Attack of the Killer Babies! - Muse Apprentice Guild

Published 2003
Muse Apprentice Guild

ATTACK OF THE KILLER BABIES!!
How infants are taking over the planet and what YOU can do about it!

The diatribe that I am poised to deliver may alienate me from treasured friends, divide me from close family members, even elicit certain disdain from the Pope. But these are risks I not only willingly, but zealously, take on. (Okay, granted, the prospect of papal petulance ain't exactly something that has me pooping in my panties; quite the reverse, indeed. To summon the holy acrimony of El Papa is possibly one of my long-repressed sexual reveries that is just now rearing its naughty little noggin.)

Anyway, if I am indeed forced to forego family and friends for the convictions I'm about to spew forth, so be it; 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune than to die a spineless weenie.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about the persistent problem of overpopulation. I realize it's kind of a trendy topic, but it's just so...so...relevant. Relevant to what, you may inquire, voice suffused with smug suspicion? Oh, well, just relevant to our collective distress, that's all.

People today squirt out bounties of babies as though there's an infant shortage or something. (Well, okay, not just people, but women specifically, since men still lack the required rigging for childbirth capabilities. Science is sure to amend that, of course, because the world just isn't complete without cloned sheep and lactating men.)

But really, when you think about it, it is people, not just women, who are responsible for the reckless reproduction taking place. For even though women bear the babies, men help create them, usually quite wittingly. So human beings as a whole are the culprits in the crime of overpopulation.

Now I realize that one function of our libido is to urge replication of the species. We wouldn't be so damn horny all the time if there wasn't some ulterior biological motive. Of course, hard-on-happy hippies would scoff at such a suggestion, insisting that sex is entirely a recreational pursuit to be indulged at every opportunity and in every pornographic way possible, while penis-fearing puritans would counter that sex is an obligatory evil we must practice to honor our servitude to the Omniscient One and breed more blubbering blockheads in His Sacred Likeness.

The truth, naturally, lies somewhere in between.

Anyway, it's clear that sex serves several purposes, and while procreation is indeed among them, this does not mean that it is a mandatory activity. We shouldn't just give in to the perverted pleas of our genes because they cry out to be recycled. Yeah, sure, if you wanna have sex with your loved one (or unloved one, as the case may be with porn stars, prostitutes and progeny of Priapus), there's nothing prohibiting you from enjoying such carnal ecstasies. (Well, okay, if you're still riding your skateboard to school or ogling "Teen Beat" hunks, perhaps you should delay your deflowerment until you're slightly more neurotic.) But yielding to sexual desire to express love is one thing; conceding to hormonal demands with a hopeful eye toward overrunning the planet with mini-mamas and -papas is quite another.

Okay, yes, probably those who participate in reproductive ventures do not see themselves as wanting to saturate the planet with their spawn. They see themselves, rather, as normal people who nurture a healthy desire to birth some babies.

And I'm not begrudging their right to bear kids; I'm just bemoaning their often complete lack of insight into what child-rearing entails. If someone and their spouse want to have kids, they should invest as much forethought into the decision as possible. When you go to buy a new car, you don't just show up at the dealer and say, "That red one looks cool," and zip off a check to the salesperson. You actually take time to explore what your true automobile needs are, and you settle on the right choice only after exhausting all your options.

But many couples are irritatingly impetuous when they decide to have children: "Honey, I'm in desperate need of a little girl, so can you hurry up and stick it in?" The oblivious husband obliges, thinking, "Kids are kinda cute, after all, and the wife will wipe baby's butt and do all the other offensive caretaking things while all I'll have to do is tell her bedtime stories when I come home from work at 9 o' clock at night. Plus, I'll finally have something to talk about with my boss who won't shut up about his 52 kids."

If you're thinking this scenario sounds far-fetched, think again. I've heard many people with offspring confess that had they thought about their decision more thoroughly before conceiving children, they may not have had them at all. And what about the man who complained to a teacher friend of mine that his wife got pregnant with their third baby because everyone else on the block had three kids?

This illustrates precisely how shockingly and senselessly conformist society can be. Who cares how many freakin' tots your next-door neighbor has slobbering around the house? What's important is what YOU want. Then again, some people can't think for themselves, so they have to turn to CNN, the NRA, and their plastic suburban allies to do it for them.

Now I realize that I sound about as anti-child as most Christians are anti-common sense. But believe it or not, I love children. I have an nine-year old brother whom I cherish dearly, I've taught pre-schoolers, I've taught eighth-graders, and I'll be teaching high schoolers pretty soon down the line. I adore the little tykes, and it's perhaps for that reason alone that I want fewer of them to populate our planet.

For when these Cute Kids grow up, they'll become Annoying Adults. They won't be so lovable anymore. They'll just waste space and by their very existence encourage developers to murder more trees to build more strip mall temples that the whole family can worship in, and motivate factory farmers to cram more cows full of the grains that could otherwise nourish starving children so that there are more butchered bovines to slice up and shove into the Happy Meals that feed the chubby children of golf-geek CEOs and their adulterous trophy wives.

Don't think I haven't thought about having children, because I have. I have thought about it quite scrupulously, in fact, and have reached the liberating conclusion that I probably will not have children, at least in this lifetime. I never say never, of course, but my meticulous meditations have led me to resolve that I'm better off sans enfants.

I wish more people dedicated more brain power to what goes into raising a child - physically, emotionally, and financially. Raising children is a taxing art form, something not everyone is suited for, in my assessment. (Actually, in my opinion no one is suited for raising children, because the people rearing these hapless creatures are themselves merely twisted toddlers in adult attire. This is because, naturally, their own folks had never evolved beyond the pacifier-slurping stage. Show me a mature adult and I'll show you a kid who eschews Disney in favor of Dostoyevsky.)

Anyway, the way I see it, the only people who need to be having kids are those whose absolute karmic vocation is to guide, nurture, and protect diminutive life forms through the various awkward turmoils of pre-school, pre-puberty, adolescence, and beyond.

The rest of us, when we do feel those pesky biological nudges, can simply do volunteer work with kids, become teachers, or, hell, write children's books. Dr. Seuss is widely regarded as the greatest children's author of all time, yet he never answered to daddy - never mopped up green puke nor crooned lullabies about babies in cradles plunging out of treetops.

But if you absolutely MUST have kids, why not just adopt instead? It's the humane alternative to giving birth because you're not contributing to population pollution, and, furthermore, you're offering an orphan something she desperately longs for: the security of a warm home and loving family. If you think about it, there are too many abandoned children out there for us to be selfishly insisting on having our own.

So, my fellow hostages of life, slap on that latex and pop those baby-curbing pills - let's give this planet a well-deserved break.