(Not Quite) Out to Pasture: Baby Talk

A COLUMN BY: CURTIS COMER

A friend recently informed us that his girlfriend of six months is pregnant and, while she insists that she supports a woman’s right to choose, has decided to keep the baby. Our first question to our friend wasn’t whether or not he intended to marry his girlfriend.

"Dude, weren’t you using a condom?"

The answer was no, accompanied by all of the usual excuses. This information came to us on the heels of news from our friend, John, in San Francisco, telling us that he and his partner had applied for adoption. A month later the same sort of news arrived from our friend, Chris, telling us that she and her partner, Rhonda, were going to have a baby.

I, for one, simply don’t get it. And, if I may be perfectly blunt, I don’t understand the need in people to parent children. Don’t get me wrong…kids are great.

In small doses.

I absolutely adore my beautiful nieces and nephews and I attribute this to the fact that I am not responsible for their well-being and am only forced to be around them for special occasions and holidays. Cute, intelligent and funny? Sure, that helps, but I think the real reason I love them is because I’m not forced to endure them for prolonged periods of time.

There was a brief moment in the not so distant past that Tim and I talked about having kids. In fact, we had two female friends who were willing to act as surrogate for us if we decided it was something we wanted to do.

"You’d both be great dads," we were told, "and you’re clearly in a stable relationship."

All true. I have no doubt that, should we have chosen to become parents, we would have been good parents. We would have taken our child to the opera, taught her French and how to cook eggplant parmesan. Okay, that would have been Tim. But I would have taught her some good jokes and would have been the "good cop" parent to Tim’s authoritarian "bad cop."

In the end, however, we decided that our lifestyles really didn’t match up with being parents. What if we wanted to take a last minute trip to San Francisco or Paris or the grocery store? Who would watch the kid? And then there was the matter of cost. On a good day I can barely keep my bank account balanced, whine like a three year old when the car is due for an oil change and wear the same pair of shorts until they’re threadbare. And Tim, bless his heart, can get lost in our small bathroom and rarely knows where he’s left his car keys.

Not exactly the best candidates for parents of the year. In fact—and despite our good characters—the possibility of becoming parents sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. So, by not having kids, we felt that we were being responsible—something that, in my opinion, more people need to consider. Part of our reluctance regarding the thought of becoming parents stems, no doubt, from both of our childhoods. Tim was born the youngest of six children and I grew up the oldest of eight. While our families weren’t exactly poor, neither were they in any real position to raise such large broods. That and my parents raised me and my siblings by the old rule that states "children are meant to be seen and not heard." I’m pretty certain that, while my mom and dad did love us, they also appreciated us because we served as mini indentured servants; we cooked, cleaned, cared for the animals, mowed the lawn, gardened, did the laundry and washed the car. When I was old enough to drive, I was made the family chauffeur, driving my siblings to and from school. I babysat. As the youngest of his siblings, Tim was forced to go without, too, and was forced to wear his brother’s hand-me-down’s and was sometimes denied the ability to go on trips with friends because of financial considerations.

I suppose it was these humble beginnings that shaped our later decision to renounce parenthood. We simply didn’t want to do it if we couldn’t do it right. After all, what fun is being a kid when you can’t afford all the things that your fellow classmates could afford?

My best friend, Kris, is a bit more pointed in her disdain for children. Even if it happens to be the child of a very good friend, she wrinkles her cute little nose with an air of disgust at the offending offspring and refuses to address it by name.

"It’s crying," she might say, rolling her eyes, or "I think it needs its diaper changed."

I love her to a million little pieces, but I simply cannot see Kris as a mom. To a cat? Sure, but even that’s shaky ground. A kid? Not in a million years.

And here’s another thing I don’t understand: why is it that people who want to be parents insist on having their own as opposed to adopting? God knows that there are millions of parentless children on the planet in need of good homes. Is our need to pass on genetics more important than passing on genes that might not need passed on at all? I realize that for gay and lesbian couples adoption can be a bumpy road, especially depending on the state in which they live, but I certainly favor adoption over any funky medical procedure.

I guess the truth of the matter is that, even at forty-three, I’m too much of a kid to father one. Just the other day, Tim had to trick me into getting a haircut, as if I was some sort of recalcitrant six year old. Since being laid off in January, I had decided to just let it grow and it was beginning to draw attention. There was talk among my friends of staging an intervention.

"Michelle (my hairdresser) is serving beer now," Tim said, tantalizingly.

I jumped into the car like a dog who had just heard the word ‘park.’

Michelle wasn’t serving beer.

I argued that I was going for an "unemployed surfer chic" look.

"Sweetie," I was told, "you just look like a bum."

"What about the beer?" I asked, weakly as my head was shorn of four month’s growth.

"Come back in six weeks," she said. "I should have my first delivery of beer then."

Do I believe that I’m missing out by having opted out of parenting? Not at all. Tim and I have a cat and a lovebird and that’s plenty of kids for us. Are we worried about what will happen to us when we’re older and have no one to look after us? Well, that’s why there are now gay retirement communities and why most of our friends are twenty years younger than us. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

You can e-mail Curtis at Greenwitchsf@aol.com.