I know why people have children.

I have never had a strong urge to breed. I always felt that having children is a calling, a calling dictated to you by God. Having children is a privilege and if one is meant to be parent, one will be. So, I never understood all those people who don't seem too interested in children and the activities involved with having children, yet they go on to have a whole gaggle of them. If having children is such a drag, there are options today to prevent that.

But now I might have some insight into why people have children: to avoid taking care of their husbands. As I have said before, husbands are worse than children, they sulk, they are stroppy, moody, demand your time and attention, and to add the cherry on top, they are not cute. They are just one big sulking, stroppy, overgrown teenager. So, in light of that, I can see why people would rather have a child/children to take care of instead of a grown man-child. At least you can draw in the comfort that no matter what tantrums your children throw all day, no matter how difficult bath time was, and now unbearable getting your child to eat his or her dinner was, at the end of the day, they look up at you with adoring eyes and say "I love you mommy" or "you are the best mommy ever". Those few words can melt away the disastrous day you have had with them. Your husband will never show you unadulterated appreciation and no sane woman wants her husband to address her as "mommy"-unless if you are Ted Kennedy. 


Though this may be the obvious to most women who are mothers, it is a total revelation to me. If you have to take care of someone, it might as well be your child. One of the number one complaints of men these days is that their wives focus all of her attention on the kids and not him and that's probably the number one reason why men stray (Tiger Woods, David Boreanez, both of these men have young attractive wives with small children), they are no longer the center of attention and they want to recapture that feeling of being the number one priority to someone, so they go off and find a bimbo who will tell them anything they want to hear at a price. How needy and insecure is that? Even my husband, who I consider a very self-affirmed man, makes snide comments when I coo at my cat too enthusiastically, believing that I prefer the cat over him. Except the truth is...let's just leave it at that.


Many neo-feminists now muse that perhaps our grandmothers had it right after all. We need to pay attention to our men, get dressed up for them when they come home from work, put on some perfume and make up, make dinner for them and let them believe that they are the king of the castle and that they are appreciated. If your husband is happy at home, even at the expense of your own sanity, he will be well behaved, less likely to take off with the neighbor's daughter etc. After 40 years of feminism, where we are making our own money, forging our own careers, leave behind unsuitable spouses and boyfriends like a bad 80's hairdo, I must acknowledge, that our children have paid dearly for that-in the form of broken homes and only seeing their dads on the weekends (or never) and possibly going on to forge broken relationships and families of their own. But even in light of all this, I still would not go back to how our grandmothers lived their lives. I can tolerate a life of transient loneliness but not domestic tyranny.