Why I can’t see children as a part of my ultimate romance.

I was about 8 years old when I realized having children is a choice a person makes, not an inevitable thing that happens to you. I was elated. I immediately declared, if that’s the case, count me out, too! Over the years, I’ve experienced two bouts of temporary insanity linked to a new relationship that have had me reconsider it as some kind of romantic thing. But I snapped out of both of them well in time before I acted on such impulses.

The first time, it was because my boyfriend, with whom marriage was a possibility, I actually ended the relationship to find a better father for my children. I was often afraid of my boyfriend – not terrified by any means, but he got into fits of rage a lot and went on these quite unpleasant rants about stupid, vacuous people (which included me, of course), and I just decided one day that my children would not be afraid of their father, like I had been afraid of my mother.

The second time, I was already married. All of a sudden, I wanted a child, for whatever stupid reason. I nagged my childfree husband that we should do it. Eventually, he said, “Yeah, OK. We can manage that.” And as soon as he said it, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. A CHILD?! Why on Earth would we?! He told his friends later that day that we’d decided to have a child; they cheered, and I felt nauseous already. It was never discussed since; it was like we forgot the whole conversation.

I’ll give you 12.

The Yellow King once lamented how “he who spares the rod, hates his children.” It sounded like a question; I remember looking at him, thinking, “The fuck are you talking about?! You’ve never hit your child in any of your incarnations. You go silly for your children!” I guess I might have rolled my eyes and thought, “It’s not going to be a problem anyway because I don’t want children, although if you do, I’ll give you 12.”

I have later realized what he said was a past-life trauma. Our twins died in a fire playing in a shed he’d forgotten to lock and had not whipped them to stay away from it. I think he may have been mocked for the way he handles his children, and that he was psyching himself up to be a “better” father to our next batch. As if he could improve on perfection. He adores his children, and we all adore him.

But. Miscommunication is a bitch. He took our future for granted, and I dared not trust that he felt the same as I did without him actually SAYING anything clearly.

Still. Joking Dragon and I had a talk.

Last night, feeling trepidation, Joking Dragon informed me that the reason they’d all decided to punish me forever was that I didn’t want to have children; therefore, they felt rejected. He felt offended and rejected. “Over what an 8-year-old said,” he confessed, mocking himself about it, too.

There are so many things that defy logic here, tho. He – I should say it’s HE in this case, not THEY as a collective – for instance, it seems a fellow childfree person, Arctic Requiem, is being stopped from entering my life “because he’s new,” and willing to give me an out where the others need to hold me accountable. There are moments when I want to declare this relationship done and dumped, and just go to Arctic Requiem and tell the lot of those old-fashioned fucks to shove it. But since I still hold onto hope, they still can hold onto rope. Ha! See what I did there!

For the rest, you’ll have to log in and see if you have clearance, as this gets rather intimate.