The Empty Space

[rinue]

The reason I find the idea of childrearing so terrifying is that a parent is God to a child; if you're God and you fuck up, you have no one to blame but yourself. I'm already an Existentialist, which you'd think would make things easier: as an Existentialist, one assumes total responsibility for everything in one's surroundings. The difference is that an Existentialist presupposes an inability to tell whether a given action is or isn't fundamentally important, and so presumes all choices are. A parent, a god, doesn't have the luxury of that basic uncertainty.

If I accidentally became pregnant, I'd have the child, and I'd raise it the best I could; similarly, if I found a child who was neglected, I'd do everything I could to take care of it. But I can't understand how anybody could plan a child, could, even with a deep love of children, look at parenthood with anything other than extreme trepidation. Sure, kids carry some of your genetic code, but that almost makes it worse: that's you you could fuck up. That's you that will almost certainly hate you for a while, no matter how good a job you do; it's practically a fact of cognitive development. I have a hard enough time getting along with the me that already exists; I can't imagine the impact of an alternate-universe half me. Even spending time with my sister weirds me out.

Comments

[rhys-k.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not... I actually look forward to my children hating me (at least for a time). Really that just means your parenting right... and not doing one of these new "Best friend" or "cool mom" parenting styles that end up with a complete lack of morals in kids... as well as boundless stupidity.

I guess the real test is whether or not your kid hates you at 20.

And yes... parenting is full of scary shit... but so is bungee jumping. Could be a new thrill... EXTREME PARENTING!!!!