Kids Are Expensive Pets
It’s 5 am. My two screaming nephews just ran into my room jumped on the bed, one is 5 the other is 3. I blame the five year old. I know it was his idea to wake me up because the three year old does whatever the five year old tells him to do.
I feel like I’m on an episode of Baby Borrowers. Except that I’m not a 16 year old white trash teenager who thinks that having a kid is a great idea so that I can get a welfare check from the state just like my mother.
These kids belong to my sister. She has three boys, a gang of hooligans that never sleep, and only want to cause trouble. I’m convinced my sister sent them to my room so that she could sleep longer.
And the problem is that kids like me. I’m just not sure if I like them. I remember being that age, there’s no shut off switch. And I’m on vacation. I want a shut off switch. I want to put them back in the box and send them back to the store. The more they scream, the more questions they ask, the more trouble they get in, the more thankful I am that I don’t have my own gang.
I’m sure one day I’ll have my own kids. But right now I don’t understand the point of children. After all I’m not part of a nomadic tribe whose entire species is dependant on having more children to hunt and gather. I’m just me. A single writer living in Los Angeles.
Kids are nothing more than expensive pets. That create a huge financial burden. And for what? So they can grow up and resent their childhood. Blame me for their problems.
Maybe Leona Helmsley had it right when she left her dog Trouble 12 million dollars. A dog’s love is unconditional.
My nephews continue to jump on the bed. They’re happy, carefree, the sweetest children I’ve ever seen.
They are my birth control.
