Whether you’re as barren as the Mohave or have swimmers that are about as mobile as I am after leg night, I share your pain my childless brothers and sisters… Cast to the outskirts of society like smokers are now; having to put up with the mosquitoes in the summer or cold blooded mosquitoes in the winter (couldn’t think of any wintery insects,) because smokers are deemed as an ‘other,’ I now find myself in your ranks. Or probably not that at all.
Okay so I get that as an uncle many times over, that doesn’t actually count as knowing what it’s like to have children. My financial obligations include birthday’s, holidays, graduations, TMart spamming, movies, and FroYo, etc. As the last of five I can tell you I probably cost my parents the most, if for no other reason than needing braces and eye-wear, a lovely combination when you’re a teenager.
And sure, do I have sleeping habits that are absolute drek, similar to parents? Absolutely. Whether not being able to shut down the ol’artistic brain parts that won’t let me sleep because there’s writing to be had, or eating too much granola and dark chocolate before I go to the gym at night, I’m familiar with sleep deprived nights.
And please, trust me, when my family stops over the nephews and nieces almost always leave my place in disarray… Then again I’m a natural organizer \ cleaner, and I can hardly flex that muscle if I’m not given the excuse to tidy up and what not. So okay fine, I’m an optimist by nature and look at the positive of things as opposed to the negative… Which is why I could only laugh when I was “othered” recently, due to never having sired offspring.
So my most patient and only sister invited myself our dad and other brother with no kids to a winter concert late last month. Her oldest of two girl’s was playing the violin. My sister had her hair done up all fancy like, where as my idea of lending her my one red Nike hat to match her red dress was met with rolled eyes. I said it was Dri-Fit but that didn’t help my case.
So when we all got there, it was easy to tell who the parents were, and the non-parents. Dude’s talking about their fantasy teams, one of them my brother who thought my head nodding indicated I was listening… Other people thumbing through their phones, or just the general chatter related to having disposable income for the booze and FroYo. (In all honesty, that last one was me.)
Now fine, it wasn’t like all of us child-less adults had blinking neon signs pointing down at us saying ‘look who’s dying alone’ or ‘dogs and cats count as kids!’ And as a dog guy who thinks schnauzers are awesome because they have beards are hyper and bark a lot (my K9 counters), I resent the fact people don’t consider them children. I mean come on, dogs with beards, you can’t make that stuff up!
Annnnnyyyywho, just thought y’all should see how the other side lives… So next time keep your friend or family member in mind, who may have never birthed or sired children, but still help support your kids… Speaking of, thinking it’s FroYo time again!