The baby formula
Stop reproduction. The potential slogan resounded in my mind as I zeroed in on the eyes of young Alfie Patten, pure perplexity plastered across the alleged 13-year-old daddy’s face. Perhaps you’ve come across a photo of the kid yourself; a not-too-odd one out in online gossip skid rows fortified by daily Britney documentation and Jamie-Lynn pap snaps. Or maybe you’ve seen him on the news — a brief clip of Alfie handling baby Maisie like she was a cantaloupe about to be handed to mummy for snack preparation. Sure, DNA testing and a single file of his 15-year-old baby momma’s past sleepover mates recently proved that that one condom-less night had spared him from way early fatherhood. But this whole circus of juvenile conception is still enough to make you crease your forehead in bewilderment.
Whether or not Alfie’s got to wrap his pre-pubescent head around diaper duties, the possibility of this happening today can serve the whole concept of propagation of the species a timeout. If the human race has driven into the ditch of “children giving birth to children”, is this world still a good place for children?
Baby Bump-Off
Now, before I am publicly castrated and declared a sh*t for-brains Lifestyle Section Hitler of sorts, let me declare before my proposal of a birth boycott, that I like kids. I like them enough to have an uncharacteristically maternal yearning for my own (three: two older sons protecting a daughter) — their names already picked out and parenting scenarios (bedtime reading, indoctrination of cool, holding dates at gunpoint) prematurely played out in my head. It’s just that the gift of life requires stringent appreciation and with the end of the world nipping at the toenails of the human race, maybe there is an urgent need to halt, well, the human race.
All the destruction and degradation that’s transpiring on earth is a little too much to handle right now anyway. And along with having to soothe the global economy and environment as both bawl through the longest nights in existence, it seems even the actual family unit is pleading for sustainability.
To the state of Nebraska’s legalizing child abandonment, an article in this month’s GQ (“The Unspeakable Choice” by Wil S. Hylton) begged the question “So are there more bad parents, or more monstrous kids, than anyone knew?” Apparently, whether you’re a desperate mother undergoing a hardcore case of postpartum depression or a PTSD-suffering father wanting out of having to care for the lil’ Damien in your life, America’s safe-haven laws (called Baby Moses laws in some states) are like pushing the eject button on your kid, no strings attached. Just sign that bundle of bother over to the state and you’ve got one less bad mouther to feed, one less red-marked report card to sign. Dumpster baby cases may have slumped, which is partly why the law was passed in the first place, but a whole lot of parent-child annulments soon followed. Especially in Nebraska, where, due to its K-12 drop-off accommodation (any kid under 18) last summer that made for many a migration from all over, the state soon limited child ditching to infants of up to 30 days. Turns out many parents raising kids feel they’ve raised hell as well, so under safe-haven, a hospital can turn into a pawnshop where you can swap Junior in to reclaim prenatal sanity.
So yes, with the bright sun of “yes we can” rising above all, yes, you can also deposit your little one at the state’s customer service. At this point, that once-rare couple that’s stifled dinner table conversation by expressing their desire not to have kids deserves more than a roll of the eyes. Google “Childless by choice” and you’re bound to gather that most people who turn their noses up at child rearing fire a sensible question to the majority who consider “Thou shall plant your seed to, duh, sow it” part of the Ten Commandments. Simply, why bring a kid into this mess of a world?
Okay, so they’re adorable, obviously. And yeah, they’re a one-way ticket to getting hitched and solidifying marriages. Oh, and let’s not forget that they’re the ultimate consummation of what you’ll leave in the world — that whole legacy deal, which is also a means for you to strap that load of “I want you to be better than I was” on them. A more noble reason, however, would be for humanity to endure. For society’s progress, stewardship, and whatnot. Michael Jackson, God bless his soul, once sang that the world is its children who’ll damn well “make a brighter day”. By the looks of things, however, adding more humanity to the mix just doesn’t seem right. Especially with Unicef and laws like safe-haven trying to clean up after all the people who went bump in the night but never wondered whether they were even fit to care for Chia pets.
Get a dog, maybe?
It might have been the hour and a half I’d spent soaking up Nicholas Cage’s default look of anxiety that got to me. I’d caught that new apocalypse-soon film Knowing over the weekend, and though it struck me as a prep video for the end of the world — ingraining doleful acceptance in the audience for that fateful day when the skies open up and we’re all torched to kingdom come — there was a last-minute man of action inside of me that wanted to demand deliverance from that blazing worst-case scenario.
The idea of collective martyrdom by keeping baby-making at bay enlightened me during the world’s darkest hour: Earth Hour’s purpose-driven blackout. From my window, I could see the Holiday Inn’s guests weren’t too crazy about candlelight, but all those Facebook status endorsements for a 60-minute lights-off meant that the pulse of world healing is still strong. In light of Earth Hour, how about a Birth Hour, I thought: no sex, or fine, no unprotected sex for an hour. Better yet, how about no window of conception open from now ‘til, say, 2012? The Mayan-proclaimed year for the end of days could serve as an appropriate deadline for when we actually get to turn things around.
Besides, if the UN says human overpopulation is the prime threat to our lease on earth, then we need to holler a call for fluid retention. Singaporeans have been rocking non-fertility pretty well, and look, their city is all bright and shiny. And we might learn a little something from Saint Angie and Madge, who are balancing the grime of their fame out with good juju care of African child adoption.
Amid my contemplation of three-or-so prosperous years where human beings divert all energy to really making a brighter day, I overhear my mom on the phone with my sister calling all the way from her home in the States. She’d been trying for a baby for a while now—a few glimmers of hope dissipating, leading her towards a shot at in vitro. This time, however, it was a lack of estrogen that couldn’t sustain the teensy life that had formed within, the doctor had told her.
As my mother consoled her with the ever-reliable silver lining of new chances, all I could think of was how much I wanted her to have her own child. My sister, of all people and a glorious personification of all that is good in the world, deserves one. I have no doubt, after all, that it’ll be better than I’ll ever be.
