someone asked me this just a few days ago. that wasn't the first time the question had been thrown at me. sometimes it irritated me to be asked this, but once or twice, like last week, made me stop and think: did i ever?
at age 7, i resolved i would not marry nor have children. what inspired that? first, myself. although i consider NOW my childhood to be okay, the really bad experiences (though now i can admit to be relatively few - a year) just seem to stick out. all my life i was the bad daughter, the hard headed one, the talkative one, the complainer, the inquisitive in a bad way daughter, or, get this, the ugly daughter. i think that justified my feeling of being "unloved" all through my childhood. they say that your parents are your best model for raising children. i didn't like the way i was raised, but then again, my parents raised me the way they were raised by their own parents who knew no better. and would i have wanted to raise a child the way i was raised?
second, there were couples, friends and acquaintances and neighbours, even relatives, that left such bad impressions on me. typically, husband drank, beat wife, sometimes didn't work. typically, wife tended to drunk husband, accepted the beating, sometimes became breadwinner, while husband drank, beat wife and didn't work. that's the best scenario. the worst was husband drank, beat wife, didn't work and had mistress or mistresses. and i heard the adults say love is blind, so wife continued to be a wife and did such silly things as tending the drunk husband, accepting the beating from the drunk husband, work till lazy drunk husband found work (and more often than not the lazy bastard seeing it was much easier for stupid wife to earn a living for the whole family than him just decided to not work anymore),and on rare occasions, raising children of stupid drunk husband from slut mistress(es).
at four years old, i was already doing household chores and taking care of my younger siblings. i didn't have time to be a child. i grew up watching the neighborhood children doing things children do, play and have fun. one day i played tag with the neighborhood children and they laughed at me because i ran around wearing my slippers. they were all barefoot. so i took off my slippers and ran around in the dirt. what did i get for doing that? a good beating. so i stopped playing with them. the best way to avoid getting beat up by your father was to not do anything to displease him. so if i would have a child, what children thing could i teach him/her or let him/her do? and that's why i didn't want to have children.
was there a time i wished i had a child? yes, twice in fact. the first child i would have named "ingrid hortense". yes, i was pretty sure if i had been pregnant, i would've had a baby girl. i was so in love with this man i was ready to get pregnant. but it didn't happen of course. and of course, i was disappointed.
the second time, she would've been named "francesca". with another man i was so in love with. at the time. you must know, i have been in love so many times, but only twice was i willing to go all the way, i.e., get married and bear children (maximum of two, of course).
so, did i ever wish i had children? maybe i did. but thank god, i didn't.
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