(on the possibility of) Children

As of Yet Forthcomings and Discussions

Sarah and I do not currently have any children. We are not sure when we are going to go about getting any, either. There are several reasons why a child is not quite in our immediate docket: 1) Sarah is a chemist, many things she works with are bad for a pregnant woman, 2) we are not sure how we are going to afford grad school yet, much less raise a child while paying for grad school, and 3) we both tend to be nervous, selfish-ish people who would both worry about a child, and fret when the child breaks our favorite toys.

We are also torn between the fact that we consider there to be probably too many people on the Earth at present and the fact that it is time for people of good IQs and socially conscious standards to have children (this latter portion is somewhat up for debate, but many statistics show that higher IQ'd people are abstaining from having children for a variety of reasons).

Random elitism aside, we do want to have a child sometime around 2010. This will give us plenty of time to prepare for the event. I do not know how many children that we want, but we have talked about having one naturally and having one through adoption. Sarah is not sure she wants to risk going through pregnancy twice with her given career, but having a pair of children does sound tempting.

It would be damned foolish of me to go into more details now, seeing as there are none, so there is not much I can say about child rearing or how we plan to do it. I mostly find myself wanting to lead by example, as best I can, and to try to promote a sense of self-education and self-reliance on the child, as well as a sense of responsibility. Just wait until I have one, though, to see how well that pans out. I'm not even sure under what faith or metaphysical view we are going to try and raise the child. I feel a coin flipping coming on.

Just about the only thing we have talked about, for sure, is the concept of childrens' names. If it is a girl, one name we find intriguing is Barbara (my mom, her grandmother) though Sarah demands the rights to the middle name. If we have a boy, we have talked about Philip (as in Philip Kindred Dick) but she has outright poo-pooed my suggestion of Garrison Keilor Bolden.

I mentioned, the other day, that we could possibly name our children after literary or scientific concepts: Rigor, Irony, Hypothesis, Rhythm. I thought about this after realizing that Hyperbole might make a cute girl's name.

I have already said most of this in the original DLS with #16: Kids. The bestest, though almost all sarcastic, quotes from that, are below:

When it comes to Books

I look at my, literally, two thousand dollars in books a year habit, and realize that is just peanuts to the cost of a child. Not only would I have to stick to not buying books (except maybe through a bargain bin) but I would have to spend that money on a creature who will most definitely go through a book destroying phase. He is sure to crack the spines, at least.

And if that sounds like a shallow reason to not have a child, it is. But it is one that must be kept in mind. Especially the whole "bargain bin" bit. Sigh.

When it comes to Chemicals

Flipper baby jokes aside, it is not exactly good pre-natal care to be pregnant on something with more Cs and Hs than Richard Hatch's name. On top of this, chemists have crap for humor, and is that the sort of jokes I want my kid raised around? He might even make some joke about "being positive he's lost an electron" in mixed company (mixed being peope who find it funny combined with people who don't).

When it comes to the Future

We run into the semblance of a game plan. She will continue to work as chemist for the time being, and then later will take it off so that she can work on being a mom. But when? Who knows? And that brings us back full circle. The answer of "She'll probably just keep the job and we'll adopt" sounds promising, and will likely be the truth, but the future is an odd place to be (though I wager it will still be an odd place without flying cars by time we get there).

When it comes to Worrying

Did I mention that I am a worry wart? I panic sometimes when I think the apartment might have caught fire and that my books might going up in smoke (as well as the pets). Just think what it will be like when the mother of my unborn child is tossed into these fears. I panic just thinking about how worried I will be.

When it comes to the Inlaws

And, of course, the big one...the in-laws. And nothing going to bring down the greater judgement on high on her head than giving the Ridouts their first grandbaby. It would be immoral to hide it, but I can hear the phone calls now. Heh. Thank God for caller ID.