Maybe a decade and a half ago, a friend’s wife was having a baby. Another friend wanted to go to the hospital to see it. I couldn’t understand why they would want to do that. I thought it sounded like the most boring thing to do in the world.Having a child isn’t really much of an accomplishment. Lots of idiots do it every year.
Properly raising a child is an accomplishment, but why would I want to hear about that, either? In my mind, it’s just baseline, expected, behavior that you will be a responsible parent. You want a medal for doing something you undertook the obligation for when you decided to have kids? The child ultimately makes their own decisions, anyway. You can create a good environment, but if your child graduates high school and doesn’t end up in prison before they’re 18, that’s mostly because of their choices, not yours.
I’m not particularly interested in someone’s pet, car, or house, either. I’m sure those things are all great for them too, but how does that serve my self-interest? (Answer: It doesn’t)
If I had children, would I care about them? Of course, because they’d be mine. I’d have a personal, selfish interest in them. But, I would hope I’d have the decency not to bore others with talk about them.
If I had children, then talking about parenting tips, and, incidentally, about my children with others who have children might make sense, but I doubt it. I’d just get a book or watch YouTube videos from experts, then make up my own mind about how to raise them.
Since I don’t care about other people’s children, I usually am told their names and promptly forget them. Why would I want to talk to a kid? What could they possibly say that’s interesting? Come back in 20 years when they’ve at least got a baseline of education and brain development to maybe have something worth saying. Until then, I prefer the old saying that children are to be seen, but not heard. (And, I’d really prefer not to see them too much.)
I’m sure some will say I’m ‘awful’ for writing this, but deep down, you know you don’t care about other people’s kids either. I’m just willing to say it.
