NOT MY THING

Totally irrelevant photo …

Darn, I should have got up last night after all to write down what was on my mind. Now I just rememberthe title and an inkling of what I wanted to say. But the gist of it was and is: I don’t like kids. (And teenagers even less!) There are exceptions, of course, even though they are quite rare and usually come down to well-mannered kids of friends and acquaintances. But overall, I just don’t like them. You will never see me oohing and aahing into the pram of a stranger, telling the proud mother how cute her child is or ask silly questions. (I’m more inclined to ooh and aah when seeing a cute animal …) You will also never hear me deliberately move a conversation to children with non-friends. I really couldn’t care less. (Maybe I should get Melania Trump’s legendary parka after all …) The thought of becoming pregnant is a constant panic issue which leads to double protection and pregnancy tests every two to three months. Just to be on the safe side! Could you imagine the horror? ME becoming pregnant? Not an option! Pregnancy? Motherhood? Not my thing!

Shocking, I know! And very, very bad of me to even admit something like that. I can hear the indignant über-mothers complaining loudly and telling me what an awful person I am (while secretly some of them will sigh silently, wishing their before-kids-lives back). And you wonder … why? Why, oh why doesn’t she like kids? They are the apples of our earth, our future, bla bla bla blaaaa … sure, looking at today’s offspring and the one from my generation (which are in their twenties, teens or producing their own offspring already) … what brilliant future generation will we have before us? Spoiled rotten by parents who think anti-authoritarian education is de rigueur. Kids who don’t manage to follow the most basic rules of politeness like greeting and saying “Thank you”! (Which makes me despise the parents nearly as much for failing so badly. And I could kick their butts from here to the next solar system when observing their ignorance, leaving their brats on their own devices, letting them jump up and down chairs, screaming and crying, doing whatever they want, just watching stupidly and not saying anything to put them in their places!) With their ambitions and only aim to get ahead in life, no matter the costs, stopping at nothing, without any sense of camaraderie, friendship and care for others. With grandparents and other relatives just good enough for providing gifts and money. A telephone call? A visit? What for? Sooo boring …

I sensed the first shift in bad manners of the little ones in my last two years at school. (Yes, that early, and ages ago, being in my 40s. There, I said it!) I remember when I started my higher education at the age of 10, the 18-year-olds were like gods to us! We used to look up to them admiringly. When we came across them in the hallways we pressed ourselves close to the walls to not hinder their way and attract attention. When I was in my final year? WE basically had to press ourselves to the walls so as to not being run down by the little impudent pricks, who had no respect at all, talking back to you whenever they could.

The next shift I realized in the later years at university. When I started, even though I was the youngest and newest addition to our small community of ceramics students, I was included into their group immediately. Partying together, helping out with student papers and material, a close-knit group … I felt right at home, was one of them. Sadly, most of them finished a couple of years later … and what followed was more or less what I had experienced in my last years at school. Colleagues who only looked at their gain, refusing to help or lend transcripts. Well, not all were that bad, but I discovered that especially the female student body tended to act meanly and as if they were the brightestchicks on earth. And it’s getting worse … my ex-partner’s daughter and kids / teens in my own family are the best example. And I shudder in disgust just thinking about them …

To round this article up quite nicely … working as a tutor for too many years didn’t exactly improve my view of children (even though, as I have already disclosed in another post, there were some, I did like and care about). So, here I am! Saying those four little bad words! Which are not to be said publicly, because one just does not do that. But I do. Because I like to be bad!

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