twitter.com/blast_famous

Having a kid, especially here in India, is a natural way of life. The majority of us take the beaten down route; study well, get into a good college, graduate, get a well-paying job, get married, have kids, live, laugh, love, enjoy. This is how we are brought up and this is what we do. For some of us, the order of priority might be different, but most of us do end up taking the path one way or the other.

I don’t have a problem with people taking the path, it’s safe, it’s reliable, and you know others who’ve taken it and you feel comfortable on it. Fair enough. What I have a problem with, is, you, who has taken the path, looking down upon the ones who did not. Or could not. How or what makes them wrong is something I fail to understand, because it is not right to pass your own judgement and call them wrong. Hence I fail to understand it.

An unmarried 38 year old woman in India can easily be tagged a good-for-nothing frustrated soul who ‘could not’ get married. Her life’s a disaster and ‘OH-MY-GOD-I-DON’T-WANT-MY-DAUGHTER-TO-END-UP-LIKE-THAT-MUST-GET-HER-MARRIED-RIGHT-AFTER-COLLEGE’ is the attitude you will carry towards your own daughter. A 40 year old single man is obviously a drunk. Even if the said bachelor/bachelorette is NOT crazy, over time, the world makes them go mad. The woman stops taking care of herself and the man takes up boozing instead of eating. A once bright dream has now turned into a dark and depressing reality for them.

Tell me, who are you to say that a couple is ‘incapable’ of having a baby if they haven’t conceived even after 15 years of their marriage? Not having a baby at all is something most of us can’t even think of, can’t even consider. Sooner or later you have to get married and similarly sooner or later you have to have a kid; is how we roll. Have you ever thought about why you want/wanted a baby in the first place?

Oh it’s a magical thing they said; oh it’s an experience everyone must have they said; oh it’s so beautiful to hold your own baby they said; it’s the purpose of life they said.

It’s just overrated bullshit, tell them I said.

Just because we can have sex and we can procreate does not mean we have to. My definition of happiness does not include me having a baby with my partner. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure if you give it a thought, you would be clueless as to why did you have that kid (or going/planning to have one soon). There’s no good reason other than simply following the norm and the mumbo jumbo of a beautiful and a magical experience.

In today’s times, things are much more complicated; life is much more complicated. There’s so much more to do and people’s lives are becoming busier by the day. In spite of knowing all this clearly, we still end up adding more to the existing chaos. We decide to have the experience of a lifetime and have a kid. Bite me.

We won’t think about the fact that our lives will be finished (you know what I mean). Our individuality will die and we’ll happily cremate it. We’ll live on believing that now our kid is our life and that is how it is supposed to be. All our happiness and joy and adventure shall now revolve around the kid. We’ll take them to movies and annoy the fellow patrons; we’ll go to five-star hotels and let them jump around the posh restaurant and hide under tables while they play catch-catch; the mother shall stop working just so that she could raise her own flesh and blood in her own hands because she dare not keep the kid with some alien of a babysitter. No sir, we live for the kids, and that is how it is supposed to be.

We won’t care if our marriage is unhappy and the kid will have to endure it all and get affected by it when it grows up; we won’t care about the crazy times we are living in where the crime rates are increasing at alarming speeds all across the world; we won’t care about the fact that we can’t fend for ourselves because we’ll share that one roti three ways instead of two after having that god’s gift called a kid.

Right now, I don’t think I want a kid anytime soon. There are things I want to do and then there are things I don’t want to do. Is it so difficult to understand? I don’t want to have a kid. Simple. Why would you want to convince me otherwise? I’ll take my chances of living a lonely life when old but I don’t want to screw my youth because of that. I believe with the energy, effort, money and time I save by not having a kid; I’d be able to do a lot of other cool things and be a much happier person. It is a risk and I am willing to take it and I shall stand by my decision till my last breath.

I might change my decision tomorrow; I might never change it. Either way, I’m entitled to do what I want without you giving me that nasty look of how I’m going all wrong about my life. You’re nobody to say that. It is my life and I shall do what I want with it. You can give birth to a litter if you’d like, I shall make do with loving a dog, so to say.

Good luck to you and your kid or the future kid that is on its way. Be warned, it’s not going to be easy. Think about it while there’s still time.

Anyway, don’t tell me that I’m wrong for not wanting a kid. There are plenty of people in the world, there’s plenty of love around.

Quoting a Queen song I love – ‘Too much love will kill you.’ 

Sincerely,

A confused but an honest soul.