Please Stop Telling Me I Should Have Had Children and I’ll Stop Telling You That Your Children Are Annoying

The last time I flew out of LAX the plane lifted gently into the air and the child sitting next to me emitted such a piercing scream we lost cabin pressure. And since I like peace and quiet, and relaxing at a cemetery on a deserted beach is my idea of a perfect vacation, I think a volume control function available on any small model of child ages two through seven would be a plus for humanity.

When your family crest is four people clutching dead memories and daring the others to let go first, finding room for a child on that coat of arms requires adult-sized thinking. At nineteen, numerically an adult, I dated a boy I almost married, and I seriously thought about having a child. But I also seriously considered buying stonewashed jeans. Obviously, nineteen is not a good age for making major fashion choices not to mention bringing someone into your life who will then mock those choices when they hit puberty.

I know I wouldn’t make a good parent. I spend more time on YouTube than I spent in high school, so how would I have time to mop up skinned-knee blood and spilled milk. And red wine doesn’t drink itself. If you’re on the phone and your child starts bleeding apparently you have to hang up. So many rules.

Children are always in various stages of stickiness and this is fine if you want to use them to seal packages but I’m a little OCD. I’ve scrubbed my French side tables so many times I can see the fingerprints of the carpenter who built them in 1879.

And I never wanted to be pregnant because putting on sixty extra pounds is not my secret fantasy. I once read that having a baby could lead to heart failure, pulmonary edema, and a ruptured uterus. Even though I didn’t know what an edema was or could locate my uterus on a map of cow udders; that was all the birth control I needed. Women’s magazines talk about the beauty of a pregnant woman’s glow. A bride glows, a pregnant woman glows, is there no glow left for the rest of us? And when I read about the pancake-sized nipples that accompany pregnancy all it does is put me off IHOP for life which is a pity since it’s the only place I really get my glow on.

And who are the women who want to be awake during childbirth? When I go to the dentist and he pulls out my tooth, I’m not awake. So why would I be conscious when they pull a seven-pound baby out of me? And my mouth is a lot bigger. I’ve measured. And people take videos of this event? The women aren’t even wearing lipstick. If I’m going to be spread-eagled and cameras are rolling, there’d better be makeup involved and a hairdresser in case the event makes the local news.

Now that I’m at an age where if I start wearing Gloria Swanson turbans and Ann-Margret caftans everyone will understand why I eventually took my own life, I ask myself if I have any regrets about not having kids. The answer is no. Although I am worried about who’s going to take care of me if I get dementia (although I am worried about who’s going to take care of me if I get dementia.)