smash is a big baby
17/11/2008, 02:23

I have mulled over this entry for some days now.

It�s about something which I have commented on before, but not really in any great detail.

Last week, I hard my mother talking on the phone to a relative, and I heard her say �I do wish Smash would have a child. It would give him a sense of purpose in life.�

Ever since my brother and his girlfriend had a son, just over a year ago, my mother has been desperate for more grandchildren, even eyeing me up as a prospective child-giver.

Thank you, but no, mother dear.

Simply put, I really don�t want to have children.

I don�t buy into the theory that having children will give one a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning.

I already have reasons to get up in the morning. My jobs, my family, my friends, my hobbies.

Isn�t that enough?

If it isn�t, then perhaps my life to others may be worthless, but it isn�t worthless to me, and as it is mylife, I think I should have some say in it.

I remember when my bro D and his girlfriend P announced that P was pregnant. It was Christmas Day 2006, and they had arrived from London on Christmas Eve and clued me in on the surprise, begging me not to reveal all to the parents, to act surprised when they announced the news the following morning.

In a way, I am grateful to them for giving me advance warning so that I could arrange my features into those of shocked delight, because I feel that if I had been kept in the dark arranging my features into those of shocked delight may have been difficult had I not known beforehand.

Simply put, I did not regard P being pregnant as a miracle. Sure, I was pleased my brother was pleased, for I know how much having kids meant to him, but I was � and forgive me if this offends you � disinclined to regard the by-product of a quick fuck as exciting news.

Even when P went into labour � and at 40, having her first baby was risky, according to the medical professionals � while I hoped that everything was plain sailing and that the baby would be in finest health � the expectant glee was absent in me.

Don�t get me wrong, I do think the little dude, C, is great. I�ve spent more money on getting him (rather unwanted, ha) presents than on any other people in a long time, but while I would kill to protect him, I do not see him as miraculous.

He is family, therefore he will be protected by me when he needs to be. He will not, however, be placed upon a pedestal and regarded as a deity.

So why do I not want one of them?

Well� perhaps this is a long story, perhaps it is not, for while I have mulled over the idea of writing this entry, I have not formulated it in my mind and the rest of this entry may prove totally unsatisfying.

But I will start � and presumably end � with what I know.

And that is my own childhood.

For a start, my father and I never got on until I turned twenty-two years old.

There is no great reason why, here, our personalities were just so different, and he favoured my brother over me.

Before you think I am embarking upon some pity-me story here, I am not. It�s just that D and my father had similar interests, similar traits in their personalities, and they saw a kindred spirit in each other from early on, something my father and I did not share.

I knew from a young age that I was a disappointment to my father. Not because of rebelliousness or underachievement, we just didn�t know how to communicate with each other. My father liked sports, I did not. I liked computer games, my father did not. My father liked simplicity and order, I liked to deconstruct and was at home with chaos.

We simply existed on two entirely different levels, and in a typical suburban semi-detached house, that made for some trying times.

When I realised that my brother was the favoured one in my father�s eyes, it hurt me, I do admit. While I didn�t crave his admiration the way I did my mothers, all the books I read as a child taught me that parents love their children equally. When I realised that at times the scales tip in favour of one or the other it surprised me, and for a time I wondered if I had done something wrong.

Of course I realise now that I hadn�t, and that is just the way it goes.

I often had the �I love you but I don�t like you very much,� speech from my father.

And really, when you think about it, what does that mean? For the first twenty-two years of my life my father loved me but didn�t like who I was? Is that even love?

I imagine myself being in that position as a parent, and all I can think of is being stuck for twenty years with an annoying room-mate whose contract you cannot break.

Even now when I think back to him saying that, I, at thirty years old, still cannot comprehend what he meant. I�d honestly rather him � even now � turn round and say �You were a little shitbag when you were a kid Smash, I couldn�t stand you.�

I�d understand that more.

It sounds like I am bitching about my old man here, and I promise you I am not. I love the dude now, we get on great and spend many a happy hour in the pub (sometimes even discussing these bad old days, when the mood takes us) but I am recounting these events merely to make the point that if I was in his position with a kid I felt that way about I know I would have to leave.

I wouldn�t be strong enough, or have the patience enough to just drag myself wearily through each day, even if the kid was my own.

I�m just not that�

Strong?
Stupid?
Mature?

I�m just not that.

Even when I came close to having a kid of my own, I have to be totally honest with you � more importantly, with myself � and admit that I didn�t want it.

Sure, on absolutely no level did I want that kid to die or suffer, and if he (allow me to be sexist because I�m too lazy to type �he or she� all the time) had been born into this world I promise you know I really would have done my best to be a good father.

I really would.

But I fear I would have been a poor father.

I don�t know if I am unselfish enough to consider my needs and desires as less important than those of a child, even if he is mine.

And if I make choices based on that theory on behalf of someone who cannot make choices for themselves then I wouldn�t deserve that child anyway.

There�s also outside forces to consider.

There are people out there who could hurt my child and what would I do then?

Contradictorily, though I would rather be without a kid of my own, if I did have one I would heap pain and suffering on anyone who caused my child misery or suffering.

And no, I am for once not attempting rocker bravado here, I really would.

Some of you may remember when I changed diaries for a while, I wrote about an incident that occurred on my 8th birthday, involving a friend of my fathers and me, and some rather inappropriate touching in our bathroom.

I said that it was a one-off incident, but it wasn�t. It went on for quite some time and I will not talk about it here ever again, I brought it up only to say that I couldn�t stand to think of that happening to a child of mine.

I�d kill the person with my bare hands.

That was probably quite a shocking revelation I made light of there. Forgive me, but it�s in the past and it can stay there, for those of you who don�t already know about it.

I�d be a hopeless daddy anyway.

I�m leaving this here for now because I�m too sober (I�ve been working tonight) to be this deep and meaningful without making myself cry.