Tag Archives: babies

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Team Building Activities. It’s pretty rare that I run into a topic on which I can’t speak with at least some degree of confidence. I discovered this week while developing and delivering a group presentation titled “How to Change a Diaper” that almost anything related to the care and maintenance of a human baby is apparently one of those topical areas with which I am completely unacquainted. I’m happy to give the presentation, but ecstatic to leave the details and task execution to others. In this case, ignorance truly is bliss.

2. Sleep. Yes, I know this is one that crops up from time to time, but it’s been worse this week than most. In your standard day, you only get 24 hours and to be frank, I’m not willing to give up any more than 1/4 of it on just laying around essentially unconscious. It’s not that I’m exceptionally busy or feel that anything I’m doing is especially important, just that I think there are better ways to spend the day that being quietly tucked into a warm bed. Lately, though, the standard six hours hasn’t really felt like enough. I probably just need to find a way to crank more caffeine into the system to overcome the increased coefficient of drag.

3. The media. Again. For the last week or so, they’ve been filling the television set with the story of an overzealous and potentially crazy neighborhood watch captain gunning down an innocent kid on his way home from the corner store. Other outlets are screaming that the kid wasn’t as innocent as we’re being lead to believe. Either way, it makes a good story and a nifty bit of narrative for the media to run with. What none of the stories do, though, is tell me exactly what happened. Personally, I’m reserving judgement until more than speculation is known. We were once a nation of laws rather than a media drive lynch mob. It’s a pity that’s not still the case.

Deal breaker…

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A few days ago, I was asked why I was so intransigent about not wanting kids and invited to come up with a post expounding on my view of what has been described more than once as a deal breaking issue. At an age when nearly all of my friends have settled in to the routine of child manufacturing and upkeep, it’s a fair question. It’s also a question I approached with some trepidation, because of the inherent risk of causing unintentional offense as I refine and clarify my own thinking on the issue.

While these may not be the best or most altruistic reasons, they are mine… at least my top five.

• People seem hard wired to think babies – their own, ones they pass on the street, any babies really – are adorable. That gene seems to have skipped me. My response is more along the lines of “Ohhhh look… a small scrunched up human.”

• I’ve heard my entire life “having a child will change everything”. That’s great and all, but I like my life. I like the things that are important to me now and I want them to continue to be important to me in the future.

• Having dogs has meant giving up a certain degree of freedom to travel and do things on short notice – but I can lock them in a cage for a few hours and go do what I need to do or drop them off at the kennel for a few days and fly off to whatever tropical place interests me. With a baby, that’s apparently considered “neglect.”

• It sounds selfish, and it undeniably is, but I’m my own highest priority. I’m not wild about the thought of completely subsuming my goals, wants, and priorities to a small human for the next 18-25 years.

• Kids are crazy expensive. I bitch about $200 vet bills and $50 a bag dog food. Want to guess how I’d react to a $500 stroller or thousands a year in private school tuition?

I’m not a militant kid-hater (unless they’re crying in a movie theatre or throwing food at a restaurant). I’m a three time Godfather. My friends’ kids are awesome. But when the end of the day rolls around, I’m not the one with the responsibility for clothing, feeding, and educating said friends’ kids and I’ll be going home to a house not strewn with toys, without crayon on the wall, grape juice stains on the carpet, or crumbs on the couch. Being Uncle Jeff is great like that. It’s having all of the perks without any of the drawbacks.

I just don’t see how this can be a point of compromise. It’s a binary sort of thing – unless there’s a lease-purchase arrangement that could be worked out – maybe two days a week and every third weekend. If there’s any uncertainly at all about the desire to procreate, it seems best to err on the side of caution. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days resenting the hell out a child or its mother for finding myself living a life I was never sure I really wanted. Maybe in my declining years, I’ll wonder “what if I had….” But those thoughts for a few years in my dotage seems like a far better option than spending the next 30 years wondering, “what if I hadn’t”.

For me at least, it’s about risk management. I’m mostly happy with the life I’ve got. As much as I love a good day at the casino, I’m not about to give up a sure thing now to roll the dice on the long shot that I’m wrong about all this. If that’s a deal breaker, I guess it is what it is.