Today has been, in all sorts of ways, a very good object lesson in why I do not want to have children. Any of them. At all. Ever. Considering that I seem to be practicing to be a social recluse and haven't actually left the house, this is pretty impressive.

Why? Because no matter how old they are, kids drive their parents NUTS.

(Also, there is the risk that I'll turn into my mother and end up with a child as whine-ridden and resentful as, um, me, who spends most of her early adult life guilt-ridden for her tendency to cordially loathe me.)

Year 01: 'WAAAAAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!'
Year 21: 'Fuck off! You're a fucking moany cow! I ask you to get the drill and you come up with all this bullshit! Just fuck off!'

And the years in between aren't all that great either. Oy and Jesus Christ. Why do people let themselves in for this?

I am currently sitting here feeling sorry for my poor, patient landlady, owner of the twenty-one year old who appears at present to be pathologically incapable of talking to her without going on about what a selfish bitch she is for failing to drop everything the minute he decides he needs her to do something for him (much of which he takes for granted in a way which really is NOT pleasant to witness). The way this guy talks to her seriously makes me want to punch him sometimes.

Seriously, when he wants her attention? He whistles. He goddamn whistles at her and doesn't goddamn stop until she answers. I know to some extent she may have brought it on herself by showing him it gets results, but if any kid of mine tried to WHISTLE to bring me to heel, I would probably go nuts. Because I am a woman, not a dog. I do not jump when people call me regardless of what they may be interrupting. I do not need obedience training.

She is not a dog either. It MADDENS me to see him treat her like one.

I'm also feeling sorry for the woman next door, whose baby woke up screaming three times last night, on each occasion refusing to just shut UP already be comforted and bawled for at least half an hour, and was nearly tearing her hair out mid-morning because she was so tired and fed up with screaming children and was in no mood to deal with her three year old acting up.

The end result is that I am currently feeling an aversion toward the thought of children and childrearing so acute that I think even HEARING the word 'mother' is likely to bring me out in a nervous rash.

(Also, there's the small fact that I'm probably crazy anyway. Kids need sane parents.)

By the time the three year old was howling, I was absolutely amazed that anybody managed to stick this without resorting to homicide. If I was constantly woken by a screaming baby, I suspect I would end up doing something hideously, sickeningly violent just for the sake of getting five minutes' peace. Mothers all, how do you do it? How do you get through the day without committing homicide? Your kids scream at you, they take you for granted, they're terminally ungrateful... they often don't even like you much at the end of the day. Tell me how you do it.

You're probably all much better people than me and maybe having kids would be good for me in some bizarre way but, having an at least elementary grasp of my own psychology, knowing my own flaws and insecurities and hang-ups - I've been in therapy. Can you tell? - it would be a terrible idea. I'm a lousy daughter and have the sneaking suspicion I would be an equally absolutely godawful mother.

That's if I wasn't an infanticide statistic in the making, of course.

You have my respect, girls, but I wouldn't change places with you for all the money in the world. I really do not know how you do it. It would drive me mad.

You can tell it's getting bad when I can't understand how Ken does it.

OMG KENKEN ILU ♥ *FANSPAZ* sorry, just had to get that out my system.