DADWAGON

You might remember a post yesterday from my esteemed colleague Matt about wanting his brother to start having children. Sure, it was an unsolicited intrusion into the reproductive choices of a loved one, but otherwise it seemed harmless, right?

Not exactly.

Here’s Matt talking about why he waited until his mid-30’s to have a baby:

On some level I regret not having had Sasha earlier, in large part because she’s just so much fun to be around. It’s a pointless regret. Even a couple of years earlier, I didn’t have the career or the housing or the common sense that have made raising Sasha so easy (relatively) and rewarding.

And I guess that’s where Steve (and his wife, Tara) are right now. Working hard, getting ahead, and enjoying being married and free of responsibility. That’s how it goes now, for more than just the Gross family. It takes longer to get established, and kids—well, that could fuck it all up. So you work and wait, and either you have a kid or two when you’re “older” or you don’t have one at all…

This is an old family planning canard, the idea that you have to have stable income and plenty of money before you start having kids. It’s part of the larger insidious trend of making sure that every damn thing is in line and in order for kids, throughout their lives: it starts even before they’re conceived. I was going to start spitting fire at my friend Matt about this in the comments until I saw that a commenter named Steve had beaten me to it and made some excellent points:

That notion that kids will prevent you from “getting ahead” whatever that is, or that you should be “established” before you start having kids. Note the scare quotes.

If having a family is an important value for you, then having kids IS “getting ahead” and being “established.” All other considerations are besides the point. I got my first kid the same year I started my PhD, while living on pathetic university funding, with no career prospects to look forward to.

Sorry to say (please don’t take it the wrong way) but I find it a very bourgeois idea that you should wait till you have achieved your career goals and bought a two-story house in a nice upscale suburb before you are settled enough to provide a decent home for children.

Children are a blessing, not an expense. They thrive on love and passion (so cheesy, I know) not on promotions and large disposable incomes.

I don’t know this Steve fellow, but I like the cut of his jib. If I have any regrets about the timing with our kids, it’s that we didn’t understand this and we waited until things seemed “stable” and we were making the “right amount” of money.  Really, we should have had them when we were undergrads. My wife and I were dating back then, and were well supported by the largess of Pell and other loansharks. If we’d had babies when we first met, they’d be applying to college now. Freedom would be just one personal essay away. True, they would have grown up well ahead of the Year of the DadBlog, so their moments of incontinence may have gone unrecorded for posterity. But for me to assume anything else about what would have happened after that–that my wife wouldn’t have made it to medical school, that I wouldn’t have ever gotten a (brief) corporate journalism job–is to ignore the fact that people who have kids do seem to find ways to keep progressing and advancing, if that’s their goal.

It’s tempting to be terrified about trying to raise kids poor in a country that doesn’t care for the health or education of very young kids. But Steve is right about one other thing: kids don’t need your middle-class comfort and spacious living. My wife and I brought our daughter into this world in a 500 square foot apartment that we shared with her and my mother-in-law. That was, perhaps, excessively small, but only because it was three generations. We searched for more space–and are now paying dearly every month for it–before the second child was born, because we had this idea that Children Need Space. Well. That’s true on one level: nobody wants to raise veal-kids or babies whose toes fuse to the grates of their cages. But imagine our chagrin when we realized that even now, with a five year old and a two year old, the kids’ greatest aspiration is to be wrapped around our legs like koalas on eucalyptus.

They don’t want space. They don’t use space. Wherever we are in the apartment, they rush over and crowd and cling. If they knew what the word ‘downsize’ meant, they’d suggest it themselves.

All of which is to say: Matt, it’s fine to have regret. Regret is the vapory fuel that powers the DadWagon. But you’re wrong on this one. Let the babies happen; it’s all gonna be just fine.

I’m hardly being original in saying that the comments made to most items posted on the Internet represent something independent of what was originally posted. What I mean is, you shouldn’t take comments personally as a writer, as the substance of the comments often have nothing to do with what you’ve written.

I’m generally pretty successful in this regard, one of the ways in which being a self-involved egotist tends to work in my favor. I don’t get upset about negative comments, by and large. I love myself already–what do I need with anyone else’s love (in those few nice comments I get)?  And since I’m perfect, well, then the negative comments must be absurdly wrong, and why get agitated about that?

Healthy, right?

But I did find one theme of the comments regarding my latest post in the New York Times Opinionator blog rather difficult to ignore. The subject of the post was how Tomoko and I were going to be married soon, largely because I had lost my job and needed to get health insurance for me and the children.

A fair number of comments to the piece reacted to the fact that Tomoko and I had had Ellie while unmarried–“ever heard of contraception?” wrote one wit. Granted, the Times is a national publication, which means its commenters will reflect the opinions of a wider cross-section of American opinion than might be found among the brilliant, good-looking, and progressive readers of DadWagon. But that still didn’t really prepare me for reading people’s disapproval of the existence of my child.

I was writing about health insurance and marriage and joblessness. Nowhere, I think, did I indicate that my daughter was to be included among the roster of my problems. It’s an ugly thought, and an ugly sentiment, and one that was too easily and regularly included among the comments.

So, to be clear: Ellie was a planned child, one that both parents wanted greatly, and who came as no surprise. For those who find that unpalatable because we aren’t yet married, well, I suppose that’s what the Internet is for: intolerance, bad jokes, and naked pictures. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Once again I’m not home. This week I’ve left behind my wife, my deeply saddened daughter, and the ongoing renovation of our kitchen to eat my way through frosty Montreal—with my younger brother, Steve.

In the past couple of years, Steve and I have developed one ongoing, never-finished conversation: I try to convince him to have kids sooner, and he shrugs off said attempts. My argument is based, naturally, on my own experience. I’m now 36, with a 2-year-old kid. By the time she’s 16, I’ll be 50. And when she’s really getting going on her career (or maybe just halfway through grad school), I’ll be 60. By the time she’s having kids herself—if she follows my example—I’ll be dead. Or nearly so.

Of course, I can’t change the past, and I can’t predict the future. But on some level I regret not having had Sasha earlier, in large part because she’s just so much fun to be around. It’s a pointless regret. Even a couple of years earlier, I didn’t have the career or the housing or the common sense that have made raising Sasha so easy (relatively) and rewarding.

And I guess that’s where Steve (and his wife, Tara) are right now. Working hard, getting ahead, and enjoying being married and free of responsibility. That’s how it goes now, for more than just the Gross family. It takes longer to get established, and kids—well, that could fuck it all up. So you work and wait, and either you have a kid or two when you’re “older” or you don’t have one at all, and then, several hundred generations down the road, we get Idiocracy. Which really wasn’t all that good a movie, if we want to face facts.

So, Steve (and Tara), unless you want America to become a land of cretins ruled over by a professional wrestler, please hurry up and have a kid. Also, Sasha needs a playmate. The world is depending on you!