Meme Thread... no politics

Whenever I see a meme of piles of money and snarky comments towards people who have kids, all I think of is my kid giving me memories your money cannot buy.

In reply to Appleseed :

This:

\

Or this:

Those are your choices. The only difference is, did you have kids? This is my immediate family. Parents, siblings, spouses, grandkids, and great-grandkids. 4 generations. My mother is in the center, my father is on the far left. 

My wife has adopted a couple of older gents in the local assisted living facility where her dad is living. She visits them and brings them gifts. They have no one left to come visit them. Wives are dead, siblings are dead, or too old to visit. They are dying alone with no one left to know they are even alive. I can't imagine a sadder thing. 

I have 4 kids and 4 grandkids so far. I hope I never experience that. 

Toyman! said:

Those are your choices. The only difference is, did you have kids?

The only difference?

I'm not great at math, but something tells me that scenario is contingent on a little more than that - like maybe four generations of people all following the same program: reproducing early and often, all staying nearby, and all getting along. Picture postcard stuff, sure, and I'm happy for you, but that is not reality for a lot of us.

Meme not unrelated:

In reply to DarkMonohue :

My wife's family spends more time mad at each other than not, so I understand where you are coming from. They just can't do live and let live. They are scattered all over the country at this point and seldom get together. 

Most of mine are within a day's drive of where we grew up. We make a point to get together several times a year. 

I'm a morning person so I really loved those Saturday mornings. There would be 6 of us piled in a king-size bed. Great times.

In reply to Toyman! and Appleseed:

Snark in any direction is questionable, depends on time and place, etc, but there's an awful lot more societal pressure to either have kids or explain yourself, so, yes, exasperation comes out as snark sometimes, and I understand it. I tend to hope that folks who want kids have them, and folks who don't, don't. And honestly, "I've got disposable income and free time" doesn't feel that heavy-handed compared to "you either have kids or die alone and miserable and I cannot fathom a meaningful life without a huge family you make me sad." I genuinely hope you're happy. I am more so than I could possibly have imagined 20 years ago. I agonize over *everything*, and not having children is one of the self-knowledge decisions I'm most confident about. Do I have concerns about what the end looks like? Sure, I'm a human. All I can do is continue fostering friendships and interests and maintaining my health. Having kids solely because I'm afraid of aging and dying alone in the case that I don't want them otherwise feels like something we'd all regret.

Toyman! said:

...Those are your choices.

Pretty sure there are lots of other options in between.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

I am super happy you are doing what makes you happy. Most of the car people I run with don't have kids. I get it. DINK isn't a bad place to be. I also agree that people that don't want them shouldn't have them for the sake of societal pressure. They are the worst kind of puppies. They stay around for decades. 

I honestly can't imagine not having them though. There were early days when I questioned my sanity but I'd rather hang out with my kids than anyone else in the world. They are the best people I know. 

I think that people who don't want kids shouldn't EVER have kids.

It isn't fair to the children if they have uncommitted parents. I didn't want kids when I was younger. I wasn't ready for them, emotionally or financially. I would've been an awful parent. Then one day I was open to the idea. Not everyone  has that change of heart, where you have to decide to no longer put yourself first for the rest of your life.


 

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Thank you. We didn't have Little Monohue until I was 45, and I can't count the number of people I had to justify our childless marriage to, or our decision/fate to have one as late as we did, and now the fact that we have only one. Tedious isn't a strong enough word. And maybe that's a factor in why I can't stand small talk and would rather attend a root canal than a family reunion. 

The DINK thing isn't even a factor here. I'm unburdened by formal education, and have always worked. My wife paid sticker price for a master's degree, learned the hard way that teaching is a fool's errand, and now stays home with the boy. We are now taking bets on whether I live long enough to retire.

There's a lot of ways to live one's life, and they seldom seem to go as planned.

DarkMonohue said:

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Thank you. We didn't have Little Monohue until I was 45, and I can't count the number of people I had to justify our childless marriage to, or our decision/fate to have one as late as we did, and now the fact that we have only one. Tedious isn't a strong enough word. 

 

There's a lot of ways to live one's life, and they seldom seem to go as planned.

 

My brother is on the same but opposite spectrum, they have ten (or is it eleven?) kids and he gets so tetchy when someone asks if they're done. He asked me if it's anyone's business; and I said "no, but I kinda want to know also".

Some people want a lot of kids.  The more the merrier.

Not me.  I came from 4 kids and I had everything I wanted, including involved parents.

But I still didn't want 4 kids.  I don't see any reason for having a lot of kids.  Fortunately, the world doesn't have to agree with me.

I decided I wanted 2 kids.  I had 2 kids.  I talked DW out of a third.  In retrospect, she agrees it was the wise decision.

Some people want zero kids.  DD#1 is one of those people.  I get it.  Having kids is a big commitment, if you're going to do them any justice.

If you don't want to (or can't) have kids, don't, and don't feel bad about it.  It's nobody's business but you and your partner.

My only beef in meme world,  there are 20 "look how much money I  have. You're an idiot for having kids" memes to one "kids are berkin' awesome" meme.

I imagine its because parents have no free time to make memes.

I dunno. Don't like kids, never wanted kids, now have two, well one and a half, the older one was a package deal with the wife. If the younger one ever gets out of the toddler stage it might be fun, she'll be 8 in June, so here's to hoping.

There are great moments for sure, but they're usually accompanied by a melt down of some sort.

Still, the only truly terrible thing about parenting is dealing with other kids and their parents. Like the shiny happy people who send 5lbs of candy to school for every student every holiday, or the helicopter idiots at the park who are on the phone to CPS if you so much as look like your going to go to the bathroom by yourself, or the people with their own little league teams breathing down your neck to experience their "joy" and pop out a few more while also refusing to help pay for or support them.

If you're happy, be happy, but understand happiness causes are not universal. 

Meme unrelated.

In reply to DarkMonohue :

I am 47, and explaining the lack of children has really sucked over the years. We wanted kids; it just didn't work out.

 Forced group settings have been the worst.

In reply to Appleseed :

Ech, I think meme counts are a terrible way to gauge what's good, right, popular, or... anything other than maybe funny, but frequently not that, either. It's not so much memes through which the "you should be having kids" thing gets expressed. Wrong demographic?

I also know my wife gets way more crap for not being a mom than I do for not being a dad. I think one of the other things that society seems to get wrong is confusion over the idea that just because something is the most important thing you can be doing, that it is important that everyone does it. Running a nuclear reactor is very important. Running a business is important. Running a search and rescue team is important. I think we can all agree that not everybody should do those things.

Our pets aren't children surrogates, but sometimes the parallels are funny.