Children are the future. But not mine.

I think I have made my point of view clear about pregnancy, and babies and children in the past, but I am not sure I have ever gone in to the details of when I have such a problem with it.

I guess the first issue to tackle is with pregnancy itself.
I openly admit to having an almost paralysing fear of pregnancy. The whole process just seems so unnatural and sickens me a bit.
I get freaked out when I see them on the tube or waddling along the street
Something growing inside you? For nine months? That just isn’t right, is it?

And the bellies? They are just so… urggh.
So round. So out of proportion.
I am against fat people in general and unlike most people I make no exception for pregnant women. Fat is fat, whether is thanks too many Burger Kings or too much unprotected sex.
Pregnant women do not glow. They are not blooming. They are fat.

But you know what makes me fear pregnancy more than anything? I am worried that it will change Becky.
You know, I quite like her they way she is. Pregnant women incessantly talk about their hormones, and how they change them. I don’t want Becky to change. I don’t want to have to put up with listening to the sickening pregnancy lexicon of trimesters, folic acid and buggies. I want to have someone to share wine with and eat soft cheeses and raw eggs with.

Unfortunately the birth is not just the unpleasant end to this period; it is also the beginning of another one, namely parenthood.
I think my worries about being a parent in some way link in to my final point about pregnancy. It changes people. And it changes them for the worse.
At the moment I am the most important person in my life. Becky knows that and I hope she feels the same about herself.
But when you have a child that is supposed to change. Your offspring becomes the most important thing in the world. I don’t want that to happen. The day I stop thinking about number one is the day I cease to be me and turn into the type of person I hate.
Or, alternatively, you have a child that doesn’t change who you are. You continue to look after yourself first and everyone else second. And you have become Karen Matthews.
Even if I had a child an managed to remain the same as I am now without becoming a monster vilified in the press, what about my wife?
It is a fact that can probably be proven scientifically that once women get the mother hormones they change for the worse. They get fat, the sit around the house in sweets, they watch soap operas and Loose Women and they complain about their husbands. It is no wonder that men have affairs.

I like our little life. I like being able to go out to restaurants on a whim. I like going on three holidays a year. I never want that to end.

Plus I find babies really quite ugly little things. Puppies and kittens are much cuter. All babies look the same, like Winston Churchill.
They are useless little fuckers too. Cry, shit, vomit. Cry, shit, vomit. That is no way to spend the first few years of life.

In our flat at the moment we only vacuum once every few months, and only then when we are having a visitor. We leave our recycling (mostly wine bottles, funnily enough) to pile up in the hallway for weeks before taking down to the basement. I leave annoying washing up items for a week until I need to use them again. God knows how long our bed covers have been on. If we had a child social services would take them away anyway.

Economically and politically I am a libertarian and believe in low tax and low spend and the state no getting involved in peoples lives, so it really annoys me that my taxes get spent on paying people to have babies in the form of child benefit and tax credits. Obviously I don’t blame the people for accepting these benefits, and I sure as hell would in the same position, but surely the wider question of should the state be funding people’s lifestyle choices needs to be answered.

While spewing my views about to children and people who have them to anyone that is willing to listen, I am always greeted with the argument,
“Well it is different when you have a child of you own”.
There is some real backwards logic to that statement. If you only grow to like children when you have one of your own then why would you have one in the first place?
Also that adds more weight to the argument that having a child changes people. And I quite like who I am, thanks very much.

Luckily as time goes on Becky is becoming more and more anti having children herself.
Considering she studied childcare and actively wanted to spend time with them at one point in her life, it is really quite a propaganda achievement by myself.
When we got married we came to the mutual agreement that we would wait five years before thinking about having children. This September we will be three years into this, and she is less keen than ever.
In fact, inspired by Sam Cam, she recently said that she wants to wait into her mid thirties which gives us almost another ten years of no children.

Result.






These are my own personal views and not those of the BBC.
If any offence is taken to the above I assure you that the offending comments are ironic.